Irish Researchers - Take Notice!

Released by findmypast.com (copied from Eastman's Online Genealogical Newsletter [EOGN]):

On June 30, 1922, the Public Records Office of Ireland, located at the historic Four Courts in Dublin, caught fire during the Irish Civil War. Tragically a considerable amount of Irish records were destroyed. The fire has had lasting effects – still felt today – as Irish family history requires a unique approach to research than other heritages. To commemorate this anniversary and encourage exploration of Irish genealogy, findmypast.com will offer its full collection of Irish Birth, Marriage and Death indexes free of charge from June 27 to June 30. Anyone searching for their Irish ancestors can access the full Irish record collection by registering for free at findmypast.com.

Despite a great loss of records in the historic fire, there are still many opportunities to discover Irish heritage, with countless fascinating stories to be found from the records that survived.

FGS 2013 Conference in Fort Wayne, Indiana

The Federation of Genealogical Societies’ 2013 Conference is quickly approaching. As most of you know, this year the conference is in Fort Wayne! It will be held August 21-24 at the Grand Wayne Convention Center, which is just a block away from the Allen County Public Library (ACPL). On top of the great lectures, workshops and luncheons, this year’s conference features extended research hours at The Genealogy Center at ACPL.

Conference details and registration are available online at https://www.fgsconference.org. The deadline for the Early Bird Discount is July 1st. Make sure to purchase your tickets to luncheons (especially the IGS luncheon), workshops and special events early to guarantee your spot.

If you would like a print brochure or need some for your local society or library, please fill out the form at http://tinyurl.com/bjhaeok.

The Society Showcase is a great, affordable way for societies to highlight what they offer. FGS Member Societies can reserve a table in the Exhibit Hall for only $25. These tables are for promotional purposes and selling memberships and may not be used for other sales. Learn more about the Society Showcase at https://www.fgsconference.org/exhibits/society-showcase/. If your society would like to sell other items, there are still 1 booth available in the Exhibit Hall (https://www.fgsconference.org/exhibits/).

Society Publicity Contest – FGS Member Societies are also eligible to win a free conference registration to FGS 2014 in San Antonio, Texas if they help publicize FGS 2013 in print and online publications. You can find graphics and articles to use in society publications at https://www.fgsconference.org/media/society-publicity-contest/. You’ll also want to make sure you fill out the contest form and let us know each time your society publicizes the conference in order to be entered to win.

Indiana Librarians will be excited to learn that all conference sessions qualify for LEUs. Librarians’ Day is Tuesday, August 20 with sessions for librarians who serve genealogists. Visit https://www.fgsconference.org/program/librarians-day/ to find out more.

The FGS 2013 Publicity Committee would appreciate your help spreading the word about the conference to your local societies and fellow genealogists.

We hope to see you in Fort Wayne in August!

Tina Lyons
FGS 2013 Publicity Chair
conferencepublicity@fgs.org

- Submitted by Don Counts, TSGS President

Family Reunions and y-DNA

Going to St. Louis this month.

My WEST Family Surname Group # 5 will hold their annual family reunion this year in St. Louis.  Those in attendance will be related to each other proven by matches in their y-DNA.  Many of us have found the documentation of records to confirm the y-DNA results.  In many cases it was the y-DNA that confirmed the documentation.

Our group used FamilyTreeDNA for our testing... Group #5 is still the largest of 39 groups of West families with 19 individuals.  Below is a table of the current status of the West Surname Project.

Number of Y-DNA participants	339
Test kits returned	311
Y-DNA results posted to web page	310
Number of Family groups identified by DNA	39

We now have Y-DNA results for 310 WEST-surname males, identifying 113 unrelated WEST lines. We are a very diverse genetic group. Our surname was adopted many times by people in different locations. As more WEST's participate in the project, the benefit to all WEST researchers increases. 

With so many West families being unrelated, it makes it more difficult to find cousins and very hard to find ancestors.  There are many tools to help us in our research... the more we can use the better chances we will have to break down "brick walls" and to find new cousins to help us research records in courthouses and libraries.  We have been able to resolve many long standing questions for researchers in our line of the West's and we are beginning to coordinate and focus our research more to solve other mysteries concerning our family history.

Our West family reunion is a great opportunity to get together in person and discuss approaches to zero in on issues that we can attack at different levels & directions.

If you have not yet tried DNA testing, check it out... you may be very much surprised at what you might learn.  Long-time TSGS member Chris Myers just recently took a y-DNA test.  Let us all wish him success in what he might learn!

- Compiled by JGWest (AKA: Nate Flynn, the Librarian)

Evansville's Oak Hill Cemetery Tour May 2013

Panoramic view of the crowd attending this interesting tour of Evansville's largest cemetery.

Dennis Au & Chris Cooke conducts this tour on an annual basis.

Click on the photo above for a larger image.

On the left side you can see Indiana Bones in the yellow shirt and hat.

Next to Indiana to the right in the blue blouse is Becky West.

On the other side of Indy in the red blouse is Deb Travers.

Many TSGS members were present: John & Becky West, Deb Travers, Sue Newcom, Irvin & Connie Conrad, Karin Kirsch, Kathy Wilson, plus at least 3 more.

DNA News

From Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter

FamilyTreeDNA has offered the following announcement:

With the end of the DNA Day promotion, we (Bennett and Max), considered how to continue offering the best prices, yet keep control in the lab to avoid delays from high volume. Since demand is directly related to prices, we decided to implement a temporary price rollback whenever lab capacity allows us to do so.

Despite an extremely successful sale, we believe that with our increased lab capacity, we are able to continue offering reduced prices on several tests. While the prices are not as low as they were for the DNA Day promotion, you will notice that these temporary reductions are extremely attractive, and should be a real incentive to anyone that did not take advantage of the sale to order now, while the prices are reduced. With this system in place, prices may go up on different tests at any time based on lab volume.

Additionally, on April 1st when we permanently reduced the price of the Y-DNA12 to $49, we mentioned that our R&D team was working towards a price reduction for the equivalent mtDNA basic test. Good news! Not only did we manage to achieve this goal, but we did it for the mtDNAPlus test that covers both HVR1 and HVR2. Therefore, we're discontinuing the HVR1-only test. Our basic mtDNA test will now be the mtDNAPlus (HVR1+2) at the $49 price point! We hope that with the basic Y-DNA and mtDNA tests very reasonably priced, a whole new group of people will be tempted to begin their own DNA experience and increase the size of your projects!
You are welcome to spread the news, and as always, we thank you for your continued support.

(signed)
Max Blankfeld
Bennett Greenspan
Family Tree DNA

You can learn more at http://www.familytreedna.com/. 

West, Texas Explosion

Last week was a very bad week in the United States.  The Boston bombings and the fertilizer plant explosions in West, Texas will long be in our memories as a nation prayed for the families of those who died or were injured.  My family has a connection to the town of West, Texas.

Thomas Marion West was born November 5th, 1834 in Christian County, Kentucky. After moving to Texas he fought in the civil war becoming a Captain in the 19th Texas Cavalry Regiment. After the war he married Martha Jame Adams Steele in McLennan County, Texas. He was a farmer and later became the Postmaster at the Bold Springs train depot. The train depot was built on land originally owned by Thomas West. Later the depot with Thomas West as postmaster became known as the West Depot and in 1892 the area was incorporated as the town of West. Thomas West died on January 27, 1912 and is buried in Rock Creek Cemetery in Ross, Texas, about 5 miles south of West.

Thomas West was born in Christian Co., KY, the son of William Ellis West and Narcissa Stroud.  William Ellis West was a brother to my 3rd. great grandfather Jesse West, their father Charles H. West is a common ancestor for Thomas M. West and myself.  My 2nd. great grandfather was named for Thomas' father, William Ellis West.  He and Thomas M. West were first cousins.

Another son of Charles H. West was Thomas Allen West who also went to Texas settling in Denton County.

- Compiled by JGWest  [some of the above info was obtained from a web site supplied by Sandra Abbott yesterday http://www.west-tx.c­om/genealogy/ThomasWe­st/ including the grave marker photo (photo taken 7/5/2008 by bvm)... no contact info was available.]

Social Security Database - New Links

This from the KYGENWEB List:

Happy Easter everyone! One of our coordinators emailed me yesterday about
an email she received from Rootsweb/Ancestry. Wesley Exon is a content
marketing manager for RW and is trying to reach coordinators who have their
sites on RW. The Social Security database link has changed and he wants yo
to be aware of it! If you get an email from him, please answer! For the
rest of the coordinators (no matter where your site is), if you have a link
on your site to the SSI Database, please make sure the link is correct. The
new link is:  http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693


Thanks,
Suzanne Shephard
Assistant State Coordinator
KYGenWeb is part of the
USGenWeb Project

Just got this after posting the above!

FYI: RW's (Ancestry.com's) Social Security Death Index (SSDI) is no
longer free.  It was moved over to their subscriber's side many
months ago.  I believe they sited privacy concerns, if you can
believe that.  I changed my link to the SSDI at FamilySearch.org (
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1202535 ).  The main thing
that I miss is being able to search by exact birth or death dates;
with FamilySearch's SSDI database you can only specify by year or a
range of years.  There are a few other free SSDI databases out there,
but I found this one to be the most reliable and easy to use.

Brian K. Caudill
Malabar, FL