The Open Collections Program from Harvard features “Immigration to the United States”, a web-based collection of selected historical information and resources on immigration to the US from 1789-1930.

The collection includes information on immigration records from Harvard’s’ libraries, archives, and museums. According to the website, the historical records include “approximately 1,800 books and pamphlets as well as 6,000 photographs, 200 maps, and 13,000 pages from manuscript and archival collections.”

There are diaries, biographies in addition to technical and statistic information which may help tell the stories of the European and Scandinavian immigration to the “New World” and the lives which took these people from their familiar world to this strange new land.

Scientific American reports “Genomic ‘Time Machine’ May Pinpoint Divergence of Human and Neanderthal” in a recent issue. According to the article, a short, fossilized femur from a 38 year old Neanderthal, found in a museum in Croatia, may become a part of the first genome sequence of the Neanderthal.

According to Rubin, the sequences provide the beginnings of a “DNA time machine” that will help update anthropological inferences about human and Neanderthal populations. Among the lingering questions is whether the two populations intermixed after humans migrated out of Africa and encountered Neanderthals in Europe 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. (Just this month two studies, from Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Chicago, suggested that indirect evidence from human DNA indicates intermingling occurred.) Both Rubin and Pääbo report finding no evidence of mixing. “We don’t exclude it,” Rubin says. “Clearly, as we go further into the future and read more, we may see evidence of that.”

Erik Trinkaus, a physical anthropologist and lead author of the Washington University study, believes Rubin’s and Pääbo’s results do not preclude his hypothesis. He says that there are two different questions regarding population mixing: Did it occur 40,000 years ago? And, do 21st-century Europeans carry distinctively Neanderthal genes? “They are attempting to answer the second question and make a statistical inference back to the first question,” Trinkaus explains.

Fascinating! We get so caught up with the idea of DNA testing being important to family history, but the doors it can really open lead much further back in our past.

An article on DNA differences from BBC News tells of how scientists are discovering that the genetic make-up of humans is much more diverse than originally thought.

A UK-led team made a detailed analysis of the DNA found in 270 people and identified vast regions to be duplicated or even missing.

…To date, the investigation of the human genome has tended to focus on very small changes in DNA that can have deleterious effects - at the scale of just one or a few bases, or “letters”, in the biochemical code that programs cellular activity.

And for many years, scientists have also been able to look through microscopes to see very large-scale abnormalities that arise when whole DNA bundles, or chromosomes, are truncated or duplicated.

But it is only recently that researchers have developed the molecular “tools” to focus on medium-scale variations - at the scale of thousands of DNA letters.

This analysis of so-called copy number variation (CNV) has now revealed some startling results. It would seem the assumption that the DNA of any two humans is 99.9% similar in content and identity no longer holds.

What this means is that DNA now reveals a greater level of variation between one individual and the next. They are learning that copy variations emerge, which probably have more to do with “shuffling of genetic material” during the reproductive process, but this raises some concerns in the genealogy world.

As DNA is used by more and more researchers, as well as genealogists, to research the human line, these variables may cause errors in lineage determinations, though it is unlikely. Hopefully, but the time this new technology improves, this anomalies will be taken into consideration.

The Genealogy Journey offers “Historic Family Papers and Photos: Store Them Right or Consider Donating Them” offers tips and links to resources and techniques on how to protect, preserve, and donate your family history papers and photographs.

Please! As a family member who has lost so many precious family records, photographs, and heirlooms to fire, neglect, and just ignored, please protect your old papers and photographs in whatever method is best for you and your family. They may not mean anything to you now, but for those of us who are searching for microscopic buried treasures on our family’s past, they are gold and diamonds.

Genealogy Today has an article series on scanning old photographs with part one covering basic scanning information. Part two will be out soon.

Among the basics are two issues that confront most new computer users when it comes to scanning photographs and graphics: size and quality.

When you scan an old photo, you create an image file. The amount of space the file takes up on your hard disk is directly related to both the size and complexity of the photo and the resolution used when you scan it. Resolution is measured in dots per square inch (dpi). For example, doubling both the horizontal and vertical resolution going from 300 by 300 dpi to 600 by 600 dpi quadruples the size of the im age file. A 6″ x 4″ photo print scanned at 600dpi produces a 25 megabyte image! Also, the higher the resolution, the longer it takes to scan the photo. The old saying, “A picture is worth 1,000 words,” is more than true with scanned images.

Scan resolution merely determines image size. When you increase scan resolution, you increase image size. A 6×4-inch photo scanned at 110 dpi fills about half of a 1024×768 monitor screen, the typical resolution of most computer monitors today.

Images in newspapers and magazines are reproduced quite differently from photographic prints. They’re reduced to a series of small dots. When scanning these, you can easily get an interference pattern between the dots on the original and the dots scanned. Some scanners allow you to “descreen” when scanning–blurring the dot pattern so it appears more like a photograph. This process is very effective and is better than trying to overcome the screen or patterning in your photo enhancement software after you scan your image. Scanning at high resolution is another way to eliminate these patterns. To scan old engravings, set your scanner to Line Art at 600 dpi.

This are very good points to consider when scanning.

If you are scanning from old photo albums or newspaper clippings, handle these with cotton gloves to protect the emulsion and fragile quality of the items, and handle them with extreme care.

If you are removing photographs or newspaper clippings from photo albums, get professional advice if they don’t come out easily. The best advice is to scan them in their original form rather than remove them, to ensure their protection.

I’ll be writing more about scanning and using your historical images, letters, and graphics in the next few months.

Genealogy Today reports that more images that have been added to the Registry of World War II Ration Books. War Ration Books are actually of great benefit to genealogists.

Genealogists are always in search of new record sources when confronted with a brick wall. Well, can you think of a resource that not only gives you name, address, age and occupation, but also height and weight of a person? Interestingly, the ration books issued during World War Two attempted to capture these items.

In the United States, nationwide food rationing was instituted in the spring of 1942, and each member of the family was issued ration books by the Office of Price Administration (OPA). These books contained stamps and gave precise details of the amounts of certain types of food that you were allowed. Rationing insured that each person could get their fair share of the items that were in short supply due to the war effort and import reductions. By the end of the war, over a hundred million of each ration book were printed.

I believe the database now holds over 2,000 listings you can search by first and last name.

The site warns that the book covers were written by hand, and many with pencil, so they are often hard to read and difficult to enter in the database, though new technology is improving and more images are being added all the time.

Is genealogy going to the dogs? The Genealogy Blog reports in “Find Your Ancestors with the Help of a Dog” on how dogs are being used to “sniff out” unmarked graves to help identify historical graves.

The story originally comes from , and might be worth considering if you or your genealogy society is involved in restoring ancient grave sites.

I don’t think I have any ancestors from Bukovina, but the The Bukovina Society of the Americas caught my attention.

Where, and what, is Bukovina?

From 1775 to 1918, the easternmost crown land of the Austrian Empire; now divided between Romania and Ukraine. As a multi-ethnic province, its name has several spellings: Bukowina or Buchenland in German, Bukowina in Polish, Bucovina in Romanian, and Bukovyna in Ukrainian, all of which mean Land of Beech Trees…Bukovina, on the eastern slopes of the Carpathian mountains, was once the heart of the Romanian Principality of Moldavia, with the city of Suceava being made its capital in 1388.

While under various rules over the years, including the Ottoman Turks, Russians, Austrians, Hungarian, and others, and a major battlefield during World War I, it became Russian territory after World War II and is now divided between the Chernivetska oblast of the Ukraine and Romania to the south.

An areas only 10,422 square kilometers, and home of a variety of cultures and ethnic backgrounds which moved through the area during it’s many hand offs to ruling parties, you will find “Armenians, Hungarians, Jews, Poles, Romanians and Ukrainians (at this time, generally referred to as Ruthenians). German colonists came from three distinct areas: Swabians and Palatines, from what is now Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz, in southwest Germany; German Bohemians, from the Bohemian Forest (Böhmerwald), now in the Czech Republic; and Zipsers, from the Zips mountains, now Spis county, Slovakia.”

It could be that one of your ancestors was either from or passed through the area, so it may be worth exploring if your family hails from Eastern Europe.

It doesn’t matter how old you are, it is never too early or too late to start researching your family tree.

As a precious example, Krystle, a 20ish year old student, made a chart of her family tree and posted it on her Live Journal blog, tracking her family back at least 3 generations.

You don’t have to get complicated about the process, but you do need more than first names and years in your family tree chart.

I highly recommend beginners build their own charts, and make them look like anything they want, but begin with the following basic information on each leaf on their family tree branch:

• Full Name (first, middle, last, etc.)
• Date of Birth
• Place of Birth
• Date of Death
• Place of Death
• Christening date and location (or equivalent religious events)
• Marriage date and location
• Spouse information
• Divorce date and location
• Additional marriage information
• Where they are living at the time of making the chart

Additional helpful information includes:

• School/Education dates, names, and locations
• Special training programs and classes
• Occupation(s) (names, dates, and locations)
• Where and when they moved (and why)
• Special honors, awards, and recognitions
• Religion and/or Religious Affiliations
• Memberships: Unions, Clubs, etc.

A small paragraph that describes their life would help, describing what they look like, why kind of personality and characteristics they have, and any special memories is always a treasure when found.

Keep in mind that this chart is not for you, your children, or even your great grandchildren. It is not for your mother, father, grandparents, or great grandparents. It is for the person, 50, 90, 100, 150 years from now who stumbles upon your chart and does the dance of joy that someone so long ago remembered who all these people where in the family, and that they were not forgotten.

I’ve found incredible leads in tracing our family history through the worn and tattered charts of children and old people found amongst our family papers.

Help family members in the future to rediscover their past and help them connect the dots in who these people where and why they are important to remember.

Genealogy Today reports the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution are publishing a book of bible and family records collected over the past several years.

In addition to Bible records, we have added several pages of family records, plus a complete roster of all chapter members since it was organized in 1896. This listing is in chronological order, and, besides listing the names of all members, we have included the Revolutionary War ancestor of each member, with his or her state of residence, spouse, and child through whom the member descended. Also included is a listing of the members of the now-inactive Lucy Audubon Chapter National Society Children of the American Revolution. This listing contains the same type of information as that included with the DAR chapter roster.

You can contact the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR).

I recently found out that I qualify as a member of the DAR on several family fronts, but I’ve not yet joined. Still, this book should provide interesting information and may be coming to a DAR house or chapter, library, or family history center near you. Or consider giving it as a late holiday gift to a DAR loved one.