Online Search Engines are a Genealogist's Friend

Diane wrote to Olive Tree Genealogy with this question

These 2 ancestors [William and Martha Medcalf] emigrated from Ireland to Ontario Canada in 1819 with 10 children we think. They are from Delgany, Country Wicklow but have not been able to access any information about them before coming to Canada. Much appreciated for any suggestions.

Diane - this is where Google is your friend (or any other search engine you prefer). A quick search using search terms "delgany ireland church records" brought several results indicating that these records are online.

I downloaded the PDF files for the transcribed records of THE PARISH REGISTERS OF CHRIST CHURCH, DELGANY VOLUME 2 BAPTISMS 1777-1819, MARRIAGES 1777-1819 & BURIALS 1777-1819, I found the following baptisms for children of William and Martha:

23 Nov 1809 Eliz’th MEDCALF Will’m/Martha, Downs
27 Jun 1805 John MEDCALF Wm/Martha, Downs
9 Feb 1812 Henry MEDCALF Wm/Martha, Downs
16 Oct 1813 Will’m MEDCALF Wm/Martha, Downs

"Downs" is their residence. I am sure you can find much more by downloading and searching more records.

You should also search the Upper Canada Land Petitions to see if the family applied for land once in Canada. Their petitions may reveal more about their lives in Ireland. You may wish to read my tutorials on searching those petitions and finding the actual images onlline once you have completed your search in the index.

Using Land Petitions to Learn about an Ancestor

Finding an Ancestor in the Challenging Upper Canada Land Books

Searching Ontario Canada Land Records, eh? 

 In fact I did a quick search and here are the results for MEDCALF. Using my tutorials to guide you, you can now find the actual petitions online using the index information for any names below that are of interest.

 

It appears that one of William and Martha's sons (Francis Henry Medcalf) became a mayor in Toronto Ontario. There may be quite a bit of biographical information about him in Toronto archives or libraries.

Privacy, What Privacy?

Most of you will have heard of the fuss over the information from User Profiles on Facebook being shared and then sold to Cambridge Analytica. If this is new to you, you may want to read Zuckerberg confesses ‘huge mistake’ as Cambridge toll hits 87M to come up to speed.

Basically reports emerged in March 2018 that Facebook had known since 2015 that Cambridge Analytica, which did work for Trump's 2016 campaign, obtained information on some 50 million users via an academic researcher. (this has been upgraded to 87 million users). Many Facebook users are understandably upset.

Take Responsibility for Your Privacy

My take on this is that it's time we users of internet services took responsibility for our own privacy and stopped depending on large corporations to do it for us.

Facebook Settings Options

First of all, users can control their own privacy settings on Facebook. It's easy to go in to your settings (using the gear icon) for PRIVACY and tighten them up. Stop letting others post on your timeline. Stop showing the world your friends' list. Limit who can see your posts and also who can see your past posts. There are several options available and you can restrict your account as much as you want.

Secondly, are you participating in those memes that ask you (often in a convoluted way) for personal details such as your middle name, your year of birth, your mother's maiden name. Even innocent-seeming memes such as "What is your Santa's Elf name" where you have to select your first name, the last digit (or 2 digits) of your year of birth, and so on, should be avoided!

Third, are you posting personal information? Are you linking to obituaries of a close relative such as a mother, father, or sibling? Anyone mining your page for data can now easily obtain more personal details about you!

Fourth, do you reveal your  home address? First names of your children? I could go on but I think you get the idea.

How about those fun little quizzes you like to take? The ones that say you have to allow the app to access your profile, photos, etc - hopefully you don't give that permission! Because if you do, you only have yourself to blame for giving up your privacy. 

It Isn't Just Facebook

Let's not blame Facebook for all our woes. Google "reads" your outgoing and incoming emails using bots in order to deliver relevant ads to you. You can now limit what ads you see, but it doesn't appear you can force Google to stop scanning your emails. But there's a good side to that! Scanning allows Google to stop spam quite effectively.

Anything you post on the internet is almost certainly going to be publicly available at some point to total strangers. So why are you not protecting yourself online?

Think of it this way - would you walk up to a stranger, and immediately say "Hi there. My name's Mary Smith and I have 3 children - Tommy, Bobby and Jimmy. They're 6, 4 and 2. Tommy and Bobby are in Little Angels Public School over on Wilmott Street. My mom Sally died 3 years ago, and her obituary is online. Dad's still with us and he lives in Winnertown. My husband Danny works at the Auto Shoppe in Friendlyville. I'm 49, Danny's 53"   But that is what you are doing when you join memes, take online quizzes, and don't restrict who can see your information.

Take Sensible Precautions

There's no need to be terrified. Just take sensible precautions. When you join a new group or social media site, check out their privacy and security options. Think before you post and before you fill out forms asking for personal information. 

My husband's rule of thumb is to not reveal anything online that you don't want the world to know. I'm not quite that strict but I do check my settings in all social media sites I'm on. Don't wait - check yours now and set them as most suits you.

Heads Up! Blogarama Violating Copyright?

Copyright protection is a very important issue, both online and offline. I have written about Copyright Issues many times on Olive Tree Genealogy blog. See Copyright Issues

But first, what is the definition of copyright? From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, sell, or distribute the matter and form of something

Basically it means if I write and publish an article on my blog or my website, and someone copies it without my permission and republish it elsewhere, that person has violated my copyright. It does not matter whether or not they gave attribution to me as the author, it's still a copyright violation.

It's heads up time again. Another splogger has hit the genealogy community. According to techtarget.com, a splog (spam blog) is a fake blog created solely to promote affiliated Web sites, with the intent of skewing search results and artificially boosting traffic.

Blogarama has many genealogy blog posts on their site - mine included - without permission.

Thomas MacEntee first brought this to my attention with his post  Splog Alert – Blogarama Violating Copyright

When I went to the site and checked my name Olive Tree Genealogy  I found twenty-five (25!) of my articles and images posted without my permission.  That's called copyright violation.

Heads up to the genealogy community - if you have a blog, you may want to check to see if your articles have been copied without permission. Here's what to do if you are a victim.

1. Contact Site Owners

Trying to contact the site owners of Blogarama doesn't work because they have carefully made sure there is no contact information on their site. Their WhoIs information shows they are a private registration so there is no information to be found there.

2. Contact the Host of the Site

I wrote to enom.com, who I thought was their hosting company, with this email:

To whom it may concern

You are the hosting company for blogarama.com

Blogarama.com is using my copyrighted material (writing and images) without my permission. My blog is http://olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com

http://www.blogarama.com/blogs/513127-olive-tree-genealogy-blog shows a list of 25 (twenty-five!) articles and blog posts taken and republished without my permission. There may be more.  Kindly see that blogarama.com remove *all* my blog posts and articles from their site or shut them down completely.  

Enom.com very quickly replied, stating they are the domain registrar for Blogarama, but not the host. They advised me to ping Blogarama for the IP address which would allow me to find the name of the host. I did that and found that their host is cloudflare.com. I sent them my email outlining my concerns.



UPDATE: Cloudfare informs that the actual host server is Linode.com so please direct your complaint email there

3. File a Policy Violation Complaint with Google

I also filed a Policy Violation complaint with Google since Blogarama has Google ads. Google will pull their ads if a site violates their rules so at least I can hit Blogarama in the pocketbook with my complaint.

4. File a DMCA Complaint

You can also file a DMCA Complaint  The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that helps stop copyright infringement on the Internet. There is a DMCA generator you can use if you are not sure how to do this.

I'm very happy to announce that those 25 articles I wrote that were republished without my permission, have been removed from Blogarama! It didn't take long. I also don't see Google ads on the site anymore so another win. 

UPDATE: Two more bloggers have had their articles removed after taking these steps.

If you want to learn more about copyright in the USA and Canada, see US Copyright Office and Canada Intellectual Property Office 

Are You Missing Out on Olive Tree Genealogy's Blog Posts?

An update on Google Friend Connect from Google: 

In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs. 

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

HOW TO FOLLOW OLIVE TREE GENEALOGY BLOG
 
Here's the important part - if you use a non-Google Account to follow Olive Tree Genealogy blog, you will need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow my blog. With a Google Account, you’ll get blogs added to your Reading List, making it easier for you to see the latest posts and activity of all the blogs you follow.

Shared Endorsements on Google - Opt Out if You Don't Want Your Name/Photo Used

Google has started something called Shared Endorsements and unless you change your Google account settings your photo and name can be used beside online ads.

Shared Endorsements is used to help your friends find things you have liked. So for example if you read a news story or watch a YouTube video and you click "Like", Google has the right to put your photo and name from your Google account in an ad related to that item.

It's easy to opt out if you don't like this idea - just log in to your Google account and go to  Shared Endorsements then untick the radio box labelled "Based upon my activity, Google may show my name and profile photo in shared endorsements that appear in ads"

These new Terms of Service are also in effect on Google + and apply to Google's use of your Page's name, photo and actions. To opt out of having your name and photo used, you must log in to your Google + Page account first.

Note that you can access this setting from your Page's Dashboard. If you turn the setting off, you may not be able to use certain features until you re-enable it.

Jumping on the Google+ Bandwagon

Last week I finally got an invite to join Google+. Why do I say "finally"? Because invites have been few and far between, and even those who were lucky enough to receive an early invitation were often shut out. Google opted to keep the doors to Google+ shut much of the time, preferring instead to control how many new members were using the site at any one time.

If you don't know what Google+ is, it's actually called the Google+ Project. That's its official name. You can read about it at the official website. I love going there because I get a little notice saying I'm part of a small group of people who are helping to test this new offering by Google. Makes me feel important!

All levity aside, Google+ is pretty cool. It's a new social networking site and having played around in it for several days now I'm categorizing it as a combination of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Skype. A good combination. Google does it well.

CIRCLES

In Google+ you have Circles. They consist of your social network. Your Circles can hold  friends, family members, business associates, people whose comments you want to follow but you don't necessarily know. You set your own circles and then you simply click and drag to drop people into them. It's a great interface and easily managed. People can be in more than one circle and that's important if you want to filter your news stream.

For example, I have 91 people in my circles now. That's not very many but the chatter on my news stream is constant and sometimes overwhelming. So I put some of those 91 people into a second circle I called "FAVS". Now I can filter my news stream to only see posts by those people in my FAVS circle. I can still see the others by choosing any circles I want, or all my circles. So I might pull in my FAVS several times a day but only pull in all my circles once a day.

HANGOUTS

Google+ also has Hangouts. These are Video Chats where you very quickly start a Hangout by dragging and dropping a friend or an entire Circle into the Hangout with you. Bingo you are chatting. You can enable or disable your webcam if you're in your PJs and someone drags you into a Hangout. You can also mute your microphone and simply chat by text. I haven't actually been to a Hangout yet. I started one but no one was online that I was comfortable chatting with. I want to start with a good friend or family member first. 

SPARKS

In Sparks you choose an interest (I chose "genealogy") and add it to your personal Sparks. Sparks then provides you with a constant feed of news about your topic of interest. It's easy to keep up with the latest happenings and share things with other friends who have the same interests. I've got "genealogy" and "recipes" going right now but am going to play with Sparks and see what else I can get. It's kind of like a Google Alert except it's not coming into your email box.

INTEGRATION

This is what I'm loving most about Google+. When I am in my gmail account for example, I can see my Google+ notifications at a glance. I can comment on posts directly from my gmail. I can see who has added me to their circles and I can add them to mine right in my gmail account. No need to open another browser window or leave my mail program. This is a big plus in my opinion.

PROFILES

Profiles are your personal page with your information. You share what you wish to share and you have complete control over your privacy settings. One thing I suggest is that when you join Google+ take a few minutes and fill out your Profile completely, including a photo, before you start adding people to your Circles. It will make it much easier for your friends to determine if you are the right Sally Smith they want to have in their circle if they can see a photo and a little information about you!

TIPS

I've got a lot more exploring to do in Google+ and I've got a lot more to learn about how things work and how I can make it work for me. But I've learned a couple of things that might be of interest to some of my readers.

Vanity URL

Your default profile page link is long and unwieldy. But Google+ has a way for you to make it memorable. You simply add your gmail account name (mine is olivetreegenealogy) to http://profiles.google.com/  So mine becomes http://profiles.google.com/olivetreegenealogy  (Add me to your circles if you are on Google+ and want to connect)

If you don't have a gmail account you can choose any available username to tack onto the end of http://profiles.google.com/

I don't advise using a third party service such as gplus (which is not a Google service) to create a vanity URL. Why would you do that when Google+ does it for you quickly and easily?

Buzz

Many of us are genealogy bloggers and we want our blog posts or titles to go to Twitter and Facebook and now to Google+. So I hunted around and discovered that you can sync Google Buzz to your blog(s) and then enable Buzz in your Profile. That pulls your blogs in to Google+.  I'm pretty sure there will be a better way, if not at present, soon, but for now I'm using this method. I'd love to hear from anyone whose figured out another more efficient way of pulling in an RSS feed!

+1 Button

 This is similar to the Facebook "Like" button. If you read a post from someone in your circles and you think it's great, click the +1 button. That tells others reading it that you consider it interesting or thought-provoking or humorous. You can also Share it with others and pass on good posts that way.

SUMMARY

I've only been in Google+ a few days. But I like it. I like it a lot. I will at some point have to decide how I'm going to manage my social networks. Will I give up Facebook in favour of Google+? Is there room for both in my life (with some tweaking so that there is no duplication)? Is Google+ a flash in the pan?

I want to interect with  other genealogists and bloggers. I want to keep up with emerging technology, and I'm going to be choosing the platform(s) that best enable me to do those three things. Perhaps I will keep Facebook  for Family connections and Google+ for everything else? I don't know yet but I'll be considering my options carefully over the next few weeks.

I don't want more work. I don't want more reading. So my final decision will be carefully thought out with one of the main criterias being that my work load does not increase.

Bringing history online, one newspaper at a time

Google just announced an initiative to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online by partnering with newspaper publishers to digitize millions of pages of news archives.

With this latest project historians and genealogists will be able to find and read an original article from any year available in their partner newspapers. That means articles from before the Internet existed.

Google notes that two of their partners are ProQuest and Heritage. One of their partners, the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph, is the oldest newspaper in North America — publishing for more than 244 years.

Readers will be able to access this content with a search of the Google News Archive or by using the timeline feature after searching Google News.

Google's stated goal is "making those billions of pages of newsprint from around the world searchable, discoverable, and accessible online."

Read more about Bringing history online, one newspaper at a time