You may have noticed that on the splash page of the site that the 'Comin Soon 3' link has been replaced with a link to the Wheeler MyFamily 2.0 (beta) page. The team at myFamily has been busy upgrading the site and while they only appeara to be half way through, there are already lots of features. You can track what they are doing on their blog. You can share pictures, leave a voice recording/comment over the phone and share family news. Eventually you will be able to share family trees, organize family photos and host family chats.

I will refresh the site today with new data. We currently have 17,400 individuals in the family tree.

Most of you are familiar with the success (and size) of wikipedia.org. A wiki is made of thousands (or millions) of web pages which collectively define or tell the story of something. The value of a wiki is that anyone can contribute to the stories, news and definitions.

The folks over at WeRelate have taken the idea behind the wiki and have applied it to family research. You can upload GEDCOM files, correct incorrect data in other trees and share family stories. The site is still young but I imagine that in a year or two it will be packed with lots of family information.


Enjoy!
Bill

In the interest of getting a few more hours of daylight and in order to save energy, this year DST will start three weeks earlier and end one week later. Please be sure to update your PCs will the latest patches. DST patches are available for all operating systems including Windows XP, service pack 2.

While trying out the trial available from GenealogyBank I came across a patent record for Sylvester B. Beasecker circa 1900 from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get more details on the record as NewsBank is still working out the kinks on their new offering. But it is great to know that the record is there.

I've heard the recommendation in several lectures and have read it in several magazine articles. "Keep an eye on eBay. You'll never know what you are going to find regarding your heritage". I wasn't a true believer until today. While passing time between bids on another item, I performed a search on eBay on the surname of Beasecker. 2 hits came up, one of which was the book on the history of Michigan written by my cousin. The second hit was for a postcard from the saddle shop of Sylvester B. Beasecker in Melrose park.

It's a great find! But, I don't know that I am willing to pay $120 for a postcard.

Ancestry.com has hundreds of services many of which at one time or another are free. Here is a site that offers an index to those free services. Try http://www.freeonancestry.com/.

Darrin released a minor update to TNG. The site has been upgraded to 6.0.4. See the latest version in action at WheelerGenealogy.com.

Of course the important subject of the day is the Bears game. Before the festivites begin and in between the Super Bowl commercials I will be looking at old maps. My great grandfather (Andrew Kinney) worked on the railroad in Fond du Lac shortly after he came to America in the late 1840s. He and his family stayed in FdL until 1874 when the family moved to Chicago to find work. It is great to see the maps of the city where they lived at the time and of the railroad system. A large collection of railroad maps are available from http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrhome.html. County land records can also be viewed and downloaded at the Bureau of Land Management's website.