Ancestry (TGN) recently released FTM 2009. Current registered users of FTM 2008 should receive the upgrade for free. FTM 2008 was somewhat of a disappointment for most FTM users as functionality had been removed that existed in previous versions and there were numerous "bugs" in the application.

While I did not receive the upgrade emails, I was able to get the free upgrade on Thursday. I've installed the upgrade (which is a full install) and with some minor differences, FTM 2009 is the product which should have been released as the 2008 version. The interface is extremely similar if not the same.

I'm still running through all the features but it appears to be much more stable than the 2008 version.

My uncle was kind enough to provide me with a photograph of my great grandfather Andrew Kinney. While I have other photograps of Andrew, it is still a great photograph to have. It is one of the greatest gifts that my uncle could provide me.

I've had a headstone photo request for Augustus Tuttle and his spouse, Elsie M. (nee Robinson) Tuttle for quite some time. Elsie and Augustus are buried at Forestdale Cemetery in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Amy Choquette, a volunteer for Find-A-Grave, not only took photos of those two headstones but also found several other Tuttles buried in Forestdale. Those photos have been added to the website as well as to the Find-A-Grave website.

As we continue to receive rain the last several days (along with my continued recovery from surgery) I thought I would take some time to do a little catching up on genealogy. After a little work I noticed that I was not receiving email that was sent to our site (wheelergenealogy.com). After a little troubleshooting I determined that Comcast had shut down mail from being delivered to our home server. Two hours later and after a phone call to Comcast, mail has been turned back on. If you recently (during the last week) sent email to us at either wheelergenealogy.com or custom-networks.com, please send your email again.

On the genealogy front, I have finally finished updating all of the information that I received from our Mackenzie cousins in Australia. I have also submitted a request to NEHGS to determine a little background on my third great grandfather, John Robinson (b. 05 Jun 1811; d. 20 Sep 1894) along with his wife Amanda Wood both of which have proven to be elusive in my research. I have had NEHGS do research for me in the past and it has always been very comprehensive. I hope to receive the findings in a couple of weeks.

Darrin at TNG also released version 7 of his software. I took the opportunity this last week to update the site and also correct some formatting errors that have been on the site for a while.

How quickly time pasts! Usually as the snow melts and the Spring weather comes to be, genealogists start to put away their files to enjoy the nice weather. Well, it appears that some are still indoors until the rain passes (although we've had some fantastic weather as of late!).

Last week I received your typical Ancestry email "I am researching the .... family and would like to know if you had more information". The sender was looking for more information on the Mackenzie family and more specifically on William Mackenzie (b. 15 Oct 1858, d. 26 Apr 1938), my great grandfather. Turns out that the sender of the email was my second cousin, 1x removed in law a descendent of Harry Mackenzie (b. 1866, d. 1934). While my great grandfather left Scotland for Canada, his brothers Harry and Daniel left for Australia. It was an absolute joy to receive that email as I was not aware that Harry had gotten married and had children. So, we are now in the process of exchanging information. The Australian laws are much more stringent when it comes to privacy of living individuals but I'm eager to learn what information I can of those that are no longer living.

Then today I received an email from Vivian Boulos who had helped me with much of the information that I have on the Rice family. Vivian has been extremely busy researching collateral lines of the Rice families. I will be doing what I can to help Vivian. Meanwhile the latest data has been posted to the website.


Enjoy the beautiful weather!

Bill

The long awaited website http://www.crystalbabyblocks.com went live today. Crystal baby blocks provides a unique gift to new parents, the recently engaged/married or a gift for a job well done.

You can go to www.freeyourid.com and get your own free domain name. For example, if you go to www.bill.wheeler.name, it will take you to my genealogy website. What's great, is it can go anywhere that you like whether it is your flickr page, Facebook or MySpace.

That's the heading from the WorldVitalRecords.com news release. The official release will go out on Monday, February 4th. For a few days before the release and for the week of February 4th, many of the databases offered through WorldVitalRecords will be free.

For those of you with Chicago ancestry, there is a new resource that is available to help you with your research. www.chicagoancestors.org contains loads of information such as all of the Catholic churches in the Chicagoland area, digital photograph selections and historic buildings to name a few. These are all laid out on a Google map to make them easy to locate. It's clear that it is a work in progress in some cases (cemeteries) but it holds promise.

Gone bad. Okay, not really bad. Tonight I upgraded TNG from 6.1.2 to 6.2.0 and ran into a couple of hurdles with the upgrade. First I had problems with the permissions on the site where none of the pages were being displayed. Then, once that got fixed, I overwrote most of my customizations with the default files during the install. So, you might notice slight changes in the site due to the fact that I had to quickly recreate some of the files like the logo. I'll eventually create new logos but for now it will have to do.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the new functions that Darrin Lythgoe has added to the release. New content and pictures have also been added.


Enjoy!

Bill

Having passed the threshold of 19,000 people in the family tree, much of the information and people that we have in the tree would not be possible were it not for the help and generosity of countless people.

There are several new pictures that have been posted and linked to the site. Many of these were provided by Barbara Besecker who we had the chance to meet while we visited Ohio a few months ago. My mother has also been contributing by providing pictures, obituaries and other documents whenever she comes across them. Apparently I have become the family archivist.

This weekend I received an email from Sonja (nee Rice) Floyd who was able to provide us with the Descendants of William Walden Rice. William had four children, three of which passed at a young age. William's remaining son, Owen Alanson Rice, married Melinda Jane Replogle. The data that Sonja (my sixth cousin) adds several third, fourth, fifth and sixth cousins.

We welcome Sonja and our other newly found cousins to the the family and again thank Sonja for all the research that she had done. With the information that Sonja provided, we are just under 19,000 individuals in the database.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-080119johnkass,0,7157265.column

United States Marine Sgt. McNulty is getting ready to ship out to Iraq from Camp Pendleton soon. While is court case is set for the 18th of January, Sgt. McNulty does not need to be present to move forward.

That said, it seems poetic justice has been served knowing that the presiding judge in the case is a former Marine. Circuit Court Judge William O'Malley was a lance corporal in the Marine Corps in the 1960's who celebrates the Marine Corps birthday each November.

The Chicago Tribune ran a story on Sgt. McNulty's recent run-in with Mr. Grodner. Looks like Sgt. McNulty will get his day in court.