HUGE news for people with any known or suspected New York City ancestors or relatives! Like, HUGE.
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Update on the Kherson archives, from the director of the Ukrainian Archives:
https://www.instagram.com/p/ClTbiBsoB4R_Fx0M3yk4j--l6wIXs1WDgSslqQ0/?hl=en
Short version: Russia stole ~50% of the archive's records, but many of the oldest and most valuable sets were hidden and saved by the archivists!
Broke: Russians stealing
Woke: Russians stealing the Kherson archives
Bespoke: Russian genealogists bragging on their personal FB pages about organizing the sacking of the archives while feuding in their FB comments w/ the head of the Ukrainian archives
https://www.facebook.com/vitaly.semionoff/posts/pfbid02cxnY4Vb1DiVEP2YY2j93nDYv78mvn1j5i9WHtY6AzcWp5fdhXq3pCV5arFwhoKLl
A day late, but there’s always next year.
(hat-tip to Kerry Scott on Facebook)
Indexing has begun by the Geneanet community on the New York City Geographic Birth Index! Thanks again to @ReclaimTheRecs for their ongoing efforts to liberate archives #genealogy https://en.geneanet.org/genealogyblog/post/2022/10/the-new-york-city-geographic-birth-index
We were sent this photo by a friend in Ukraine this morning. This is a local archive in a recently liberated town in the Kherson area.
It looks like many of the records survived.
But if you look closely, you can see the Russians also added their own materials to the collection.
Ask just about any genealogist: any investment you make in tech to make dead folks seemingly appear life like would be better to spent digitizing things like civil war pension files.
Don’t want to see Nannie move & talk. 🙃 But, can you make records from her parish accessible?
Oh the thrills of getting a surprise Twitter hat tip!! @ReclaimTheRecs, thanks for taking the time to trace that #RedThread back to the @SimmonsSLIS/@NEarchivists symposium.😅
@ArchivesBoston & @Laura_R_Prieto: lemme know if you ever need a grad student to wrangle data from afar! https://twitter.com/ReclaimTheRecs/status/1585334347208368129
Time to cite our sources:
We learned about the Boston database from Jeremy Singer-Vine's (@jsvine) weekly newsletter "Data is Plural" which in turn credits archival grad student Julie Rosier (@redthreadtweets), who learned about it at the @NEarchivists and @SimmonsSLIS symposium.
The city of Boston is doing something awesome with its historical records. They're developing an online database for all the women who registered to vote in 1920, the first year it was available to them. And they're freely giving out the transcribed data:
https://www.boston.gov/departments/archives-and-records-management/mary-eliza-project-boston-women-voters-1920
@ReclaimTheRecs Yes, National Archives of Belgium. I did research there for my Eleanor of Aquitaine project but was forbidden to use my own photographs I took of medieval (!) records on my blog without paying a fee. I had to sign a document to that effect before I was allowed to take photos.
A few years ago, a gov’t official signed an order banning researchers from freely scanning records in “his” archives. He wanted the archives to sell copies for $$$.
A brave young man sued the archives, and won the right to scan. (Not us, but a friend.)
That official today:
HUGE news for people with any known or suspected New York City ancestors or relatives! Like, HUGE.
Roses are red🌹 / Violets are blue 💙 / For Valentine’s Day 💝 / We decided to sue👩⚖️
HOMEGROWN IN THE GARDEN STATE
Reclaim The Records is an IRS-recognized 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Our EIN is 81-4985446. Contact us at [email protected]
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