Citizen Genealogist

A couple of weeks ago I was having a conversation with my brother. He was telling me about how he was helping record data for online experiments and he referred to himself as a “citizen scientist.” Maybe it’s just how he talks, but I laughed out loud and then mercilessly made fun of him to no end. I was going to make him a t-shirt that said “citizen scientist” and I wasn’t going to let it die. This was funny stuff!

Tonight, with my first free night in quite a while, I’m spending these fresh, new hours by indexing the 1940 Census via Family Search…and it occurred to me, who’s the dork now? Not very different from what my brother is doing; he’s charting stars, I’m charting people. Citizen Genealogist.

Nope, citizen scientist is funnier.

Unknown No Longer

The Virginia Historical Society has announced the launch of a new Virginia slave name database. Drawing on the millions of documents in their collection, the database provides free online access to sources from the 17th through 19th centuries. You can search for individuals by name, occupation, age or location. Known as “Unknown No Longer”, the database finally gives the dignity of identity to many of the enslaved people in Virginia’s past and will most definitely be a boon to genealogical researchers.

Hearts and Bones by Paul Simon

I was lucky enough to see Paul Simon live this week. A highlight of the concert was hearing and watching him play the namesake song of my blog, Hearts and Bones. This is not my video, but it’s the same tour and the best one I could find online. (it also includes their cover of Mystery Train by Chet Atkins)

You take two bodies and you twirl them into one
Their hearts and their bones
And they won’t come undone
Hearts and bones
Hearts and bones