Genealogy Forum NEWS
March, 1998
Internet for Genealogists
Online Translation Service
from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter
copyright 1998 Ancestry and Dick Eastman
AltaVista has a new service on the World Wide Web: automatic translation of documents from one language to another. The new service will automatically translate English documents into French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish. In addition, it will translate documents in any of these five languages into English. This can be useful if you have a document or an extract from a book written in a language that you do not read. It also can be used to write letters to a vital records office in a foreign land.
The new AltaVista translation service will automatically translate a Web page in one of the foreign languages supported. It then displays the Web page in English. But even better, you can "cut and paste" a small amount of text directly into the translation service, and it will display the translated version. You can then "cut and paste" the output into any other document you choose, such as your word processor or your genealogy program. The "cut and paste" method seems to work well for a few paragraphs but would not handle longer texts. Of course, if your input is too long, you can always do multiple "cut and pastes." To be sure, machine-generated translations have been around for some time. The results obtained from them have varied widely; some of the output I have seen in the past has been humorous. I experimented with AltaVista's new service and found it to be better than some of the earlier translation software I have used. Not great, but passable. And it is free, to boot. If you would like to experiment with this new translation service, set your Web browser to: http://babelfish.altavista.com/ (Link Updated).
Cyndi's List Has Moved
submitted by cyndihow@oz.net
Hello all -
I'm very pleased to announce several exciting new happenings on my web site. Cyndi's List now has an official sponsor! Sierra, the developers of a great new genealogy software program for Windows titled "Generations Deluxe," has offered to sponsor my web site and help me make improvements and enhancements that I would never be able to do on my own personal Internet account.
I have often received questions from visitors to the site asking, "Why don't you have . . .?" or "Why don't you add this . . .?" My answer was always that I was maintaining the web site by myself, on my own personal Internet account at Oz.net, and didn't have access to any of the snazzy technical stuff available on a commercial web site. In addition, the work of maintaining the web site has kept me so busy that I haven't really had time to set up and implement new things on the site. Now, I finally have someone who can make all this possible and who can help me make the site bigger, better and faster for all of us to use. It's about time, isn't it?
My head is just filled with dozens of nifty ideas for things that will improve the site and make it an even easier online research tool to use. I'm not going to tell you the ideas I have all at one time. Instead, I'm going to save them and surprise you with them as they become available. It will be like Christmas all year long. ;-)
Just before my new partnership with Sierra, I had decided to register my own domain name and move the site to RootsWeb. So, thanks to help from Brian Leverich, the site has a new, easy-to-remember address:
http://www.CyndisList.com
I have set up forwarding pages at each of the old web page addresses to help you get to the new pages easily. Please be sure to update your bookmarks and any links you have to the site. All of the individual web page file names have stayed the same, so you can just replace
http://www.oz.net/~cyndihow/ with
http://www.CyndisList.com
There are two exceptions to this:
- Queries & Message Boards, queries2.htm is now queries.htm
- News Groups & Mailing Lists, newsmail.htm is now mailnews.htm
Last, but not least, I have some pretty new graphics for Cyndi's List. The old graphics will remain on my personal web site. The new graphics were designed by Mark Brill at Sierra. I love them! I told Mark what my ideas were and "poof," there they were. Not only are they beautiful to look at, they are also optimized for quick loading in your web browser; the pages are therefore much quicker for you to get to, which means you can get to the good stuff linked from my site that much faster.
I'm happy to be associated with Sierra for several reasons. The first reason is, as I mentioned above, they are going to help me make the site the best it can possibly be. In addition, they are located here in Washington state and I'm glad to support a local company. This also means that I've been able to visit with them, see their headquarters and get to know the people on the Generations team. They are a very enthusiastic group and I can tell that they really love what they are doing. They are also proud of Generations and from what I've seen so far of the beta versions of the program, I think they should be. Sierra's Generations program is based on the previous Reunion for Windows genealogy program. Reunion has always had a reputation as a fine genealogy software program. Combining that with Sierra's own ability to turn out high-quality programs is sure to make Generations a popular new tool.
With Sierra's help, I'm committed to continue work on the web site so that it will grow and have the same level of quality that I've maintained over the last two years. I have several personal goals regarding this web site which the people at Sierra respect and support. First, I believe that the site needs to be kept as current as possible and that updates to web addresses are just as important as any additions of links to the list. Also, I want the site to be equally accessible to everyone, no matter what type of computer they have or what speed their modem might be. And last, I have insisted that the site always remain a free resource for all of you to use.
Cyndi's List is just about to have its second birthday. I can't think of a nicer birthday gift - new friends, a catchy new address and a new look. I hope you each enjoy all of this as much as I do!
Cyndi Howells
cyndihow@oz.net
http://www.CyndisList.com
Spam Help from the U.S. Government
submitted by dsam@wasatch.com
FTC (Federal Trade Commission) now has the special address where you can forward any spam whether it is a get rich quick scheme or dirty/porn spam.
The address is uce@ftc.gov.
They issued warnings to more than 1,000 spammers a few days ago that they are attracting the law enforcement now.
So forward (always forward!) such spam messages to uce@ftc.gov
Belgium Research Help
by picavet@ping.be
submitted by GFS Mead@aol.com
I am writing to you from Belgium, Europe
Since April 1994, I am doing research on the emigrants from the Waasland, an area in Flanders, Belgium, west of Antwerp, to the United States and Canada between 1830 - 1950. En route I am also helping out any other Belgian descendant in North America looking for her/his Roots here.
At present I have identified some 2,500 emigrants from the Waasland, but I have information on tens of thousands of Belgian emigrants. My web site at http://belgium.rootsweb.com/ (Link Updated, site now known as "The BELGIUM-ROOTS Project") contains much more information, including:
- thousands of NAMES of Belgian emigrants;
- hundreds of passenger SHIPS (mainly from Antwerp);
- a complete list of all PLACES in Belgium with their districts, province, ZIP-code,telephone area code, and not unimportant in Belgium: the official language;
- TRANSLATIONS of vital records from Dutch in English;
- a complete GUIDE on how to look for your Belgian roots;
- some HISTORY of Belgium, Flanders, and the Waasland;
- a list of hundreds of US ARMY UNITS and thousands of surnames of AMERICAN SOLDIERS decorated by Belgium after WW2;
- articles about GENEALOGY, GENEOLOGY, and ANDRAGOGY.
Please do contact me if you are a Belgian descendant, or if you know of Belgian immigrants or their descendants in your area. I do need any help I can get!
If you have Belgian descendants in your area, I would be extremely grateful if you could make a link from your web site to mine.
Georges Picavet
We're Back!!
submitted by martym@gte.net
I am happy to announce that the new GRHS home page is now available at:
http://www.grhs.com/
The material isn't really new, but we now have our own domain name on a new server.
There a still a few bugs to be worked out, like the counter doesn't work yet. And some of the data is a bit out of date, but over the next few weeks we'll get all that fixed up. I welcome any suggestions, ideas or help.
We owe a big thank you to Brian Fleming and Bob Ell of Irenyx Data Group Inc., Home of Digital Ark Internet Services ("http://www.irenyx.com/") for setting this server up for us.
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