Page 126 – Family History is my passion and my goal is to help others find and share that same passion.

Ruth’s Recommendations

Here are my favourite blog posts from this past week.

Kerry Scott of Clue Wagon wrote “In Which I Am Accosted By A Skeleton At 3 a.m.” where a cold and the desire not to disturb her husband’s sleep led to an all nighter and a discovery that may answer a few questions after a little more research.

Melissa Donovan of Writing Forward has a post entitled “9 Journal Writing Tools and Resources” where she shares online resources for journaling. The focus is on creativity and writing.

The Ancestry Insider has a post called “Coming Soon to a FamilySearch.org Near You.” They talk about the upcoming features of familysearch.org that were discussed at the 2011 BYU Family History Conference.

The Genealogy Insider blog is associated with Family Tree Magazine in the United States. They have a post entitled “Your Advice for Organizing Family Archives” which provides a list of reader’s suggestions on organizing your archival material.

The NLI Blog has a post written by Bean An Phoist called “Wanted: One strong, healthy young Man.” It takes a look at some of the newspapers to be found in the National Library of Ireland, the exciting find and acquisition of previously unknown issues of the “Nenagh News” and the fun to be had reading advertisements found in old newspapers.

The GenWriter, Julie Cahill Tarr, has a post this week called “4 Resources for Writing Your Family History” where she looks at three publications and a video to help you with the process.

Are there any postings in the last week that you think need to be on this list? Let me know in the comments below.

Cincinnati Panorama of 1848

2 Comments / By Ruth Blair

Patricia M. Van Skaik, Manager, History and Genealogy Department, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, was the keynote speaker at the Ontario Library Association Pre-Conference for the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference in 2010.

Her keynote address was called “Genealogy Data Buried in a Photograph: How One Library Brought Hidden Resources to Life.” The description of the lecture was “In 1848, Charles Fontayne and William Porter captured the earliest photographic representation of a city in North America. When 21st century technology was applied to the photograph, it revealed slices of life previously invisible to the naked eye. In addition, the Panorama links to a treasure of genealogical resources and has filled in research gaps for many family historians.”

It was very interesting to hear how they discovered the secrets hiding within the panorama. She left you wanting to learn more about what could be found in the panorama.

The Cincinnati Panorama of 1848 is now available to view online. When you click to explore the panorama you are taken to a section of the daguerreotype. If you click on Points of Interest you have several choices. Choose the point of interest you want to investigate further and you get a close up of the image.

One image has a point of interest called “Housework (Columbia Street between Ludlow and Lawrence Streets)” which shows laundry hanging on a makeshift clothes line and on the railings of the porch.

A point of interest on another image shows “Man with cart and a horse in the river (near Kentucky Shore).”

It would be nice if they had a transcript of Patricia’s keynote address to go along with this virtual library display.

If you have ancestors who lived in Cincinnati in 1848 this is a wonderful treasure to explore.