VGS News & Tips: 16 January 2016

Reminders:

Tomorrow: January 17, 2017

Italian Genealogy SIG Meeting

1:00 PM in the Atlanta Room in the Savannah Center

Gen News:

The Power of DNA Matching:

Lisa Louise Cooke
"As genealogists, we spend our time trying to ferret out the real story in our family’s oral history, or at least from the records they left behind. Record research is critical, but now we have an amazing new tool… DNA matching."
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Going Deeper Into U.S. Maritime Records:

Legacy Family Tree
"The War of 1812 was less than a year underway. The high seas and even the coastal shipways were a dangerous place for the United States to be conducting commercial shipping. Almost no ships were bound for foreign ports because of the federal embargoes put in place by the government. An American captain and his crew knew that if they crossed paths with a British or French vessel, they very well might not come back. So what compelled men, like William Maran, a “free mulatto,” to ship out of Philadelphia during the war? Like many other seamen, William acquired his application paper for a seamen’s protection certificate from a public notary, in order to have proof he was a U.S. citizen when traveling abroad. This document and the date it was made serves as strong evidence that he was soon to embark on an American vessel for the purposes of coastal shipping or privateering."
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AncestryDNA Surpasses 3 Million Customers in DNA Database:

AncestryDNA
"We are the largest consumer genetic testing company! It took us 11 months to go from 1 million to 2 million customers and just seven months later, we’ve surpassed 3 million customers in our AncestryDNA database. Hear some of the powerful discoveries customers have made with the help of AncestryDNA, Get more of the story here."
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Tech:

Turn Your iPhone into a Google Phone:

Lifewire
"Just because you're a loyal iPhone user, doesn't mean you have to love Apple's apps, especially when Google offers a superior alternative. (We're looking at you, Apple Maps.) Not only does Google make iOS versions of its most popular apps, but it often updates its iOS apps first, to the frustration of many an Android user. Furthermore, some of Google's iOS apps are considered even better than their Android counterparts."
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How to Make Windows Shut Down Faster:

How-to-Geek
"Windows PCs should shut down fairly quickly—unless there’s a problem causing a shutdown delay. Here’s how to make your computer shut down faster."
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Education:

5 Minute Find: Alternate Sources for Death Records:

Ancestry
"What do you do when you can't find your ancestor's death record? There are other records that can help. Amy Johnson Crow shows several examples of alternate sources for civil death registrations."
Watch video...  5.11 minutes