I found a solution this problem! Instead of taking the picture to the scanner, Flip-Pal allows you to bring the scanner to the photo.

Flip-Pal is very easily transportable and can scan items that are in albums or frames. It even has this amazing software with it that will allow you to scan a very big item in stages and then stitch the scans together later making one large image.

I see Flip-Pal working great in reference libraries. Instead of making paper copies of reference materials and taking them home and scanning, you can scan the book right at the library. Flip-Pal will allow you to get the book flatter than a copier and there will not be the distortion of words where the book is bound!

You can throw it in a purse or laptop bag and carry it with you. Then when Aunt Judy says oh no I can’t let you take the album you can say instead, mind if I scan a few photos?

If you would like more information or would like to order your own Flip-Pal, please follow the Flip-Pal link, give me a call (262-783-1620) or send an email. I can place the order for you and have it shipped directly to your home.

The new page can be found here.
http://wiroots.org/wiadams/whitecreekhistory.html

Pictures are in the Linking Your Past Photo Gallery

Thanks to Patricia for sending the information and photos!

For those of you researching the Poznan region of Poland, here is a new (at least new to me!) database. This is not the Poznan Marriage Project.

http://www.basia.famula.pl/en/

Type in the surname you are researching and hit ENTER. If you get a map with colored “pins” on it, click them for results.

Results with a green background are births (urodzenia); with a blue/lavender background are deaths (zgonu); and with a pink background are marriages (malzenstaw). The box with the green bar by each entry indicates the likeliness of a match.

Good luck,
Ruth

In less than 10 months the 1940 US Population Schedules will become public. It will not be name indexed, so it will be necessary to do an address search in order to find families. Address searching involves knowing the ED (enumeration district) in which the address is located. The National Archives (NARA) earlier this year indicated they had plans to make available in 2011 the 1940 ED maps of cities and counties, and ED descriptions, but their recent move to consider having a 3rd party host all the images may have appreciably set back this timetable.

The only website that currently has location tools for the 1940 census is the Steve Morse One Step site (http://stevemorse.org). There are several such tools there, and it could be overwhelming to figure out which tool to use when. There is a tutorial that attempts to clarify it (http://stevemorse.org/census/intro.html) and an extensive FAQ (http://stevemorse.org/census/faq.htm).

We are announcing the opening of another educational utility to help people learn about the different 1940 locational search tools on the One Step site, and information about the 1940 census itself. It is in the form of a quiz, and should help many, many genealogists quickly learn how to search an unindexed census by location. The new utility is at: http://stevemorse.org/census/quiz.php and is called “How to Access the 1940 Census in One Step”. Not only is it informative, we hope it is entertaining.

Thanks

Joel Weintraub
Steve Morse

The following surnames were added
Kittredge, Crandall, Mansfield, Lantry, Scherer, Howard, Howes, Isleb, Jurss, Joss, Kay, Kessler, Schmidt, Brown, More, Swan, Smith, Barnes, Lefeber.

When Scott Drummey read the June 9 Portsmouth Herald article detailing Berwick resident Carrie Arsenault’s discovery of an inscribed gold ring, he got down to the business of solving a family mystery.

The only clue when Arsenault found the ring on a private beach near the Lady Pepperrell House on Route 103 was an inscription: “CCD to MAL Dec. 25, 1880.”

Arsenault’s mother, Kittery deputy town clerk Kathy Pridham, looked through town marriage records and found one match: Kittery residents Charles C. Dixon and Maranda A. Lewis were married May 12, 1881, by the Rev. John A. Goss.

Arsenault and Pridham were unable to find out much more about the mysterious couple, but Drummey, who became interested in genealogy studies after researching his own family history, turned to Ancestry.com and found some interesting facts that may start to clarify the lives of Dixon and Lewis and their possible connection to the ring.

“As soon as I read the article, I thought, ‘There’s a history behind this,’” he said.

Scott Drummey is hoping to find an heir to the ring. “Are (descendants) reading this article? Do you know who they are? Let them know their great-grandmother’s engagement ring recently washed up on the beach,” he said.

If you can help, you might want to first read the article. Find out more about the story.

Eastman’s article

1: Funeral homes MAY NOT refuse to accept caskets purchased form another retailer.

2: Funeral homes MAY NOT charge a handling fee for caskets purchased from another retailer.

3: Funeral homes MAY NOT require consumers to be present when a casket is purchased from another retailer is delivered to the funeral home.

4: Funeral homes MAY NOT make slanderous statements about buying caskets from another retailer.

5: Funeral homes MAY NOT require consumers to buy certain funeral goods or services as a condition for furnishing other funeral goods or services.

This was published in the Wisconsin Cemetery and Cremation Reporter in 2007. It is based on the strict Federal TRade Commission laws governing funeral homes and their interaction with customers.

(AP) A man widely believed to be the model for the smiling chef on Cream of Wheat boxes finally has a grave marker bearing his name.

Frank L. White died in 1938, and until recently, his grave in Woodland Cemetery (Michigan) bore only a tiny concrete marker with no name.

A granite gravestone was finally placed at his burial site. It bears his name and an etching taken
from the man depicted on the Cream of Wheat box.

When White died Feb. 15, 1938, the Leslie, MI Local Republican described him as a “famous
chef” who “posed for an advertisement of a wellknown breakfast food.”

White lived in Leslie for about the last 20 years of his life, and the story of his posing for the Cream of Wheat picture was known in the city of 2,000 located about 70 miles West of Detroit.

The chef was photographed about 1900 while working in a Chicago restaurant. His name was
not recorded. White was a chef, traveled a lot, was about the right age and told neighbors that he
was the Cream of Wheat model.