The nearly two-decade-old garden is overgrown. They are also creating a database to educate people about pollinator-friendly plants.

“The girls first identified the plight of pollinators as a troublesome environmental concern,” according to the garden club. They researched pollinator gardens and discovered the Greenwich Pollinator Pathways, which are designed to “establish pollinator-friendly habitats and food sources for bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinating insects and wildlife. . “

The Girl Scout Troop contacted the Garden Club of Old Greenwich, who taught the girls what goes on in a pollinator garden and gave them a tour of the butterfly garden the club maintains in Greenwich Point.

“The girls came up with an action plan and worked to weed and renovate the garden at Old Greenwich School,” the club said. “They planted other pollinator-friendly plants, including fall-flowering asters.” The Girl Scouts also plan to create educational materials to inspire lifelong learning about the garden at Old Greenwich School.

The troop searched for more than 45 pollinator-friendly flowering perennials and recorded data on their height, flowering time, characteristics and region of origin. The information will be published in an online catalog on the garden club website.

“For years the club had wanted to catalog the plants at Greenwich Point Butterfly Garden,” said club co-chair Wendy Yu. enabled the creation of this important database. “

This project is part of the troop’s efforts to earn the Girl Scout Silver Award, which is the second highest award in Girl Scouting.

Downtown

Thanksgiving in Greenwich means it’s time for the 11th annual Turkey Trot, a city tradition that returns this year after a COVID-19 hiatus last year.

There will be a 5k run at 9:30 a.m. and a non-competitive 1 mile run / walk at 10 a.m. on November 27. Both races will start and end at the Arch Street Teen Center at 100 Arch St. in downtown Greenwich and take participants through Bruce Park.

There will be warm-up and stretching exercises starting at 9 a.m.

The run is a fundraiser for the Greenwich Alliance for Education, which was established to “fund innovation, expand opportunities and inspire teachers to foster educational success” in public schools across the city.

“We are delighted to once again host the Turkey Trot as an in-person event,” said Julie Faryniarz, executive director of the alliance. “It’s wonderful to be able to bring the community together for fun while also raising money for Greenwich school programming for students from early childhood through college graduation and in the work force.”

To register, visit www.greenwichalliance.org/turkey-trot-2021. The registration fee of $ 15 for children 13 and under and $ 30 for adults will be in effect until October 31. Fees will increase to $ 35 for adults from November 1 to 26. Race day registration is $ 40 for adults and will take place inside the Arch Street Teen Center from 8:15 am to 9:15 am

There is also a ‘Run for Your School’ Contest, with a $ 500 gift card for physical education purchases at the Greenwich School with the highest number of runners entered. The 2019 winner was the Julian Curtiss School.

After a one-year hiatus due to COVID-19, the event is making a comeback this year with nearly 2,000 participants and spectators expected.

Performance equipment T-shirts and gift bags are guaranteed to runners who register before November 15th. Racing gear, which will include bibs, t-shirts and gift bags, can be picked up on Friday, November 26 at Cadillac of Greenwich at 144 Railroad Avenue.

Awards and prizes will be given to the top three male and female 5K winners. The top three men and women in nine different age categories, from 10 and under to 70 and over, will also receive prizes. All 1 mile completers will receive medals.

Greenwich Center

The Junior League of Greenwich will be holding their Harvest Sunday Supper fundraiser on November 7, giving residents the opportunity to take a day off to cook while supporting the league’s work in the community.

Catering meals will be sourced from Simply Delicious, which specializes in local, fresh, seasonal food. The meal choices are: marinara meatballs on pasta with Caesar salad; roasted chicken breast on pumpkin risotto and various vegetables; or eggplant parmesan with a fall salad. Meals will include side dishes, desserts and a bottle of Cap, Cork & Cellar wine.

“We have had such a wonderful response from our recent Sunday dinners and look forward to providing another fresh and delicious hot meal that we can all enjoy together at home,” said League President Karen Richard.

The cost is $ 100 for a dinner for two; $ 140 for a dinner for four; and $ 160 for dinner for six people. A fall cookie kit can be ordered for $ 30.

Meals can be picked up behind the wheel from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on November 7 at League Headquarters at 231 E. Putnam Ave. Contactless delivery is available to Greenwich residents for $ 25.

Orders must be placed at www.jlgreenwich.org/harvest-supper/ by November 4th.

Proceeds will benefit league programs in town. For more information, visit www.jlgreenwich.org.

Greenwich Center

Want to know more about your family background? The Putnam Hill Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution is ready to help with a special genealogy workshop on November 14th.

Participants can speak to a genealogist for free and learn about their family’s roots.

Participants are requested to bring any document or family tree containing the names of descendants. The genealogist will explain how to use computerized ancestry, heritage and find tomb databases to explore links to family histories. In addition, participants can learn how to find old census records, ship manifests, war records, wills, and land records and document lineage using DAR forms.

The workshop will be held from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. at the Putnam Cottage at 243 E. Putnam Ave. Light refreshments will be served.

To make an appointment, call 914-967-0013 or email Joan Cresap at [email protected].

[email protected]

She is no longer “Horseshoe Harriet”.

Thirty-seven years after the discovery of the remains of a young woman, she has been identified as Robin Pelkey, authorities said Friday morning. Pelkey, who was born in 1963 in Colorado, was the victim of convicted serial killer Robert Hansen, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

Hansen, who in the early 1980s kidnapped, hunted and killed women in the wilderness near Anchorage, died in 2014 at the age of 75, as reported by The Washington Post. Pelkey ​​was 19 at the time of his death, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety. The ministry purchased a new headstone identifying Pelkey’s grave at the Anchorage Memorial Park cemetery.

“I want to thank all of the soldiers, investigators and analysts who have worked diligently on this case for the past 37 years. Without their hard work and tenacity, Ms. Pelkey’s identity might never have been known, ”Alaska Department of Public Safety Commissioner James Cockrell said in a press release. . “The Alaska Department of Public Safety will go out of its way to solve major crimes in our state, hold anyone responsible for breaking our laws, and end a victim’s family.”

Hansen, who was arrested in October 1983, initially pleaded guilty to four murders and several other crimes, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety. He eventually admitted to murdering 17 women.

The Alaska Bureau of Investigation Cold Case Investigation Unit recently launched an attempt to identify Pelkey’s remains, according to the Department of Public Safety. In August, a new DNA profile for Pelkey ​​was generated, uploaded to a publicly accessible genealogical database, and yielded several matches that helped build a family tree for the then unidentified victim.

Research by Parabon Nanolabs and ABI suggested the victim could be Pelkey, according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety. Additional research showed Pelkey ​​had relatives living in Alaska and Arkansas, and records showed Pelkey ​​was living in Anchorage at the time of the Hansen murders.

ABI has contacted Arkansas State Police for help, according to the Department of Public Safety. In Arkansas, police contacted a “very close” relative of Pelkey ​​and obtained a DNA sample which was then sent to the Alaska State Scientific Crime Lab in Anchorage. DNA analysis confirmed that “Horseshoe Harriet” was Pelkey.

Pelkey’s family have asked not to be contacted directly following the news, according to the Department of Public Safety.

One of Hansen’s victims, known colloquially as “Eklutna Annie,” whom authorities believe to be Hansen’s first victim, has still not been identified, the ministry spokesman told the Empire. of Alaska Public Safety Austin McDaniel.

He said ABI is also using genetic genealogy to try to identify his remains.

Of the 17 women Hansen admitted to killing, 12 bodies were found, five were not found and four other women attacked by Hansen survived, McDaniel said. He said there were no active search efforts to find the five bodies not yet found, but if further evidence or information reaches ABI or the Alaska State Troopers, “further search efforts may be launched at that time “.

Contact Ben Hohenstatt at 907-308-4895 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @BenHohenstatt

• Helen Kelly is the genealogy butler at The Shelbourne, a luxury hotel in Dublin, Ireland.
• She helps hotel guests of Irish descent connect with their roots and uncover their hidden ancestors.
• Here’s what his work looks like, told to freelance writer Perri Ormont Blumberg.

This narrated essay is based on a transcribed conversation with Helen Kelly, a genealogy butler from Dublin, Ireland, about her work. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I have been a professional genealogist since 1995.

Courtesy of Shelbourne

In 2007, I brought an idea linking genealogy and tourism to the historic five star Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin.

Shortly thereafter, I took on the position of genealogy butler and began advising and assisting hotel guests in genealogy matters. In the years that followed, the post gained such notoriety and an enviable reputation that it led me to speak about Irish genealogy on radio and television stations around the world. I’m even participating in a six-part documentary series about the Shelbourne Hotel and its guests.

My counseling service is aimed specifically at descendants of people born in Ireland who have a serious interest in knowing more about their Irish ancestry

Courtesy of Shelbourne

The service is available to all customers of The Shelbourne looking to trace their Irish roots. It is extremely popular with American visitors to Ireland, but the Irish who visit the hotel also benefit from this service when they undertake their own discovery of their family tree.

Before each consultation, the guest provides some basic information about their ancestor of Irish descent so that I can determine if they have enough information to merit a consultation.

During the consultation, the person is introduced to Irish family history records available online and additional records available at the various family history offices in Dublin, such as the National Library of Ireland and the National Archives of Ireland. At the end of the consultation, they receive a full report of their findings.

Guests can choose between one-hour consultations in which I give advice on the best resources to start their research (180 €, or $ 208), one-day consultations where I will accompany the guest in the different genealogical archives offices in Dublin (price on request) and virtual consultations, available à la carte (€ 180, or $ 208) or via the Genealogy Experience package (€ 799, or $ 925).

Each guest’s information is confidential, but I can say that many guests have had incredible experiences visiting their ancestral birthplaces.

In one case, I urged a guest to revisit their ancestral birthplace within days of their first visit and learn directly about their ancestors from the locals. This second visit exceeded all their expectations and allowed them to get in touch with more than 30 close relatives in the region.

Another guest did extensive research for many years but, until her consultation, did not appreciate the importance of identifying the ancestor’s precise birthplace in rural Ireland. Her consultation at The Shelbourne brought new energy to her research, culminating in a subsequent “trip of a lifetime” for herself, her parents and siblings to their ancestral homeland in the west of Ireland.

I am proud to serve members of the Irish Diaspora who have a deep desire to connect with their ancestral homeland

Although we are indeed greatly influenced by our parents and ancestors, we are also greatly influenced by the landscape.

For this reason, the service strives to identify the precise birthplace of the ancestor of Irish descent so that the client can tour the area and soak up the culture and landscape of the ancestral birthplace.

The pandemic has temporarily changed the way my service is provided

However, on a positive note, the pandemic has sparked a new awakening in root tourism. My services are currently available remotely, either by

Zoom
or by phone call through the Shelbourne Hotel. This can continue in conjunction with in-person consultations.

Next year marks the centenary of the signing of the Irish Constitution, which was drafted and signed at The Shelbourne, so I look forward to welcoming guests celebrating this moment in history while uncovering their own personal stories.

My Aunt Mary was the one who took pictures at family gatherings, and I’m grateful for that because my parents didn’t have a camera. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to admire vintage photos of my sister and I wearing grandma’s dresses or homemade Easter clothes, although there is a photo of me and my older brother in it. ‘one year old mother and grandmother with Aunt Mary in the middle. It’s a mystery that took this blow.

My aunt also created a family tree of our Irish roots, proving that we are the descendants of JFK and Deacon Samuel Chapin, our great-great-great-great-grandfather who was the founder of Springfield, Ma and who has a statue there to prove it. I wouldn’t be all arrogant about this though; I’m sure there were rascals climbing this family tree as well.

Josh Widdicombe discovered he was descended from King Henry VIII.

The 38-year-old comedian appeared on the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are? and an investigation into his family tree revealed that he had several royal connections.

Not only is it linked to the former King Tudor of England, who reigned from 1509 to 1547, but the genealogical exhibit also traces his ancestors back to Edward I, King Philip III of France.

Read more: Dermot O’Leary said his family was too boring to “Who do you think you are?”

Widdicombe said: “To say it exceeded my expectations is the understatement of a lifetime. I was just expecting a few farmers. It’s blue blood, isn’t it?”

The comedian confessed to the Radio Times: “I’m not a royalist so it was kind of weird. It’s not like I feel deeply proud of that fact, it’s just that it sounds very surreal.”

And he insisted, “I wouldn’t say it changed the way I look at myself, no. It would be crazy if I started to live a more royal life. I think if you’ve learned that you come from a more difficult background it might give you some perspective, but it doesn’t really call for perspective at all.

The last step The star is linked to Henry VIII through his 13th great-grandmother, Lady Catherine Knollys, who was believed to be the darling of King Henry and Anne Boleyn’s sister, Mary.

Widdicombe is the 23 times great-grandson of Edward I, who was King of England from 1272 to 1307. And French King Philippe III was his 24th great-grandfather.

Henry VIII was a notoriously tyrannical ruler who married six times – to Catherine of Aragon, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr – having two of his wives beheaded. He also started his own church after the Catholic Church refused to let him divorce – founding the Protestant Church in England.

The comedian and actor was born in Hammersmith in West London and raised in Haytor Vale in Devon.

The story continues

Read more: Kate Winslet “Why I’m Glad My Ancestors Were Impoverished Slaves”

Her royal connection comes after Who do you think you are? previously revealed EastEnders star Danny Dyer, 44, is Edward III’s 22nd great-grandson, and is also a distant relative of Thomas Cromwell and Elizabeth Seymour.

Who do you think you are? returns to BBC One on Tuesday October 12 at 9 p.m. ET.

Watch: Josh Widdicombe mocks Laurence Fox over England players’ position

Editor’s Note • This story is only available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

FamilySearch, the genealogical website for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, says its nearly 2-year-old decision to list parents and same-sex couples in its extensive database has has proven popular.

What is the popularity? Well, FamilySearch, by policy, does not publicly release such specific statistics. Yet chief genealogy David Rencher says these unpublished figures show that the inclusion of “same-sex couples and same-sex parents has been welcomed by the community of enthusiasts engaged in family history. “.

“The life of each person is important to be reflected in the fabric of the human family,” says Rencher, who is also director of the church’s family history library in downtown Salt Lake City, “and adding these characteristics at the [the site’s] family tree [feature] allows everyone to experience it and see where it fits in the big picture.

The official announcement of December 10, 2019, however, did not change the church’s opposition to same-sex marriage or its recognition of only traditional male-female unions for celebration and “sealing for eternity” in them. temples of faith.

So, the FamilySearch initiative is just one more step for those hoping for wider acceptance of same-sex people by the church, says Nathan Kitchen, president of Affirmation, an advocacy and support group for them. LGBTQ Latter-day Saints, their families and friends.

“When the announcement was first made,” Kitchen said, there was a “sense of relief within the Affirmation and LGBTQ communities that the church would finally open its family records lists and pedigree format. for all family configurations, not just monogamous and polygamous of the opposite sex.

But this was not necessarily seen as “an inclusive gesture,” he adds, “rather a development necessary for FamilySearch to survive and thrive in the family history market.”

[Get more content like this in The Salt Lake Tribune’s Mormon Land newsletter, a weekly highlight reel of developments in and about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To receive the free newsletter in your inbox, subscribe here. You also can support us with a donation at Patreon.com/mormonland, where you can access gifts and transcripts of our “Mormon Land” podcasts.]

Although it is a not-for-profit operation, FamilySearch – linked to the church’s 5,400 family history centers around the world and has nearly 1.4 billion individual names in its records in family tree – is an important player in a digital arena that includes for-profit companies like Ancestry.com, MyHeritage. com and FindMyPast.com.

Kitchen notes that the last three genealogical sites “listed and included same-sex couples and their children long before FamilySearch.org made its announcement and subsequent changes.”

Of course, these family history services are not owned and operated by a religious institution engaged in what it sees as a divinely defined marriage on the one hand and a change in mores and cultural norms on the other.

Rencher puts it this way: “Gender issues affect all segments of the population; these new functionalities therefore adapt [church members] whose families must be accurately reflected in the FamilySearch family tree, along with one of the millions of others [our] users around the world.

Kitchen says her own mother was among many who hailed the expansion of FamilySearch’s homosexual pedigree.

“Yes, [she] was very happy to add me and my husband to the FamilySearch family tree after my marriage, ”he says. “[And] over the past couple of years I have heard of many parents who willingly add their same sex married children [and] grandchildren in their proud family heritage.

Even so, Kitchen asserts that “as quickly as parents can add their same-sex married children to their family records in FamilySearch, the church is removing them” from the faith by withdrawing their membership.

“It’s a huge disconnect. . . for the church to take them away from their ‘family forever’, ”he said. “For Latter-day Saint parents, this eternal family tree, not the FamilySearch family tree, is the only one that really matters in the end.

Kitchen and other members of the LGBTQ community hope that the church’s proclaimed prophetic leadership will have a “revelation” that will include same-sex couples and their families in the world to come.

“In doing so,” he said, “they will bless and support the families who have united in faithfulness and love, and will bind them” beyond the grave.

This, of course, is beyond Rencher’s competence. For now, recognizing same-sex couples in the family tree matrix is ​​consistent with FamilySearch’s overall mission.

“We are focused on creating inspiring experiences that bring joy to all as they discover, bring together and connect family – past, present and future,” he says. “To this end, all efforts to collect the genealogical records of the world, publish them freely online, create the possibility of adding, preserving and sharing photos, personal memories and documenting the life of each in a tree global genealogy, are all inclusive, regardless of race, gender, religion or ethnicity.

“FamilySearch,” he says, “is dedicated to creating a place to remember the life of the human family.”

DENVER – They’ve happened time and time again since 2020 – press conferences where law enforcement announces arrests in cold cases. What they have in common is how investigators finally came up with a suspect so many years later: the technology known as genetic genealogy.

Denver7 has reviewed several instances where this technique has been used to help law enforcement and prosecutors get closer to a suspect. Host Jason Gruenauer delved into file images, heard from family members and interviewed those on the front lines of using genetic genealogy to help resolve cold cases.

What is that?

Genetic genealogy is a law enforcement technique that combines two things that are well known and widely used. First, genetics or DNA – something found at a crime scene that is statistically specific to a single person. Second, genealogy, the creation of a family tree that links relatives to a common ancestor.

“This is the man who killed this victim almost 40 years ago,” Mitch Morrissey said at a recent press conference announcing a cold case arrest.

Morrissey is a former Denver District Attorney specializing in the use of DNA as a prosecutor. When he left office after reaching the end of his term, he turned that expertise into a new company specializing in genetic genealogy and cold cases called United Data Connect. The UDC begins with DNA evidence from unsolved cases that belong to an unknown suspect and that don’t match anyone in a criminal database.

“So we are sequencing DNA (found at a crime scene) and using the databases that people think of when they think of ancestry DNA. They think of “the DNA of the family tree,” they think of “23 and me,” he explained. “So we use two of these databases, the only two that cooperate with law enforcement, and we search these databases for matches with those left at the scene of the crime.”

And sometimes, as Morrissey explained, partial matches come back to this unknown DNA.

“Usually what we get is a cousin, in the range of third cousins, and then you start building family trees from that,” he said.

His investigating genealogist builds that person’s family tree using items such as obituaries, marriage announcements, birth certificates, etc. Law enforcement can then use these trees to focus on a person who might have lived in a certain location at a certain time, and narrow them down to a potential suspect. If they get that potential suspect’s DNA and compare it to the original sample, suspects can be found and unresolved cases can be resolved.

“I would say that genetic genealogy has been a revolutionary technology for us trying to resolve unresolved cases,” 18th Judicial District Attorney John Kellner said in an interview with Denver7.

“Now we’re looking at it from a completely different perspective. It really opens up the possibility of resolving unresolved cases that are 20, 30, 40, 50 years old, ”Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock added in a separate interview.

Denver7 reviewed six individual cases that were impacted by genetic genealogy as part of the ‘Cold No More’ in-depth presentation. You can watch it in its entirety in the player below.

Cold No More: How Genetic Genealogy Solves Colorado Cold Cases

1980 cold cracked case
The first cold Colorado case to be resolved through genetic genealogy was the 1980 murder of Helene Pruszynski. The 21-year-old was sexually assaulted and murdered in Douglas County, but the case was cut short. United Data Connect has helped investigators focus on a potential suspect. James Curtis Clanton was arrested in Florida and ultimately pleaded guilty in this case. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. To learn more about the case, click here.

Denver7

Double murder in Breckenridge
The murder of two young women in Breckenridge had blocked law enforcement and private investigators for 39 years, until the case was dealt with using genetic genealogy. Annette Schnee, 21, and Barbara “Bobbi Jo” Oberholtzer, 29, disappeared on January 6, 1982. They were both hitchhiking. Decades later, DNA from a bloodied glove found at the crime scene was linked, through genetic genealogy, to Alan Lee Phillips of Dumont, Colorado. He was arrested and charged with the two murders. To learn more about the case, click here.

Courtesy of RockyMountainColdCase.org.

The murder of a resolute businessman
Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock was only a Patrol Assistant in 1985 when he first worked on the case of a Douglas County businessman who was killed at his residence. The Roger Dean murder investigation has cooled off after working multiple times. Genetic genealogy would now bring Sheriff Spurlock to Los Angeles, where Michael Jefferson was arrested for Dean’s murder. He is now charged and awaiting trial. To learn more about the case, click here.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation

Solved with a can of Coke
Sylvia Quayle was murdered in her Cherry Hills home in 1981, with DNA left at the original crime scene. In 2020, Mitch Morrissey and United Data Connect narrowed the field to two possible suspects. Investigators found the DNA of one of these suspects on a discarded Coca-Cola can that would match the original DNA from the crime scene. David Dwayne Anderson was arrested and charged with his murder. To learn more about the case, click here.

Cherry Hills Village Police Department.

Closure after the murder of a soldier
Darlene Krashoc’s parents never gave up hope that the person who killed their daughter Darlene would be found. In 1987, the Fort Carson soldier was found dead, but the killer was not located. It was the genetic genealogy that led to the breakdown of the case, as law enforcement was able to track down Michael Whyte and match his DNA to that of the killer. A jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison. To learn more about the case, click here.

Colorado Springs Police Department.

After 38 years, resolved in 3 months
Genetic genealogy can also lead investigators to a suspect and close a closed case without making an arrest. After 38 years, genetic genealogy was used in the case of Jeannie Moore, to lead to Donald Perea. Perea had died years earlier, but DNA from a close family member was able to confirm that he was indeed the killer. To learn more about the case, click here.

Courtesy of the Jefferson County Sheriff

Aurora’s murder cracked
Tangie Sims was found dead in an Aurora alley in 1996. An unknown sample of male blood was left at the scene of the crime. More than 23 years later, genealogical research has helped investigators narrow the scope of suspects to a truck driver. Wesley Backman was deceased, but police in Aurora were able to report that the Sims murder case had been closed thanks to their DNA match. To learn more about the case, click here.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation

‘No longer our Jane Doe’
In addition to identifying potential suspects, genetic genealogy can also help authorities identify victims, including a Jane Doe found murdered in Douglas County in 1993. Investigators initially believed the victim to be a runaway, and the matter has turned cold. Using her DNA and building a tree from it, genetic genealogy was able to help the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office identify her as Rebecca Ann Redeker. They were also able to reopen the case in search of his killer. To learn more about the case, click here.

Douglas County Sheriff’s Office

To see how genetic genealogy played a role in resolving these cases and to hear from people who have used it successfully, click on the video above to watch “Cold No More”.

Most of the time, friends and sometimes family encouraged me to tell stories about my days in the comedy, music, and tech companies. And all this time, I have been reluctant. However, with the pandemic and the impending birth of my first grandchild, I reconsidered. My wife’s passion for genealogy reminded us that stories get lost quickly. People die, forget, move away, losing track of the family tree. It takes real effort to rebuild these connections over time. Our kids don’t care about all of this now, but later they will. And the genealogy of friendship is the story of our time, the things we find important and the friends we choose to share. A few months ago, I started working on a book. Every now and then I’ll include some of that work here.

The second season of The Morning Show has arrived on Apple TV +, just as our subscription to the service went from free with a new iPhone purchase a year ago to $ 4.99 per month. The first season went pretty well with its baseball mix inside the TV newscast business. Production values ​​were strong, reminiscent of the West Wing’s treatment of Washington’s Ring Road policy. MeToo’s story included A-List performances by Jennifer Anniston, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell and a complicated trick by Billy Crudup. Not bad for $ 4.99, but even with the surprise, dormant football hit Ted Lasso barely enough to keep himself afloat in the Netflix / Disney + fight for streaming leadership. And there’s Apple’s interest in it amid the challenges of competing with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and the rest of the tech giants.

For me, Apple TV + has gone from a question mark to a staple, much like CNN when it debuted in 1980, and HBO, which grew out of the very young Z channel that we enjoyed in a house of Malibu that David Sanborn rented the same year. . Dave had arrived in town to play on a Pure Prairie League record produced at the group’s Shangri-La recording studio on a hill overlooking the Pacific. I was home to the League’s Malibu Beach House while on vacation when Dave showed up at the front door unexpectedly.

At this point, I had known Sanborn since 1973, when he played on the soundtrack of the Firesign Theater film Proctor and Bergman, TV Or Not TV. I had produced the TV Or Not TV record and performed a stage version of the show on a West Coast tour that ended with a performance at a Columbia Records promotional event in Los Angeles. Among the guests was George Harrison, who greeted all three of us with the tagline from Firesign’s debut album: “Civilization Ho.”

After the Pure Prairie League session, Dave decided to rent another house down the street on Broad Beach. The house quickly became a rallying point for such characters as Gary Busey, the band’s Richard Manuel, and Sanborn partner Marcus Miller who wrote much of the material for Dave’s records. He was coming back from a tour with Miles Davis and working the new songs on a PortaStudio and a MiniMoog that I had set up in the living room. Eventually, Sanborn invited me to leave my tiny room in Shangri-La and enter the beach house. This is where the Z chain comes in.

This was the first cut on premium TV. Each month, Channel Z would broadcast several films in rotation throughout the week and several times a day. Busey, who first surfaced on a local Tulsa TV station with late-night comedy cuts starring Gaillard Sartain, was an icy genius at deciphering everything on TV. And Channel Z turned that into an intense ritual where repeat viewings of films like Spielberg’s in 1942 took on such hilarious undertones that the only way to escape Busey’s comedy styles was to leave the building bent over laughing. For casual observers, of whom there were none, it suggested a new paradigm shift as improv met the Hollywood window system – and produced HBO.

Outside of HBO, streaming television has grown, as original productions like The Sopranos and Game of Thrones led to the production model of frenzy that Netflix has hoisted to the top of the charts. In recent years, this tsunami of economic restructuring has led to the unbundling of television networks and the realignment of studio production around relentless demands for streaming and subscriptions. Pay TV has become Pay Media, Data has become the competitive part of the kingdom. And the pandemic has imposed the underlying principles of a new economy that we still struggle to understand even if we vote for it with our feet and our behavior.

After 15 months at home, we finally took advantage of the early summer to drive to our bungalow in South Carolina. Our children were born and raised there until we moved to the Bay Area as the tech edition realigned and the valley bubble collapsed. Software has become a service and mobile has become the dominant platform. Blogging and podcasting has transformed into streaming and social with current investments in the creator economy – newsletters and live audio.

These efforts have not gone unnoticed by the remaining media giants. Substack’s one-year investment in proving a subscription base for writers and influencers has reached a combination of yes it’s possible and no it’s very difficult to scale. On the pro side, Kara Swisher is one of the major contributors moving her newsletter behind the New York Times paywall and bolstering Twitter Spaces with frequent live audio broadcast. The fact that you can’t find these shows after the fact will likely be addressed by a record / replay feature that Twitter is working on. Once you can’t distinguish live audio from a podcast, the next step is to not distinguish podcasts from streaming programming. This development prompted Rachel Maddow’s decision to straddle her Daily Show and podcast-to-book properties. CNBC’s Jim Cramer is going there too, as I noted in this edition of The Gang:

Jim Cramer, the fabulous analyst and Mad Money guy [adds Brent Leary]. He signed a new contract. It’s a bit like Rachel Maddow 2.0 or 3.0. He does something called the CNBC Investor Club, and basically he delves into the designer economy. These types of on-camera media editors slowly engage in product creation.

Frank Radice:

He doesn’t go for something like that unless he sees a real opening to make some money. Think about what he was doing before he even went to CNBC. And he’s not a stupid man. I think it’s very interesting that he can on CNBC and probably on his new ventures, make his opinions public as long as they put a line at the end, saying it’s not an opinion of CNBC, it’s is just Jim Cramer’s opinion.

Brent Leary jokes that Cramer is tapping into the 30% pool that the Epic lawsuit releases for new club members, but whatever the situation, we seem to be on the right track from cable (CNN) to pay TV (Z Channel) subscription + savings. What Netflix forged and Amazon, Disney, Hulu, HBO Max, and Paramount + chased is currently being tested by Apple TV +. Apple is doing things a little differently this time around, downsizing its AppleTV device with streaming dongles like Amazon Firestick and platform deals with smartTV heavyweights like Roku. AppleTV hardware is top of the line, but its price isn’t exclusive. The kicker is that AppleTV + is at a bargain price but exclusive in execution.

They’ve pinned HBO as a premium cable service integrated with HBO Max to combat the dying theatrical window. Apple’s original-only strategy seemed overtaken by Netflix’s volume game, but the pandemic caused production to drop to the point where the originals had to be acquired in Europe and Scandinavia to keep the pipeline open. Well-equipped frenzy blockbusters like The Crown and supposedly limited series like The Queen’s Gambit came from the HBO playbook, but they were rare for viewers struggling to keep up with poor subtitles and voice acting.

Instead, we’re in the AppleTV + equation. With the same methodical and relentless mix of hardware and software that Apple uses to dominate mobile margins, AppleTV + is expanding the platform with a product designed to eliminate linear broadcast markets. For the first time, the Emmys weren’t so much dominated by streamers as ghosts of network TV shows in nominations. CBS, long a stronghold for comedy, aired the Emmys without a single nomination, and instead focused on Hacks, a fun HBO Max original developed not for cable but for direct streaming. We are no longer in Kansas.

We watch Ted Lasso, The Morning Show and scifi epic Foundation. Not enough to fill the void created by the collapse of the network and cable TV, but more than a harbinger of things to come. When CNN first debuted, people wondered why someone would watch the news 24/7. Now they’re wondering again, with the mute button on 24/7 and notifications coming to you. indicating what is shaking. Production is moving from green screens to interactive LED screens that materialize the actors in backgrounds they can see as they perform. Projects deemed infilmable are no longer so. Blackberry, meet the iPhone.

AppleTV + has the aura of a linear broadcast network with a technological platform. Apple’s hardware and software release timeline overlaps between short-range innovations aimed at customers, such as this year’s iPhone 13 camera advancements, and long-term efforts to shift data from third party and user tracking to a first party transaction data set. The new phone’s ability to use additional mapping to perform pro-level tune-up during and after recording bodes well for more and more functionality moving to software manipulation on more powerful system hardware. AppleTV + takes advantage of a gap in the market between streaming and traditional broadcast and cable to create the same mix of quality and innovation in its physical product offering.

Gillmor Gang’s latest newsletter

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The Gillmor Gang – Frank Radice, Michael Markman, Keith Teare, Denis Pombriant, Brent Leary and Steve Gillmor. Recorded live on Friday August 27, 2021.

Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor

@fradice, @mickeleh, @denispombriant, @kteare, @brentleary, @stevegillmor, @gillmorgang

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Family is without a doubt the most important thing in a person’s life. Whether you are as small as a toddler or an elderly person, the love and affection of a family is something that everyone needs at some point in life. The search to learn more about your ancestors, the thirst for answers to questions such as who they were, where they came from, etc. Do you also want to find your family tree? Before you jump into the detective work of uncovering family history, be sure to take a look at these 8 tips to help you find your family tree the easy way. Continue reading!

1. Decide on your goal

When you take on a task as important as finding your family trip, one of the first steps is to set a goal for yourself based on what you look forward to unveiling from this survey. In other words, start the detective work to find your family tree with a specific question such as What is my family tradition, does my family history have a unique history, where exactly did my family come from, or if you just want to research a certain member, and so on will help you gain clarity while doing the research work. Setting a research goal will help chart a course for you, preventing you from distracting from other discoveries you find along the way.

2. Organize the information you already have

Before going ahead with finding your family tree, another tip that may come in handy in future research is to properly organize the information you already have. Once you’ve finalized your goal, the next step is to review the things you know. For example, two standard tools that are generally chosen for recording family information are pedigree charts which visualize your lineage through previous generations and family group sheets which help organize individual families into groups.

3. Use of free online template filling

If you are new to research work, it may be difficult for you to create charts or organize the information yourself. Therefore, another useful tip to help you find your family tree is to seek help on the Internet. You can find several free downloadable models on the Internet for the same. The National Genealogy Society also offers such models. When filling out the form, instead of being inundated with so much data and information, start by filling in the little details that you know like names, relationships, date of birth, major life events, etc. . your relatives and immediate family members. . Then you can start investigating family documents and heirlooms.

4. Interview your family and loved ones

Sometimes it happens that we think we know everything about our family, but there are still details and cases that are left out. When you’ve taken on a job like finding your family tree, all of those little details and instances become all the more important as they can make the process easier. Therefore, once you start organizing your information and filling out the forms, you will know what kind of information can help you find your family tree. So the best way to find out more is to contact your family members. Talk to loved ones in groups or individually, however you want. Prepare a questionnaire in advance and don’t forget to record your meetings or clearly write down important interview details. Sometimes exploring old photographs with family and loved ones can also help identify subjects.

5. Dive Into The US Census

You may or may not know it, but the US Census can be a very useful tool in finding your family tree. The census is a very large database that includes vital data such as names, places of birth, family relationships, addresses and over thousands of people. However, this is a major and time consuming commitment that will require you to invest long hours and a lot of effort. Although the documents are readily available from the US Census Bureau and the National Archives and Records Administration, this can still be a difficult task. In addition, it is recommended to go through as many census years as possible to eliminate the possibility of erroneous information.

6. Ask for help when you need it

Taking on such a difficult and unique job as finding your family tree is no joke. It takes a tremendous amount of research, time and effort. Therefore, it is natural that you feel that sometimes the pressure is getting too much. This is when you ask for help. It’s okay to ask for help when you need it, especially if it can speed up the process. Nowadays, there are many websites that help people to discover their family trees online with total ease like Ancestry, Access Genealogy, RootsWeb, FamilySearch, Olive Tree Genealogy, and many more. There are two ways you can go about finding your family tree. First, by going through billions of records, and second, by discovering your ancestry through DNA.

7. Addressing the historical context of research

A name is enough to start a family tree, but the more you add, the more you can improve your family story. Each name tells a different story. Browsing through historical records can help you better understand your ancestors. It is understandable that browsing through local, national and international historical documents can take a long time. Therefore, we have a smart trick to make finding your family tree much easier. Use sites like Ancestry for help. All they ask is any information you might have about your family, not necessarily facts, even guesses. Then, based on the information provided, they crawl through billions of records to find the one that matches your description. Follow every potential discovery closely and watch your family tree flourish and flourish.

8. Keep working to grow the family tree

One thing you need to remember when discovering your family tree is that genealogy can be a lifelong hobby. With the tips mentioned above, you can obviously make some great discoveries about your family and ancestors, but with genealogy there is always a possibility of finding something new. Therefore, it is recommended to give it time and to take it step by step, thus letting the story unfold gradually. Use online genealogy websites and continue to search your family tree slowly and gradually for the best results. Best part? It doesn’t cost much either. There are websites that allow you to build your family tree for free or at low cost. TO Ancestry, you can start building your family tree for free and to enjoy more services you can get their inexpensive membership which starts from the price of just $ 18.

Finding the family tree is an intimate and important affair for many people. Don’t let excessive data and expensive agencies keep you from knowing more about your family. Use these 8 tips to help you find your family tree easily, conveniently, and affordably. Continue to discover!

After more than 20 years of researching her family’s origin in America, Nicka Sewell-Smith found the name of an uncle who had filed a complaint for stealing his horse. Another note stated that he had bought bacon, a broom, and tobacco at “Short’s Place” in Louisiana about seven months before the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865.

With his standard supply of popcorn and a drink at his fingertips, Sewell-Smith clicked on it and learned that Hugh Short was a black lawyer and slave owner. Then she came across Short’s will, which listed the names of his great-great-great-grandparents near the bottom of the document.

“I couldn’t turn away from the page for an hour,” she said. “I had resigned myself to the fact that I was never going to find them. So I called my cousin who had also been looking for 20 years and I said, “Guess what? We didn’t come here on a spacecraft from Cameroon and landed in northern Louisiana. ‘ “

A renowned genealogist, Sewell-Smith gathered much of the information through the Freedmen’s Bureau, a formerly enslaved federal agency for blacks established towards the end of the Civil War in 1865. Its purpose was to help newly liberated people in their transition out of slavery. by negotiating employment contracts, legalizing marriages and locating lost relatives, among other things, documenting all of this. It has also provided food, shelter, education and medical care to more than four million people, including poor whites and war-displaced veterans.

For decades, information was hard to come by. It took patience and determination, attributes that enabled Sewell-Smith to hide in the National Archives, libraries, and research centers – and his home office – to peruse archaic microfilms by the thousands. , document by document.

However, this month, the genealogy site Ancestry.com unveiled a black family lineage game changer – 3.5 million records of previously enslaved blacks, available for free.

It is believed to be the world’s largest digitized and searchable collection of Freedmen’s Bureau and Freedman’s Bank archives. The collection delighted black genealogists and regular scholars alike, as descendants of slaves in America can learn more about their families in a much easier way.

“It’s very exciting and will help many scholars, historians and ordinary people to try to find out more about their ancestors,” said Angela Dodson, CEO of Editorsoncall, a company that provides editorial services to writers. Dodson has done extensive work on researching his own family tree.

“It is often very difficult for black Americans to trace their history because of the disruption of slavery, downstream selling, etc. She said. “I am often haunted by something I read in one of the accounts of former slaves who remembered black people wandering the roads and trails after the Civil War in search of long lost relatives. This post-war era is a crucial time to try to make some of these connections. “

Additionally, the collection is significant and game-changing as this is likely the first time newly released African Americans have appeared in records after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, as many enslaved people were previously excluded from the standard census. and federal documents.

“The enormity of this is that it’s something we knew to be there, but we thought it was beyond our fingers,” Sewell-Smith said. “To see ancestors commemorated… There are records in this collection where 100-year-olds were given rations in 1865. In the minds of most people, you can’t go that far back to black people. We count this automatically. – Oh, that’s not possible, not on paper. But it’s right there.

Dennis Richmond Jr., 26 from Yonkers, New York, found it amazing that at the age of 13, the iconic miniseries “Roots” moved him the way it did. He watched it with his father, who had used “every Sunday” to talk with his young son about his family’s lineage. As he grew older, the Freedmen’s Bureau became his daily focus.

“I come from two unique black families,” he said. “My father’s family was made up of almost free blacks, so they weren’t slaves. These were blacks who read and wrote, or bought and sold land, or sent their children to school.

“On my mother’s side of my mother’s family, originally from South Carolina, I found large plantations and sprawling fields and deeds of sale, and families buying from Africans on slave ships from Ghana, Mali and from Senegal. I discovered the Freedmen’s Bureau, thanks to my mother’s ancestors, because they were the ancestors who were enslaved during the Civil War.

These discoveries filled Richmond with pride, which he sees as the value for blacks to learn about their family history.

“We live in a time when so many people try to ignore certain stories,” he said. “But you can’t ignore history – when you can prove it. Especially when you’re connected to it. There’s the Freedmen’s Bureau, documents you can now access online that connects you to your story. I discovered that after slavery, my ancestor had saved money with other slaves for treatment. It almost made me cry. I would never learn that in public school. We knew we had carpal tunnel from all this cotton picking and asked for help. “

Linda Buggs-Simms of St. Louis is writing a book about her family after gathering information from the Mississippi State Archives and the Freedmen’s Bureau. She found a set of great-great-grandparents mentioned on an employment contract in Mississippi. She also confirmed the slave owner, who was the landowner on the contract, and discovered a photo of one of her new family members.

“There isn’t a day that I’m not on the computer looking for my family and reading other materials,” she said. “It’s addicting. See my ancestors registered on an employment contract … I tear up seeing their names. And now, with this breakthrough of the Freedmen’s Bureau, you can achieve records beyond 1870. It’s like tearing down the wall of Jericho.

Denessia Swanegan said she felt the same about accessing so much data. “As a little kid in the 1960s, I was always fascinated by the stories about family told by my parents and their siblings,” she said.

As an adult, she said, she began following her family’s history in 1980, “looking at reel after reel of census records on microfilm.” She found her great-great-grandfather’s name in the 1870 federal census and later – via a Facebook group called Our Black Ancestry – learned he was married on January 1, 1866 in Leavenworth, Kansas. , by Rev. Hiram R. Revels, who later became the first black person to serve in the United States Senate.

Additionally, she learned that her parent was among the first to volunteer to fight in the Civil War as part of the 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry. Swanegan also found his death certificate and burial place.

“He didn’t have a gravestone,” she said, “so I was able to have a Civil War-era gravestone engraved with his name, rank and military unit with the “Veterans Administration set up at its resting place. This is one of the most satisfying achievements of my years of research.

It’s stories like these that make access to the Freedmen’s Bureau so important, she said.

“We have to be aware of the things our ancestors went through and how they persevered so that we are even here,” she said. “We’re doing them a huge disservice if we don’t learn about them and the lives they’ve led. We need to bring their stories to life and share them with future generations. Our future can only be improved by diving back into our deep past. “

Buggs-Simms added, “The greatest gift you can give your offspring is their heirlooms, so they can really know where they came from. With my two granddaughters, I am able to bring them back seven generations on one line and eight on another, and to have photos to support them. And it’s exhilarating.

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