Yesterday saw the release of Apple’s MacBook. I have one in my hands (and am in fact typing this from it). I got one of the last half dozen in the store, I believe.

This is sort of a review. I know, you are thinking what does this have to do with genealogy, but this is going to be my genealogy platform of choice for the next few (hopfeully several) years, and I’ll explain why in a moment (if you are interested in Macs, but have some Windows-only applications, read on, you’re in luck).

Yesterday I mentioned Google Notebook - looks like it’s available (if you have a Gmail account).

You can access it at www.google.com/notebook.

Jason Probst has an article in The Hutchinson News (Kansas) that could serve as a friendly reminder to always check the items you haul around with you to a library, or in this case, courthouse. It’s an article about the lost and found at the Reno County Courthouse, including some genealogy documents.

Sharon Wernlund has an article in the Palm Beach Post (Florida), Grave task: Society documents Martin dead, about Walt Bruetsch and the Martin County Genealogical Society’s efforts to document cemeteries in the area and make the information available to other genealogists.

For those of you who use Yahoo! Notepad to store genealogy information online or when traveling, Google announced last week something similar, although with a few more features. It’s called Google Notebook, and CNet explained that it can do quite a bit more - including grabbing text and pictures, as well as going full screen, with drag and drop item placement/organization, as well as emailng the information to others. It does require a Google account and will be available sometime this week through Google Labs.

There is an article, Following footsteps on icNorthWales, by Steve Stratford, covering a group of Americans who are traveling to North Wales in order to do genealogy research and to see where their families came from. I’ve read that because of the amount of genealogy information that is being made available on the internet, that it is reducing the amount of travel genealogists do, and while that maybe true to an extent, I think for a lot of people, nothing beats actually seeing a place in person.

Bethany Hoffstetter has an article, Experts to offer free appraisals of attic ‘treasures’, in the Pittsburg Tribune-Review, about the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center hosting an interesting event, “Fling or Keep? What to Do with Your Attic Treasures”, this weekened (saturday to be precise). Hopefully it won’t cause people to go out and sell family heirlooms.

Continuing on the census trail, George G. Morgan’s “Along Those Lines” column from last week, concerned the importance of documenting and studying past census information (as well as other related documents). Specifically - study the families around the person(s) you are researching, as at some point there is a good chance they’ll be connected in some way (among other reasons, which George notes).