Kate Trotter has an article in the Quesnel Cariboo Observer, Become part of history through census, that discusses the ongoing debate in Canada over allowing people to hold back their 2006 Census information from future generations. To be more precise, Canadians can opt out of having their census information released in 2098 (the normal 92 year cycle), and genealogists are working to insure that they realize the impact this would have.

Roxanne Moore Saucier has a good article in the Bangor Daily News (Maine), Ancestors magazine a rich resource, that covers many of the resources available through a membership in the New England Historic Genealogical Society, especially their publication, New England Ancestors.

Tom Viti has a good article, Technology and the Library, in the Westwood Press (MA), concerning how modern technology has changed the way in which people use libraries, as well as how the libraries themselves have changed how they do things, including helping with inter-library loans (more and more library systems are doing this).

Roger Wolfe, a reporter for 9News (Denver, CO), has written an article, Historical projects puts tombstones in focus, about the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution working on digitally documenting all of the tombstones in Weld County. They then place the images/information online, for other genealogists to access.

Denise Crosby asks Who was Henry Ferriss and where is he buried?, in The Beacon News (Illinois) about a lost tombstone that almost ended up in the city dump.

If any of that sounds familiar, they could use some help in identifying who Henry was, and where he ended up at. Denise’s contact information is linked at the at the article above, or perhaps contact the Aurora Historical Society. It’s a genealogy mystery worth solving, so that Chapin can get the tombstone out of his truck.

Inside Bay Area has an article/review by Susan Young, The best little ranch house in Texas, about PBS’s Texas Ranch House series. I knew one of the members was into genealogy, and Susan clarified it as well as gave a little back-story about the genealogist

My first impressions of PBS’s Texas Ranch House 1867 are not the best - it seemed like about half the volunteers put themselves in the right mindset. To give you a quick back-story - PBS and the BBC have put together a series of shows where they take volunteers and put them in a historical setting. It might be 1940 London, or the American West of the 1870s. This one is set on a small West Texas ranch.

This time around they cast more people who would be more comfortable with the environment, but at the same time some of the people didn’t have the sense of urgency or duty that the environment should have encouraged. They had certain conditions that needed to be met (rounding up so many cattle, etc.), and the ranch owner seemed more concerned with doing chores for his wife than going out with the cowboys to round up cattle, and this after they are already down a man, as well as having a few days of downtime due to illness among several of them.

Maybe it’ll get better (if you missed the first two hours last night, it’ll be repeated in the upcoming weeks). It runs several more nights this week.

According to Maija Palmer of the Financial Times, half a million genealogists visited Ancestry.co.uk after they placed the 1841 census. Apparently this was the first “comprehensive” census in the UK, which led to this rush.