Copyright Confusion

It seems that misunderstanding of the difference between attribution and permission is still common among genealogists. While preparing the current issue of the CSGA Newsletter, I encountered two societies that didn’t appear to understand that permission is required to reprint anyone else’s copyrighted material.

The first society had included an article in its newsletter that I thought had useful information for the CSGA membership, so I wrote and asked for permission to reprint it. During the course of the discussion, the other editor realized the article was not original to the society and no attribution had been given to its author (much less had permission been requested to reprint it). An erratum is planned to correct the lack of attribution, but I doubt permission (albeit belated) will be requested, or an apology offered, for reprinting the article as it was.

The second society asked if I could reprint an article about the society that had been published by a newspaper. Permission had not been granted or even requested from the publisher. The person who made the request did not appear to realize that this permission needed to be sought. When I explained that I would not reprint the article without the permission, a request was sent to the publisher. That publisher requires nonprofits to pay $150 for permission to reprint an article. Needless to say, neither CSGA nor the society in question was prepared to pay that amount, and the article will not appear in the newsletter.

Unfortunately, neither of these situations is uncommon in genealogy today. Many people believe that “if it’s on the Internet it’s free”, and they can reuse those items at will. Others believe that as long as correct attribution is given, everything is fine. Neither of these beliefs is correct. Anyone who has written something has copyright to it, giving the author the exclusive right to determine if someone else may reprint that material. While most genealogists do not pursue anything against persons or organizations that have reused their materials (even though they can and sometimes should), commercial entities, such as the newspaper that published the article about the society in my second example above, often do. When genealogical editors and individuals republish copyrighted material without permission, they open themselves and their societies to possible legal action.

Coincidentally, at the fall CSGA Seminar, scheduled for October 29, 2016 in San Mateo and hosted by the San Mateo County Genealogical Society, one of the talks will be on copyright issues in genealogy. If you are unsure what you should be doing when you want to reuse someone else’s copyrighted material, or if you believe everything on the Internet is free to use, I recommend you come to the seminar. Details about the time and location of the seminar, which is free and open to the public, are available on the CSGA blog.

An excellent source of copyright information that is readily available night and day, and that is often geared specifically to genealogists, is the Legal Genealogist blog.  Judy Russell writes a lot about copyright and wants everyone to know what they should be doing to share information but protect authors' rights.

Ancestry.com Visits the San Francisco Bay Area

After two previous visits to San Francisco, the Ancestry Day event appears to have outgrown the available facilities at the Hyatt Embarcadero, because this year we'll be in South San Francisco.

Space is still available for the 2016 Ancestry Day by the Bay, taking place on Saturday, June 18, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the South San Francisco Conference Center.  Come for a fun, information-packed day to learn how to research your family.  Ancestry will bring some of its top researchers, who will show how to locate your ancestors and trace your family history using their voluminous resources.  Sign up and learn more today.

This year Ancestry's conference partner is the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF).  All proceeds from this event go to AIISF's Immigrant Voices Initiative, which tells the stories of immigrants to the Pacific Coast.

There will be a full day of presentations from Ancestry staff.  In addition, representatives from the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society, African American Genealogical Society of San Francisco, California Genealogical Society, San Francisco Public Library, San Mateo County Genealogical Society, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and Daughters of the American Revolution will be on hand to tell you how their groups can help you continue your research beyond the basics.

The day's classes will include:
Beginner's basics session
How to get the most out of Ancestry.com's Web site
Using AncestryDNA to further your family research
Sharing your family story

Door prizes, including a gift certificate for genealogy research assistance (donated by me!), will be awarded throughout the day.

The optional luncheon includes a presentation by speaker Paula Williams Madison, former NBC Universal executive and author/producer of the book and film Finding Samuel Lowe, about the search for her Hakka Chinese grandfather's story.  Paula Williams Madison has African, Chinese, and Jamaican ancestry.

Angel Island Day

There is also an Angel Island Day on the island on Friday, June 16, featuring speakers Zack Wilske, from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and former National Archives staff member Marisa Louie, talking about the resources these organizations offer.  A few tickets are left for the whole package (ferry, shuttle, lunch, Immigration Station admission).   If sold out, you can make your own transportation arrangements and still enjoy the program.

Find out more about both of these exciting days here.

A Good and Bad Day for Genealogy

Saturday it was all genealogy, all day long.  First I drove to San Mateo to give a talk to the San Mateo County Genealogical Society:  "Following a Family's History for More than 100 Years through Newspaper Articles."  This was the first time I was giving the talk, and I always worry whether I've prepared enough, are they going to understand my points, are they going to enjoy it.  I was particularly concerned this time because I was taking a different tack with my approach on the talk.  I went a little long (what, me like to talk?), but other than that it went fine.  The attendees followed along quite enthusiastically and asked several interesting questions, giving me some new research ideas.

Then I prepared my lesson for the high school genealogy class I teach on Sunday.  That went smoothly, and I made copies of the lesson and handouts for everyone.  I'm all prepared for Sunday morning.

Then I had a little time for my own research, so I decided to try to find my father and his family in the 1940 census.  Boom!  Straight into a brick wall.  I really wanted to be able to show my dad himself as a four-year-old in the census, but it looks as though it just isn't going to happen.

In theory (theory being a wonderful thing), I should be able to find my dad, his two sisters, their father, and my grandmother together.  I did say in theory, right?  I have tried searching every way I can think of on both Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org, and they're just not there.  I've tried with names, without names, partial names, birth information, no birth information.  Can't find them.

Apparently the family moved a lot at that time.  My grandfather created a list of all the places he had lived during his life; there were three (!) for 1940, but no specific dates.  (He worked for the Civil Service, and they moved him around a lot.)  I've verified with my 87-year-old aunt that the locations my grandfather wrote are correct.  I used Steve Morse's "Unified 1940 Census ED Finder" (because my grandfather listed streets) and manually searched the enumeration districts.  And what did I find?  Zip.  Zilch.  Zero.  The big bagel.  My guess is that with all their moving around they simply were missed by the census takers in whichever city they were living in April.

So I decided to settle for finding my great-grandmother in 1940.  She was supposed to be living in the same house the family had owned for several decades.  I had the complete street address.  Piece of cake, right?

Nope.  I couldn't find her by searching, either.  I tried multiple approaches again, and nothing.  I went back to Steve's site, found the possible enumeration districts for her address, and went through them page by page.  And I found ... that her house address does not appear, not even on the "I missed them on the first go round, but got them again later" pages.

Maybe I should stick to doing genealogy for other people for a while.

Upcoming Family History Presentations

I love teaching about genealogy.  I've had a pretty restricted schedule for the past few months, though, and haven't been able to schedule many family history talks (my last one was February 26).  But things have finally settled down a bit, and I now have several presentations planned through the end of the year, and even into next year!

I'll be teaching "Jewish Genealogy for Beginners" on Sunday, August 5, at this year's J-West.  I'll also be teaching a semester-long Jewish genealogy class for Midrasha, the East Bay Jewish community high school in Berkeley.  That class runs from September to December.

On September 15 I'll make a presentation to the San Mateo County Genealogical Society about the incredible details you can learn about a family if you follow them through newspapers for more than a hundred years.  That's a brand-new talk.  And sometime in September (I hope they tell me the date soon!) I'll talk about vital records (a new talk for me) for the California Genealogical Society and Oakland Family Search Library (formerly the Family History Center).

October is Family History Month, and I'm going to be busy.  Another new talk is the one I will be giving to the Mt. Diablo DAR chapter on October 9.  My ancestor was an American patriot during the Revolutionary War, but his brother ... not so much.  On October 14 I'll be at the Davis Genealogy Club, talking about how even when you start with very little information, you can still build on what you have step by step and find out more about your family.  Then on October 18 I'll teach how many ways newspapers can help in genealogical research to the Napa Valley Genealogical Society.  And on October 20 I'll be repeating the two latter talks for the Concord Family Search Library's annual Digging for Your Roots one-day conference.  Five talks may not sound like much for one month, but that's on top of my regular work!

November 14 will see me at the East Bay Genealogical Society with another new presentation, this one on techniques to find maiden names of the women in your family.  When a woman changed her surname to that of her husband, it can be very difficult to find that original name.  Without it, you can't find her parents.

And I just heard today that one of my submissions was accepted for the 2013 Ohio Genealogical Society conference!  The conference runs April 25-27 in Cincinnati.  I'll be talking about online historical black newspapers.

If you attend any of my talks, please say hi and let me know you read my blog!