Genealogical & Cheyenne July-August 2014 Historical Society Volume 11 Issue 4

Upcoming Events: 9 Sept 2014 Cheyenne Journal CGHS Meeting: “Guided Tour of Fam- ily Search,” Jan Stock Message from the CGHS President… 6:00-8:30 p.m. Sunflower Room Another summer has come to an end, maybe not on the calendar, but I can feel LC Library, Cheyenne fall in the air. I had a niece get married this summer, so as a gift, I wanted to put together a small “our family” book for the new couple. I spent my summer gather- 12-13 Sept 2014 ing information on families I know absolutely nothing about—how fun! Tricks and Midwest Family tips I have learned over the years came in handy on this project and now comes History Expo the challenge of bringing it together! I look forward to hearing how all of you Kearney, Nebraska have spent your summer, and the successes and challenges you have faced in your https://www.familyhist research. We have some new officers & we will be sure to introduce them to all of oryexpos.com/vieweven you at our first meeting. If you see an unfamiliar face, don’t hesitate to intro- t/index/72

duce yourself. We have some wonderful programs planned for this year on a wide 18 Sept 2014 range of topics. Also, to aid society members in doing their research, our book Larimer County committee has made some great purchases for our collection. Be sure to check Genealogical Society them out (no pun intended)! Robin Everett, President Meeting: “Hiding in Plain Data- bases,” Dina Carson 6:30-8:30 p.m. Saving Your Family History Securely in the “Cloud” Harmony Library Com- munity Room, Ft. Collins

Scott Allen from Utah Edu- users kept copies of pic- computer. And if informa- crypted now so this is no cation Network, recently tures and tion is put on the computer, longer such a problem); 4) took his audience at the 2014 information all devices will be synced, so no control over hardware or BYU Family History Confer- on CDs, the information can be network where the informa- ence into the mysterious DVDs, hard taken wherever the genealo- tion is stored—if there is a realms of the “Cloud” and drives, in gist goes. Allen listed sev- problem with the network, explained what that means. bank vaults, eral other advantages to information may not be able Technically, Wikipedia de- other stor- Cloud storage online: 1) no to be stored or retrieved. fines the cloud as a “model of age, or gave copies to oth- cost for storage facilities; According to Allen, however, networked enterprise stor- ers to keep. When we put 2) automatic backup in case the advantages far outweigh age where data is stored not our data into cloud storage, of problems; 3) retrieval the disadvantages. Some of only in the user’s computer, though, we keep the original from anywhere; and 4) in- the free cloud websites but in virtualized pools of information at home, and formation easily shared. include: storage which are generally store the data in a format Some disadvantages exist: Dropbox: www.dropbox.com; hosted by third parties, too.” that can be used by others 1) retrieval not as fast as GoogleDrive: Allen explained that we have who can have access to this local storage; 2) infections www.google.com/intl/en/drive/ pictures or information that data, with permission, in a with malware or viruses can AmazonCloudDrive: we want to keep on our home much easier way. The Cloud occur like any download; 3) www.amazon.com/clouddrive; computers or devices, but in can also be downloaded to encryption may not be done Apple iCloud: www.icloud.com case of fire or other disas- all the mobile devices that a as it is transferred to the Many other cloud storage web- sites, both free and paid, are ters, we want to be able to person owns, like iPhone, cloud (Allen said that more out there—check genealogical keep them safe. Pre-Cloud Android, iPad, not just a and more places are en- websites for favorites. Copyright Fundamentals for Genealogy Researchers

By Mike Goad, reprinted with permis- Is it copyrighted? tion to continue. The U.S. Copy- sion as a public service from the If it’s created today by the right Office estimates that over author; http://www.pddoc.com/ original expression of the author 90% of works eligible for renewal copyright/genealogy.htm and it can be viewed or copied, were never renewed. Since genealogical research in- then it is protected under copy- Original expression protected evitably involves copying of infor- right. The law says: “Copyright All that’s protected under copy- mation, questions involving copy- protection subsists…in original right is the author’s original ex- right often crop up. When an an- works of authorship fixed in any pression. The protected material swer is given, it may be less than tangible medium of expression, must have been independently cre- satisfactory. Sometimes the an- now known or later developed, ated by the author with at least swer is wrong, sometimes there is from which they can be perceived, some minimal amount of creativ- little or no explanation, and some- reproduced, or otherwise commu- ity. Anything in a work that isn’t times the answer isn’t an answer, nicated, either directly or with the author’s original expression but a policy statement. In other the aid of a machine or device.” isn’t protected by copyright. instances, the answer is right, but For works created earlier, there Facts can’t be original expression it isn’t what the questioner wanted are a few basic conditions for de- No one can claim originality in a to hear. While copyright can be termining copyright status: fact. At best, a person may dis- very complex and confusing, the  If an original work of author- cover a fact. If he discovers it and parts of copyright law that usually ship was created after 1977, it’s documents it, he has not created apply to genealogy are really copyrighted and it’s going to be it. He has only reported it. There pretty basic. There are a few fun- for a very long time. The earliest is no originality. Census takers, for damentals that can help deal with that any work created after that instance, don’t create the data just about any genealogy copyright will lose its copyright will be about that result from their work. They situation. 2049 – that’s assuming that the write down the facts that they Copyright means copy “right” author died right after he au- discover. Census data, therefore, Literally, the term copyright thored the work. can’t be copyrighted because it’s means the right to make copies of  If it was created before not original. Since facts can’t be some product. By law, the right 1923, there is no copyright on it original expression, the copyright belongs to its creator. In copyright any more, so long as it was pub- of any work doesn’t extend to the law, the product that’s copyrighted lished. If it wasn’t published, it facts contained within it. This is a is referred to as a “work” and the may still be protected by copy- very important fundamental con- creator of the work is its au- right. cept in genealogy, since genealogy thor. From that, we can say: Mak-  Works published before so very much involves the pursuit, ing a copy of a work or a portion of March 1, 1989 without proper discovery, and collection of facts. a work is its author’s copy right. copyright notice are almost always While copyright doesn’t extend to In the U.S., the right to make a in the public domain because, un- facts, the facts may be expressed copy of a protected work is a con- der the law that existed before in an original fashion. When this stitutional, exclusive right of the that, a proper copyright notice occurs, the original expression work’s author, except that some was required for copyright pro- used to convey limited copying is allowed by provi- tection. the facts is pro- sions of the copyright law. (see tected, but the  Works published from 1923 to Fair use) underlying facts 1963 had to be renewed after an are not. initial copyright term for protec- (Cont. page 3)

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Pre-existing material to be eligible for copyright pro- However, the copyright protection Any pre-existing material in a tection, a factual compilation must for the compilation of facts in the work that’s not the original ex- have some amount of originality in third table applies only to the se- pression of the author isn’t pro- either the selection of the facts, lection and the arrangement of the tected by the author’s copy- the arrangement of the facts or facts. To copy the selection and right. Facts, which exist before both. And, then, the only part of arrangement of the facts would be the work is created, can’t be pro- the compilation that’s protected to infringe upon the right of copy tected by copyright, as previously will be that which has originality. belonging to the author. However, discussed. Other examples of pre- Example: Mary records the the facts that are included in the existing material that might be names, dates and inscriptions of compilation aren’t protected and used in a work include the work of all of the headstones in the Farn- may be used by anyone. others, public domain material, and ham East Cemetery. She arranges Industrious collection and sweat U.S. government material. The them in three tables. The first is of the brow copyright status of already exist- alphabetical by last name, the It’s natural that someone who ing material doesn’t change when second chronological by date of works very hard at researching, used in a new work. If an author death, and the third arranged by collecting, and arranging facts into uses material from the work of the relationship of the location of a compilation would want to pro- someone else, the copyright for the headstone to a large oak tree tect their efforts. And they can. the material still belongs to the in the middle of the cemetery. So long as they don’t make it avail- original author. If something from Also in the third, she only includes able to others, so long as they the public domain is used, its copy- the headstones of people who died don’t publish it. But that’s the only right status is that it’s still in the in even-numbered years. Of the way that it can be protected. Once public domain, available for anyone three tables, the first two used it’s made available to others, such to use. U.S. government developed all of the names and dates and a work will have little or no copy- material, by law, cannot be copy- arranged them in standard for- right protection in most instances. righted. However, material created mats, alphabetical and chronologi- Under copyright, the effort and by non-government authors and cal. If “all” of an available quan- work put into a project means used by the government is usually tity of facts is used, there is no nothing. Copyright only protects covered by the author's copy- originality of selection. If a stan- an author’s “original expression.” right. In either case, though, use dard format is used for the ar- In the past, lower courts have in a new work does not change the rangement and ordering of facts, made “sweat of the brow” and copyright status for U.S. govern- then there is no originality of ar- “industrious collection” rulings, ment materials. rangement. Only in the third table where the work and effort that Compilations is the selection and arrangement went into the research, collecting A compilation is a collection of of the material original enough to and arranging counted in the copy- pre-existing material. It can be a be protected by copyright. Defin- right protection of a work. How- collection of stories, poems, or ing and describing the location of ever, such rulings were invariably other narrative material. In gene- a headstone by relationship to overturned by higher courts. The alogy, compilations are usually some something else applies originality Supreme Court has reaffirmed and kind of collection of facts or fac- in the arrangement of the facts. further defined the requirement tual material. Many genealogy com- Selecting only those that died in for the author’s original expression pilations aren’t sufficiently original even-numbered years is a nonstan- in a word being all that’s pro- to be protected by copyright. dard way to select the informa- tected. (Cont. page 4) Since facts can’t be copyrighted, tion that will be included.

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Fair use book and publishes it online. In a Joe copied several pages out of The constitutional purpose of copy- third book, copyrighted in 1934, he a book in the third example, that right is to further the progress of finds several pages narrating the were applicable to his research. science and the useful arts, which life of one his wife’s ancestors. He Assuming the book is still under today is understood to mean schol- copies the pages and posts small, copyright: copying the pages for arly growth. Since building upon the significant portions from them personal research is a good exam- advances of others is often neces- online. Which of the three exam- ple of fair use; using small signifi- sary for further advancement in ples was fair use? cant portions of the narrative most endeavors, this purpose is in Only the third. from them in his online web page apparent direct conflict to the In the first one, would also likely be fair use; post- rights of authors to control or even there is no poten- ing the entire narrative from the prevent the copying of their original tial for copyright pages he copied would not be fair expression. infringement. use and would be copyright in- fringement; posting the factual The principle of fair use, which al- While the book is copyrighted information from the narrative lows limited copying without con- 1979, at best the copyright applies would not be fair use because sent, limits the conflict. Its limits to the selection and arrangement there is no copyright issue. Fac- intentionally ill-defined, fair use is of the information. If the book is tual information abstracted from very applicable to scholarship and sequenced the same as the original an author’s original expression is research, important aspects of ge- will book or covered time period not protected by copyright. nealogy. Four factors are consid- and all of the documents available ered: are included, then there is no origi- In conclusion nality. A true transcript of a will is A couple more copyright issues  Purpose of the use, including no more than a text copy of an ex- that apply to genealogy: non-profit educational use isting document. While knowledge A pedigree, descendant chart,  Nature of the copyrighted work and interpretation may be needed GEDCOM, or any other standard  Amount of copying to be able to read the old hand- genealogy form or format that  Effect of the copying on the writing, there is no creative ex- contains nothing but facts is not potential market for, or value pression involved… and therefore copyright protected. There is no of, the original work no copyright involved. In the sec- originality of selection or arrange- Examples: Joe is doing research ond example, the book had no copy- ment and facts can’t be copy- at the Mid America Library in Inde- right date. It was published in righted. pendence, Missouri. He finds tran- 1955 without proper copyright no- Plagiarism and copyright are not scripts of four 18th century wills on tice. Therefore, the book is in the the same. Plagiarism is the failure pages 21, 23, and 87 of a book of public domain and Joe can do any- to properly document the source deeds and wills from Virginia that is thing with it he wants to. If, how- of the information or material that copyrighted 1979. He makes a copy ever, the book included a proper you use and is considered by many of each of the pages that has the copyright notice, it might still have to be unethical. information he needs. He subse- been under copyright protection if When material you submitted is quently posts the text of each of the author had renewed the copy- used by a commercial company in the four wills online. He also finds a right. In that case, copying the their product, you retain the copy- little narrative family history book book would probably not have been right for any of the material that that was published in 1955 on the a fair use and posting the entire is a product of your original ex- family of his great, great, great, work online definitely would not pression. granduncle. He copies the entire have been.

Page 4 Page 4 Cheyenne Genealogy Journal Genealogy News You Can Use... Smithsonian Launches Website Ancestry—an Excellent Genealogy Resource, to Crowdsource Old Document But Its Member Trees—Not So Much Transcriptions Writing in The Jersey Journal, over again until it hits all of the Genea- Daniel Klein describes his experiences logical Proof Standard’s points." with Ancestry.com's member- We tend to treat this as a modern contributed family trees. He describes problem of the Internet. However, I the problem caused by novice genealo- will invite anyone to go to a genealogy gists using information from a reasona- library and look at the books published bly reputable source (the US Census) before the invention of the World and applying it to the wrong person. Wide Web, especially the self- Now other people have accepted this published books. Many of them contain erroneous information as gospel and it huge errors and offer no source cita- The Smithsonian Institution has perpetuates over and over. You can tions where the information was found. joined the crowdsourcing revolution: It read Daniel Klein's article at This is not a new problem. I still use recently launched a Transcription Cen- http://blog.nj.com/ Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, ter website where volunteers can help tracing_your_roots/2014/04/ FamilySearch.org, WeRelate.org, transcribe thousands of document im- post_6.html I will quickly add that WikiTree.com, and any other genealogy ages, such as Civil War diaries, letters Klein writes only about his experiences web site that I think might be able to from famous people, and old American with Ancestry.com but those of us who help. I expect to keep using them for currency. Many of the digitized docu- have been looking at online genealogy many more years. However, unless ments are handwritten or have text sites for years know that the problem there is an image of the original docu- that computers cannot easily decipher. is more widespread. It is not a problem ment included, I treat all genealogy Transcription by humans is the only solely on Ancestry.com, but also on all information online and in books as only way to make the text of these items genealogy web sites that accept and clues about what might be factual. searchable, which will open them up for republish user-contributed family I have to agree with the first part endless opportunities for research and trees without question or verification. of Daniel Klein's title: Ancestry is an discovery. The Smithsonian’s collection Indeed, no organization can verify the Excellent Genealogy Resource. I still is so vast that transcribing its content information contributed by users. That love online sites as they have saved me using its own staff could take decades. would be a Herculean task. I do have a lot of time by giving me clues. How- By harnessing the power of online vol- to agree with the one positive state- ever, I always attempt to verify or unteers that goal can become a reality. ment in Klein's article: "...use them as a disprove the claim by independent re- Over the past year, nearly 1,000 volun- guide and not gospel. Take all informa- search.—by Richard Eastman posted to teers participated in a beta test of tion you find with a grain of salt, ex- Eastman’s Online Genealogy newslet- documents in high demand by re- amine it closely, ask questions, check ter, http://www.eogn.com 5 Apr 2014. searchers, resulting in about 13,000 sources and then do all those things pages of transcriptions. In one in- stance—transcribing the personal cor- respondence of members of the Monu- Ancestry.com Drops Access to Cemetery Records on BillionGraves ments Men held in the Smithsonian’s The blog Ancestry Insider has reported that Ancestry has quietly dropped ac- Archives of American Art—49 volun- cess to cemetery records on BillionGraves from the Ancestry.com website. Previ- teers finished the 200-page project in ously, users could directly search the BillionGraves database when they were just one week. Other volunteers review logged into Ancestry. No more. BillionGraves became a competitor of Ancestry each completed transcription before when Ancestry bought out Find A Grave in Oct 2013. If you attempt to do a it’s certified by a Smithsonian expert. search for BillionGraves records on Ancestry.com you will now get a message To participate, register here and click “Collection Not Available.” It is unusual, but not unheard of for Ancestry to re- “Tips” for quick instructions. You can move access to records. BillionGraves and Find A Grave both depend on users to choose a project by theme or by con- contribute free cemetery records to help their websites grow. For more informa- tributing repository. tion see: http://www.ancestryinsider.org/2014/07/war-of-1812-project-

Page 5 July-August 2014 Cheyenne Genealogical & “Check This Out” Historical Society Family history-related fiction & nonfiction P.O. Box 2539 book reviews by CGHS members Cheyenne, Wyoming 82003-2539 Website: Annie’s Ghosts: A Journey into a Family Secret www.cghswyoming.org by Steve Luxenburg (2009—Nonfiction) I just finished reading a book called Annie’s Ghosts To contact CGHS or to Luxenburg. Steve found out that his mother, who hadby always Steve submit newsletter claimed to be an only child, had a sister who was disabled and suggestions and/or articles, possibly mentally ill. Annie had been institutionalized when she send a note to Wendy at [email protected] was in the 1940s and his mother Beth had kept her a secret. He tells of his search for Annie and her records, what he found and where he found it, including running down people from Beth’s past before Annie was sent to “Eloise” which started as a poor- house, then became an institution that was a farm, asylum, and general hospital. The search to find the people who knew about Follow us on the Web at Annie and her records drove him to re- www.cghswyoming.org search laws on how to retrieve these types https:// and on Facebook at - of records, and led him all over the country www.facebook.com/pages/Cheyenne as well as through Michigan’s hospital sy- -Historical-Society Genealogical sytem. The information he shares in this book could help anyone who is facing a simi- lar kind of search. He even gave his method of interviewing people to get them to re- member or to reveal what had been a secret for almost 60 years. —Margie D The Cheyenne Genealogical & Historical Society welcomes a Grin-ealogy: Sixty Years of Adventure & Misadventure new member who has joined the by George I. Sackhelm organization in the last several (2007-Fiction) months. If you are going to spend 60 years of your life actively involved in ge- nealogical research, then you better have a good sense of humor. So it  Celia Teague is with George I. Sackheim who has compiled his 60 years of one and stories into a fun -filled book called -liners but a delightful read with more than 100 Grin entries-ealogy to .make This bookyou shake is small, your head, smile in memory of your own similar experiences, and laugh aloud. For example, the telephone call Sackheim once received from a family member who said, “take my uncle’s name off the family tree.” When Sackheim asked why, she replied, “because he died!” Or the inci- dent that occurred when he wanted to get the hospital records of a child that was stillborn. The worker at the hospital stated, “I can only release that information to the next of kin. Are you the son of that baby who died at birth?” When Sackheim said, “yes,” he was given the information he needed. Even though we probably all have our own list of humorous anecdotes & experiences, reading another person’s stories can really make your day. —Leland & Patty Meitzler

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