Professor Dru's Blog

Webinar

2011-11-22T16:56:00.002-05:00

My webinar, Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation, is now available for free viewing until December 5, 2011.

Let Your Voice Be Heard in the Digital Conversation

2011-10-22T09:43:00.000-04:00

http://legacyfamilytree.com/Webinars.asp

Legacy Family Tree Offers African American Webinar

2011-08-27T04:51:00.003-04:00

Legacy Family Tree will offers it’s first African American focused webinar on Wednesday, August 31, 2011 at (2:00 PM Eastern U.S., 1:00 PM Central, 12:00 PM Mountain, 11:00 AM Pacific, 6:00 PM GMT). This free webinar, Best Internet Resources for African American Genealogy, will be facilitated by Afrigeneas member, Ms. Angela Walton Raji. This webinar examines resources that provide guidance for the unique problems facing descendants of slaves and will include information on the usage and resources of the Afrigeneas website. Register now for this FREE webinar at http://legacyfamilytree.com/Webinars.asp.

What is GIS?

2011-07-23T13:18:00.005-04:00

GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems and software of this type is useful for Genealogists and Family Historians in creating graphical maps based on location data from various documents such as the census or vital records. Through plotting location based data, Genealogists and Family Historians can visually see relationships, patterns, and trends in the results of of their research.

A New Blog is Born!

2011-07-21T16:43:00.006-04:00

Youth Genealogy and Historical Research
www.youthgenealogy.com

Guest Appearance on Blog Talk Radio Show

2011-07-12T07:42:00.002-04:00

I am pleased to announce that and I will be a guest on Geneabloggers Blog Talk Radio Show this Friday night, July 15, 2011 att 10:00 EST, along with Nicka Smith of The Atlas Family blog, Jari Honora of Bayou Roots, Elyse Doerflinger of Elyse’s Genealogy Blog.

The show, Cool Ideas for Involving Youth in Genealogy, will be hosted by Dear Myrtle. Nicka and I will be sharing about the successful youth genealogy/historical research programs we just completed. Nicka’s program was in California and mine was in Virginia. Jari and Elyse will be sharing about their experiences as young genealogy/family historians.

Hope you will tune in to this great show on Friday night as the four of us share “Cool Ideas for Involving Youth in Genealogy.” BTW, I will be giving a surprise announcement on the show, so you’ll want to be among the first to hear.

See you Friday night!

Mapping With Family Atlas Software

2011-07-05T18:30:00.000-04:00

Last year, I purchased a copy of the Family Atlas software package. Recently, I began taking a closer look at how this software could benefit my genealogical research projects. I decided it might work best in mapping locations related to my study of the First Calvary regiment of the United States Colored Troops (USCT). I collected sample data from the service records of 30 soldiers of Company B of this regiment. This sample included Madison Lewis, the focus person who got me interested in USCT research. The data collected from the service records was the birthplaces and enlistment locations of these soldiers.

Importing Data
Next I inputted each name and birthplace of the selected soldiers into Roots Magic genealogy software. (I could have also used Family Tree Maker or other genealogy software packages.) Afterwards, this data was imported into Family Atlas. I then choose a dark blue diamond to represent the birthplace of the soldiers on my map. The selected soldiers in this study were born in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, and to my surprise Canada. Through this sample study of USCT soldiers, I found Moses Smith, a black Canadian born soldier in Regiment One of the USCT Calvary. Since I do not know the province in which Moses was born, I put in ‘Canada’ as the birthplace for him and the Family Atlas software plotted his birth location in the middle of Canada between Saskatchewan and Manitoba as seen below.

Typing in Location Data
Later, I typed in the locations where the soldiers enlisted or mustered-in as well as the location where they all mustered-out. This data could have also been typed in a text-delimited file and imported into Family Atlas. The muster-in data (orange circle) revealed that the soldiers in this study enlisted in Virginia, Maryland, and New York. All of the soldiers of the First Calvary USCT mustered out (yellow square) in Brazos Santiago, TX and graphically you can see that their muster out location was a long distance from the locations of their birth and enlistment.

The latitude and longitude for each location is automatically placed in by Family Atlas for each location inputted. Users can also input the latitude and longitude and I had to do this for some locations which did not plot accurately. For example, there is a St. Mary's County, MD and another area called St. Mary's on the tip of Maryland. Point Lookout, which is now a park, was the location I sought, which is where three of the soldiers in my study enlisted. I found the latitude and longitude geocodes on the Internet and keyed them in for the Point Lookout location.

Publishing Map
Finally, I published the map in .pdf format and added photos, callouts, and text to the map to bring attention to certain parts of it. Below is a portion of the published map.

Conclusion
Family Atlas software package is definitely an asset to my genealogy work and I look forward to using it in numerous location-based projects. You can learn more about this product as well as watch a tutorial by visiting the Family Atlas website.

College Students Create Historical Video Game

2011-06-22T17:30:00.004-04:00

“Ball State Students Create Historical Video Game” written by Tanya Roscorla in the June 20, 2011 edition of Converge Magazine, is an excellent article about the collaboration between two college professors which led to the creation of an educational video game about Morgan’s Raid which occurred in Indiana during the Civil War.

These two Ball State University professors; one in History and the other in Computer Science, collaborated on this project which integrated history with gaming technology in order to fill a gap in the telling of an important historical event in the state of Indiana and the Civil War. The professors and their students also received support from the Provost's Initiative for Immersive Learning and the Honors College to complete this project.

Morgan’s Raid Game was developed because of the lack of details and explanation in fourth grade history books of why Morgan’s Raid was an important event in Indiana and Civil War history. This collaborative project also gave the Ball State University students involved in this endeavor some practical real life experience in writing and game development.

After reading this article, I began to wonder about how many other historical events which appear in history books lack the detail they deserve. I’m sure that there are numerous events described in history books that could benefit from this type of merging of history with technology. Hopefully historians, genealogists, technologists and others who read this article will become inspired to do something similar.

Kudos to Professors Ronald Morris and Paul Gestwicki of Ball State University and their students for completion of this innovative historical video game.

Welcome to the New and Improved Professor Dru Blog!

2011-06-20T14:24:00.002-04:00

I began this blog in February 2008 and the topic focused on the Microsoft PowerPoint software package (PowerPointer’s Blog). Later I changed the name to “Professor Dru’s Technology Blog” in order to embrace all technologies. After evaluating my blogs and setting new goals last week, I decided that this blog site needed a facelift and a new direction. As a result, this site which was formerly http://www.professordru.blogspot.com/ was upgraded to http://www.professordru.com/.

The focus of this new and improved blog at http://www.professordru.com/ gives me a forum to teach and educate in genealogy and technology as I have been doing for numerous years. The new site will not be all about Professor Dru site, but will also highlight others in the field as well as products, services, and events which aid in the education of genealogy and technology.

When I created my first blog site in 2008, I was just experimenting with the blog technology and chose http://www.professordru.blogspot.com/ because the site I created was designed as a supplement for students in an online course I was teaching at the time. Blogging blossomed beyond my wildest dreams and through it, I have learned an abundance of new things in genealogy and technology as well as made numerous connections with people virtually.

So, welcome to the New and Improved Professor Dru blog site. Hope you will visit again soon!

Drusilla Pair
“Professor Dru”