Unfortunately, New Jersey's legislature is still on the verge of totally gutting their awesome state Freedom of Information law, OPRA. It may soon become a lot harder to get records out of the state, including genealogical ones. 😠

We sent them our thoughts about the situation.

Starting a new stream in a few minutes where I will be building Franklin D. Roosevelt's family tree. Head over to my youtube channel to join!

Last night, I stayed up until 6 am, finally solving one of the biggest mysteries in my family.

Identifying my adopted aunt's biological father.

On a whim, my friend Lazer and I went to the Alliance colony cemetery, and he was able to help me decipher a few family stones that are difficult to read. This is my 3rd-great grandmother Bessie, whose grandchildren helped shape American music and culture in the early 1900s.

Quite a productive day metal detecting my ancestor's land in Alliance, NJ. Hoping to get back out this week to find more!

Absolutely amazed that FTDNA has gone back in time to analyze one of the kits I just sent in. Talk about going above and beyond!

This Sunday, I will be doing a webinar for Heinz History Center and The Jewish Genealogy Society of Pittsburgh about The Future of Genealogy.

The program is free for PGHJGS members and only a $5 entry fee for non-PGHJGS members.

If you want a great example of why 'genealogy' records are so useful to data journalism, check out this new feature from the San Francisco Chronicle about the rise and semi-decline of Japantown, which relies on the 1950 US census data, person by person:
sfchronicle.com/projects/2024/…

Introducing AutoLineage - clustering of DNA matches and finding common ancestors across different DNA testing companies! Check out the blog post patriciacolemangenealogy.com/2024/03/24/aut…

Fun Fact I learned today - MrBeast had a 2nd-great Uncle (brother of his paternal Great Grandmother) who was a Staff Sergeant in Easy Company during WW2.

I'll be speaking today to Sephardic World about Jewish genetic genealogy. I'll be showing a variety of Jewish admixture percentages as well, including 100% Ashkenazi, 100% Sephardi, and a variety of people with mixed Jewish ancestry.

🚨 LEGISLATION ALERT: NEW JERSEY ABOUT TO GUT RECORDS ACCESS FOR GENEALOGISTS? 🚨

(and journalists and historians too, but let's just focus on the genealogists here for a minute)

Read all about it in our latest newsletter!
mailchi.mp/reclaimthereco…

Destroying evidence of a cemetery is criminal. abc11.com/black-cemetery…

One of the amazing programs I learned about while at RootsTech is @MarrowMates' Extended Family Donor search initiative, which utilizes DNA testing to find possible donors. marrowmates.org/About-Us/Exten…