Ancestry.com Infuriates Webmasters and Bloggers

Ancestry.com is harvesting data from many websites and blogs and putting them in their Internet Biographical Collection. When the collection first began showing up, it was a paid premium site (for what was posted freely on the Web elsewhere).

You can keep up with the controversy at AnceStories, CowHampshire, or GeneaMusings. [These links are to specific posts, but I'm sure you can keep up with the controversy at these and other genealogy blogs by going to the main blog.]

There are some historical and genealogical societies and some USGenWeb county sites which may be removing their data from the Rootsweb pages because of this. Rootsweb is owned by Ancestry.com's parent company The Generations Network.

Update (8/29): They've removed the collection for now.

Buy Your Own Town in Mississippi

That's right - the small town of Lawrence in Newton County is for sale. If you bid more than $136,000, you might just be able to own it.

Confederate Postal History of Grenada

William S. Parks has written a very interesting and well-illustrated Confederate Postal History of Grenada, Mississippi.

New Blues Marker

The Blues Front Cafe in Bentonia will be the 15th marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail. Marker dedication is set for August 25.

Tupelo History Podcast

Bruce Moore, a Tupelo historian, talks with Leesha Faulkner of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal about Tupelo's historical districts. [Note: This is a podcast.]

Georgetown Telephone

Featured in On the Road with Charles Kuralt, the Georgetown Telephone Company got its start in Leakesville.

Croatians in Mississippi

The first Croatians to arrive in the United States settled in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. One of the towns they established was Slavonia in George County. For additional information see:

Guide to Croatian Genealogy by Adam S. Eterovich

Croats in Louisiana and Mississippi: A Centuries Long Story by John Peter Kraljic

There is also an extensive bibliography about Croatians, including many articles dealing with those in Mississippi.

For a printed source, see:

Greenwell, O. "Slavonia, Mississippi," Mississippi Coast Historical and Genealogical Society, June 1971.

Meadville History

The city of Meadville in Franklin County has posted its history online.

Hattiesburg Bibliography

Subject bibliographies are helpful to genealogical and historical researchers because they allow one to know what has been published on a topic of interest. The University of Southern Mississippi has published a great subject bibliography of Hattiesburg which includes Forrest and Lamar Counties.

Horn Lake History

The city of Horn Lake in DeSoto County has posted its history online. The city was not incorporated until 1973, but the region's history goes way back. I have always wondered how the town got its name. It's interesting that it is related to a change in the course of the Mississippi River. I'll let you read the rest of the story on the history.

Hot Coffee

There is a very nice multimedia tour of Hot Coffee, Mississippi done by the National Geographic folks online. It shows the Old Order German Baptists of the area. The accompanying story is also available.

Brown Store

Visitors to Copiah County MSGenWeb can get an idea of what is believed to be the Brown's Store which is frequently seen as a precinct in federal censuses looked like. It was later called Georgetown Mercantile.

Verona Celebrates Birthday

The town of Verona in Lee County is celebrating its 147th birthday by hosting a party.

Burial Customs of the Hill Country

Terry Thornton will be speaking at the Lamar County (Alabama) Historical Society meeting on September 10 on Burial Customs of the Hill Country. The area includes Monroe and Itawamba Counties in Mississippi, so if you are in the area, I'm sure you'll enjoy Terry's presentation. The meeting will be held in Vernon, Alabama.

A Call for Papers . . .

from a brand new blog called Inside the Magnolia Curtain. Here's the official call. (I'm still grinning about Sheppard Smith's being called a "news-stud-puppy.")

Genealogy Bank Additions of Interest to Mississippi Researchers

July additions to GenealogyBank include:

Daily Herald (Biloxi) - 7/1/1907-6/30/1922
Clarksdale Press Register - 1/24/2007-present
Memphis Daily Avalanche - 1/1/1866-4/30/1869
Daily True Delta (New Orleans) - 5/20/1862-12/31/1864

Subscriptions to GenealogyBank are $19.95/month or $89.95/year.

Alabama Genealogical Society Fall Seminar

Saturday, October 13, 2007 8:30 AM Central Time

The Alabama Genealogical Society will hold its Fall seminar at the Alabama Archives in Montgomery 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. AGS is proud to present Craig Scott, a professional genealogical and historical researcher for more than twenty years specializing in the records of the National Archives, especially those that relate to the military. Among other credentials, he is on the Editorial Board of the National Genealogical Society and is Coordinator of the Military Records course in Institute of Genealogy and Historical Records. His seminar topics are Revoutionary War Records, the Indian War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican War. The registration form may be downloaded from http://algensoc.org/index.html, or you may contact ctucker@dbtech.net for additional information.

Editor's note: If you've never heard Craig speak, it's well worth the drive to Montgomery to hear him. Craig is both entertaining and informative!

Lauderdale Springs Hospital Casualties

A listing of casualties who were treated at the Lauderdale Springs Hospital in Lauderdale County, Mississippi has been compiled and placed online by William L. White, Lauderdale County Coordinator. This listing includes soldiers from units in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, South Carolina, Missouri, North Carolina, and Florida.

Expose, Mississippi

"Marshall Yard" blogs about his ancestor Harry Expose, the namesake of Expose, Mississippi, a small community in Marion County.

Rena Lara Baptist Church

Formerly located on cotton plantation lands, the Rena Lara Baptist Church was organized in 1938. It is located in the community of Rena Lara in Coahoma County. This history of the church is interesting because of the information provided on the plantations.

Preservation Efforts: Tupelo Cotton Mill

A 100-year-old cotton mill was in the process of being demolished when preservationists rushed to city hall to try to stop the action. The demolition was halted, at least for the time being.

The structure in question is the No. 2 cotton mill - also called Scarsdale
Quilting and Converting - which sits just east of the Kansas City Southern
Railroad tracks downtown. It's also inside the proposed boundaries of Mill
Village, a neighborhood preservationists want to designate a Local Historic
District.

The fire department supports demolition, calling the building a "safety hazard."

Joshua T. Hardy Cemetery in Siloam

There are many personal pages on the Internet which contain useful information for genealogical researchers. One such page is a listing and photographs of Joshua T. Hardy Cemetery in the community of Siloam in Clay County. Greg Lasley is the author of the page.

Shubuta Residents Move North

Most people would never think of looking to the New York State Museum to find information on a town in Mississippi, but as part of its Rapp Road Community History Project, the museum has information on a migration of persons from Shubuta to Albany. The article also contains info on life in Shubuta. Shubuta is in Clarke County.

Battle of Port Gibson

The National Park Service provides a brief illustrated account of the Battle of Port Gibson.

South Union Camp Meeting

Camp meetings were very popular in the 19th century. Many of the ones around the South tried to replicate the experience of the meeting at Cane Ridge in 1801. The South Union Camp Meeting in Choctaw County began in 1872. This camp meeting continues to the present day.