An interesting article in today's Chicago Tribune discusses the roots of Michelle Obama and the path her family history traces back to slavery on a large rice plantation in lowcountry South Carolina. Genealogists at Lowcountry Africana, a research center affiliated with the Africana Heritage Project at the University of South Florida in Tampa, traced Michelle Obama's family tree back to her great great grandfather, Jim Robinson, who was born about 1850 and lived as a slave prior to the end of the Civil War on Friendfield Plantation in Georgetown, S.C. The article says that records show he remained on the estate after the war working as a sharecropper and was the last illiterate ancestor in this branch of the family tree (although his son, Fraser Robinson, stated that he could write, but not read in the 1920 census). The research was reportedly commissioned by Barack Obama prior to his bid for the White House, and shared this portion with the Washington Post, which expanded on the research to produce its moving article last October. The story of Jim Robinson and Fairfield Plantation also appeared in The Times, UK, last month.

It seems as if the genealogy community has been holding its breath waiting to see if RootsMagic 4 will be out in time for the holidays. Well, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that Bruce Buzbee, the man behind RootsMagic, is thorough - and won't rush to release a product that is still having the kinks and bugs worked out. The bad news is that this means that RootsMagic 4 will not be out in time for the holidays. Don't despair, however. If you're dying to start playing with the program, a community preview of RootsMagic 4 will be open in mid-December to current RootsMagic users who wish to try out a pre-release copy (just be sure to make a separate copy of your data to import, and don't use the pre-release for your working family tree!). If you're not quite that adventurous, or don't have the time on your hands right now, then many of the programs new features can be seen on the RootsMagic blog.

In addition, copies of RootsMagic 3 purchased through a special holiday offer, will include a free update to Version 4 when it is released next year.

Thousands of county and local histories, church histories, registers of individuals, directories of Texas Rangers and biographical dictionaries for the states on the U.S. Gulf Coast are being digitized and added to the free online Historical Books archive from BYU and FamilySearch (Also accessed by visiting FamilySearch.org and selecting Search Records and then Historical Books). This joint project between FamilySearch and the Houston Public Library is targeting books and items published between 1795 and 1923, beginning with Texas records. Some digital publications are already viewable online, but the entire project is expected to take up to five years to complete.

The BYU Family Archives, with over 23,000 books already digitized and online, is one of my favorite sources for free online genealogy and family history books. If you haven't yet checked it out, then I highly recommend that you do so!

If you use a computer in your genealogy research, then you likely have a large collection of digital files. Digital photos, downloaded census records or wills, scanned documents, emails... If you're like me, however, they are scattered in various folders throughout your computer. Can you remember what you named them? Where you put them? If not, then this guide to organizing digital genealogy files may be just what the doctor ordered.