Last week  Maureen Taylor, the Photo Detective, and Pam Pacelli Cooper of Verissima Productions joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour to talk about Maureen’s book The Last Muster being made into a documentary film. Maureen has collected about 150 photographic images of men and women who were alive during the American Revolution (1775-1783) and who had photos taken after the advent of photography in 1839.

Maureen and Pam are collaborating to bring the images of these people and their stories to life in the 21st century through the medium of film. They talked about what it takes to bring a project like this to fruition, including getting donations which are tax deductible, and how the stories will be presented. It’s fascinating!

Find The Last Muster film here: http://www.lastmusterfilm.com/

Listen to Maureen and Pam right here. You will hear Maureen and Pam clearly while my voice has an echo.

A few weeks ago, Mark Lowe, professional genealogist and well-known genealogy speaker, joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour to talk about whiskey and Southern migration in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

Mark explained how whiskey production was a major draw and livelihood for many settlers in Kentucky and Tennessee after the Wilderness Road was blazed by Daniel Boone in 1775. Small home-run distilleries sprang up as a result of fresh, sweet (non-mineral) water, good soil for growing whiskey-producing crops, and eventually easy transport on the rivers with the advent of the steamboat in the early 1800s.

Evidence of the production of spirits can be found in many documents, including the agricultural schedule of the U.S. census, estate inventories, land records such as deeds, and occupations listed in population schedules of the U.S. census and city directories. Did you know a confectionery store sold alcohol? These are great resources for genealogists to find their whiskey-producing ancestors in Kentucky and Tennessee and elsewhere in the United States.

Different liquors were produced in different parts of the country as well, due to climate and soil. Hard cider from apples was a favorite New York state beverage until Prohibition.

Find out more about whiskey, Southern migration, and our ancestors from Mark right here.

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Geoff Miller, chair of the Reher Center for Immigrant Culture and History, and Nelsie Aybar-Grau joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour a few weeks ago. They talked about the Reher Center located at the Rondout in Kingston, N.Y. and the oral history project that the center has undertaken.

The Reher Center began as a project of the Jewish Federation of Ulster County to document the lives of the Jewish immigrants who landed at Rondout, N.Y. during the heyday of the Delaware and Hudson Canal. The project soon encompassed all immigrant groups who lived in this bustling port community where the Rondout Creek meets the Hudson River.

Geoff explained that the Center’s long-range goal is to document every family who lived in every building in Rondout, using census records, city directories, maps and photos. This project will re-create the community which was devastated by urban renewal in the 1960s. It will be a treasure trove for genealogists!

Nelsie explained the Reher Center’s oral history project–collecting the stories of the people who lived there–so that the history of the community can be told through the eyes and words of its residents. What a great project for any community to undertake!

Hear Geoff and Nelsie on The Forget-Me-Not Hour right here.

A few weeks ago Suzanne Wasserman, director of the Gotham Center for New York City History, joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour to discuss how New York City fared during the Great Depression of the 1930s. I had heard Suzanne speak on the topic at the New York Public Library on 42nd Street in February in an all-day conference on the then soon-to-be released 1940 U.S. census.

The impact of the Great Depression on NYC was astonishing, as you will hear. Breadlines became the norm. Hoovervilles (tent cities) sprang up throughout the city. New York City received 1/7th of all federal funds during the Depression. Many federal documents were produced from this era which genealogists can use to research their ancestors who lived in New York City during this time.

Another result of the Depression was that the traditional family dynamic was upended when husbands found themselves out of work, and wives found themselves having to find work to support their families.  I always thought that women going to work began with WWII and the Rosie the Riveters. Not so — women unwilling had to support their families, and they were ashamed because of that.

Find the Gotham Center atwww.GothamCenter.org.

Find out more from Suzanne in the most listened-to Forget-Me-Not Hour yet, right here.

A few weeks ago Geneablogger’s Thomas MacEntee joined me on the Forget-Me-Not Hour to talk about hardware for genealogists. It was a most informative show, and I was jotting down notes as Thomas explained what is available and what are the pros and cons of each type of device.

Thomas explained the ways that we can capture data through cameras, smartphones, scanners (a few different types) and microfilm readers at the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City that digitize images to store on a memory stick or even email. Then we have the audio devices for recording and the translating mechanisms for those of us who are doing foreign genealogy research. Finally there are the transcription devices like smartphones, laptops, tablets and netbooks. I was amazed to hear that netbooks may be on their way to becoming obsolete. I love my netbook for working in libraries.

Find out more about hardware for genealogists from Thomas right here.

Harold Henderson who writes the Midwestern Microhistory blog http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com/ joined me on the Forget-Me-Not Hour two weeks ago to talk about the ins and outs of writing for genealogical publications. The show was extremely informative and inspiring for this writer.

Harold covered writing for local genealogy society newsletters, state publications and what he called the Big Five, the national scholarly publications: The American Genealogist, The Genealogist–published by the American Society of Genealogists, NGSQ–National Genealogical Society Quarterly, the New England Historic Genealogical Society Register and the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society Record.

He also talked about writing reviews (book, technology and other), books with your family’s genealogy, and internet writing, such as blogs and family history pages. Above all else, he advised that we write for the publications that we read.

Listen to Harold Henderson talking about genealogy writing here.

Two weeks ago on the Forget-Me-Not Hour, Bridget Bray, organizer of The Genealogy Event in New York City, joined me on the show. The Genealogy Event is the only genealogy event happening in New York City this year–on 26 & 27 October at the Metropolitan Pavilion. See www.TheGenealogyEvent.com for more information.

Because of her own interest in genealogy, Bridget organized a Meet-up group in New York City for people with Irish and English ancestry, and she attended the Who Do You Think You Are? genealogy conference in London a few years ago. With these models as a reference, she created The Genealogy Event which will take place in one huge room like the WDYTYA? conference. There will be two speakers giving presentations, exhibitors, demos, and expert consultations going on at the same time–plus a lot of networking. It sounds like a lot of fun!

Find out more about The Genealogy Event from Bridget on the show right here.

Last week Kenyatta Berry, the president of the Association of Professional Genealogists, joined me on The Forget-Me-Not Hour show. Kenyatta packed the interview with so much information about the APG!

She discussed how the organization has evolved since its inception in the 1970s to its current focus on the business of professional genealogy and how the process of forming the APG mission is done. To that end the APG has webinars for professional development, the annual Professional Management Conference (PMC) in Salt Lake City (next year in March), the APG Quarterly magazine, and more. She talked about other aspects of is mission, such as advocacy for preserving documents.

Kenyatta explained how find a professional genealogist through the APG website (www.apgen.org) and gave great suggestions on how to vet one to do research for you.

Listen to Kenyatta’s interview here. You can also listen on the go by downloading the broadcast on iTunes.

Last week on the Forget-Me-Not Hour, Dick Eastman joined me and talked about computers and genealogy. Dick, the author of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, shared his experience as a computer techie forging the way in the infancy of personal computers, when computer data was stored on punch cards.  That concept was hard for me to comprehend–genealogy data on a punch card. I vaguely remember those cards when my brother was studying computer science in college and brought some home for his little sister to play with.

Dick talked about how commercial companies like Ancestry.com and FindMyPast.com, not-for-profits like FamilySearch.org and government agencies like NARA are keeping up — or not — with the advances in computer technology and how he stores his genealogy data on his own computer, or island, as he called it.

He later shared with me that he was a DJ at 950 AM radio in Maine–the same frequency as the station where I do the show in Poughkeepsie.

Find Dick’s newsletter at http://blog.eogn.com/

Hear more from Dick on the radio show here.

Two weeks ago on The Forget-Me-Not Hour, Puritan expert Robert Charles Anderson joined me to talk about the Puritans of New England–who they were and his genealogical work on them. He shared how the Puritans became his life’s work as a genealogist and what projects he has completed about them.

Bob is the author of The Great Migration series of books that chronicles what is known about the 20,000 or so Puritans who emigrated from England between 1620 and 1640. So far the books cover through the year 1635.

With his newest book, called The Winthrop Fleet, Bob has extracted those people who came in the years 1628 to 1630 in the migration to New England headed by Gov. John Winthrop and presented more information on them than is in the previous books. The Winthrop Fleet will be released in August 2012. Find the book here http://www.greatmigration.org/

Listen to Bob Anderson and the fascinating topic of the Puritans here.