The Genealogy Guys Podcast #281 - 2015 January 11

The news includes: · The early registration discount for the 2015 Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference ends on January 23, 2015. The conference, in conjunction with RootsTech 2015, will be held in Salt Lake City on February 11-14, 2015. · Findmypast has introduced a new program for its 12-month subscribers, including webinars as well as discounts with several vendors. · Findmypast has announced the appointment of Ben Bennett as the new vice president of international business. · The ScotlandsPeople service has introduced Scottish statutory births for 1914, marriages for 1939, and deaths for 1964 at its site. · The British Ministry of Justice announced that their archive of 41 million wills dating back to 1858 have been made available online. Scanned copies of the wills can be ordered for a fee of ₤10. · GenSoftReviews has announced its Users Choice Awards for 2014 at http://www.gensoftreviews.com/awards.php. · FamilySearch announced the 10 most popular free online databases at their site. · Margie Beldin won the free all-access pass to RootsTech 2015 with her technical tip about enlarging the screen size on your computer and then resetting it back to its default with CTRL + 0 (for PC) or CMD + 0 (for Mac). Listener email included feedback on Episode #280 and The Guys' discussion about copyright: · Jim asked the question about downloading a photograph, cropping and editing it, and whether there is a violation of copyright law or ethics. He also comments on photographs uploaded to Find A Grave and to family trees on sites such as Ancestry.com. · Margaret has a copyright question about a collection of un-cataloged and un-indexed documents in a library that she encountered several years ago. She paid to have the papers microfilmed and then indexed and transcribed them herself, giving a copy of her work to the library. She has questions about to what extent she is allowed to use this collection and what copyright laws might apply to these old documents. · Julie wrote that she knows our discussion about copyright was geared primarily to an American audience, and that we used the expression "fair use" in the discussion. She tells us that there is a similar concept in the UK called "fair dealing". It does not have any statutory definition but is a legal term basically used to assist in determining if something is in compliance with copyright or not. She provided a link at https://www.gov.uk/exceptions-to-copyright that describes exceptions to copyright that allow limited use of copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner. · Suzanne asks a question about people who choose to be cremated and have their ashes scattered but don't have any kind of Cemetery Memorial. Whereas she uses Billion Graves and Find A Grave in her research, she wonders if there is any equivalent site for cremated memorials. [The Guys welcome email from our listeners about this subject.] · Kristi wants to know what we recommend as "must do" conferences and seminars each year. Book review: · Moorshead Magazines, Ltd., the publishers of Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy, and History Magazine, continue their publication of special research publications in softcover magazine format with a new title, "Tracing Your Italian Ancestors" written by Marcia Iannizzi Melnyk and Mary M. Tedesco. George gives the new publication a great review. Our next podcast episode will be a themed discussion: “U.S. Ships’ Passenger List Records”. The Guys welcome your questions and suggestions on this subject at [email protected].