Genealogy This Week - 31 October 2009
Our weekly compilation of interesting new tools, resources and stories for genealogists:
London Cemetery Reusing Graves - The City of London Cemetery, the largest cemetery in the UK capital, is using a legal loophole to reuse existing grave plots after just 75 years. We broke the news on this issue a year ago (see From Doubledecker Buses to Doubledecker Graves). At the time, it was expected that the pilot project would start in 18 months, but apparently it has already started in London. Anyone who has relatives or ancestors buried in England should pay careful attention to this issue because it could have profound implications for genealogy. Our understanding is that family members who raise objections to the program have some recourse to prevent their ancestor's grave from being reused. Most genealogists would probably not want a total stranger buried on top of their ancestor and having the stranger's name engraved on the back of their ancestor's headstone, which incidentally gets turned around to more prominently display the name of the newly buried stranger. [Link]
I Don't Recognize That Old File Extension - Genealogists often inherit old software files with file extensions that they don't recognize. Even if you do recognize an old file extension, you may not have any way to open the file. Fortunately, the free OpenWith.org website can help you open these old mystery files. The website contains directories that can identify old software files and the site also provides free software tools to open many of these old files. This is a very useful site and one that we think all genealogists should have bookmarked. [Link]
How to Spot Email Scams - There are so many articles on the internet on how people can prevent getting caught up in an email scam. The article by Switched Magazine is probably the best one we have seen. [Link]
Facebooklite - Anyone using Facebook who has a slow internet connection or who wants to access Facebook with a smart phone or other portable device should consider Facebooklite. As the name implies, Facebooklite is a stripped down version of Facebook that is optimized for slow internet connections and for people viewing the site on small screens. [Link]
