Congrats to the 2025 #DigMichNews Grant Winners ... 2023 & 2024 Too!

Originally posted Friday, March 21, 2025, at 11:54 a.m. Edited to include more information on St. Clair County's newspaper plans.

Congratulations to the 2025 Digital Michigan Newspaper Grant winners! 

Possibly as early as late this year, these organizations' chosen newspapers should begin appearing in Central Michigan University's Clarke Historical Library's Digital Michigan Newspapers site. This year's winners who will share the grant include: Bessemer, Eastpointe, Elk Rapids, Fennville, Pentwater, the Polish Institute of Culture and Research (Orchard Lake), and the St. Clair County Library System.

We have learned that St. Clair is planning to have the St Clair Republican from the years 1865-1871, 1877-1878, 1890-1893 and 1919-1922 digitized.

So, if you are interested in these locations find your patience and keep it at hand while we wait for the fruits of this grant.

In writing this post, we realized we had not mentioned on this blog the prior winners of the 2024 and 2023 grants since Mount Clemens won the grant in 2022 along with East Lansing. So congratulations to: Bellaire and Lansing (Capital Area) for their win in 2023; and Ishpeming, Midland, Lapeer, Zeeland, Dewitt and Alma for their win in 2024.

These digitized newspapers are every word OCRd (Optical Character Recognition) documents. Meaning it was done via a computer program. Digitizing makes these newspapers accessible to you where ever you are around the world and OCRing makes finding and pulling information in these historical galleys so much easier.

We would like to point out a few things. See our prior posts on the Digital Michigan Newspapers Grant for tips on how to better use the website when searching. Use the label #DigMichNews to find our prior posts.

Also, note that there are two lists of newspapers on the website.

The first is labeled Digital Michigan Newspaper Portal. You can clearly identify it because is has a golden map of Michigan followed below by a list of the Michigan counties and a list of newspapers under each county. This newspaper list is ... "from a variety of sources. Among these links are papers held by the Clarke Historical Library and also Michigan newspapers found in Chronicling America, a database maintained by the Library of Congress."

This is what is listed for Lapeer county on this list. This list is not up-to-date. It does not include what was digitized for last year's win.

The second list can be found from the gold menu bar at the top of the Digital Michigan Newspaper search.

Just select Counties from the gold menu bar. And then select the county you want to view.

 

Here is where you can see what was digitized for Lapeer's win. This capture also happens to show what was digitized for Midland and of course Macomb County. The staff at Mount Clemens Public Library has continued having additional newspapers and/or years digitized. So this list shows what is currently included and if you compare this second list to the first list for Macomb County you can see much has been added.

Have fun searching!

See you at our favorite library!
LE

MCGG Let's Talk Genealogy is THIS Wed., Mar. 12; Let's Talk about RootsTech 2025

MCGG Let's Talk...Genealogy discussion group meets in-person (hybrid) Wednesday, March 12, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. in the Local History & Genealogy Room of the Mount Clemens Public Library. Our topic is ... What Did We Learn from RootsTech 2025?

Let's share and talk about the online sessions you watched or have marked to watch from the RootsTech 2025 conference held March 6 to 8th. We'll also talk about the new things announced and if any conference sale are still taking place. Keep an eye on this blog during the conference in case we pass on any news.

 

Our plan is that our meetings will be hybrid meaning the meeting will be in-person with a virtual Zoom option. The Zoom meeting link (or registration link) will now be found on our Southeast Michigan Genealogy Events Calendar and our Facebook page. The link will usually be added the night before or morning of the meeting. Members will receive a reminder email with the Zoom invite or a reminder that registration is required for a meeting.

New attendees are always welcome.

See you at our favorite library!
LE

MCGG Meets This Friday, March 7; Digitize and Enhance? Yes, YOU Can!

 MCGG Friday group meets in-person (hybrid) Friday, March 7, 2025, at 1 p.m.
in the Auditorium B/C of the Mount Clemens Public Library. Our topic is ... Digitize and Enhance? Yes, YOU Can! presented by Lisa Eschenburg.

An overview of how you -- yes, YOU -- can digitize your family photos and enhance them. You may already have these simple photo tools available to you and not realize it.

Our plan is that our meetings will be hybrid meaning the meeting will be in-person with a virtual Zoom option. The Zoom meeting link (or registration link) will now be found on our Southeast Michigan Genealogy Events Calendar and our Facebook page. The link will usually be added the night before or morning of the meeting. Members will receive a reminder email with the Zoom invite or a reminder that registration is required for a meeting.

As members were reminded last month, in times of bad weather check for an email or look for a post here or on our Facebook page if bad weather (or anything else) requires us to go all virtual. And, if the library closes due to weather or another reason on the date of our meeting, we will let you know if we will switch to all virtual or just cancel the meeting.

New attendees are always welcome.

See you at our favorite library!
LE

RootsTech 2025 Starts Tomorrow! and Runs March 6 to March 9

RootsTech 2025 Starts Tomorrow!

RootsTech 2025 -- the genealogy and technology conference takes place March 6 to March 9, 2025, in Salt Lake City, Utah, but it also has an online component as well for those unable to attend in-person.

Participation in RootsTech 2025 Online requires registration and the cost is ... FREE! Participating online gives you access to 200+ online sessions in over 26 languages; the ability to join keynote sessions live from where ever you are that day with internet connection;  the ability to chat with other online participants; and access to syllabi and class handouts.

Use your free user account to FamilySearch.org to sign-in at the RootsTech website before you register.

Once you are registered, you can create a schedule for yourself for each day of the conference. And, even if you can't attend every session each day, most sessions are recorded and can be viewed after the conference ends. Note that some sessions will be only available after the conference for a few months before they are removed. But the vast majority will stay up for later viewing.

See you at our favorite library!
LE

MyHeritageDNA "Grandfathered-In Sale" Now thru Mar. 9; Upload for Free Get Advanced DNA Tools Free Forever

It is RootsTech time again and that means there is a higher chance for the return of one particular rare sale. The elusive "Grandfathered In DNA Transfer" at MyHeritage where DNA uploads are free and the standard $29 unlock fee for advanced DNA features is waived making these advanced features free forever.

This rare Special Promotion is indeed taking place right now, March 2 through March 9, 2025. Note: this "sale" does not apply to previously uploaded DNA tests. It is only for new uploads made this week.

Have you taken a DNA test at another testing site (i.e. AncestryDNA, FamilyTreeDNA, 23andMe, etc.)? If so, you can download your DNA data from that site and transfer/upload it to MyHeritageDNA.

Why? It gets your test(s) into another DNA pool to fish for matches -- you never know where someone has tested. See some other reasons listed further down below.

And Why Now? From now until March 9, 11:59 p.m., when you upload your DNA test data to MyHeritageDNA you get the advanced features (normally $29 to unlock) for FREE FOREVER! Thus what many genealogists like to call the Grandfathered In Sale.

Haven't tested yet but would like to? MyHeritage is currently having a Global DNA Sale for autosomal DNA test kits which ends today. The DNA test itself is regularly $89 and is on sale for $39 plus taxes and shipping. 

This particular sale is offering a 30-Day Complete Free Trial to its website option also for the sale price of $39 plus taxes and shipping. But note that after the 30 days, the complete subscription will auto-renew unless you cancel the auto-renewal a couple days before the renewal date. For this initial renewal you will get 50% off ($149 instead of $299) the first year and additional years will be at the current regular price. You can cancel at any time.

The "Grandfathered In" Transfer Sale does not happen every year so when it happens catch it while you can. MyHeritage has guides to help you download your DNA data from whichever website you tested at originally. And, don't worry your original test stays on that original site.

MyHeritageDNA is becoming a "must be at" for its DNA tools. Its customer base is more international. MyHeritage has chromosome browser feature and made its internal member messaging feature free. It also offers an ethnicity/admixture report and a list of DNA matches. Being grandfathered-in, means no data subscription is needed to see/use all the DNA matching features including its AutoCluster feature. Additional features include a very recent update to its ethnicity estimates and genetic groups including viewing the genetic groups of your match and seeing what you have in common.

See you at our favorite library!
LE

MCGG Meets Friday, March 7; The Topic is Digitize and Enhance? Yes, YOU Can!

MCGG Friday group meets in-person (hybrid) Friday, March 7, 2025, at 1 p.m.
in the Auditorium B/C of the Mount Clemens Public Library. Our topic is ... Digitize and Enhance? Yes, YOU Can! presented by Lisa Eschenburg.

An overview of how you -- yes, YOU -- can digitize your family photos and enhance them. You may already have these simple photo tools available to you and not realize it.

Our plan is that our meetings will be hybrid meaning the meeting will be in-person with a virtual Zoom option. The Zoom meeting link (or registration link) will now be found on our Southeast Michigan Genealogy Events Calendar and our Facebook page. The link will usually be added the night before or morning of the meeting. Members will receive a reminder email with the Zoom invite or a reminder that registration is required for a meeting.

As members were reminded last month, in times of bad weather check for an email or look for a post here or on our Facebook page if bad weather (or anything else) requires us to go all virtual. And, if the library closes due to weather or another reason on the date of our meeting, we will let you know if we will switch to all virtual or just cancel the meeting.

New attendees are always welcome.

See you at our favorite library!
LE

RootsTech 2025/March Month-long Sale of Vivid-Pix Photo Restoration Software

Vivid-Pix is already advertising its RootsTech 2025 Sale. The company has grown a bit since we first talked about it at some of our meetings and it now offers a bit more than its two photo correction software applications. Vivid-Pix has bundles for institutions, professionals, and the home-user.

Not sure if the Restore software is for you or a loved one? Come into our favorite library's Local History and Genealogy Room and try the Restore software in-person on the new scanning station that replaced the BookScan station. Or, some of Vivid-Pix's software have free trial periods that allow you to test drive the software (with some limitations) first.

First a caution. Make sure you are seeing the sale pricing you are expecting. If you simply go to the website's Gift Guide you will not see the website's RootsTech pricing. So instead make sure you are on the website's RootsTech Sale page. And be sure to enter the RT2025 coupon code before completing a purchase. This sale/coupon code ends March 30, 2025.

The sale page is a little confusing because it mixes the products for institutions, caregivers and home-users together. All three levels have bundles with scanning equipment and then just the software packages to add to your existing computer/scanner system. So Tip #1 for most genealogists is look to the home-user level. We'll note the mostly likely items on sale that may be of interest to our genealogy members.

What is on sale?

The Vivid-Pix Restore (this is the software) which provides one-click correction that can be fine tuned with sliders for scanned prints, slides, documents and digital camera images focusing on general photography and restoring faded pictures and documents. The regular price is $49.99 but for the RootTech 2025 sale the price is $39.99 -- saving you $10. [The lowest price was $29.99 this past Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Giving Tuesday for reference.] To learn more about the software, check out the company's website and view the overview and tutorial videos.

Also for the home-user is: 

Photo Reminiscence Therapy (pRT) For Families and Loved Ones – Joshua Freitas, PhD [No Certification] Designed for paid and unpaid caregivers, this course provides instruction to implement pRT – as described by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), “Reminiscence Therapy (RT) involves the discussion of past activities, events and experiences with another person or group of people, usually with the aid of tangible prompts such as photographs, household and other familiar items …” Regular price $79.00 it is on sale for $49.00 -- a savings of $30.

Memory Station Home Edition Software Patent-pending software, with intuitive interface and large buttons, makes it easy to scan, restore photos and documents, record memories and combine to create stories. (Includes Vivid-Pix RESTORE software.) Reminiscing about life pulls memories from shoeboxes and memory banks. Individual and Multi-generational re-living of yesterday and yesteryear provides connection and understanding through photo-based activities that are fun – and provide social and health benefits. Rather than buying the scanner and the software bundle, this is the software only to install on your existing computer/scanner system. Regular price $199.99, it is on sale for $99.99 -- a savings of $100.

Or get the Photo Reminiscence Therapy (pRT) For Families and Loved Ones course and the Memory Station Home Edition Software bundled together in this RootsTech sale. Regular price is $199.99, it is on sale for $129.99 -- a savings of $70.

If you don't have a scanner and are interested in the Vivid-Pix Memory Station Home Edition bundle, it includes: Windows; one ScanSnap SV600 Scanner / Home Edition Memory Station Software (600 ppi TIFF scanning, MP3 audio recording, MP4 video stories, JPG output, Free software updates) which includes Vivid-Pix RESTORE Software; and Ricoh software provides book-scanning and PDF creation with OCR search capability. Regular price is $799.95 with the coupon code the sale price is $699.95 for this sale.

We don't know if there will be any additional savings during RootsTech 2025 (March 6 to 8) itself so keep an eye out just in case.

See you soon at our favorite library!
LE