random bits

I had a lot planned for this week and didn’t seem to accomplish much. It’s nice to have a lazy week, though I should probably wait until the blog loses it’s new car smell.

I have begun work on a series of web pages that will be devoted to specific localities and surnames that I research. The first one that will launch will be a comprehensive resource site for Carter County, Tennessee and will be followed by other Tennessee counties including Washington and Sullivan Counties of east Tennessee. Some planned features are extensive lists of available records and where they can be obtained, research tips, county histories, vital record scans and an on-demand record lookup service. These sites are a few months from launch but I am very excited. I have wanted an alternative to the USGenWeb sites for sometime as they are rarely updated data or design wise. So lots of reading on xhtml and css are in my future.

I’m also excited about the announcement of Family Tree DNA’s Family Finder DNA test (see post below) and am excited to announce that an interview is in the works with Bennett Greenspan, President and CEO of Family Tree DNA. I hope to have that up in the next week or so along with an article on DNA testing.

As an added bonus, I have five Google Wave nomination invites up for grabs for the first give people to request one by emailing me at michael@geneacentric.com. Note that these are nominations so you will get an invite but its not instant.. still much quicker than waiting for google to invite you.