Security Breach at MyHeritage

Do you use genealogy website MyHeritage?  If you do, the next time you log in you will be required to change your password because of a security breach which leaked the data of over 92 million users.
The breach took place on October 26 last year, and consisted of the email addresses and hashed passwords of users who signed up to the website up until the date of the breach, according to a blog post.
The company said it learnt about the breach on Monday, when its chief information security officer was notified by a security researcher who found a file with the email addresses and hashed passwords on a private server outside of MyHeritage.
MyHeritage said no other data was found on the server, and that there was no evidence of data in the file being used.  Information about family trees and DNA data are stored on separate systems and were not a part of the breach, the blog said.
The good news is this latest security wake-up call is that the passwords in the file were hashed. This is a form of data encryption that turns readable data into a scrambled cipher. Instead of allowing someone to decrypt that data with a specific key, as typical encryption functions do, hashes aren’t designed to be decrypted.  So far, there’s no indication that the hashing has been cracked at all, no indication that anything other than names and email addresses were in plain text, no financial or other data associated with the accounts included in the hacked data.
MyHeritage said it was investigating the breach and taking steps to engage an independent cybersecurity company to review the incident, and the company advised users to change their passwords.

Week 18 - Close Up - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 18 - Close Up should have been done several weeks ago - I will have to play a bit of catch up but I have a little time this week so hopefully I will be able to cover a few of Amy's prompts.

Taking a close-up look at a specific ancestor is an exercise I undertake fairly regularly.  Sometimes I get so caught up on filling in dates in my tree that it is useful to step aside and make one specific ancestor the focus of my research.  I create a timeline for the person, looking at the major events in the person's life, events that took place where they were living, and more.  I focus on where they went to school, where they worked, the places they lived, if they ever found their name in the newspapers.  I look for census records, electoral rolls, medical records, wills, church records - the list goes on. 

Once I start to drill down into the details of one person's life, it highlights not only what I know about them, but the gaps in my research - the details I have not filled in.  The missing baptism for one of their children, the missing census record, the gap in their employment history.  I go back through all the documents I already have for them and reexamine them, looking for any little details I may have missed earlier.  There is always something to find.

Without that close-up examination, my research cam end up being just a list of names and dates.  That may be all some people want - but I love finding the small details that bring my ancestors to life for me, and a close-up examination of a specific ancestor does that - it fills out the details and gives me a fuller and more detailed image of their life.

WDYTYA June Magazine

The June issue of Who Do You Think You Are is now available free online from Campaspe Library via our RB Digital app.

Inside this month's issue

• Vital records
  Expert Antony Marr presents our essential guide to civil registration
• Missing in action
  Dr Clare Makepeace trawls the archives on a quest for the truth about a Far East prisoner of war
• Protect your archive
  Make sure that your precious family documents resist the ravages of time
• Reader story
  John Walker shares a tale of poverty, hardship and convict transportation
• Industrial and reformatory schools
  How you can find out if one of your ancestors was a juvenile delinquent
• Plus...
  The best websites for tracing WW1 volunteers; the stories of men and women who worked for the royal household; the lives of apothecary ancestors; and more...

New Records on FamilySearch

Every week, it seems, the fantastic free website FamilySearch adds new records.  It is one of the websites I visit regularly to see what they have added - and it is well worth regular checks.  Below are a few of their newest records, addded the week of May 14th.

 Also worth keeping an eye on are the selection of webinars and Family History classes they offer.  These are also free and the webinars can be done at your convenience from the comfort of home.  They cover genereal research, utilising the FamilySearch website, and researching specific countries and regions.

GDPR - Why am I Getting all these Emails?

You may have noticed over the past week or so that you are receiving a few (possibly quite a few) emails requesting you to confirm that you want to continue receiving emails from certain companies (Ancestry, FamilySearch, WDYTYA, etc.) or asking you to read through updated privacy statements and confirm your agreement.  This is likely to be because of the GDPR. 
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation. It’s the European Union’s new data protection law and it comes into effect on 25th May 2018. That’s just around the corner, and many companies are scrambling to make sure they are compliant with these new regulations.
The GDPR doesn’t just apply to EU businesses.  It applies to any business, anywhere in the world, that processes personal data relating to an individual in the European Union.  So while it is an EU regulation, it has worldwide impact.
And if there’s any common thread that runs through all of the parts of the GDPR, it’s that personally-identifying information like names and email addresses can’t be collected, stored or used without (a) the consent of the person whose name or email it is and (b) proof that consent was given.  The second part is the sticky one that's causing all these emails.
For many companies who regularly email me newsletters and information, it has simply been a matter of clicking to confirm that I do wish to continue receiving their emails.  That's their proof of my consent.  After carefully checking the link and email sender to confirm they are legitimate, I have clicked and received confirmation that I will stay on their mailing list.  One or two I have decided not to continue with and unsubscribed - at least this will clean up my inbox a bit.
So if you have received a few of these updates, the GDPR is the reason.  If you don't reply, you will probably drop off their mailing list - possibly after receiving a second email prompting you to confirm your choice.  What you do is up to you.

Our Criminal Ancestors

Our Criminal Ancestors encourages people to explore the criminal past of their own families, communities, towns and regions.  The project not only focuses on those who committed crimes but includes the accused, victims, witnesses, prisoners, police, prison officers, solicitors and magistrates and others who worked in the criminal justice system.  The website aims to provide a useful starting point for anyone looking to explore their criminal ancestry, providing handy tips, advice and insights on the history of crime, policing and punishment as well as case studies and blogs to help in your research.
Our criminal ancestors were often ordinary people - most were minor offenders whose contact with the criminal justice system was a brief moment in their lives, and only a small minority were what we might term today ‘serious offenders’.  The project hopes to share a greater understanding of the sometimes difficult situations and context for understanding how or why individuals, and sometimes groups of people, encountering the criminal justice system.
The website looks for stories and events from between roughly 1700 and 1939 (lots of records are subject to closure of between 75-100 years).  The Our Criminal Ancestors project is led by principal investigator Dr Helen Johnston of the University of Hull and co-investigator Dr Heather Shore of Leeds Beckett University and launched its website in April.  The website organisers are also encouraging members of the public to get involved by sharing stories of their criminal ancestors via Historypin.

Week 17 - Cemeteries - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 17, focusing on Cemeteries, should have been done the last week in April.  Here I am, almost to the end of May, and again I am playing catch-up.  Where has the time gone?
I have had a fair bit of luck with cemeteries and headstones, especially in finding records and photographs online, although it is still wonderful when I get to visit an ancestor's grave in person.  It is just not always possible, and websites like Find-A-Grave or Australian Cemeteries are sites I visit frequently.
My ancestor David Mulholland was born in 1830 in Ireland and died 8 April 1902 in Eurobin.  His wife Eliza Jane (McCrae) was also born in Ireland and died 28 October 1925 in Eurobin.  Both are buried in Bright Cemetery, and there are photographs of their family plot available on several websites.  The ones below are from the Find-A-Grave website I mentioned earlier.


Mulholland family plot, Bright Cemetery, Victoria

David and Eliza had 14 children together, some of whom died quite young.  Several of the children are also buried in the plot and are commemorated on the main headstone or on the smaller memorials on either side.  Finding a headstone and/or cemetery record is always exciting, as they can contain quite a lot of information and I always check both, as the cemetery record may contain different information.  Below I have included the details of the Mulholland family included in the Bright Cemetery Register, which includes names, birth, death and burial dates, section, block and lot of the graves, religion, cause of death and other information, such as family relationships.  Not all of this is included on the headstones, and it adds so much to my research.


Details of the Mulholland Family buried in Bright Cemetery



Main headstone

One of the smaller headstones in the plot