As many of you know, Family Tree Maker includes an option to search Ancestry.com in the background and display hints about probable record matches that are found. If enabled, these matches, called hints, appear as a green leaf next to the names of people in the pedigree and detail views.

As of Thursday July 16 we implemented a new hinting engine that affects Family Tree Maker 2008, 2009, and the forthcoming 2010. The new hinting engine is much faster and can handle more traffic than the old system. In addition to a selection of databases that include census records, vital records (birth, marriage, & death), and immigration records, the new hinting engine searches the vast Ancestry Member Trees collection rather than the older “One World Tree” data. [Ancestry]

The Democratic Party still has two candidates to run for election for the United States’ Congressional District #2.

Mr. Jack Schofield, of Las Vegas, will compete with Paul Reeves, of Pahrump, to be the Democrat to run against the incumbent, Republican Dean Heller, assuming Heller does not run for some other office.

In a phone conversation today Mr. Schofield informed me he had not yet formally announced his candidacy, but will do so in due course.

Neither has Mr. Reeves formally announced his candidacy but is expected to do so August 3rd at a campaign event to be held in Pahrump at Honeysuckle Park from 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

Mr. Schofield’s campaign website can be found here. There you can learn a lot about his background and qualifications. He was a bomber pilot during WWII. He has taught school and held administrative positions in education. Dr. Schofield has been involved in local and state government. He served as a town board member (1953-1970), as an assemblyman (1970-1974), and as a state senator (1974-1978). The Jack Lund Schofield Middle School is named after him.

This blog will endeavor to follow each candidate and keep readers advised of relevant news and events.

The battle for healthcare reform rages on. This ad is running in Washington, D.C. and South Carolina, Senator Jim DeMint’s state.

The tactic used by the Republican Party leadership is to politicize the healthcare issue. To me healthcare is about people, not politics.

Don’t forget, Senator DeMint is one of “The Chosen” of the The Family. That group is in the political business for the power they can accumulate and use. These guys are not in the business for you or for me. They’re in it for themselves.

Go to Project Vote Smart and look at DeMint’s voting record on health care issues. He is not in support of healthcare. Look at all the Naye votes on the bills upon which he has voted.

Now, go on to see where he gets his money.

I just want to pass this on to you all out there. It is something of a modern technological minor miracle. Let me explain.

A week or so ago I posted a blog item entitled Adrienne Lever going to Africa.

Then today I received a comment to that post from a library club in Guinea Africa. The comment was in French. I don’t read French well, though I took French in college.

Now the technological miracle available in Microsoft’s software program called Word 2007. I copied the French message and pasted it into Word and clicked a translate button and voila, it translated the French message into English.

Here is the message in French:

Bonjour,

Nous membres du Club de la Bibliothèque Américaine en Guinée dénommés LABTM, nous venons d’accomplir une grande tournée dans toutes les Universités de Conakry pour sensibiliser les jeunes sur leur role dans le processus de transition en Guinée et ce mation nous sommes très impatiants de rencontrer Mlle Adrienne Lever dont on a tant entendu parler pour nous apporter ses expériences dans la Campagne de OBAMA.

Le RESIDENT DU CLUB – Mamadou Yaya DIALLO Tél. +224 64 278 088.

Now, here is the same message translated into English:

Hello,

We members of the Club library American in Guinea referred to as LABTM, we have just done a great tour in all the universities of Conakry to educate youth on their role in the process of transition in Guinea and this information we are very impatient meet Miss Adrienne Lever which it has both heard for We make his experiences in the OBAMA campaign.

The RESIDENT of the CLUB – Mamadou DIALLO Yaya + 224 64 278 088 Phone.

On the map above you can spot the town of Conakry on the Western coast of Guinea just above Freetown.

I responded to the members of the library club asking them to say hello to Adrienne when they meet her.

What a way to communicate!