LAST UNION WIDOW DIES
(Please be aware this post was written in 2003 and published at that time in the Houston Chronicle (Houston, Texas) newspaper. Some of the news in this post, therefore, may not be current. Current and future posts on this blog may revisit and update news on this and other posts on this blog. If you have questions and/or suggestions, please send Mic a note using the comment page -Don’t forget to use the orange “subscribe” button to receive new posts-Thanks, Mic)
Gertrude Grubb Janeway, age 93, died Friday January 19 at her home in Blaine, Tennessee. She lived in a three room log cabin bought for her by her husband in 1927. She was the last surviving widow of a Union soldier. Her husband, John Janeway, died in 1937 at age 91.
She married her husband in 1927 when she was 18 and he was 81. In an interview in 1998 she said they sparked for three years because her mother would not sign for her to marry. As a Union widow pensioner Janeway received $70 per month from the Veterans Administration.
Still living is the last surviving widow of a Confederate soldier, Alberta Martin, age 95, of Elba, Alabama. She was born in 1909 and was a widow from her first marriage by the time she was 21. She married her Civil War husband, William Jasper Martin in 1927 when he was 81.
SUPREME UPHOLDS CTEA
The United States Supreme Court has decided in a 7-2 majority vote to uphold the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, the CTEA. At issue was the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft in which Eldritch Press and others questioned the right of the United States Congress to extend copyright limitations.
The CTEA was introduced in Congress by Representative Sonny Bono R-CA on behalf of Disney and other corporations who wished to protect expiring copyrights on such works as the Mickey Mouse character that was created in 1928.
Eldritch Press scans out of copyright books and places them online to be read by schoolchildren. Eldritch and the other plaintiffs contended the framers of the original United States copyright laws in 1790 which allowed a copyright to be issued for fourteen years and was extendable by fourteen additional years should never have been amended. Under that law once a copyright had been extended one time and teh copyright expired the book, work of art, etc entered the public domain for the use and enjoyment of society.
Since 1978 the copyright law has been amended eleven times. Under the current CTEA law as upheld by the Supreme Court works of art created after 1978 have an automatic copyright for the lifetime of the author plus seventy years. Works created on behalf of a corporation which is not a living being are protected for ninety five years. Anonymous works or works where the date of death of the author is unknown have copyright protection for as much as one hundred twenty years.
This law affects genealogists and historians by extending copyrights on county histories, family histories, and the like, published as far back as, in some cases, the mid 1800’s. Depending on who and the circumstances of how they were created copyrights on some books might now expire in 2018, 2047 or even 2067.
LEARN GENEALOGY
Offered by Leisure Learning, Mic Barnette will teach an introductory course on conducting family history research. Roots of Genealogy-How To Research Your Family Tree will be held from 7 P.M. to 10 P.M. Tuesday February 4 at Leisure Learning’s 2990 Richmond Ave campus. The following week the class will tour Clayton Genealogical Library and conduct on-site census research. For more information and to register, contact Leisure Learning at 713-529-4414.
BOOKSHELF NEWS
Ancestry.com has published the Biography and Genealogy Master Index on CD-Rom. This well known comprehensive database contains over 1.4 million records of persons from some of the best biographical sources available. In a poll a couple years ago librarians voted this database one of the best genealogical finding aids in their collections.
The names and biographies in the fully searchable database have been compiled from a range of sources that include subject encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, popular periodicals, literary criticism, history publications, academic catalogues, political profiles and more.
The Biography and Genealogy Master Index may be purchased from Paula Perkins Parke at 281-550-7935.
