The Globetrotters eNewsletter
eNewsletter Archive

Here's a new resource for genealogists. Origin Search
is a search engine just for finding family history information. You do
have to pay a fee to use the service, but you can try out the Irish resources
for free.

Take a look at "http://www.originsearch.com/">their website

The Youth Hostels Association (YHA) has teamed with English
Out There to offer English language courses for visitors to London. Accommodation
will be at one of six YHA hostels in the capital and the packages include
bed and breakfast, an Underground pass and tickets to some famous attractions.

The language lessons are designed around themes or tasks,
and students can choose how many they want to take from 20 modules. The
students are expected to be mainly families or young people, who want
to combine a holiday with improving their English.

Websites: "http://www.yha.org.uk">yha.org.uk and "http://www.EnglishOutThere.co.uk">EnglishOutThere.co.uk.

Source: "http://www.britainexpress.com">britainexpress.com

A diver discovered a 40.2-carat emerald embedded in a
conch shell while diving at the site of a Spanish galleon wrecked in a
Florida Keys hurricane 380 years ago.

The diver, who unsurprisingly does not want his name
revealed, discovered the giant raw emerald while washing shells in a classroom
laboratory. “Out popped a 40.2-carat emerald,” Patrick Clyne,
vice president at Key West-based wreck salvage company Mel Fisher Enterprises,
said Monday. “It was one of those freak-of-nature things that somehow
got swept up in the conch shell.”

The diver had gathered the shells from a dive off the
Spanish galleon Santa Margarita, which sank Sept. 6,

1622, about 30 miles west of Key West. “This is
an excellent indication that the Margarita had raw emeralds

smuggled aboard the ship,” Clyne said. “There
were no emeralds listed on its cargo manifest.” There were no

estimates for how much the emerald might be worth. But
in 1985, a 77.7-carat emerald from the vessel

Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a sister ship of the Santa
Margarita, was appraised at $1.2 million. The vessels,

part of a 28-ship fleet that left Havana on Sept. 4,
1622, for Spain with treasures from Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela,
sank during a hurricane.

You can now “see” a whole load of manuscripts,
paintings and artefacts from ancient caves and temples along the Silk
Road on the Internet in digital form.

By visiting "http://idp.nlc.gov.cn">http://idp.nlc.gov.cn or HREF="http://idp.bl.uk/">http://idp.bl.uk, websites developed jointly by the
British Library and the National Library of China you can see a collection
of artefacts recovered from the Dunhuang cave in China in the early 20th
Century.

“The cave was sealed in AD 1000 and completely hidden,”
Dr Susan Whitfield, Director of the British Library's International
Dunhuang Project told the BBC programme Go Digital. “It was discovered
accidentally in 1900 and when it was open, it was found to contain these
50,000 items of manuscripts and paintings.” These offer a glimpse
into the daily life of merchants, officials, soldiers, monks and farmers
in Silk Road towns.

“The idea is that scholars will always get as close
as they possibly can on their computer screens to the objects,” explained
Dr Whitfield. The artefacts are now spread across the world, in major
museums in Beijing, London, Paris and St Petersburg. The other reason
behind making digital copy of the artefacts is to ensure that they are
preserved for future generations.

John F. Kennedy International Airport has become the
first airport in the United States to use iris scanning technology to
prevent employee security breaches. Kennedy has been testing the technology
on about 300 employees working at Terminal 4 for two months, although
the program is not mandatory for now. The idea is that the technology
prevents employees from giving their ID cards to someone else. The scanner
stores 247 traits of a person's iris into a computer and on his or
her ID card's magnetic strip.

Terminal officials said they believe the technique is
more specific than fingerprinting, which checks for 85 traits. The $2,000
iris scanner and the $15,000 door barring entry into a secure area have
been installed at the customs area leading to the tarmac. If the scanner
fails to match an employee's eyes and card, an alarm sounds and security
guards are dispatched. After swiping their cards, workers peer into the
scanner for 10 to 15 seconds, until the door clicks open. The system works
with contact lenses and eyeglasses, but not with sunglasses. The Charlotte,
North Carolina, airport used similar technology in 2000, but suspended
the system last year.

If you have a travellers tale that your aching to tell.
Then why not visit the “Travel Sized Bites” section of the Website
and share it with the world. "http://www.globetrotters.co.uk/bites/">Travel Sized Bites

A man has died after contracting Britain's first
case of rabies for 100 years, hospital bosses have confirmed. David McRae,
a 56-year-old conservationist from Guthrie, Angus, Scotland, failed to
recover from European Bat Lyssavirus (EBL), a type of rabies found in
several northern European countries. Mr McRae, who was licensed to handle
bats, was bitten by one of the creatures on at least one occasion.

In Europe, where the EBL strain is common, there have
only been three cases of humans catching rabies since 1977.

If you are planning on visiting countries where there
are bats, please don’t pet them. If you are bitten or scratched
by a bat, you are at risk of infection and should seek urgent medical
advice.

The number of foreign tourists visiting the UK saw its
biggest fall in 20 years in 2001, according to the National Statistics
Office, particularly from US, who are traditionally the UK’s biggest
visitor group.

The impact of September 11 and the foot-and-mouth outbreak
contributed to the sharp decline, which saw a £1.5bn drop in the amount
spent by visitors to the UK. Visitor numbers fell 9% to 22.8m. Because
more Britons chose to holiday overseas, rather than stay in the UK, they
spent £14bn more than the amount spent by tourists in the UK.

Visitors from nearby European countries, Spain, Germany
etc., have come back to holiday in the UK quite quickly, but the high
spending US and Japanese markets are not so quick to return.

The British Tourist Authority (BTA) recently announced
a long-term plan to increase the UK's income from tourism. Their “Leading
the World to Britain” campaign aims to build on emerging markets
in eastern Europe and the Far East, as well as putting more emphasis on
the distinctiveness of Britain's three nations, and increasing UK
tourism's Internet presence.

In an exhibit billed as “The Sensuous and the Sacred,”
the Smithsonian Institution introduces the public to a Hindu deity called
Shiva, noted for being the Lord of Dance.

Admission to the exhibit is free. After it closes in
Washington on March 9, it will be seen at the Dallas Museum of Art, April
4-June 15, and at the Cleveland Museum of Art, July 6-September 14

Here’s a little Beetle quiz based on airport codes.
See how many you get right! Go on, have a guess!

Which cities are served by airports with the following
codes:

1. CPT

2. NBO

3. VCE

4. ORD

5. PRG

For the answers, see at the end of the e-newsletter.