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 Thursday, October 22, 2009
New Digital Library Names Thousands of Slaves
Posted by Diane
Search information from thousands of slavery-related county court and legislative petitions in a new, free resource from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro library.
The Digital Library on American Slavery provides detailed information on more than 150,000 individuals who are named in the petitions, including 80,000 individual slaves and 10,000 free people of color.
The information comes from legal documents, such as wills, estate inventories and civil suits, filed in courts of 15 states and Washington, DC, from 1775 to 1867. Though this database doesn’t contain images of the records, it offers a lot of detail from them.
When you search by name, here's what your results list might look like:
Click the petition number by someone’s name for an abstract that tells you what the petition was about, and the date and place it was filed.
Under “People associated with this petition,” click the links for names of enslaved individuals, defendants, petitioners, etc.
One the resulting page, click a name for information about that person. You might learn the person’s color and sex, slave or free status, occupation, skills, physical attributes, diseases and more. Not every detail is available for each person—it depends what's in the record.
This database lets you connect slaves with owners and others they may have interacted with.
The Digital Library of American Slavery grew out of the Race and Slavery Petitions Project, established in 1991 by Loren Schweninger. The project created a microfilm edition of the petitions and documents called Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks: Petitions to Southern Legislatures and County Courts, 1775-1867. It’s on 151 reels; scroll down on this page for a list of institutions that have some or all of them.
Also see Schweininger’s book, The Southern Debate Over Slavery, Volume 2: Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1775-1867 (University of Illinois Press). The original documents are at state archives and county courthouses.
African-American roots | Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites
Thursday, October 22, 2009 4:01:51 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00) 
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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Footnote's New Holocaust Collection Free Through October
Posted by Diane
Historical records subscription site Footnote and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) just released the Interactive Holocaust Collection of a million Holocaust-related records.
The records are online for the first time—and they’re free through October.
The records, which contain millions of names and 26,000 photos, include:
- Concentration camp registers and documents from Dachau, Mauthausen, Auschwitz and Flossenburg.
- The Ardelia Hall Collection of records related to Nazi looting of Jewish possessions.
- Captured German records including deportation and death lists from concentration camps.
- Nuremberg War Crimes Trial proceedings.
The Interactive Holocaust Collection also has 600 personal accounts, provided by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, of those who survived or perished in the Holocaust. They’ll feature social networking tools that let you search for names and add photos, comments and stories, and create Footnote pages. These will remain free.
You can search the collection from Footnote's regular site or through a special Holocaust site with stories of victims and survivors, tools for setting up Footnote Pages to memorialize Holocaust ancestors, information on concentration camps, and descriptions of the original records at NARA.
Note the pages may load slowly at first due to high traffic.
After October, the collection will be accessible with a Footnote subscription ($79.95 a year). As stated, the personal accounts will stay free.
Footnote | Free Databases | Jewish roots
Tuesday, September 29, 2009 2:11:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Access WorldVitalRecords Free Through Aug. 13
Posted by Diane
Subscription genealogy site World Vital Records.com is offering free access to celebrate the addition of the most records in a single day since the site’s 2006 launch.
Get free access from August 11 (that’s today!) through August 13. You’ll still need a free registration, so type your info into the pop-up window you get when you first visit the hope page. (If you accidentally close that window and try a search and then click on a match, you’ll be asked to subscribe, so just go back to the home page and reload it.)
New records include
- US newspapers dating from 1759 through 1923, including the New York Times and titles from the West and Midwest
- immigration records of more than 150,000 passengers who arrived on nearly 8,000 ships at the port of New York from 1820 to 1832
- university yearbooks from the late 1800 to mid 1950 from E-Yearbook.com
- Vital records, military records and tax lists from New England and Atlantic states
Look for our World Vital Records Web guide in the November 2009 Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands Sept. 8. The guide also will be available as a digital download from ShopFamilyTree.com.
Update: World Vital Records has expanded the free access until midnight Aug. 18.
FamilyLink | Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 8:59:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Playing Heirloom Detective
Posted by Grace
I just finished writing a super-comprehensive article on heirloom preservation for our December issue. We asked our coworkers if they had any particularly interesting heirlooms to show off, and got some great items to photograph for the magazine.
An item we didn't use was very intriguing, though. Kelly wrote:
Let me know if you guys ever do an article on gruesome heirlooms—my family has this shirt that my great-great grandfather was wearing when he was shot and murdered. (Gross! And weird—who keeps that kind of stuff?)
Genealogists do! I wanted more details.
Basically, all I know is my great-great grandfather was a pig farmer who had a farm in Lockville, Ohio. According to the story, my great-great-grandpa turned to go back into the house after refusing to sell land to this guy, and when he did, the guy shot him in the back. Yikes! And that's how my grandpa ended up with a bloody shirt in a trunk in his basement.
All I knew was her grandpa's last name, Boyer, and that the murder took place in Lockville, Ohio. Surely there would have been newspaper articles about the fracas, but I couldn't search GenealogyBank until I had a specific name. I decided to do an old-fashioned Google search, for Lockville Ohio murder.
One of the very first results was a Google Books excerpt of a tome of Ohio penitentiary pardon petitions. Bingo! A John L. Tisdale pleading for clemency after serving eight years for the murder of a George L. Boyer in 1890. With that name, I searched GenealogyBank and found this article in the June 24, 1890, Cleveland Plain Dealer:
It reads:
Murder at Lockville.
LANCASTER, June 23.—[Special.]—George (sic) Tisdale, a farm laborer, shot George L. Boyer, a prominent famrer, at Lockville, this county, this morning. As the two sons of Tisdale were quarreling with a son of Boyer about hogs that had trespassed on Boyer's farm, he came up to protect his son, when Tisdale came out of his house and shot Boyer in the right breast, Boyer dying in five minutes after.
The Google Books result gives a little more insight into Tisdale's side of the story. He says Boyer was "a coarse, passionate man, of cruel heart" and was "a quarrelsome man and possessed a violent temper." (If you were trying to suss out your ancestor's personality, what a find! Read the September 2009 issue for more on ancestral psychoanalysis.)
With a little searching on Ancestry.com, I found the Boyer family in the 1880 census:
(Click to enlarge)
And going back, the family appeared in the same spot in every census going back to 1850. Amazing, what one bloody shirt can do for a family's research!
Learn more:
Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles | Free Databases | Newspapers
Tuesday, August 11, 2009 3:51:25 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, August 03, 2009
1930 Census Is Free on Footnote In August!
Posted by Diane
Historical records subscription site Footnote is making its 1930 census records free during August (you’ll need to sign up for a free Footnote registration). If you’re a newbie genealogist, this is a great opportunity to jump in with the most recent federal census open to the public (1940 census records will be available in 2012). If you’ve been doing genealogy for awhile, use this chance to try Footnote’s search and record viewer. Footnote uses a keyword search that filters your results with each term you add. I like the "Refine Your Search" panel on the results page, which lets you select from available terms. For example, if you’ve entered the last name Wagner, age 43, in Cincinnati, you’ll be able to choose from first names of people who fit those criteria. When you view the record in Footnote, you can see notes other users have added to the record (you can toggle this option on and off). You can learn more about using Footnote from our eight-page Web guide—it just happens to be on sale for $3 at ShopFamilyTree.com. The guide has an overview of Footnote, a navigation guide, step-by-step search demos, quick links, and hacks and shortcuts. It’s a PDF, so you can download it on the spot, open it with the free Adobe Reader on a PC or a Mac, click through to the recommended links, and print it if you so choose. PS: Footnote also has extended its $59.95 subscription offer for another week, until Aug. 10.
census records | Footnote | Free Databases
Monday, August 03, 2009 4:44:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 31, 2009
Burr Oak Cemetery Tombstone Images Posted Online
Posted by Diane
The Cook County (Ill.) sherrif’s office has set up a public database to help families affected by the shocking crimes at Burr Oak Cemetery.
In July, authorities announced that about 300 graves in the historically African-American cemetery near Chicago had been dug up, the bodies dumped, and the plots resold. Four cemetery workers are accused of the crime.
Those looking for relatives’ grave sites at the cemetery can search an online database of tombstone images. So far, it has 9,500 names from the roughly 100,000 grave sites.
Searchers can type in a name or browse by year. There’s also a link to view photos of markers with unknown burial years.
Read more about this tragedy in the articles linked here.
Examiner.com's African-American genealogy writer, Michael Hait, takes a close look at the database here.
African-American roots | Cemeteries | Free Databases
Friday, July 31, 2009 7:04:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 24, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: July 20-24
Posted by Diane
This week sure flew by, didn’t it? Here’s our news news roundup:
- New records this week on the free FamilySearch Record Search Pilot include an index to Cheshire, England, Non-conformist records (1671 to 1900), and index to the 1895 Minnesota state census, and images for the 1905 New York state census (the index is still in progress).
New indexing projects are underway for Italy, New Zealand, Perú and the United States; volunteers who can help with foreign language projects are needed. Go to the FamilySearch Indexing site for more information.
- The International Association of Jewish Genealogists conference is coming right up Aug. 2-7 in Philadelphia. Besides genealogy classes and an exhibit hall, you can use a Resource Room stocked with research materials and computers. Extracurriculars include walking tours, bus tours and cemetery research trips. Visit the conference Web site for registration information.
- Ancestry.com has upgraded its “hinting engine” for FamilyTreeMaker. Now a faster, higher-capacity engine will automatically search Ancestry.com and display a leaf next to a name
in FamilyTreeMaker's pedigree and detail views if there's a potential
match. The new engine also searches Ancestry Member Trees instead of One World
Tree data.
Ancestry.com | Canadian roots | FamilySearch | Free Databases | Genealogy Events | International Genealogy | Jewish roots
Friday, July 24, 2009 7:25:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Free Database of 5,000 York, UK, Prisoners
Posted by Diane
York Castle Prison museum in York, UK, has posted an online a database of 5,000 people who were held there or were victims of crimes, mostly during the 1700s.
The database, which isn’t comprehensive, includes:
- Criminals sentenced to transportation to America, about 1705 to 1775
- Criminals executed at York, about 1710 to 1899
- Debtors who pleaded insolvency, about 1709 to 1813
You can download a fact sheet with details about the York prisoners database, how to search it and recommended resources (including a database of 123,000 convicts transported to Queensland, Australia).
The museum doesn’t have any original records on the prisoners, but the above-mentioned fact sheet tells you where to look for them.
On the York Castle Prison family history page, you can search the database for a name or keyword. You’ll learn the prisoner's name, date of imprisonment and source of the information, and perhaps a short synopsis of the crime (which may name the perpetrator's victims).
William the Conquerer built the original York Castle, which included a
jail, in 1068. A county gaol and women’s prison were added in the
1700s; the whole castle was a prison from 1835 to 1929. Now it’s a
museum with an interesting Web site that lets you explore the prison and introduces you to prisoners and
keepers.
See our online article for more help tracing British criminals in your family tree.
Free Databases | Museums | UK and Irish roots
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 1:35:56 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 17, 2009
Free in July: US Virgin Islands Slave Records
Posted by Diane
Ancestry.com has added 200 years of Caribbean slave records with help from the Virgin Islands Social History Associates. You can access the records free through the end of July (you’ll need to register for a free account).
So far, the collection includes St. Croix slave lists from 1772 to 1821 and population censuses (1835 to 1911), which together have information on more than 700,000 slaves, owners and family members.
The slave lists aren’t yet indexed, so you can’t search by name, but you can browse the record images by year. Here's an example:
You can search the census records. Most are in English, but some are in Danish—the islands became a Danish colony in 1754; the United States purchased them in 1917.
African-American roots | Ancestry.com | Free Databases
Friday, July 17, 2009 4:52:16 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, July 02, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: June 29 to July 2
Posted by Diane
This week’s news roundup is coming at you a day early, but it's still chock-full:
- The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com, has a poignant new ad campaign you’ll probably catch on some media or other (if you’re worried you’ll miss it, see it on Ancestry.com’s YouTube channel).
- Ancestry.com also has developed an Ancient Ancestry Finder that guesses your haplogroup (ancestral origins) based on a few questions. It’s fun, and the haplogroups have cute names such as "Boatbuilders" and "Inventors," but keep in mind it's not necessarily accurate. At the end, you get a pitch to buy a $79 DNA test to determine if the Finder is correct.
- If you’ve been thinking of trying the databases at NewEnglandAncestors.org, now might be the time. The New England Historic Genealogical Society is offering $15 off new memberships during July.
- This week, FamilySearch enhanced its free Record Search Pilot with 12 new collections, which have records from Argentina, Australia, Mexico, Netherlands, and Spain. New United States collections were added for Delaware, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Utah.
International indexing projects now underway involve records from the Czech Republic; Baden, Germany; and South Africa—click here if you’re interested in volunteering. - The Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC) at the Houston Public Library's downtown Julia Ideson Building is changing its research hours during a renovation. Now through Aug. 31, HMRC is open Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 1 to Oct. 31, it'll be open by appointment—call (832) 393-1313 to make one.
Ancestry.com | FamilySearch | Free Databases | Genetic Genealogy | Libraries and Archives | Newspapers
Thursday, July 02, 2009 4:18:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, June 25, 2009
Free: Search Louisiana Obituary Index 1804-1972
Posted by Diane
The Louisiana Biography and Obituary Index is now online at the New Orleans Public Library Web site.
The database has references to obituaries and death notices published in New Orleans newspapers from 1804 to 1972, and biographical information from older Louisiana biography collections.
You can use three options to find a name in the database:
- Use the basic search form (below) to search by surname, first and middle names, and the death date. You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard at the beginning or end of a name. A Browse button by each field lets you select from an alphabetical listing of all available terms for that field. The Search button is at the bottom of the form.
- Click the Advanced Search link to add age, birth date, cause of death and other terms.
- At the bottom of the basic search form, click a letter of the alphabet to browse entries for surnames beginning with that letter. (I wasn’t able to get any of these surname listings to load.)
Matches give you the publication name, date and page number where you can find the original obituary or biographical information. Click Ordering Obituaries for instructions on requesting the item (the cost is $2 per item).
The index is from the New Orleans Public Library's card file of more than 650,000 names. Putting it online was a nearly-10-year endeavor of the library and the Historic New Orleans Collection.
Free Databases | Libraries and Archives | Newspapers | Vital Records
Thursday, June 25, 2009 6:55:39 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, June 19, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: June 15-19
Posted by Diane
Passing on these genealogy news bits we rounded up this week.
- The Connecticut State Library, which is facing a staff reduction due to the state's Retirement Incentive Plan, will be closed on Mondays for the summer. Starting July 1, the library’s new hours will be Tuesday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- After record additions throughout the first half of the year, the 1911census.co.uk site (developed by subscription and pay-per-view site FindMyPast.com with the British national archives) now has the complete 1911 census for England, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. It also includes full details of British Army personnel and their families stationed overseas.
Read more about 1911census.co.uk in our post from last week.
- The free FamilySearch Record Search pilot added 6 million new records this week, including Louisiana and Idaho death records; the 1920 census for Delaware, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire and New Mexico; and digital images of church records were also added for Mexico (the states of Baja California and Baja California Sur).
- We hear that MyGenShare.com is almost ready for beta testing. Founder Barry Ewell said the launch was delayed until late summer to expand the site’s educational resources and take advantage of better technology to improve user experience.
FamilySearch | Free Databases | Libraries and Archives | UK and Irish roots
Friday, June 19, 2009 7:11:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Chronicling America Helps You Find Even More Old Newspapers
Posted by Diane
We’re big fans of the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America site, where you can both search digitized newspapers published in 11 states and Washington, DC, between 1880 and 1922, and search a directory of historical newspaper titles by date and place.
I used the directory to compile a list of papers that might have articles naming my Bowie County, Texas, ancestor in 1913 and 1914. It even gave me information on repositories that hold each title, which years they have, and whether the paper’s on microfilm or in print.
The Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities, partners in the National Digital Newspaper Program, awarded new digitization grants to the University of Illinois, Urbana; Kansas State Historical Society; Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Montana Historical Society; Oklahoma Historical Society; University of Oregon, Eugene; and University of South Carolina, Columbia.
That means you’ll start seeing newspapers from these states on Chronicling America. The site recently added its 1 millionth
newspaper page; a number that eventually will grow to 20 million pages
dating back to 1836.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Research Tips
Wednesday, June 17, 2009 2:35:15 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Search Four Canadian Census Indexes Free Online
Posted by Diane
FamilySearch has added indexes to the 1851, 1861, and 1871 Canada Census to its record search site (click North America on the map, then scroll down to the list of Canadian records).
The 1881 census already was online, and plans are in place to add the 1891 census.
All are the products of a three-way partnership: Ancestry.ca provided indexes to the 1851 and 1891 censuses, and FamilySearch created indexes for the 1861, 1871, and 1881 censuses. (Both sites offer these indexes.) The originals are housed at Library and Archives Canada.
Information in these census might include your ancestor's name, age, birthplace, religion, occupation, residence and ethnicity. Some information on the records is in French.
Note that FamilySearch has posted only the indexes, not the record images. It will eventually release record images to “qualified FamilySearch members.” (I believe this means volunteer indexers who’ve indexed a certain number of records.)
If you find ancestors in the free FamilySearch index for the 1851 census, you can use the location information to find those folks in the unindexed 1851 census images at the Canadian Genealogy Centre Web site. (The Canadian Genealogy Centre also has 1901, 1906 and 1911 census images, but you must know about where your ancestor lived to use them.)
The Family History Library also has the records on microfilm (run a Keyword search of the online catalog on Canada census). You can rent the film through your local Family History Center.
The digitized records also are available on the subscription sites Ancestry.ca and Ancestry.com (which also have the 1901, 1906, 1911 and 1916 censuses).
Ancestry.com | Canadian roots | census records | FamilySearch | Free Databases
Wednesday, June 10, 2009 5:30:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, June 04, 2009
Newest General Land Office Records: Master Title Plats
Posted by Diane
Land-records researchers might be interested to know that most of the Master Title Plats for Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota will be available free on the Bureau of Land Management-Eastern States General Land Office Records Web site starting Monday.
These plats are maps relating to federal government land ownership. They show authorization for various uses (such as mining or oil drilling rights), agency jurisdiction, and rights reserved to the federal government on private land in a township. Accompanying historical indexes list related actions (such as new or canceled use authorizations).
So how would you use them for genealogy?
GLO systems manager John Butterfield suggests that if you have the legal land description and other information from your ancestor’s land patent, you can use a Master Title Plat for that township to see where the property was located.
See an example of how to search for and use GLO patents on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.
Free Databases | Land records
Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:54:39 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, May 22, 2009
Genealogy News Corral May 18-22
Posted by Diane
Here are some quick genealogy news updates for the week. We hope you have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and get an opportunity to reflect on your ancestors’ sacrifice for their country.
- British subscription and pay-per-view site Familyrelatives.com added more than 200,000 Canadian civil service records from 1872 to 1918. The records reveal the civil servant's name, position, department, length of service, salary and date of appointment. The earliest ones also provide civil servants' national origins and religion.
- FamilySearch has added a total of 3.5 million-plus new records to 13 collections on the free FamilySearch Record Search pilot. The additions come from Brazil, the Czech Republic and Italy; and the US states of Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina and South Carolina.
- The State Library of North Carolina and the North Carolina State Archives have posted a free collection of North Carolina family records including nearly 220 family Bible records and the six-volume Marriage and Death Notices from Raleigh Register and North Carolina State Gazette: 1799-1893.
Canadian roots | Free Databases | Genealogy Industry | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives
Friday, May 22, 2009 9:38:34 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, May 06, 2009
FamilySearch Adds Alabama Death Index and More
Posted by Diane
New records on the free FamilySearch record search pilot site this week include a statewide death index for Alabama—more than 1.8 million names—dating from 1908 to 1974. Note this is an index; the database doesn’t contain record images. As FamilySearch digitizes records, webmasters often add the images before the indexes are completed. You won’t be able to search such collections for a name until the index is added, but you still can browse the record images. To browse, click the region of interest in the map on the pilot site home page. You'll see a listing of collections by country; click the collection title you want. Next, choose from the subcategories (which might be counties, dates, or alphabetical ranges—it depends how the records are organized). Afew of the collections containing images but no indexes (yet) are civil registrations from Jamaica’s Trelawney Parish, the 1892 New York state census and Catholic Church records from Avila, Spain. To see a listing at indexing projects underway (read: get a peek at what’ll be available online), go to the FamilySearch Projects and Partner Projects Web pages.
FamilySearch | Free Databases
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 7:23:55 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Thursday, April 09, 2009
GenWed Has Free Marriage Records, New Blog
Posted by Diane
The marriage records site GenWed just started a genealogy blog called Tracing Your Routes. They jump right into the fray with a review of points on both sites of the debate over the quality and reliability of online sources. At GenWed, by the way, users submit ancestors' marriage information or digitized documents to a free database. Sources include license applications, certificates, banns (church notifications a couple intends to wed so the congregation can speak up if a spouse or some other problem is lurking in the closet), newspaper announcements and other records. The site reports more than 25,000 free records for marriages in a range of states and counties, plus more than 30,000 links to “mostly free” marriage records and indexes on other Web sites. On GenWed’s home page, scroll to the bottom to find the search box for GenWed’s free database, or click on a state name (on the right) to see links to marriage resources for that state. FYI since we know many of you are keenly interested in the free links: The links under “Professional Searches” lead to fee-based sites, as do the “Search XX State Now!” links at the top of the state pages. You’ll also find ads with Ancestry.com search boxes and links marked with a $ that lead to subscription databases.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | Vital Records
Thursday, April 09, 2009 3:38:09 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: New Online Records
Posted by Diane
This week’s roundup (late from last week or, as I prefer to see it, early for this week) focuses on record additions to genealogy database sites: - New on FamilySearch's free record search pilot: 1920 US census indexes (no record images for this one) for Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois
and Massachusetts; and Arkansas marriages (with images) from
1837 to 1957 in Clay, Crittendon, Desha and Monroe counties.
- Subscription site Footnote ($69.95 per year) added Cherokee resources including the Guion Miller Rolls (info and free index on Archives.gov) and Cherokee Indian Agency records, plus Civil War Union service records from Kentucky, Southern Claims Commission approved claims from Alabama and Georgia, and two historical newspapers.
What’s up Footnote’s sleeve? Vietnam service awards and photos, Eastern Cherokee Applications of the US Court of Claims, and Southern Claims Commission approved claims for Virginia and West Virginia.
- Subscription-based Family Tree Connection ($29.95 per year), which focuses on smallish record sets, has more names and images in its collections of WWII ration books and association reports and rosters.
- Subscription site Ancestry.com ($155.40 per year) is adding family histories (usually, at least one per day; see the recent additions page for titles) and updated obituary collections from the US, UK and Ireland, and Australia and New Zealand.
Coming soon: a recently discovered 1890 census fragment listing black farmers in Delaware, South Dakota territorial and state census images, returns from US military posts (regular reports that include names of people stationed there), and WWII draft cards from Illinois.
If you know of content additions not included here, by all means, click Comments (below) and share the news.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites
Wednesday, April 08, 2009 3:09:52 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009 Thursday, March 19, 2009
Seeking Michigan Adds Free Death Records
Posted by Diane
The historical records site Seeking Michigan has added Michigan death certificates from 1897 to 1920. You can search athe index and click to view a record—free. Run a basic search by name or construct an advanced search by typing keywords and assigning a data field for each term (such as first name, last name, city/village/township, etc.). The advanced search is the same for all Seeking Michigan's collections, so scroll to the bottom of each field pull-down menu for fields specific to the death records. To browse the death records, click View Collection next to the basic search box ( or just use this link). The records are available through a partnership with the Library of Michigan. Also on Seeking Michigan, you’ll find Civil War photographs and records, WPA property invoices (documents describing the land, buildings and surroundings of building in rural Michigan), oral histories, maps and more. Here's an overview of the collections.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | Vital Records
Thursday, March 19, 2009 1:19:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Search Wyoming Historical Newspapers Free Online
Posted by Diane
The Wyoming State Library has posted the first set of historical Wyoming newspapers from the Wyoming Newspaper Project.  This project involves digitizing a 70-year collection of the state’s newspapers from 1849 to 1922. So far, more than 407,000—about half—of the newspaper images are online. They span 1867 to 1922 and include 200 titles such as The Cheyenne Daily Leader, Laramie Sentinel, Natrona County Tribune, South Pass News and Torrington Telegram. You can run a keyword search or browse by title, year, city or county. You’ll download the pages with matching terms as PDF files. Newspaper announcements may be particularly helpful for vital information since Wyoming didn’t start keeping statewide birth and death records until 1909, and marriage records, until 1941. Plus, the state's birth records are closed for 100 years. This clipping is from the March 9, 1886, Cheyenne Sun Individualities section, which reports comings and goings of folks around town.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | Research Tips | Vital Records
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 12:53:43 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Chinese Canadians Profiled on Genealogy Wiki
Posted by Diane
Canada’s Vancouver Public Library (which started the Chinese-Canadian Genealogy Web site) and Library and Archives Canada have created a genealogy wiki centered around the country’s Chinese Immigration List. The list bears the names of Canadian-born Chinese who registered with the government as required by the Chinese Immigration Act of 1923. Designed to curtail Chinese immigration to Canada, the act joined a procession of laws levying head taxes on Chinese immigrants. The regulations were finally lifted in 1947. The wiki contains transcribed information on 461 people recorded on the list, covering the years from Won Alexander Cumyow’s birth in 1861 to Lee Kang Gee’s birth in 1900 (both were born in British Columbia, where most of Canada's Chinese residents lived). Researchers with more details on any of the 461 individuals can help build their profiles— see the Participate page to get started. You can search 98,361 names from Canada's General Registers of Chinese Immigration at the online Canadian Genealogy Center. See the May 2009 Family Tree Magazine (now mailing to subscribers; on sale March 10) for more help researching immigrants to Canada from all over the world.
Asian roots | Canadian roots | Free Databases | immigration records
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 7:27:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, February 06, 2009 Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Free Database: San Francisco Mortuary Records
Posted by Diane
Mortuary records are among genealogy’s overlooked resources, and can provide new details about an ancestor’s death. Those with San Francisco roots have a free, convenient way to access that city’s mortuary records thanks to an SFgenealogy.com indexing project. Webmasters Pamela Storm and Ron Filion, announced that their 60 volunteers have completed the first phase of indexing the Halsted Mortuary Records database. The database includes digitized images of 45,000-plus mortuary records dating from 1923 to 1960, along with an index. (Earlier records are still being processed; later records are being indexed.) You can search on name and date of death. For the surname, you can choose from search options including Soundex, Metaphone, Double Metaphone and NYSIIS. Read more about these on SFGenealogy. Here's a shot of a record view page:  According to the webmasters, the Halsted mortuary was one of the oldest and largest in the City by the Bay. Some of its records include re-interments and military burials.
Free Databases | Vital Records
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 2:08:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, December 15, 2008
101 Best Sites: Illinois Records and Free Data
Posted by Diane
Here are this week’s 101 best Web sites highlights (I’ve got a couple of week’s to make up for, so you may see more soon): - Illinois State Archives Online Databases: Illinois has put many indexes online. You can search statewide indexes of marriages (1763 to 1900) and deaths (pre-1916 and 1916 to 1950), plus veterans' records ranging from the War of 1812 to the 1929 Roll of Honor. An index to the Illinois Regional Archives Depositories (called IRAD) will tell you where to go next in search of records on your Prairie State ancestors.
- Access Genealogy: Besides oodles of links, this free portal also serves up census, vital, immigration, cemetery and military records; plus biographies and such Native American essentials as the 1880 Cherokee census and the Final Rolls of the Five Civilized Tribes (aka the Dawes Rolls). They’ve got a nice beginner’s guide, too.
See the rest of our 101 Best Web Sites on FamilyTreeMagazine.com. Want to nominate your favorite site? Post the URL in our Nominations for 101 Best Web Sites Forum category and say why you like the site. Note you must be registered with the Forum to post.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites
Monday, December 15, 2008 9:32:24 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Google Expands News Archive By 20 Million Historical Pages
Posted by Diane
Google has enhanced its historical newspaper initiative by buying 20 million digitized historical newspaper pages from Canadian company PaperofRecord. The purchase price wasn't available. The pages—some dating back to the 1700s—will be part of the Google News Archive Search, launched in early September “to make more old newspapers accessible and searchable online.” My search came up with a few interesting early-1900s stories on Haddads (none related, that I know of) in newspapers and books. I found the timeline search more useful—it was easier to pick out results from the era of interest. PaperofRecord has digitized newspapers from Canada, the United
States, Mexico and Europe. According to the Ottawa Business Journal, the purchase—the end of a two-year agreement between the companies—will "essentially shut down" PaperofRecord. Its troubles started when companies such as ProQuest began paying newspapers to digitize pages—the opposite of what PaperofRecord was doing. In another month or so, PaperofRecord's online database will redirect to Google.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites
Wednesday, December 03, 2008 7:11:37 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Free Database: Local and Family Histories
Posted by Diane
FamilySearch and the Houston Public Library (whose Clayton Library Center for Genealogical Research is among the country’s best places to research your roots) have announced a collaboration to digitize some of the library's resources and post them online for free. That includes county and local histories, registers of individuals, directories of Texas Rangers, church histories and biographical dictionaries. The records cover the years from 1795 to 1923. The project will start with Texas records (yay for me; my Dad’s branch was in the Lone Star State for a time), followed by other Gulf Coast states. It'll take up to five years to complete. A few books are already digitized and free (they're part of Brigham Young University's Family History Archive; you also can get there from FamilySearch by hovering over Search Records and clicking Historical Books). You can browse; keyword search on a surname, author or title; or every-word search on any term. Your search results link to digitized images. If a digitized book is among your Family History Library catalog search results, the catalog listing will link to it. The digitized Houston Public Library records also will be available free on the library's Web site.
FamilySearch | Free Databases | Libraries and Archives
Monday, November 24, 2008 6:30:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Friday, November 21, 2008 Friday, November 07, 2008
101 Best Sites: Grassroots Genealogy and English Records Catalog
Posted by Diane
I threw two darts at the 101 Best Web Sites article in my September 2008 Family Tree Magazine—here are the two sites we’re highlighting this week: - RootsWeb: This venerable volunteer-run site now resides in Ancestry.com’s domain, but don’t worry—it’s still free. It shares some visual elements with Ancestry.com and the page URLs have ancestry in them, but it has kept its friendly feel and remains an ideal jumping-off point for new researchers. Besides a great Getting-Started guide, you’ll find a ton of mailing lists, message boards, family tree files (in the WorldConnect Project) and more.
- Access to Archives: Called A2A for short, this catalog describes historical records in 416 English and Welsh repositories, including local record offices and libraries, universities, museums, and national and special institutions.
See the rest of our best Web sites picks on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Friday, November 07, 2008 9:21:04 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Counting Your Ancestor's Vote
Posted by Diane
Free Databases | Research Tips | Social History
Tuesday, November 04, 2008 4:00:39 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, October 29, 2008
26 Million Jewish Records Free on Ancestry.com
Posted by Diane
Today we’re seeing the first fruits of subscription database site Ancestry.com’s partnership with JewishGen, announced this summer. Ancestry.com just released 26 million records from JewishGen and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), an international humanitarian organization. The records in today's release will be available free on Ancestry.com. JDC records, online for the first time, include - Jewish Transmigration Bureau Deposit Cards (1939-1954) showing money American Jewish citizens paid to support the emigration of friends and relatives from European countries during and after WWII.
- Munich, Vienna and Barcelona Jewish Displaced Persons and Refugee Cards (1943-1959), records of Jews who received food, medical care, clothing and emigration assistance from the JDC.
In addition, the 300-plus databases previously on JewishGen will now be on Ancestry.com, including - Worldwide Burial Registry of more than 1 million names from nearly 2,000 Jewish cemeteries around the world.
- Yizkor Book Necrologies, a list of the names of those murdered in the Holocaust (users are directed to the Yizkor Books, which memorialize town devastated in the Holocaust).
- Given Names Database, where you can learn European, Hebrew and Yiddish translations of an ancestor’s given name.
- Holocaust Database of 2 million names, including those of 1,980 inmates in Oscar Schindler's factories.
Under the agreement, Ancestry.com eventually will receive access to 10 million-plus records, some of which date back to the 1700s, as well as JewishGen’s user base of 250,000. Ancestry.com also will provide technical support to JewishGen's Web site.
Ancestry.com | Free Databases | Jewish roots
Wednesday, October 29, 2008 4:31:45 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Free Database (Until Oct. 30): Yearbooks
Posted by Diane
The subscription data site Ancestry.com is letting you access its high school and college yearbook collection free through October 30. You can search the whole collection or browse yearbooks listed by state. Often, coverage is sparse and you'll find just one or two yearbooks for a school. You’ll need to sign up for a free account, which requires your name and an e-mail address, to see yearbook pages. I think I found a great-uncle on this page (arrow added) about special Friday evening and Saturday science classes at a Cincinnati high school.  A couple of things to keep in mind: - The search engine annoyingly catches first and last names that don’t belong to the same person but appear near each other. It clogs up the results, but fortunately, a little preview shot of the yearbook page helps you avoid clicking those false matches.
- Remember to use your female ancestor’s maiden name (or whichever name she used while in school).
You can contribute to the collection by sending in your own yearbooks to be digitized, too.
Ancestry.com | Free Databases
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:53:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Free Database of the Week: Cook County Naturalization Records
Posted by Diane
If your immigrant ancestor settled in Chicago or the surrounding area, here's one for you: Cook County, Ill. (home of Chicago), has posted a database of transcribed information from declarations of intention filed in the county’s circuit court between 1906 and 1929. A declaration of intention, sometimes called “first papers,” was the first step toward becoming a US citizen. Records are still being added. So far, the database contains information from more than 150,000 of the 400,000 declarations of intention filed. A grant from the National Archives’ National Historical Publications and Records Commission funds the project. The search is pretty flexible: You can search on a name or part of a name, birthdate, birth place, occupation or other parameters. My search on Syria as the country of birth netted 94 matches. Click on a match to see the date the intention was filed, birth information, occupation, current residence, port of departure for the United States and date of arrival. To order the original declaration of intention (for a search fee of $9, plus photocopying charges), click the How to Order link at the bottom of the page. See Family Tree Magazine's online guide to learn more about finding your ancestors’ naturalization records.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | immigration records
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 6:54:43 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, October 03, 2008
Free Database of the Week: Census Records of Nebraska
Posted by Grace
census records | Free Databases
Friday, October 03, 2008 8:20:16 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 19, 2008
Free Database of the Week: Immigrants' Deaths in Quarantine
Posted by Diane
After perusing the November 2008 Family Tree Magazine article on the book and documentary Forgotten Ellis Island, reader Joan Griffis tipped us off to a free resource: a listing of immigrants who died in quarantine before reaching Ellis Island. Hoffman and Swinburne Islands, located in New York’s outer harbor, had hospitals that served as quarantine stations in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Most of the sick were immigrants whom medical inspectors removed from ships before they arrived at Ellis Island. Griffis sent us a link to researcher Cathy Horn’s listing of 418 people who died at the quarantine stations from November 1909 through June 1911. Their names and death information come from death certificates in Richmond County, NY. You can search the names or browse them. Check out the background information about the quarantine stations, too.
Free Databases | immigration records
Friday, September 19, 2008 9:39:20 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, September 01, 2008
Free Database of the Week: Erie Railroad Workers
Posted by Diane
In honor of Labor Day, this week’s free database is the Erie Magazine Last Name Index, created by a Milwaukee-based Erie Railroad fan.
It’s actually not truly a database, since you don’t search it—instead, you browse by last name. Names come from Erie Railroad Magazine, published for workers who helped build the railroad. It started in southern New York (because the upstaters got the canal) and eventually extended into Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois (learn more from the Erie-Lackawanna Historical Society).
Look around the rest of this railroad enthusiast's great site, too, for historical information, employee rosters, rail officials’ names and resources for continuing your search for Erie and other railroad ancestors.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites
Monday, September 01, 2008 3:11:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
Free Database of the Week: Early Indiana Marriages
Posted by Diane
This week’s free database is the Indiana State Library’s compilation of Indiana marriages through 1850. The late Dorothy Riker, an editor of The Hoosier Genealogist, started the project years ago. Volunteers have expanded the index to include marriage information through 1850 from courthouses in all counties that kept records, plus marriages mentioned in Quaker monthly meeting notes and St. Francis Xavier Church (in Vicennes) records. That adds up to around 330,000 marriages recorded in the database. You can search on the bride or groom. Results link to the person’s full name, name of his or her spouse, the date of the marriage and the county where it took place. Then you can look for the original record on Family History Library microfilm, or request it from the county court clerk (for contact information, go to the state courts Web site and use the Information by County dropdown menu on the left).
Free Databases | Public Records
Thursday, August 14, 2008 9:36:33 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, August 07, 2008
Free Database of the Week: Virginia WWI Veterans Surveys
Posted by Diane
In 1919, as part of an effort to preserve the stories of Virginians in the Great War, a governor-appointed Historical Commission sent questionnaires to the state's returning WWI soldiers and nurses. A full narrative of the completed questionnaires was never published, and the records ended up with the Library of Virginia. Now they’re in a database of more than 14,900 records, one for each respondent, linked to digitized images of each questionnaire page plus any accompanying photographs or other material. The completed questionnaires hold a wealth of data, including names, dates, places, educational and religious background, and military service details. Soldiers also answered questions about their wartime experiences and how war affected their personal values. See the library Web site for more on this collection. You can search on a keyword (such as a name or hometown) or phrase, or enter a word to browse alphabetically adjacent records. Search results come in table form; click the number on the far left to bring up the catalog entry. Next, click the URL next to the document icon, then click the link to a page of the questionnaire.
Free Databases | Libraries and Archives | Military records
Thursday, August 07, 2008 9:40:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, July 31, 2008
Free Database of the Week: Irish Mariners
Posted by Diane
The tip for this free database comes from a post to the FamilyTreeMagazine.com Forum: At Irish Mariners, researcher David Snook has built an index to 16,000 Irish-born merchant seamen who served between 1918 and 1921, and whose ID cards (called CR 10 cards) are in the Southampton (England) Civic Archives. Irish Mariners index entries give the mariner’s name, ID number, birth date and place, next of kin and dates of voyages. Snook also offers contact information and ordering tips for requesting photocopies of the original cards—which bear photos of the mariners—from the Southampton archives. It'll cost around 2.5 pounds (about $5) plus postage and possibly a research fee, depending on the information you provide.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | UK and Irish roots
Thursday, July 31, 2008 8:58:25 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Free Database of the Week: FBI Records on Footnote
Posted by Diane
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Federal Bureau of Investigation July 26, historical records subscription service Footnote is making its collection of FBI Case Files free through the end of August. The files date from 1908 to 1922 and number 2 million records that might hold some surprises for genealogists. One 1918 case I happened across in the Miscellaneous Files category involved the discovery of a trunkful of whiskey at the Central Union Depot in downtown Cincinnati. A report named witnesses, the FBI agents who investigated, the man accused of shipping the trunk in violation of the Reed Amendment (which prohibited transporting alcohol to dry states), and the perpetrator's female accomplice. Later documents show the pair was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Other types of cases include - “Mexican Files,” 1909-1921: investigations of violations of Mexican neutrality
- “Old German Files,” 1915-1920: records of German enemy aliens, sympathizers, and others suspected of disloyalty, mainly during World War I
- Bureau Section Files, 1920-21: records transferred from the Department of Justice concerning violations of federal laws.
The original records are at the National Archives and Records Administration in Record Group 65. Click here to search the FBI Case Files database (you also can get to the database using the See All Databases link on Footnote’s home page).
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 4:17:40 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Search Site for Shelby County, Tenn., Family
Posted by Diane
Derrick Minck, register of deeds over in Shelby County, Tenn. (home of Memphis), e-mailed me about the plethora of genealogical records available on the Register’s Web site—somewhat unusual for a county government site. (Heads up, fellow Mac users: The site came up in Firefox but not in Safari.) If you’ve got Tennessee ancestors, stop by and look for - Property records: “We have indexes and images dating back to 1812,” Minck writes.
- GIS: You can search by name or address and see an aerial property photo linked to property data.
- Archives: Search Shelby County birth (1874-1906) marriage (1820-1910) and death (1848-1956), records—and yes, folks, most matches are linked to record images.
You also can search indexes for Tennessee marriages (1980-2005), divorces (1980-2005) and deaths (1949-2005), with links for ordering copies. Circuit (1893-2000) and chancery (1945-1997) court, naturalization (1856-1906) and Memphis 1865 census indexes are there, too.
Search each record set from the home page. Now staff is scanning Memphis city directories from 1859 to 1924, and Minck says they’re almost ready to post 1859 through 1881.
Free Databases | Genealogy Web Sites | Libraries and Archives | Public Records
Wednesday, February 13, 2008 8:01:51 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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