• Databases recently updated or added in FamilySearch’s free Record Search pilot include the Indiana marriage index, Netherlands parish registers (images only so far), 1920 US Census index, Brazil Catholic church records (images only so far), and Italy municipal records (images only so far).

To see details of each addition, click the relevant region on the Record Search Pilot map. Then click the title of the collection in the alphabetical list. (Look for more FamilySearch search tips in the January 2010 Family Tree Magazine, on newsstands Dec. 15.)

• Dick Eastman started a free site called GenQueries for posting your surname research queries (for example, “Seeking information about Eugene and Lilly WOODFORD family, lived in Marion Co., Indiana, in 1900”). You also can advertise genealogy services or societies, and search others’ ads. Read about GenQueries on Dick’s blog.
  

• I read about this on the ArchivesNext blog: The Amsterdam, Netherlands, city archives has a scan-on-demand program. You can search the archives’ online records inventory, and if a particular item hasn’t been scanned, ask staff to scan it. You also can search an index to find already-scanned records. There is a fee to obtain a scan, which helps fund the program.
  

• Genealogy and family networking site MyHeritage launched a Family Statistics feature for the family tree sites on MyHeritage. The feature generates statistics, such oldest living relative or most common birth month in the family, based on data in the tree. Family Statistics works for sites on the free basic plan as well as the paid plans.
  

• Registration is now open for the 2010 National Genealogical Society (NGS) annual conference, April 28 to May 1 in Salt Lake City. Registration fees range from $175 to $245 for the full conference, or $95 to $115 per day—it depends whether you’re an NGS member, whether you want the syllabus in print or on a CD, and whether you make the March 8 early bird deadline.
  

Friday, November 06, 2009 5:24:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]

1. Go to ShopFamilyTree.com. Click My Wish List in the top right corner of any page.

2. If you’ve ordered something before, you might already have an account, and you can log in here. If you don’t have an account, click the “Not Registered? Click Here” link to create a user name and password (you don’t have to buy anything to register).

3. Once you’re logged in, click the Wish List link to go right to your list.

4. Set up a list by entering a description (such as “Diane’s Christmas list”), an expiration date, and deciding whether to keep it hidden. If you check the “private” box, you won’t be able to e-mail the list to others, but you can view and make purchases from it. Click submit.

5. Whenever you’re browsing around in the store and see an item you’d like, click the Add to Wish List button. You’ll be taken to the entry in your list.

Thursday, November 05, 2009 2:39:19 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]

• Familybuilder DNA has added Groups, a feature that let customers collaborate on genetic genealogy research. They’ll be able to create and join groups focusing on commonalities such as haplogroup, national origin, surname, birthplace, etc. read more on Familybuilder.com.

• Historical newspaper and records site GenealogyBank has added content from more than 36 newspapers in 21 states. Here’s the full list of new expanded titles.

• Dick Eastman blogged about a National Library of Wales project to put 190,000 Welsh wills online. You can search the documents, which date from the 14th century to 1858, free on the National Library of Wales' website. You’ll find more details about the wills in Dick’s post.

Friday, October 30, 2009 7:48:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]

• The current long list of six locality descriptors (small farm, large farm, parish, clerical district, county, country) will be reduced to four (large farm, clerical district, county and country).

• The current list of only one or two locality descriptors for “move-ins” from other clerical districts will be expanded to three or four descriptors wherever possible.

• Current errors regarding place names (caused by early extractors who couldn’t read the language) will be corrected in a later dataset.

• Variants and diminutives of some names will be corrected and standardized in a later version.

• Magneson hopes to post updated Sør-Aurdal data by the end of 2009. The next clerical district data to appear will likely be Nord-Fron, Sør-Fron, Norde Land and Søndre Land, beginning in early 2010.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:53:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)    Comments [0]

• The My Genealogy toolbar has dropdown menus of categorized links to genealogy websites. Download it from here or here. It works with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

• The Malhamdale Local History Group of Yorkshire, England, created a toolbar with links to the group’s site and other genealogy websites. It works with Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox (though Firefox users are directed to a help page).

• The Manchester and Lancashire (England) Family History Society launched a genealogy toolbar that provides links to more than 200 useful British genealogy sites. It’s regularly updated, and you can configure settings such as which web site categories to display.

• The Family Genie toolbar works with Firefox (it’s supposed to work in Internet Explorer, but CNET reviewers couldn’t get it to). It has first- and last-name search boxes and a single dropdown menu of search engines, as well as a menu of bookmarked genealogy sites.

• If you’re an Ancestry.com member, you can download the Ancestry.com toolbar for quick access to links on Ancestry.com. It also lets you easily save links and add photos and text from any web page to your Ancestry tree.

• Google is a handy genealogy tool for searching on ancestors’ names, getting language translations, locating addresses and more; and you can make more use of it than ever with help from resources such as our Googling Your Genealogy webinar and the book Google Your Family Tree by Daniel M. Lynch. The Google toolbar isn't just for genealogists, but you'll appreciate the shortcuts to the search engine’s features.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 2:35:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [10]

• I read an interesting post on the Archives Next blog about NARA’s record digitization agreements with firms such as Footnote and Ancestry.com. The blogger outlines possible good, bad and ugly outcomes when NARA is finally legally able to post online the record images obtained through contracts with third parties. 

• Pedigree database subscription site OneGreatFamily ($59.95 per year) plans to improve its search function by installing the Perfect Search Database Search Appliance from Perfect Search Corp. Each week, OneGreatFamily makes more than 18.8 trillion comparisons of names, dates and other details in members’ family trees, says CEO Alan Eaton. The new search tool should increase searching capability, improve indexing, and to deliver results faster.

• The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) has added several genealogical journals to its online subscription ($75 per year): Besides its own New England Historical and Genealogical Register, they are The American Genealogist, The Connecticut Nutmegger, New Netherland Connections and The Virginia Genealogist.

• Also from NEHGS: Fellow actors, Boston natives, best buddies and  People magazine sexiest men alive Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are 10th cousins once removed. Their common ancestor is William Knowlton of Ipswich, Mass., a bricklayer who died in 1655. Read the full story in the Boston Herald.

Family Tree Magazine Plus members can read our article about Matt Damon’s roots—including his link to Ralph Waldo Emerson—here. 

Friday, October 16, 2009 7:49:28 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

All-around
These bloggers give you a little (or a lot) of everything: news, research advice, their own family stories, photos, opinions and more. There’s no one quite like the Genealogue, so we thought about that blog for awhile. It landed in this category because the Genealogue posts a satirical take on genealogy news, holds occasional research challenges and blogs about his own family history every so often.

Personal/Family
These blogs primarily cover the blogger's (or, in a case or two or more, bloggers') own research and ancestors. Family historians write what they know and what’s important to them, so this is our biggest category.

Local/Regional
Most posts in these blogs cover resources, genealogy events and history for a city, town, state or region.

Cemetery
These blogs focus on cemetery research, gravestone photos and the like.

Photos/Heirlooms
Content on these blogs is primarily about sharing, researching and preserving family photos and/or heirlooms.

Heritage
Here, blog content focuses on a particular heritage group, such as African-American, Jewish or Irish. We had some tough decisions in this category, as some family-related genealogy blogs by nature also examine that family’s ethnic heritage.

News/Resources
Blogs in this category deliver a range of genealogy news and information about new resources.

How-to
These blogs have instructional content on genealogical resources and methodology. In some cases, bloggers wrote about their own research and ancestors, but framed posts in an instructional manner.

Genealogy Companies
Blogs in this category are written on behalf of a genealogy company, and contain helpful (but not overly advertising-oriented) information on the company’s products, as well as other resources.

Genetic Genealogy
Blogs that are primarily about genetic genealogy and family health history.

Monday, October 05, 2009 2:37:39 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [3]

• Subscription site Ancestry.co.uk (sister site to the US-focused Ancestry.com) has added London parish records, which among other events cover deaths from the bubonic plague and the 1666 Great Fire of London. They’re part of a collection of London records from 1538 to 1980.

• Google Books, where you can search millions of out-of-print books, is partnering with On-Demand Books to let you use any Espresso Book Machine to print books in the public domain that Google has digitized from. (There aren’t a lot of places to find these book machines—click here for locations.) Learn more on the Google Books blog.

• Visit the Family History Expos blog for a list of 10 great tips for using social networking sites to do genealogy research and connect with your family.

• FamilySearch Indexing has launched new indexing projects from Indiana, Idaho, Canada, Spain, Guatemala, and Peru. The 1920 census index for Ohio is undergoing preparation for publication on the free FamilySearch site. Hooray! (We’re from the Buckeye State.) The 1920 census for Texas; Carroll County, Ind., marriages; and several international collections also are being readied for release.

• World Vital Records lowered the price of its World Collection subscription to $99.95 (from $119.95). This collection gives you access to all the site’s US records, plus those from Canada, the UK, Ireland and other countries. See the November 2009 Family Tree Magazine for our guide to using World Vital Records.

• Don’t forget to visit the Michigan Genealogical Council Web site for information on an online petition in support of the Library of Michigan, as well as links to news of budget-related library cuts across the country.

Friday, September 18, 2009 3:29:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• Subscription family tree site One Great Family exhibited this year as part of a new marketing effort to reach the genealogy community.

One Great Family automatically merges trees when it finds the identical person on both, which sounds a bit scary—but where the trees differ, the site maintains the differences and each member sees the version of the tree he believes is correct. President Rob Armstrong says no one can change your view of your tree, but everyone can see your version and accept your view if they choose. A subscription costs $59.95 annually; a free one-week trial offer is available.

• A new company called Geneartogy uses your ancestors’ names and photos to create frameable, decorative trees on canvas (you also can get the designs on smaller plaques). Prices range from a $98 extra-small plaque to a $408 extra-large canvas, with an additional cost for framing.

• Next year’s FGS conference is slated for August 18-21 in Knoxville, Tenn., home of the East Tennessee Historical Society’s excellent museum and research library (and close to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park). Many classes will cover the historic and cultural roots of Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as the in- and out-migrations of those states.

(The 2010 National Genealogical Society conference, by the way, is in Salt Lake City, so you could double up on a trip to the Family History Library.)

• If you’re new to genealogy conferences, you might be curious about the long panel of ribbons dangling from some attendees’ name badges, like so:

(This is podcast host Dear Myrtle’s badge.) Ribbons designate society memberships, honors and more. All registrants got an “Ancestry.com member” ribbon (whether or not they actually were members) and first-time attendees got “First FGS Conference.” FGS board members, speakers and  genealogical societies delegates received ribbons. I got “Podcast Fan” and “Keeping up With Blogs” at a social networking forum. Some highly involved folks had to take special measures to secure their ribbons:

Wednesday, September 09, 2009 4:31:00 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• Summit Memory, an online scrapbook from the Akron-Summit County Public Library in Ohio, now has several digitized historical atlases and maps from the 1800s and early 1900s. Access them in the site’s online map room. Check out the photos and other resources while you're there.
  
  
• British subscription and pay-per-view site FindMyPast.com has completed a new transcription and added higher-quality images for its 1901 census for England and Wales. Images for the 1881 census are next on the site's to-do list.
  
  
• A New York Times article on the transfer of early- to mid-century Alien Case Files to the National Archives quoted Schelly Tallalay Dardahsti, Tracing the Tribe blogger and author of our September 2009 Jewish research guide, about the importance of using original documents. Read the article here.
  
  
• Subscription family tree site OneGreatFamily.com is publishing its free newsletter as a weekly genealogy blog you can subscribe to vis RSS. It’ll include research tips, helpful Web sites and suggestions for using OneGreatFamily.com.
  
  
• The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has launched a blog called NARAtions, which focuses on the future of online public access to records at NARA.

Friday, August 14, 2009 4:40:00 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• a map module that lets you display where your family lived over the years, map relatives’ addresses and quickly find your photos associated with a particular place
  
  
• a new toolbar that provides direct access to family Web sites on MyHeritage; birthday reminders; and a text, audio and video chat system called Family Chat
  
  
• an improved album lets you organize photos, videos and documents, and adds slide shows

Thursday, August 13, 2009 2:17:24 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• Allen County Community Album: Images at this Allen County Public Library-hosted site portray people and places in Northeastern Indiana. The library’s well-known Genealogy Center also has an Our Military Heritage site with records and photos from researchers across the country.

• Arizona Memory Project: Collections come from the Catholic Diocese of Tucson, Arizona Jewish Historical Society, state archives, City of Glendale, Gila County and others.

• Documenting Arkansas: This site's content relates to the Civil War, 1927 Mississippi River flood and other events.

• Dominion Institute Memory Project: See 85-plus years of military history through first-hand accounts, photos and artifacts from veterans across Canada.

• Greater Cincinnati Memory Project: This site from my hometown shows you historical photos of schools, churches, homes, city scenes, people and special events.

• Maine Memory Network: More than 200 organizations have contributed materials to this site, which also supports similar projects for Maine communities such as Bath and Isleboro.

• Montana Memory Project: Cattle brand books, the Fergus County Heritage Book and Rocky Mountain College yearbooks are a few of the resources you'll find here.
  
  
• Terrace Park, Ohio, Building Survey: A local genealogist maintains this site on the history of buildings in an Ohio neighborhood. It has photos, deeds, census and land records, residents' names and more.
  

• The Valley of the Shadow: Censuses, church records, letters, diaries and newspaper articles detail life in two communities—Franklin County, Pa., in the North and Augusta County, Va., in the South—before, during and after the Civil War.

Thursday, July 23, 2009 1:57:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [6]

• British subscription site FamilyRelatives.com has added the Civil War Roll of Honor listings of more than 276,000 Union soldiers buried in national cemeteries, soldiers' lots and garrison cemeteries.
  

• The East Central Georgia Regional Library's African-American Funeral Program Collection is online (and free) in the Digital Library of Georgia. The 1,000 funeral programs date from 1933 to 2008, with most dating since the 1960s and coming from churches around Augusta, Ga.

• The College of Charleston in South Carolina has launched the Lowcountry Digital Library with about 7,500 images (so far) of historical letters, scrapbooks, photos and more.

• New social networking site GenealogyWise caught some flak when it announced a contest many members thought encouraged non-genealogical, superficial contributions, then changed the contest but deleted at least one member’s criticisms. See some of the uproar on Twitter here and here. Webmasters are now gathering feedback on a censorship policy. (Update: Here's an apology to the censored member from FamilyLink CEO Paul Allen.)
  

• Online genealogy company (and GenealogyWise owner) FamilyLink has another site coming next week, as hinted on Twitter by CEO Paul Allen: “41% have pictures of ancestors on the walls of their home ... We are launching a new site soon for the other 59%”

Could it be related to this digitization service, announced in 2007 but no longer offered?

Friday, July 17, 2009 5:25:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• The Genealogy Guys will record their podcast before a live audience at the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference. The audience will get to submit questions for possible inclusion in the podcast. The conference is Sept. 2 to 5 in Little Rock, Ark.; the podcast recording is 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 3. Look for location information at the conference.
  
  
• Geni is offering a free two-week trial of its Geni Pro premium service, which includes more stats, matches and member collaboration than the free basic service. (Geni Pro subscriptions are normally $4.95 per month.)
  
  
• Ancestry.com’s subscription-based Canadian site, Ancestry.ca, has added French Deaths by Guillotine 1792-1796, with 13,000 names of French citizens executed during the Reign of Terror. The names come from a book written in 1796 by a French journalist.
  

• ProQuest, the creator of the HeritageQuest genealogy service, ProQuest Historical Newspapers and other databases for libraries, is working on a new search platform that’ll make I easier to find information related to your genealogy search. Expected launch is 2010.

The company is also adding Boston’s Jewish Advocate (1905 to 1990), Philadelphia’s Jewish Exponent (1887 to 1990) and the Detroit Free Press to Proquest Historical Newspapers.

• The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF), which is building a huge database of DNA results linked to individuals’ family trees, is moving a set of its 100,000 archived DNA samples to room temperature storage with a technology based on organisms’ ability to survive in a dehydrated state. Other copies of each sample will remain in cold storage.

Friday, July 10, 2009 9:08:53 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• To keep tabs on this weekend’s Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree in Burbank, visit the Genealogy Gems blog, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and Genea-Musings. Twitter users can search for #scgs09.

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies 2009 conference early bird registration deadline is next Wednesday, July 1. Make the deadline and you’ll pay $175, a savings of $50. Register online or by mail (must be postmarked no later than July 1).

The conference is Sept. 2-5 in Little Rock, Ark.

• The New England Historic and Genealogical Society is organizing a few genealogy research trips, led by expert genealogists. Groups are headed to St. John’s, Newfoundland, July 12-19; the NEHGS Library in Boston Aug. 10-15; Edinburgh, Scotland, Sept. 20-27; and Salt Lake City Oct. 25-Nov. 1.

Find more details and prices on NEHGS’ events calendar.

• Keep an eye on Miriam Midkiff's city directories portal Online City, County and Rural Directories. This week, she's added links to directories from more than a dozen US states and several Canadian provinces.

• In response to a survey, FamilyLink updated its We’re Related Facebook application to let users put pets at the bottoms of their pedigree charts. (I'm not sure what the chart-with-pet looks like, so if you've done this, send me a picture.) It sounds fun—let’s just hope no one gets Bruno and Great-grandpa Charlie mixed up.

Friday, June 26, 2009 8:13:56 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [2]

• Follow: bookmarks resources
  
  
• Comment: lets you comments on resources
  
  
• Record: keep a research log of Live Roots and other searches
  
  
• Share: e-mail notices about resources to friends and family

• Recent Activity: a running history of your interaction with Live Roots features
  
  
• Ancestor Notecards: profiles of your brick wall ancestors, which remain are accessible throughout Live Roots (so you don’t have to retype the name every time you search)
  
  
• Related Resources: items you’ve "followed", so you can quickly revisit them; you can search across the transcriptions you’ve followed
  
  
• Research History: your research log
  
  
• Personal Library: catalog your own private collection
  
  
• Research Notepad: a simple way record miscellaneous genealogy notes, such as a to-do list or the phone number for the library in Granddad’s hometown
  
  
• External Resources: lets you configure links to your research activities on other sites, such Flickr or Twitter

Friday, June 26, 2009 3:55:31 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [2]

• Build a flexible family tree with people on “nodes” you can move around to change the shape of your tree. You can add siblings, step-parents, partners and other family members who wouldn’t make it onto traditional trees, and set up a profile for each one. You also can modify two individuals’ relationship.
  
  
• Print your tree with an easy-to-use tool that lets you resize the tree, print on multiple pages, and see where the edges of pages will fall.
  
  
• Invite relatives to add to their Life Archives (or you can do so on behalf of deceased people) by following writing prompts designed to tease out everything from “Rules We Live By” to “First Real Job.”
  
  
• Also under Life Archives, fill out Life Experiences for your ancestors and use them to generate a scrolling timeline set to music. (The timeline feature is “limited” for free accounts.)
  
  
• Create a memoir in easy chunks by answering a series of questions.
  
  
• Upload photos and video in the Media Archive (under Life Showcases) and turn them into a gallery or “Life Cube” slideshow (also limited for free accounts). You can import photos from Facebook and other social networking sites.
  
  
• Search the FamilySearch Record Search Pilot and the rest of the Web from within Arcalife.
  
  
• Generate a virtual time capsule of images and stories, choose people to send it to and designate a future date to unlock it.
  
  
• You’ll eventually be able to use fee-based services for conducting oral history interviews, printing large family trees, converting photos or videotapes to digital and more.

Monday, June 15, 2009 6:53:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• The National Archives of Ireland free 1911 census site added records for Cork, Donegal, Galway, King's County and Wexford to those already online (from Antrim, Down, Dublin and Kerry).

Get more details on the site in this Genealogy Insider blog post.

• Millions of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services' alien case files (also called A-files) dating from 1944 and later were signed over to the National Archives (records will be relocated to the National Archives’ San Francisco and Kansas City facilities later this year).

Henceforth, USCIS can forward files 100 years after the birth date of the person whose file it is. The USCIS press office tells me you’ll still be able to order the 1944-to-1951 A-files through the USCIS Genealogy Program (through which you also can order naturalizations and alien registrations).

• Subscription newspaper and records service GenealogyBank added or expanded newspaper collections from 22 states. The new content is listed by state here, or go here to view the complete list of newspapers.
  

• Subscription site Ancestry.com is letting you preview upcoming changes to the family tree pages—to see them, click Family Trees on Ancestry.com's home page, then click the light blue bar at the top that says “Check out the new look.” (You must have a tree on Ancestry.com to see the preview.)
  

The new look will make pages load faster, be easier to navigate and display more information, says Kenny Freestone on the Ancestry.com blog. Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings describes the changes in detail.

Friday, June 05, 2009 6:46:42 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [1]

• New content on subscription site World Vital Records includes pre-1700 New England marriages and names of about 8,500 Union soldiers who were for various reasons omitted from the original Roll of Honor (a listing of Union burials in national cemeteries).

One addition, the Protestation Returns, which record religious loyalty oaths from males in England from 1641 to 1642, is free for 10 days (from May 28).

• Ancestry.com passed 8 billion records in its databases (a record in this case is a name, not a document). The vital records collection is biggest, with 1,100 million records and 38.9 million document images; followed by censuses at 900 million records and 27.7 million images.
  

On deck at Ancestry.com: Improving the census collection (1790 through 1900 censuses should be updated by year’s end), newspapers from 50 new cities and early city directories.

• FamilySearch has added volunteer indexing projects from around the world, including Argentina; British Columbia, Canada; France; and NorthDakota, South Carolina, Ohio and Indiana. For details about the records and years being indexed, see the FamilySearch Indexing Web site.
  

Click here to volunteer to index some records.

Friday, May 29, 2009 6:35:26 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• Historical records subscription site Footnote is giving away several lifetime memberships. To be eligible, you have to create or find an I Remember page on Facebook (using Footnote’s recently released app) and get five people to click the I Remember button for that person. See more details here.

• 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.
  

• NBC’ continues to string along genealogists eager to see its “Who Do You Think You Are?” The on-again, off-again series didn't make it onto the network's fall lineup, but still may show up as a mid-season replacement, according to California-based Genealogy Gems blogger Lisa Louise Cooke.

Friday, May 22, 2009 9:38:34 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• Genealogy Freelancers: This site lets you post your project details and get bids from professionals around the world.

• Genlighten: Here, you also can collect bids for research tasks. The focus here is on lookups, record retrieval and similar services.

• Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness: These volunteers have signed on to do simple research favors for free (except expenses such as mileage and photocopying fees). You’re encouraged to return the favor by helping out someone else.

• Repositories sometimes keep lists of nearby professional researchers (contact the genealogy department). For example, if you want to hire someone to copy your ancestor’s Civil War pension file, see the National Archives’ list of local researchers by topic and location.
  
  
• For long or more-complicated research projects, you can find directories of professional genealogists on the Association for Professional Genealogists Web site, ProGenealogists, and the Board for Certification of Genealogists.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 3:59:01 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [4]

Swedish records subscription site Genline has added a bunch of records, made some user-friendly upgrades and formed a partnership that’ll help you discover free and low-cost photos and documents from all over Sweden.

Yesterday, I got a tour of the updates from Peter Wallenskog from Genline’s board of directors. Here's an overview:

• Record additions underway include birth, marriage and death records through 1920. Coming soon: parish books and vital records up to 1937.

• Household examination books (akin to censuses), which you currently find by browsing, are being indexed by farm name. Many farms were owned by the same family for generations. About 40 percent are already indexed; that’ll probably be 90 percent by the end of the year.

• Genline is adding very high-resolution, clear images, with tools so you can enhance them by increasing contrast, remove specks, and more.

• A transcription feature, introduced just a few days ago, lets users build a personal name index to Genline records by transcribing names as they find them. Other users can search on those names, vote for one or another transcription, and contribute their own version of a transcription. 

• Familjeband is a Swedish family history site where users build family trees, upload photos and communicate on a message board. Through an agreement with local groups in the Sverges Hembygdsforbund (Swedish Local Heritage Movement), Genline is helping develop a section of Familjeband called Bygdeband (now in beta), where these local groups are uploading photos, letters, probate papers, deeds and other records. Related records are linked, and a map shows places associated with records in the database.

Familjeband is accessible through a free registration and is in Swedish. Later this year, it’ll get an English interface, and records in Genline will be linked to related records in Familjeband. Eventually, it’ll cost a little—maybe $4 a month, says Wallenskog—to access records in Familjeband.

• Genline also hopes to partner with Swedish heritage groups on this side of the pond to add records and photos to Familjeband. So far, groups from Kansas are uploading documents from Swedish schools and churches. 

Saturday, May 16, 2009 3:25:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [2]

• North Carolina GenWeb  
• North Carolina state archives
• North Carolina state library
• North Carolina Genealogical Society
• Southeastern North Carolina Genealogical Society
• Cyndi's List: North Carolina
• Access Genealogy North Carolina Index

Friday, May 15, 2009 4:41:52 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• Look for subscription historical records site Footnote to make its 1930 US census free for a limited time later this summer. The site also will come out with a collection of American Indian records within the next few months.

• Swedish church records subscription site Genline is introducing a transcription feature. Once you find an ancestor’s record, you can easily transcribe the name and make it available to other users. As names are transcribed, they’ll be available for searching. Right now, you browse Genline by parish, but this means that eventually, you’ll be able to find ancestors without knowing their parish first.

• FamilySearch indexers have finished the New York 1892 and Rhode Island 1925 state censuses; these will be posted soon on FamilySearch’s record search pilot site.

• We heard about some changes coming soon for genealogy resources catalog directory site Live Roots. One sounds really useful: A way to save online searches to a “project” so you’ll know which sites you’ve checked, when, and how many results were returned, and you could easily repeat searches. You could create as many projects as you want—one for each county, say, or each surname.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:22:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

• Subscription genealogy site Ancestry.com launched a collection of German phone directories dating from 1915 to 1981. The books, which are, of course, in German, list names and addresses of more than 35 million people who lived in Germany’s major cities, as well as many businesses. 
  

• British subscription and pay-per-view site FindMyPast.com added merchant seaman crew indexes with 270,000 names of seafarers between 1860 and 1913. British ships created these lists every six months, including everyone from captains to able seamen, from engine room staff to stewardesses.

• The 1916 census of Canada is now available free at Family History Centers through their on-site Ancestry.com service. (Meaning this census isn’t on the FamilySearch pilot site—you must go to a Family History Center to search it.)
  

• The National Archives granted its first Excellence in Genealogy Awards to Myron McGhee of Decatur, GA, who took first place, and Stephanie D. Smith of Richtor Park, IL, who took second. Read about their entries on the archives’ Web site.
  

• The heritage travel Web site Go With a Purpose launched a new section called Go Connect, where users can upload photos with their reviews of historic destinations. Learn more on the site’s blog.

• A late addition: The New England Historic Genealogical Society is adding digitized back issues of the journal The American Genealogist, to its subscription databases at NewEnglandAncestors.org. Vols. 1 through 8 (published as Families of Ancient New Haven) and Volumes 9–13 (dated from 1933 through 1937), are available now in separate databases. Additional volumes will be added. NEHGS memberships start at $75.

Friday, May 08, 2009 7:02:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]