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 Friday, November 06, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: November 2-6
Posted by Diane
Here's what's in this week's roundup:
- 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.
- 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.
FamilySearch | Genealogy Events | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Friday, November 06, 2009 5:24:18 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00) 
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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Norway Project on FamilySearch Community Trees
Posted by Diane
This update on FamilySearch’s Norway Project is from genealogy writer Sunny McClellan Morton:
The recent buzz on FamilySearch’s Community Trees has prompted questions from those who read about the Norway Project in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine. As explained in that article, the project will extract and link ancestral data from Norwegian bygdebøker (community books). Who wouldn’t be anxious to start searching a database that automatically links their ancestors to each other?
Data from the Norway Project now appears on the Community Trees site. But like anything on a beta site, the information isn’t quite complete. Only the Sør-Aurdal Clerical District of Oppland County is currently posted.
With 61,228 individuals from 18,428 families (12,276 unique surnames), the information is certainly useful, but limited in scope.
Even the posted data still need a little refining. According to project manager Roger Magneson, the following improvements are yet to come:
- 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.
Of course, Norway’s not the only country on FamilySearch’s Community Trees. Check the site for other datasets related to your pedigree. Choose “Advanced Search” to select the dataset you want to see.
(Note: The site doesn't work well in the Firefox browser.)
FamilySearch | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:53:13 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, October 20, 2009
10 Ways to Use Your December 2009 Family Tree Magazine
Posted by Diane
The December 2009 Family Tree Magazine should be hitting subscribers’ mailboxes during the next week (yes, it’s already December in Magazine Land). I randomly picked out 10 ways this issue might figure into your family history pursuit:
1. Start a family medical history with nine sources that can help you learn what illnesses your ancestors suffered and died from. (See, I thought I’d start this post on a bright note.) Click here for our online listing of health history books and Web sites.
2. And for a slightly morbid yet somewhat educational five-minute time-killer, try to match up 12 archaic maladies with their modern equivalents.
3. Plan your heirloom preservation strategy with a guide to preserving a variety of keepsakes—including a quilt, a delicate wedding ring and other items our coworkers at Family Tree Magazine headquarters brought in. (Associate editor Grace Dobush blogged about the shady past of one such heirloom.)
4. Are genetic genealogy tests really 99.9 percent accurate? Will they pinpoint where your ancestors lived? Discover the truth behind common beliefs about DNA and genealogy, and use quick-reference lists of testing companies, definitions and online DNA databases.
5. Follow along with our step-by-step guide to entering genetic genealogy test results in two genealogy software programs.
6. Did you know the historical newspaper search at GenealogyBank treats personal names like keywords? That means if your name is also a word, such as White or Banker, you’ll get lots of false matches. (The site’s obituaries and SSDI database are indexed by name). You’ll find search tricks in our Web Guide to GenealogyBank.
7. Can’t find your ancestor’s town of “Gross Herzogtum, Baden?” That’s because gross Herzogtum isn’t a town, but a term for “grand duchy.” Find explanations for this and other place terms related to ruling nobility in our guide to research in German states, including Prussia, Hesse, Bavaria and others. (See articles in our online German research toolkit here.)
8. Thinking of adding (or already have added) a genealogy app to your Facebook page? Get the lowdown on FamilyLink's We're Related and Family Builder's Family Tree, two popular genealogy apps for Facebook.
9. Chuckle over six readers’ captions for a giant-fish photo and enter our newest All in the Family Challenge.
10. Where's that one article ... the one about the census ... not the regular census but the special ones ... ? Stop flipping through all this year’s magazines and open to the 2009 index on the last page of your December issue. You'll find that the article on nonpopulation censuses was in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine on page 20.
Of course, there are even more great resources and tips in the December 2009 Family Tree Magazine. It'll be available starting Nov. 3 at ShopFamilyTree.com.
Family Heirlooms | Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | Genetic Genealogy | International Genealogy
Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:38:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, October 02, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: September 28-October 2
Posted by Diane
It's Friday, and that means it's time to rustle up some genealogy news:
- Got St. Louis-area ancestors? Consider subscribing to Genealogy and House History News, a free monthly e-mail update listing additions to the Missouri History Museum's Genealogy and Local History Index (click the “Sign up for the E-mail List” link). If you find a relative, you can order a photocopy of the record.
- FamilySearch has added a few more databases to the Record Search Pilot, thanks to its hard-working indexing volunteers. You can search indexes and view images of Protestant church records from France (1612-1906).
The 1920 US census index (but not record images) was added for Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey and South Carolina.
You can browse images of church records from Italy, Slovakia, Argentina and Mexico (these indexes are still being processed). To find records associated with the place your ancestors lived, click Browse our Record Collections on the Record Search home page, then click an area of the map.
- Happy third birthday to RootsTelevision! The free genealogy TV Web site shared a list of its most popular videos, several of which relate to family history happenings that broke into “mainstream” news. See the list on the Og Blog.
My trusty colleagues Allison and Grace will post while I'm sneaking in some vacation next week. I might chime in from afar, or I might be too entranced by autumnal loveliness to make it happen. We'll see.
FamilySearch | International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives | Videos
Friday, October 02, 2009 7:20:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 25, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: September 21-25
Posted by Diane
Is it the end of September already?? Here's our last new roundup for the month
- Today’s the last day to get the $55 early bird registration special for the Mesa Family History Expo, Jan. 22-23 in Mesa, Ariz. If you miss the deadline, you still can save by preregistering for $65. Admission at the door costs $75. The exhibit hall is free to the public.
- Those with African-American roots, mark your calendars for the International Black Genealogy Summit at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., Oct. 29 to 31. It’s the first gathering of African-American historical and genealogical societies from the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. Watch this blog for more details.
- On his Genealogy Blog, Leland Meitzler reported on the SwedGen Tour, in which a team of Swedish
genealogy experts is stopping at several research facilities to give
presentations on Swedish genealogy resources (including subscription
records site Genline and the Släktdata vital records site) and offer
one-on-one consultations. See the schedule and preregister at the
SwedGen Tour site.
- I came across a neat blog today called Dear Annie. A Minnesota woman is posting 700 postcards (images and transcriptions) that her Great-aunt Annie Bartos, who died in 1983, saved during her 90 years.
African-American roots | Family Heirlooms | Genealogy Events | International Genealogy
Friday, September 25, 2009 7:44:31 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Resources for Tracing Hispanic Roots
Posted by Diane
Today’s the start of Hispanic Heritage month, honoring the histories of the United States’ 46.9 million residents of Hispanic origin, who according to the Census Bureau make up the nation's largest ethnic minority.
About 64 percent of the country’s Hispanic residents have a Mexican background; 9 percent are Puerto Rican; 3.5 percent, Cuban; 3.1 percent, Salvadoran; and 2.7 percent, Dominican.
Four Hispanic surnames ranked among the 15 most common last names in the 2000 US census: Garcia (placing eighth with 858,289 occurrences), Rodriguez (ninth), Martinez (11th) and Hernandez (15th).
Researching Hispanic roots? Here are some places to start:
- Our online Hispanic Heritage Toolkit has resources and tips for learning about Mexican, Spanish, Portuguese, Basque, Central and South American ancestors.
See our advice for research in the Caribbean, too.
The site also has a growing collection of church, civil registration and census records from the Caribbean and Central and South America. Besides researching your Hispanic roots, here are a couple of other ways to mark the occasion:
- PBS is airing "Latin Music USA," a documentary series, Mondays, Oct. 12 and 19, from 9 to 11 p.m. ET.
Ancestry.com | FamilySearch | Hispanic Roots | immigration records | International Genealogy
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 2:50:25 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, September 14, 2009
FamilySearch Record Search Site Updates
Posted by Diane
FamilySearch sent a note to let us know about recent additions to its free Record Search Pilot site. Those include:
- records from Brazil; Mexico; British Columbia, Canada; the Czech Republic; and Hungary
- Philadelphia, Pa. marriage indexes, 1885 to 1951
The Record Search site changed a bit earlier this month. From the home page, you can search across all collections. To find a specific database, click Browse Our Record Collections below the search form. On the resulting map, click the region you’re interested in searching, then click the title of the database you want to search.
On the individual database page, click About This Collection to go to the FamilySearch Wiki page on the database. There, you’ll see a sample record image and information on the creation, content, coverage and reliability of the collection.
census records | FamilySearch | International Genealogy | Vital Records
Monday, September 14, 2009 1:51:51 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, August 21, 2009
Genealogy News Corral: August 17-21
Posted by Diane
We rounded up these items for this week's news corral:
- FamilySearch and Svensk Arkivinformation (part of the National Archives of Sweden) are starting a huge project to create a free online index to 418 million names in Swedish parish registers of births, christenings, marriages and burials. Volunteers will index registers from the start of recordkeeping (between 1608 and 1686, depending on the parish) through 1860.
- Heritage Travel, a subsidiary of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, is launching a free online travel community called Gozaic with several “circles” for those interested in history-related travel. Those include Civil War Buffs, Abraham Lincoln, Family Heritage Travel, Journeys into Hidden America and others. Visit the pre-launch site to learn more.
- On a celebrity baby blog this week, actor/producer Lisa Kudrow describes her next project as “a genealogy series in which we take stars to their ancestral landmarks ... different countries and places where they see documents and they see homes or buildings or things that have to do with their family.” (Scroll to the bottom of the post to see the full statement.)
Maybe the postponed US version of “Who Do You Think You Are?” will see the light of our TV screens. (Last we heard, it didn’t make NBC’s fall lineup, but might show up as a mid-season replacement.)
Celebrity Roots | FamilySearch | Genealogy Events | International Genealogy
Friday, August 21, 2009 5:13:47 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, August 17, 2009
All About FamilySearch
Posted by Allison
A few weeks ago, I was talking with Family Tree Magazine’s art director, Christy, about German genealogy. We
both have Deutsch roots, and I
was telling her how I’d traced my one family branch in 18th-century Bavaria on
a trip to the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City. Christy hadn’t
known that it’s fairly easy to get historical records from Germany—and many
other places—through the FHL and local centers, which act like FHL branches.
I’ve had a lot of similar encounters, and it always
surprises me how many genealogy buffs don’t know the depth and breadth of
resources available from FamilySearch, the genealogy arm of Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. (Even Family Tree Magazine readers!) That’s why I decided to make
FamilySearch the topic of this month’s Family Tree Magazine webinar:
FamilySearch Essentials: How to Access Records From 100
Countries Without Leaving Town
This hourlong session will be hosted by yours truly
Wednesday, Aug. 26 at 7 p.m. Eastern/6 p.m. Central/5 p.m. Mountain/4 p.m.
Pacific. In it, I’ll walk through FamilySearch’s offline and online genealogy
resources, show you how to find records relevant to your own genealogy search,
and demonstrate different tools on the FamilySearch Web site.
Registration costs $49.99, and you can sign up using the
link above. If you’re new to webinars and wonder how they work, see our FAQ.
P.S. If it’s German genealogy you want to learn more about,
watch for an article about Germany’s historical regions in the December 2009
issue of Family Tree Magazine, coming to subscribers’ mailboxes in late October.
FamilySearch | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Research Tips | Webinars
Monday, August 17, 2009 10:40:25 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 31, 2009
Did Your Immigrant Ancestors Sail the Red Star Line?
Posted by Diane
The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation folks sent us a note on behalf of a future museum in Antwerp, Belgium, about the history of the Red Star Line.
The Red Star Line was a steamship company that transported thousands of European immigrants across the Atlantic between 1873 and 1935. Museum organizers are looking for individual stories and original photos that'll bring personal history to the museum.
If you know or are a descendant from a person who sailed the Red Star Line from Antwerp to settle in the United States, please e-mail museum staff.
The museum is slated to open in 2012, but the Web site is already up and
running.
Read more about the Red Star Line, get a list of ships and see photos on RedStarLine.eu. You can view postcards of ships and 1908 menu cards here.
The Belgian Roots Project explains how Red Star Line was a trade name, not a corporation. Scroll down the linked page for a fleet list, then click a ship name for a list of voyages and links to free passenger lists, when available.
immigration records | International Genealogy | Museums
Friday, July 31, 2009 1:53:03 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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Saturday, May 16, 2009
Genline Updates Mean More Swedish Records
Posted by Diane
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.
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Saturday, May 16, 2009 3:25:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, May 13, 2009
News From the National Genealogical Society Conference
Posted by Diane
This morning we had tons of booth visitors, fresh from the opening presentation by actor Ira David Wood III. He’s played Sir Walter and Old Tom in The Lost Colony, an outdoor show since 1937 produced by Roanoke Island Historical Association.
A few news bits so far:
- 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.
- 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.
FamilySearch | Footnote | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Wednesday, May 13, 2009 9:22:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Tuesday, April 21, 2009
See World's Historical Documents Free on New Site
Posted by Diane
The World Digital Library, a free, online collection of documents, photos, maps and art from countries and cultures around the world, launches today. You can choose from seven languages
(Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish) for
viewing descriptions of the materials. Text on the records themselves isn’t translated. On the home page, click on the map to see a sample of content from that region. Use the slider on the timeline at the bottom of the screen to change the era from which the samples are taken. Links at the top of each page let you search the record
descriptions or browse by place, time, topic, type of item or
originating institution.  Images from Syria, where my great-grandparents were born, include a late-19th century panorama of Beirut—showing what it would’ve looked like about the time they lived there. More examples of digitized content: centuries-old calligraphy from Iran, an 1851 John Tallis and Co. map of Brazil, the 1866 book The Gabrovo School and Its First Trustees from Bulgaria, and a photo of African-American major league baseball pioneer Jackie Robinson from the United States. There’s some content from nearly every UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) member country. ( On the country listings page, you can click to see content from each place.) World Digital Library is hosted by the Library of Congress, with support from UNESCO and partner institutions around the world. Partners are seeking more materials and the means to digitize them, especially for the developing world.
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 2:10:18 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, April 08, 2009 Thursday, April 02, 2009
Help Tracing Roots in Europe
Posted by Allison
Need a hand crossing the pond? You'll find help in our newest CD, the Family Tree Passport to Europe.  Given the popularity of our heritage articles in Family Tree Magazine—"When are you going to do an article on [insert ancestral homeland]?" is an oft-asked question in our inbox—we're excited to have a way for folks to tap into the great advice we've offered on European genealogy. The CD combines 22 guides to researching in these nations and regions (some articles cover more than one country): - Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Czech Republic
- Denmark
- England
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Russia
- Scotland
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Wales
Plus articles on Jewish roots and major ports of emigration. The guides include hints for finding and using records, identifying ancestral villages, dealing with foreign language barriers and understanding historical events that affect your ancestors' circumstances—and your genealogy search. Many guides include helpful maps to put your family in geographic context. And of course, there are lots of recommended resources for learning more—and all the Web sites are hyperlinked for one-click access. For those of you who subscribe to our e-mail newsletter, look for a special discount offer on this CD to hit your inbox tomorrow. Don't get the newsletter? Now's a great time to sign up—in addition to genealogy news, tips and advice each Thursday, you'll get the opportunity to download our 42-page PDF e-book Best of the Photo Detective. Visit our newsletter page to subscribe for free.
Family Tree Magazine articles | International Genealogy
Thursday, April 02, 2009 3:00:29 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, March 06, 2009
It's Friday—Time to Round up the Genealogy News
Posted by Diane
Here are some genealogical happenings that perked up our ears up this week: - Roots Television posted a video about Chris Haley—nephew of Roots author Alex Haley—and his first meeting with newfound cousin June Baff Black at last weekend’s Who Do You Think You Are? Live! family history show. Haley learned through DNA testing that he has Scottish Ancestry; the video shows how the test led him to Black.
- News site SwissInfo launched We Shall Not Stay Long, a section for those whose ancestors left Italian-speaking areas of Switzerland for better lives in the Americas and Australia. You’ll find articles from expert historians and “witnesses to history,” photos and more.
- Remember watching “Daniel Boone” on TV in the 60s? In the current Genealogy Gems Podcast, host Lisa Louise Cooke interviews Darby Hinton, who played Daniel Boone’s son, Israel.
- FamilySearch’s volunteer indexing program recently completed a bunch of projects for the free FamilySearch record search pilot site, including church records for Cheshire, England (1538 to 1907). Indexes for the 1920 Washington, DC, US census; 1865 Massachusetts state census; and 1885 and 1935 Florida censuses are still being double-checked, but you can browse the Florida census images now.
FamilySearch | Genealogy Events | International Genealogy
Friday, March 06, 2009 7:59:12 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Cologne, Germany, Archives Building Collapses
Posted by Diane
Dick Eastman blogged that a six-story building housing the archives of Cologne, Germany, collapsed Tuesday. It’s believed everyone inside the building escaped safely, but the condition of the archives’ centuries-old records is unknown. Expatica.com describes the archives' holdings as "65,000 original documents dating from the year 922 as
well as maps, films and photos and items left to the city by figures
like composer Jacques Offenbach and Nobel Prize-winning author Heinrich
Boell." See CNN’s report here.
International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives
Wednesday, March 04, 2009 1:51:10 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, February 02, 2009
New FamilySearch Records Span the Globe
Posted by Diane
FamilySearch (the folks behind the Family History Library and branch Family HIstory Centers) has added a bunch of records to its record search pilot—40 million, to be exact, since Jan. 5. Most are international, among them birth, marriage, and death records for the Netherlands and Ireland. Here’s a list: - Argentina: 1869 national census
- Canada: 1916 census of the prairie provinces (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta)
- Costa Rica: church records, 1595 to 1992
- Germany: burials 1500 to 1900
- Ireland: Civil registration indexes 1845 to1958
- Mexico: Aguascalientes Catholic church records, 1616 to 1961
- Netherlands: births and baptisms, marriages, and deaths and burials
- Philippines: marriages
US additions include San Francisco-area funeral home records (1835 to 1931) and updates to the databases for the 1820, 1850 and 1880 federal censuses, as well as 1850 slave and mortality schedules.
FamilySearch | International Genealogy
Monday, February 02, 2009 6:43:05 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, January 26, 2009
New Year, New Genealogy Resources
Posted by Diane
Ancestry.com | Asian roots | International Genealogy
Monday, January 26, 2009 1:27:50 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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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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Friday, September 26, 2008
FindMyPast Adds English Census, Baptism Records
Posted by Diane
If your ancestors were born or lived in London, you’ll want to take note of two new additions to FindMyPast’s paid-access online records: - In its ongoing effort to redigitize the 1901 English census—using new scanning technology to produce clearer images and better transcriptions than earlier versions of that same enumeration—the company added 4.6 million records covering the county of London.
This summer, FindMyPast and the Origins Network began working with FamilySearch to index the 1841 to 1901 British censuses (read our report). You can search the 1841 through 1861 indexes free on FamilySearch Record Search. - FindMyPast’s growing collection of parish records now includes 2.3 million new baptisms, including 346,000 from East London. The parish records are a joint project with the UK Federation of Family History Societies.
census records | International Genealogy | UK and Irish roots
Friday, September 26, 2008 3:01:48 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 19, 2008
101 Best Web Sites: Free Immigration Info and Swedish Records
Posted by Diane
Here are the two 101 Best Web Sites picks we're highlighting this week: - Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild: This guild of volunteers has tirelessly transcribed more than 8,000 passenger manifests, many from less-famous ports. Search by surname, captain's name, port of arrival or departure, and ship name.
And there's more: The guild’s Compass section offers how-to help for researching immigrants; a new adoption section has advice for adoptees and birth parents who want to reunite with their biological family members.
- Genline: Genline delivers images of 16 million-plus pages of church records (virtually everything available) to your computer. Subscriptions start at about $23 for 20 days. You also can go to the resources section to learn Swedish terms you’ll encounter in your research and get how-to articles.
Link to the rest of our 101 list on FamilyTreeMagazine.com.
Genealogy Web Sites | immigration records | International Genealogy
Friday, September 19, 2008 8:10:07 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 12, 2008
101 Best Web Sites: Norwegian Roots and Maps Galore
Posted by Diane
Here's our weekly (roughly; I got thrown off schedule last week) look at two of Family Tree Magazine's 101 Best Web Sites for 2008. - Digitalarkivet was originally home to 1801, 1865, 1875 and 1900 Norwegian censuses, this national archives site is expanding to also encompass parish records—the most important family research tool in Norway.
Click Database Selector to find databases by county or year, or choose the Search in All the Database link (note this page doesn’t seem to have an English translation, but you can get a serviceable one by pasting the text into Google’s translator and selecting Norwegian as the language to translate from).
- The Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection brings digitized historical maps from around the world straight to your computer screen. They’re sorted by category, so first scroll down and click Historical Maps, then a continent or country. From there, you can choose maps of cities, military maps and maps showing historical eras, territorial growth, populations and more.
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Friday, September 12, 2008 8:28:11 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 05, 2008
News From the FGS Conference
Posted by Diane
News-wise, it's been kind of a quiet Federation of Genealogical Societies conference so far, but here are a few of the tidbits we picked up yesterday:
- The Bureau of Land Management has been quietly adding military warrants to its General Land Office records database.
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The Irish Family History Foundation has launched an online research service called RootsIreland. Sign up for a free registration with the site, then use it to search nearly 40 million church records at genealogical research centers in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Results show you basic information from the record; viewing a record transcription costs 5 Euros (about $7). You’ll also get information on other records and research services available in your ancestors’ county. - ProQuest (the company behind the HeritageQuest database you can access in many libraries) has introduced Historic MapWorks, a service that lets you browse historical maps or search them by keyword, address or latitude and longitude.
Some of the maps have landowners’ names, and you can move around to look at the neighbors and compare the old map to a modern one. It's not in many libraries yet, but ask at your library's reference desk if it's available there.
Genealogy Events | International Genealogy | UK and Irish roots
Friday, September 05, 2008 1:10:32 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, September 01, 2008
101 Best Sites: Canadian Histories and European Places
Posted by Diane
This week’s highlighted 101 Best Web Sites for genealogy take us to Canada and Europe:
- Our Roots/Nos Racines: Digitized local histories from across Canada have landed on this site with English and French versions. Topics include the Klondike Gold Rush, Irish immigrants at Grosse-Île, indigenous communities, historic forts and trading posts, and more. Once you've found a volume about the places and times your ancestors experienced, you can search for their names and other terms.
- Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names Online: Stumped by European place names? This guide to more than 900,000 places in Europe and around the world covers current and historical geography. Many location listings give coordinates, helping you to find them on a map.
To see all our 101 Best Web Sites for 2008, visit the (new!) FamilyTreeMagazine.com.
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Monday, September 01, 2008 3:03:12 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Ancestry.de Subscription Price Drops
Posted by Grace
German genealogy blog Abenteuer Ahnenforschung pointed out today that the price of Ancestry.de's basic membership has been lowered to 9.95 euros a year—about $14.65. (For comparison's sake, Ancestry.com's US-only membership package costs $155.40 a year.) If your family history research focuses on Germany—and you've got a good grasp on the language—this is a total steal. The records available to Ancestry.de subscribers (as well as Ancestry.com users with a World Deluxe Membership) include German city directories from 1797-1945 containing 32 million names, and soon 100 years of Deutsche Telekom phone books with an estimated 70 million names. Time to brush up on your Deutsch...
Ancestry.com | immigration records | International Genealogy
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:27:46 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, August 25, 2008
"Today" Traces Hosts' Roots
Posted by Diane
If you want your genealogy researched for free but your past is too checkered to run for political office, there’s always the “Today” show host chair. The show is again airing a series on tracing its hosts’ roots. Today we saw snippets of Meredith Vieira’s family history in Portugal’s Azores islands. On a genealogist's dream journey, Vieira visited the islands and found ancestors’ birth records, discovered family homes, met cousins and joined in the Festa do Espirito Santo (Festival of the Holy Spirit). You may get jealous, but watch the video all the same—it was inspiring. At the end of the segment, Vieira thanks several people, including our own contributing editor Maureen A. Taylor, who did genealogical research for the "Today" producers. Readers who share Vieira’s Portuguese ancestry—or have roots in neighboring Spain—can get research help in the June 2004 Family Tree Magazine ( available from our Back Issue store). Also see the Portuguese Genealogy Home Page and LusaWeb.
International Genealogy | Videos
Monday, August 25, 2008 4:17:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Thursday, August 21, 2008
Jewish Roots in The Caribbean
Posted by Diane
In a neat article on CNN this morning, reporter Steve Kastenbaum writes about exploring his Jewish roots on a trip to the Caribbean. His grandfather moved there from Germany during the 1920s; his relatives were among the more than 15,000 Jews living in Cuba during the 1940s and 1950s. Kastenbaum—and you—can use these sites to learn more about tracing Jewish roots in the Caribbean:
International Genealogy | Jewish roots
Thursday, August 21, 2008 1:53:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, August 08, 2008
Chinese Genealogy Resources and Ancestry.com’s Jiapu.cn
Posted by Diane
We’ve heard some questions about Ancestry.com’s recently launched Chinese site, Jiapu.cn, and help for researchers who want to use it but don’t know Chinese. “There isn’t an English version of the Chinese site, just as there isn’t an English version of our Italian, French, German or Swedish sites,” says Simon Zivian, spokesperson for the Ancestry.com’s international business. “These international sites have been launched in local markets for those markets.” In addition, the jiapu (family histories) on the site are in Chinese. You can get a rough translation using Google’s Web page translator, but you’d need to search using Chinese characters, and you’d need translation help with the digitized records. For translation help, I’d suggest contacting a university Asian Studies department or a local Chinese organization to ask for recommendations. Here are a few other Chinese genealogy resources: - China Gateway
Links to repositories in North America, China and elsewhere that have Chinese collections
I did a search for professional genealogists specializing in Chinese research and came up empty. Hit Comment and add a post if you know of one.
Asian roots | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Friday, August 08, 2008 7:25:59 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Ancestry.com Launches Chinese Site
Posted by Diane
First, The Generations Network (owner of Ancestry.com) just launched a Chinese family history Web site at jiapu.cn. The site, written in Chinese, provides access to jiapu (family histories) online. They're available through a partnership with the Shanghai Library, which holds the largest collection of Chinese family history records in the world. So far, 1,450 jiapu covering 270 surnames are online; eventually, jiapu.cn will contain 22,700 jiapu. As of now, the family histories are accessible at no cost.
Ancestry.com | Asian roots | International Genealogy
Wednesday, August 06, 2008 10:07:26 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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Monday, July 21, 2008
FamilySearch Team to Make England and Wales Census Indexes Free
Posted by Diane
Thanks to another FamilySearch partnership, indexes to the 1841 and 1861 England and Wales censuses are now searchable free at FamilySearch. Those are the first indexes made available under an agreement with British companies FindMyPast, the Origins Network and Intelligent Image Management. Other England and Wales censuses from 1841 to 1901 will follow this initial release. For now, you can go to FamilySearch Record Search and do a free search of the 1841 and 1861 censuses on first and last names, age, sex, place of birth, and (for the 1861 census) relationship to head of household. In the future, you’ll be able to search on additional fields of data. You can search the full indexes and view original images for free at FamilySearch’s Family History Centers, or for fee at FindMyPast, a subscription and pay-per-view records site. FamilySearch, working with the Origins Network, will provide digital images for the 1851, 1871 and 1881 censuses. It will also enhance the 1871 Census index. Findmypast.com will provide FamilySearch with copies of its English and Welsh Census indexes from 1841 to 1901. Members of England's Federation of Family History Societies will help complete the index for the 1851 Census.
FamilySearch | International Genealogy | UK and Irish roots
Monday, July 21, 2008 4:35:27 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Effort Underway to Open 1926 Irish Census
Posted by Diane
The Council of Irish Genealogical Organizations (CIGO) wants the Irish government to open the country’s 1926 census ahead of schedule—as soon as possible, instead of in 2026, as Ireland’s 100-year restriction dictates. CIGO has started an online petition to support the Genealogical Society of Ireland’s (GSI) soon-to-be published parliamentary bill dealing with the release of the 1926 census. The group argues the 1926 census should be opened because “virtually every adult then living is now deceased” and the data recorded is similar to that available in civil registration and other records. Members also point out the 1926 census would be particularly helpful to genealogists. Many of those enumerated were born before Irish civil registration began in 1864, and it was the first census in 15 years (the scheduled 1922 count was skipped due to the Irish Civil War). Precedent favors opening the census, according to CIGO. “Public access to the 1901 and 1911 Irish census was established as early as 1961 . . . only 50 years after the 1911 census had been compiled.” (In the United States, censuses are opened 72 years after they're taken.) The National Archives of Ireland is publishing the 1911 census online; so far, you can search records for Dublin. A partnership with Library and Archives Canada also calls for digitizing the 1901 census. Until then, since there’s no microfilm index to the 1901 and 1911 censuses, find your ancestors using the advice in Sharon DeBartolo Carmack's March 2008 Family Tree Magazine Irish roots research guide: To find the Family History Library (FHL) census microfilm with your ancestors’ county, first learn the district electoral division (DED). Find the DED in Townlands in 1901-1911 Censuses of Ireland, Listed by District Electoral Divisions, on FHL microfilm rolls 1544947 through 1544954. Then run a place search of the FHL catalog on the county and civil parish names, and look for a 1901 or 1911 census heading. Click on each title, then on View Film Notes to find the roll for the right DED. (You can rent FHL microfilm through a Family History Center near you.)
Click here to read more about the initiative and link to CIGO’s online petition.
census records | International Genealogy | Research Tips | UK and Irish roots
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 5:12:54 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, July 11, 2008
New Source for British Parish Records
Posted by Diane
The UK fee-based data site FindMyPast.com is adding baptism, marriage and burial records from more than 1,000 parishes across Britain. The records date as far back as 1538, making them valuable sources for research before civil registration began in 1837. You can search by surname across all the records without knowing where your ancestor lived. Starting today, you can view more than over 15 million parish burial records and memorial inscriptions. A total of 7 million baptism, marriage and probate records will become available later this year. The parish records are available with an Explorer subscription to FindMyPast.com, which costs 54.95 pounds ($109) for 6 months or 89.95 pounds ($178) for a year. You also can search some English baptism and marriages through FamilySearch Labs' Record Search (scroll down and look under Vital Records).
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | UK and Irish roots
Friday, July 11, 2008 2:13:41 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, June 18, 2008
New Database Shows You English Ancestors' Jobs
Posted by Diane
You might be able to learn whether your English ancestor was a clergyman, cowkeeper, winemaker, woolstapler or other tradesperson using the British subscription service FamilyRelatives.com’s latest addition. Pigot’s Trade directories of town and occupational information cover 27 counties back to the 1830’s (so, before official civil registration began). Records added to date cover 27 counties from 1830 to 1839. Directories contain descriptions of towns with population numbers, parishes and main trades and industries. They also list residents’ names and addresses by occupation. Search the directories by name or occupation, or browse by page. A subscription to FamilyRelatives.com costs 37.50 pounds—that's about $73.50. You can browse a name index to a few Pigot's Trade directories free from this RootsWeb-hosted site (there’s a search here, but it didn’t seem to be working). I dug up a few links to help you learn more about some of those archaic trades your UK and other ancestors practiced:
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Social History
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 7:02:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Conference Wrap-up: New Zealand Genealogical Society
Posted by Diane
The New Zealand Society of Genealogists recently wrapped up a big conference, From Coast to Coast 2008, held May 30 to June 2 in Christchurch. Family Tree Magazine contributing editor Sharon DeBartolo Carmack and professional genealogist Jim Warren were the annual event’s first American keynote and banquet speakers. “We felt quite honored,” Sharon told us, and she added these notes about the conference: More than 350 genealogists, “traders” (vendors), and volunteers traveled from all over New Zealand, Australia and the United States to attend the conference. We were impressed not only with the good humor and friendliness of all the attendees, but also the overall level of sophistication regarding genealogical research.
Besides us, 23 speakers lectured on topics geared to New Zealand research, which covered a broad range of ethnic groups representing New Zealand’s melting pot: Irish, Scottish, English, Maori (indigenous peoples) and Chinese.
If you have New Zealand ancestors, the society has a great online overview of resources. Also check out New Zealand GenWeb.
At the banquet Saturday evening, Jim and I presented “Primetime’s 20/20 Dateline: Sharon DeBartolo Carmack Interviews the World’s Oldest Living Genealogist, Ole Smirnoff Bernatelli” featuring Jim as Ole, and it met with uproarious laughter. For Sunday’s dinner, conference organizers Philip Worthington and Fiona Brooker, along with the genealogical society's executive officer, Peter Nash, treated us all to a hilarious version of “It's In the Bag,” a popular game show in New Zealand. I was even one of the contestants, electing to take what was in the bag instead of the money—I won a calculator!
We thoroughly enjoyed the conference and meeting all the attendees. We even got to travel around the South Island of New Zealand in a pre-conference “holiday” with my newly married daughter, Laurie, and her husband, Dash.
Genealogy Events | International Genealogy
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 2:37:27 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, May 02, 2008
FamilySearch and British Partners to Digitize UK Records
Posted by Diane
A partnership among FamilySearch, British family history subscription/pay-per-view database site FindMyPast, and The National Archives of Britain will give genealogists access to millions of names of British soldiers and seamen from the 18th to the 20th century. The records include: The records may include each ex-serviceman's name, age, birthplace and service history, physical appearance, conduct sheet, previous occupation, and in some cases, the reason for discharge. After 1883, details of marriages and children may also appear.
- Merchant Seamen records from 1835 to 1844 and 1918 to 1941, which will provide the name and the date and place of birth. Many 20th-century records include photographs of the sailors and details of their voyages. Nearly a third of UK families have ancestors who were merchant seaman, according to FamilySearch's announcement.
For this three-year project, FamilySearch staffers will digitize the records at the UK National Archives, and FindMyPast will create indexes and transcriptions. When they're through, the indexes and images will be searchable at FindMyPast and FamilySearch. I can hear you wondering, “Will they be free?” FamilySearch’s announcement didn’t say one way or the other, but in previously announced partnerships, records are to be free on FamilySearch and partner organizations have the option to provide fee-based access.
FamilySearch | Genealogy Industry | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | UK and Irish roots
Friday, May 02, 2008 10:07:14 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Monday, March 17, 2008
Got Irish Roots?
Posted by Diane
Happy St. Patrick's Day! A few numbers to help you appreciate the occasion: - 30.5 million US residents who claim Irish ancestry
- 4 million population of The Republic of Ireland
- 22.5 percent Massachusetts residents with Irish ancestry
- 4.8 million immigrants from Ireland admitted for US residence since 1820
- 100 pounds of green dye added to the Chicago River St. Patrick’s Day, 1962 (the year that verdant tradition began)
- 3 million spectators at New York City’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade
- 52,000 number of Irish immigrants who arrived in New York City in 1847
- 372,000 total population of New York City in 1847
- 107 years Boston has held an annual St. Patrick’s Day parade (Beantown witnessed the country’s first recorded St. Paddy’s Day celebration in 1737)
- 9 places in the United States named Dublin
We’re all Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, but if you’re Irish every other day of the year, too, the March 2008 Family Tree Magazine Irish research guide—and our online Irish Toolkit—will help you trace those roots back to the Emerald Isle.
Family Tree Magazine articles | International Genealogy | Social History
Monday, March 17, 2008 2:56:07 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, March 10, 2008
Ancestry.com Posts 500 German City Directories
Posted by Grace
Pay database Ancestry.com last week put online 500 German city directories, from Aachen to Zwickau.
Often overlooked as a genealogy resource, city directories can fill in
the blanks between censuses and help trace wandering ancestors. Ancestry's new collection includes business and professional directories, as well. From the main German Genealogy Records page, you can browse by state (mistakenly labeled as Counties in the drop-down menu) and by time period. Or try searching for a name in the fields on the left side of the page. The records include about 27 million names, according to the 24-7 Family History Circle blog, with most records from the late 1800s to mid-1900s. World Deluxe Membership is required to access the digitized directories. Click here to search them.
International Genealogy | Public Records
Monday, March 10, 2008 7:46:16 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Maps of historic London
Posted by Grace
If your family hails from London (or you just like cartography), you'll love this site: the British Library's virtual exhibition of historical maps of the city. The 40 historic plats are organized on a Google map, making it easy to determine what areas they represent. The maps and images are also divided by time period, and you can access a zoomable version to see them up close. I especially like the map from 1653 with the lengthy title "A guide for Cuntrey men In the famous Cittey of LONDON by the helpe of wich plot they shall be able to know how farr it is to any Street." For more resources for researching your English roots, you can always refer to our Ethnic Toolkit. The University of Texas also has a large collection of historic British maps in its Perry-Castañeda Map Collection.
International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives
Wednesday, March 05, 2008 9:25:24 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Tuesday, March 04, 2008
NARA Posts Free Passenger Indexes Online
Posted by Diane
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has added passenger lists of Russian, German and Italian immigrants to its free Access to Archival Databases (AAD) service. (Irish passenger lists already were available here.) Each collection consists mostly of immigrants who identified their nationality as Russian, German or Italian and arrived at the ports of New York, Boston, Baltimore, New Orleans or Philadelphia during the 19th century. The database for each nationality also contains some names of immigrants from other places. For example, 90 percent of people in the German records said they were from Germany or a “German” area—the other 10 percent came from elsewhere. The data are from passenger list indexes created by the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies. Keep in mind they’re not complete listings of all Russian, German, Italian or Irish immigrants. For each collection, you'll see a Manifest Header Data File and a Passenger Data File. The search isn't the most intuitive we've ever seen, so get started with these tips: 1. From AAD, click Passenger Lists under Genealogy/Personal History. Then, click the Search button to the right of a Passenger Data File to look for an ancestor. (NARA calls the search terms you enter “values.”)
2. In your results, click View Record on the left to see first and last name, age, sex, occupation, last residence, destination and other information.
3. Use the ship manifest identification number to determine the port of arrival. Click View the FAQs and scroll to the chart showing ports and the range of manifest numbers assigned to each port’s records.
If you think you've found an ancestor, you can search the database for his or her passenger manifest identification number. That lets you see all passenger records from that ship—handy for finding traveling companions.
In the Manifest Header Data File, you can search for all ships with a particular manifest identification number, ship name, departure port or arrival date. For example, say you know your German ancestor arrived March 16, 1846. Click the Search button next to the German Manifest Header Data file and enter 03/16/1846 in the Arrival field. You'll get all the ships included in this database that arrived that day. Then you can go back to the Passenger Data File and search for the passengers on each ship. I highly, highly recommend reading the FAQ document—each database has its own, linked at the top of the search screen. It’ll help you search the databases and understand your ancestor’s record. Some places of origin or other data are difficult to interpret. You’ll want to see your ancestor’s orginal passenger list, which you can do on microfilm at major genealogy libraries, NARA facilities and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library. You can view records online through the subscription Web site Ancestry.com.
Genealogy Web Sites | immigration records | International Genealogy | Libraries and Archives
Tuesday, March 04, 2008 3:21:37 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, February 25, 2008
How to Find Research Guides on FamilySearch
Posted by Diane
If you have ancestors from Finland, you’ll want to download the free Finnish genealogy research guide FamilySearch has just added to its Web site. FamilySearch’s excellent online research outlines are among our go-to resources when editing Family Tree Magazine articles about tracing ancestors in this or that place, and we often recommend the guides in our articles. They cover how to do research, historical background, genealogy terms to know, writing request letters, and much more. But the guides are linked in different places on FamilySearch, so sometimes it's hard to find the right one. Here’s our quick guide to finding FamilySearch guides: - Start by clicking the Search tab at the top of the page. Then look in the blue bar under “Search”:
- Now, for an alphabetical index to the FHL’s research outlines, letter-writing guides, word lists, beginners’ guides, census worksheets and more, click Research Helps. This index is sorted by place, but you can use the links on the left to sort it by title, subject or document type.
Click a document title to access the guide’s content online. Or, click PDF to download a PDF with the information, or click the item number (in the right-hand column) to order a copy mailed to you. Not all the guides have all three options.
- To get steps for finding the FHL’s microfilmed birth, marriage and death information by place and year, click Research Guidance, then click on a place.
On the next page, choose a tab for historical background, advice for
beginners, and research strategies for various records. This
information is drawn from the above-mentioned research guides.
- For in-depth, full-color PDF guides to a selection of ancestries, look on the home page under "Get Started With Family History" and click the word guides. From here, you also can follow links to separate directories of the word lists, letter-writing guides, forms and more.
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Research Tips
Monday, February 25, 2008 10:47:46 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008
The World's Longest Family Tree?
Posted by Diane
Chinese philosopher Confucius (who tradition holds was born 551 BC) has 2 million recorded descendants in 83 generations, says one of that number, Kong Dewei, in China Daily. Dewei is a member of the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee, which will publish the fifth edition of the family register next year. For the first time, it includes women and those living outside of China. Each person paid 5 yuan (about 70 cents) to register; the committee has stopped soliciting names. People without pedigrees proving descent could take a DNA test to compare with Confucius’ genetic signature, which scientists in China discovered in 2006. It may sound as though Confucius, whose proper name was Kong Zi, was particularly prolific, but all I could find ( in the Handbook of Today’s Religions) is that he had a son and a daughter—I guess that's what 2,500 years can do for your family tree. The descendants have held noble titles and governmental posts throughout history. The main lineage fled from their ancestral home in Qufu during the Chinese Civil War, but now the Temple of Confucius and the Confucius Mansion (the residence of the philosopher’s descendants) are tourist attractions. Now, if only I can figure out how to set up a genealogy compilation committee for my family ...
Asian roots | International Genealogy
Wednesday, February 20, 2008 3:47:32 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
World Vital Records Launches International Collection
Posted by Diane
Starting Monday, Feb. 4, FamilyLink's World Vital Records subscription database site will be outfitted with a new, gargantuan World Collection of international records. Built through partnerships with more than 20 record-holding organizations, the World Collection has more than 1.5 billion records from about 35 countries, including England, Canada, Australia, France, Ireland, Scotland, Hungary and Portugal. It’ll double World Vital Records’ offerings. Some of the new collection's major components: - UK census records (1851 to 1901) from FindMyPast.com, to be posted county-by-county through out the year, including record images
- newspapers from Australia, the Bahamas, Chile, Ecuador, England, Ireland, Canada and Mexico
Other partners include Archive CD Books businesses in Canada and Australia, Irish reference publisher Eneclann, the Godfrey Memorial Library in Connecticut, UK records site British Origins and Australian book distributor Gould Genealogy. The World Collection, which includes the US Collection records already on World Vital Records, costs $149.95 per year, but you can sign up for $99.95 until Feb.4. [ Note: We've just learned of a new World Collection discount—$119.95 if you sign up by Feb. 11.] The US Collection by itself costs $49.95 per year, or you can get two years for $79.95 if you sign up by Feb. 4. We're going to give the World Collection a whirl and report back. If you try it, click Comment and let us know what you think.
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Thursday, January 31, 2008 10:02:03 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Wednesday, December 05, 2007
1901 and 1911 Irish Censuses Going Online
Posted by Diane
We’ve just seen the first fruits of a project from the National Archives of Ireland and Library and Archives Canada to digitize, index and post online the 1901 and 1911 Irish censuses. You now can search or browse Dublin’s 1911 census records free at www.census.nationalarchives.ie; the rest of the 1911 and then 1901 records will follow. Search on a name or place, then and click on a match to see a page with the household's residents and links to PDF images of the dwelling’s census return forms (they were a bit slow to load). What an exciting development, and not only because contributing editor Sharon DeBartolo Carmack tipped us off just in time to slip the good news into our March 2008 Irish research guide before the issue went to press. The project is creating the only master index to Irish census records—currently, you have to look up the district electoral division (DED) for your ancestor's townland (similar to a neighborhood) and residence, then find the Family History Library census microfilm covering the right DED. On your relative’s Household Return (Form A) for 1901, you’ll find his or her name, age, sex, relationship to the head of household, religion, occupation, marital status, county or country of birth, and ability to read, write and speak Irish. All of that’s also in the 1911 census, plus, for married women, the numbers of years of marriage, children born alive and children still living. You can get a good picture of your family’s economic status, too: On the House and Building Return (Form B), census takers recorded details about dwellings, such as number of windows, type of roof, number of rooms a family occupies, and overall condition. Though Ireland took censuses every 10 years starting in 1821, the infamous 1922 Four Courts fire took a toll, as did government officials who destroyed old returns once they gathered statistical information. The 1921 count was skipped due to the Irish Civil War, leaving 1901 and 1911 as the only censuses available.
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Research Tips
Wednesday, December 05, 2007 3:48:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Thursday, November 08, 2007
Research London Children's Hospital Records
Posted by Diane
I learned about this cool resource for British ancestors from the ResearchBuzz newsletter about online search engines and databases: A new Web site provides historical admission record transcriptions from Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children in London. The free Small and Special database contains information on more than 85,000 patient admissions from the hospital’s opening in February 1852, through 1914. You can do a simple search on a name and birth year (exact or choose a range) on the home page. Or, click Search on the left of the page to search on other parameters such as patient’s address, admission date and disease. Results show the patient’s name, age and address; illness, outcome (such as “died” or “relieved”), admission and discharge dates, and case notes (if any). You have to register with the site to see details such as case notes. Under the left-hand Gallery link, you can browse photographs. Click Library to see articles about the hospital, staff, and patients such as little Minnie Ashman, who suffered from empyema. 
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Thursday, November 08, 2007 2:27:33 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
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Monday, September 24, 2007
Proceedings of London's Old Bailey Courthouse Online
Posted by Diane
I came across a cool resource while researching our Now What blog question about convicts sentenced to indentured servitude abroad. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London 1674 to 1834 is a searchable version of the accounts of more than 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.  Elizabeth Cox is one of the “non-elite” (as the site calls them) whose trials are detailed here. On Oct. 8, 1684, she was found guilty of petty larceny for stealing a silk gown from George Winterton’s shop. Her sentence? Whipping. The same day, a “notorious thief” named Anne Parker, who’d been convicted three times of stealing silver from households where she was employed as servant, received respite from her death sentence due to pregnancy. You can browse by date or search the trials on a name, date, keyword, crime, place and a variety of other terms. Click a match for a transcription of the trial account, links to other trials the same day, plus a digitized image of the account as it appeared in the original volumes of Old Bailey proceedings. The site also offers fascinating background information on the courthouse, laws of the day, the gender factor in criminal proceedings, and London communities. Even better, a digitization project is underway for trials from 1834 to 1913.
court records | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy | Social History
Monday, September 24, 2007 1:51:19 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, September 07, 2007
Ancestry.se and More Swedish Genealogy Resources
Posted by Diane
Ancestry.com has launched a Swedish Web site, www.Ancestry.se. Accessible with a $299.40-per-year ($29.95 per month) World Deluxe membership, the site contains Swedish emigration records with 1.4 million names, and vital records from 81 Lutheran parishes in Sweden’s Varmland County. The same records are also available through Ancestry.com’s US records collection ($155.40 per year). Note they’re not linked to digitized original records. The original emigration data comes from a CD called Emigranten Populär. Data were culled from various records including passport lists, passenger lists and correspondence. For more on what you can learn from the records, see Ancestry.com’s “about” page for that database. You can buy a version of the database on a two-CD set called Emigranten for $190 from Göteborgs-Emigranten in Göteborg. Other Swedish record sources you can check out: - Emigrantslistor, passenger-list information from 1851 to 1940 the police department kept for Stockholm. The Family History Library has this on microfilm, as well as emigrations through other Swedish ports.
- Emibas, a CD of 1.1 million emigrants listed in between 1845 and 1930. It’s available from Ancestors Swedish.
- Genline has digitized virtually all Swedish church records and made them searchable in its database. Access costs around $370 for a year; you also can buy shorter subscriptions and take advantage of special offers.
- SVAR, a division of Sweden's national archives, offers a smaller collection of digitized church records, as well as some censuses and vital records (click the English icon on the Web site). It costs about $146 per year, with shorter subscriptions and other packages available.
For more help, use our Swedish online ethnic toolkit and see the October 2006 Family Tree Magazine (sold out from our back issues store, but ask for it at your library).
Family Tree Magazine articles | Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Friday, September 07, 2007 10:03:05 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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Friday, August 31, 2007
The State of Genealogy in Germany
Posted by Grace
We don't need to tell you that genealogy's a big deal. But for the sake of backing up the argument, here are some numbers. A poll released by The Generations Network in 2005 said 29 percent have created a family tree—that's more than 80 million people. Ancestry.com alone has 760,000 subscribers.
Now, about one in six Americans reported having German ancestry in the 2000 US Census—more than 43 million people.
Considering how many US genealogists might be rooting around in the archives of Baden-Wurttemberg and Brandenburg, it seems surprising that only about 30,000 Germans are tracing their family roots, according to German news channel N-TV.
But the lack of fervor in Deutschland has deep-seated roots.
Genealogy was at its most popular in Germany during the Third Reich—it was a way of proving Aryan heritage. Because much of the general population associated the hobby with national socialism, nearly all genealogical organizations were disbanded in 1945, and the hobby still leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many Germans.
With the advent of Internet-driven research (and perhaps with the influence of countries like the United States and United Kingdom, where genealogy is big business), it seems like Ahnenforschung is making a comeback. TV stations are producing genealogy-focused programs like "Die Spur der Ahnen" ("The Trace of the Ancestors") and "Vorfahren Gesucht: Abenteuer Ahnenforschung" ("Ancestors Sought: Genealogy Adventure"). For those fluent in Deutsch, a German-language blog affiliated with Ancestry.de gives an interesting take on family history.
So now I’m curious—what's the state of genealogy in other countries? Leave a comment!
Genealogy Web Sites | International Genealogy
Friday, August 31, 2007 7:49:10 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)
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