• Supermodel Cindy Crawford was spotted in the Connecticut State Library Wednesday morning, where onlookers said she was filming an episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" NBC canceled the celebrity genealogy reality series after last season, but  TLC has picked it up. Singer Kelly Clarkson also is reported to have filmed for the resurrected series.

• FamilySearch has added more than 9.4 million index records and images this week from the United States, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Honduras, Italy, Peru, Sweden and Venezuela. They include data from BillionGraves (search results link you to BillionGraves.com to see an image of the tombstone), Michigan death certificates (1921-1952), New York, Southern District US District Court naturalizations (1824-1946), and more.

You can search or browse (in the case of unindexed record images) these records for free on FamilySearch.org. Link through to each collection from here. 

• Get a new take on your Irish Famine-era ancestors with findmypast.ie's new online Famine Memorial. Launched to coincide with the National Famine Commemoration 2013 in Kilrush, County Clare, Ireland, the memorial gathers record collections—emigration, census, newspaper, criminal and land records, as well as directories—that highlight aspects of Irish life that were affected during the Great Irish Famine (1845-1852).
  
  You'll need to be a subscriber or use credits to view records, but the memorial also provides interesting background information about the famine that anyone can view.

• Family Tree DNA announced it has lowered the price of its mid-level maternal line mtDNA test, called mtDNAPlus, to $49. This two-thirds price reduction was made possible by a new squencing technique. The company also has lowered the price of its 12-marker Y-DNA test to $49. Order either test here.

• In commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, the Civil War Trust, History, and the Center for Civil War Photography are calling for submissions to the 2013 Civil War Photo Contest. Amateur photographers age 13 and older can enter in five categories by uploading photos to the Civil War Trust’s Flickr page and tagging them for the correct category. The deadline is August 16.
  

You’ll find the rules and entry instructions here.

• FamilySearch has added more than 1.7 million index records and images to its free FamilySearch.org record search (click on the Search link at the top of the site). The records come from Austria, Brazil, China, Germany, Hungary, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Ukraine, and the United States. You can see the full list of updates and click through to search or (for as-yet unindexed record images) browse here.
  

• Ancestry.com will hold an Ancestry Day in Las Vegas on Saturday, May 11 (the Saturday of next week’s National Genealogical Society conference in Vegas). Registration for Ancestry Day costs $25; you can register and view the program here. 

• If you’ll be across the country in Washington, DC, during May, look into attending one of the genealogy records workshops at the National Archives. Topics include Civil War court martial records (May 15), nonpopulation censuses (May 18), and a genealogy clinic (May 18). You’ll find details here (scroll down to May).
  

• how to navigate the redesigned FamilySearch.org

• the best search strategies for FamilySearch.org's free genealogy records databases

• how to find and use the genealogy records databases that aren't covered by the FamilySearch.org global search

• differences between the site's new Family Tree program and its user-submitted Genealogies

• how to access FamilySearch records that aren't online

• how to take advantage of FamilySearch.org's genealogy help features

• ... and more

• WikiTree, a genealogy community with a goal to build a free worldwide family tree, now has 5 million ancestor profiles. The site's founders say its "slow-growth" approach—encouraging the careful addition of profiles over "bulk" uploads—makes this milestone an important one. 

You can hear from WikiTree founder Chris Whitten in the January 2013 Family Tree Magazine Podcast, hosted by Lisa Louise Cooke. 

Browse or search the profiles by surname here. If you want to build a tree there, start with the "How WikiTree Works" page.

• The volunteers for FamilySearch Indexing, the effort to index records at the Family History Library and make them searchable at the free FamilySearch.org, have indexed their one billionth record.
  
  The volunteers who indexed and arbitrated that record, Kenneth B. of California, Brittney S. of Idaho and April R. of Alberta, Canada, get a FamilySearch backpack with goodies inside. You can see how the indexing process works on FamilySearch.org.

• Photos and Stories: Upload photos of ancestors, share them through social media, tag them and add them to profiles in your tree.
• Fan Chart: Turns your FamilySearch family tree into an interactive fan chart, or lets you add your tree to FamilySearch as you create the fan chart
• Live Help: Call or chat with a FamilySearch volunteer online, or find a FamilySearch Center/Family History Center near you
  

• FamilySearch has added 23.9 million indexed records and images to the free FamilySearch.org, with new browsable image collections from Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, England, Italy, Mexico and the United States. Notable collection updates include the 19.2 million document images from the new collection United Kingdom, WWI Service Records 1914-1920; 2 million index records from the collection US WWI Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918; and almost the 931,000 index records from the collection US New York Passenger and Crew Lists, 1925-1942. Search or browse these databases from the chart here.
  
  
• In case you missed it (and were wondering), Irish genealogy research company Eneclann has researched Tom Cruise’s roots. The actor's real last name is Mapother, but Cruise actually is a family name. His great-grandfather, born in 1876 to Mary Pauline Russell Cruise and her second husband Thomas O’Mara, took the surname of his half-siblings and thus became Thomas Cruise Mapother I. Read more and download a copy of the family tree here.

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) has formed a partnership with Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft genealogischer Verbände e. V. (DAGV), an umbrella organization of genealogical and heraldic associations in Germany. So far no specific projects have been announced, but the two groups will “develop technical solutions to preserve and present records and to increase the mutual contact between both societies and their members.”  

• Houston-based genomics and genetics testing company Gene By Gene announced that a DNA sample submitted via National Geographic’s Genographic Project to its subsidiary Family Tree DNA suggests that the last common ancestor of all modern Y chromosomes lived as long ago as 338,000 years—70 percent older than previously thought.
  
  A DNA study project administrator noticed the unique sample, which came from an African American man living in South Carolina, in FamilyTreeDNA’s database. Read the full announcement on the Genetic Genealogist blog. 

• Sharing and preserving stories and "opening the tent" to more people, particularly youth, are big themes at this year's conference. Many attendees found inspiration in FamilySearch president Dennis Brimhall's keynote talk about documenting people's lives, asking “What would our great-great-grandchildren wish we would have done?” You can read about the opening keynote talks by Brimhall, storyteller Syd Lieberman and findmypast genealogist D. Joshua Taylor on the RootsTech blog. Watch these talks on the RootsTech website—scroll down on the home page to the Daily Recaps section.

• In his keynote talk this morning, Ancestry.com president Tim Sullivan made several announcements:

Over the next five years, Ancestry.com will commit at least $100 million to digitize and index new content.
 
Over the next three years, Ancestry.com and FamilySearch will collaborate to digitize and index 140 million+ pages of US probate records spanning 1800 to 1930. He called this the organizations' "most ambitious collaboration" yet, and added the caveat that permission to put records online must be negotiated with repositories holding these records.

Ancestry.com is about to release new version of its iPhone iPad app with enhanced social media sharing, the ability to compare trees and other features. A third of new Ancestry.com registrants are through the site's mobile apps (there's also one for Android), and half of users over last 2 months come to Ancestry.com through a mobile device.

The Ancestry DNA database contains 120,000 DNA samples and has delivered more than 2 million fourth cousin relationships. To increase the size of the database, the price of the test will be lowered to $99, whether or not you're a subscriber.

(Update: Sullivan didn't include this in his keynote, but Ancestry.com has announced that test-takers can now download their raw DNA data.)

• In addition to a new logo unveiled to RootsTech official bloggers, FamilySearch will redesign its website with an emphasis on photos, as a way to engage more people. It'll also add a fan chart view to its online Family Tree program. Blogger Renee Zamora has lots of details on the information presented during the dinner.
  

• According to the Ancestry Insider, who attended Wednesday's dinner for the bloggers, FamilySearch is experimenting with broadcasting sessions to 16 satellite locations in seven countries (with translation where necessary). If successful, next year the number will be expanded to 600 locations. That increases to potential reach of the conference to 120,000 people.

• FamilySearch should reach its 1 billionth indexed record very soon, and is planning on awarding prizes to the indexer and arbitrator of that record. 

• More than 6,700 people were pre-registered for RootsTech, which is huge for a US genealogy conference. The number is helped by the conference's location in Salt Lake City, home to the Family History Library and to many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for whom researching genealogy is a religious calling.
  
  
• About 2,000 teenagers signed up for a youth program on Saturday.
  

• FamilySearch will soon be available in nine languages for access by more people around the world. This is consistent with the organization's increasing focus on historical records from places besides the United States.
  

• FamilySearch unveiled a new logo at a meeting for genealogy bloggers. You can see it on Genealogy Gems blogger Lisa Louise Cooke's Facebook page.

• 3.2 billion names are now online in the databases at FamilySearch.org.

More RootsTech news to come!

• You can watch several presentations online each day of the conference. Check out the Rootstech livestreaming schedule here, and remember to translate the times from Mountain time into your time zone. Here's a Time Zone Converter.

• The RootsTech expo hall, which is free to the public, is 40 percent bigger this year. It includes opportunities to get research help in a FamilySearch mini-lab, have a photo or album digitized, get a large family tree printout, and receive a free copy of Family Tree Magazine (when you stop by our booth, tell Tyler, our online community editor, that I said hi).

• Story@Home, a conference about gathering and sharing family stories, has become part of RootsTech this year with a track of classes and a storytelling event on Friday evening.

• RootsTech attendees can register for just the Getting Started track of classes for $19 for one day or $39 for three days.

• A Developer Day on Friday will consolidate the presentations geared toward creators of genealogy technology tools.

• Special events include a Thursday night social at the Leonardo (a contemporary science and art museum), sponsored by findmypast.com; a special Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance also on Thursday; and extended hours at the Family History Library on Friday.

• Genealogy blogger DearMyrtle will be interviewing vendors and attendees in the exhibit hall, and broadcasting the segments online as DearMYRTLE LIVE! @RootsTech. Learn more and find out how to watch on Myrt's blog.

• We know of two scavenger hunts occurring in conjunction with the conference—RootsMagic's scavenger hunt includes an at-home component for those not at RootsTech, and the Heirloom Registry will hold a conference hall version of its online scavenger hunt from a few weeks ago.

• RootsTech, the FamilySearch genealogy conference taking place in Salt Lake City March 21-23, has announced its lineup of 13 sessions you can watch free online. They include the opening day keynote by FamilySearch CEO Dennis Brimhall and storyteller Sid Lieberman; Researching Ancestors Online with Laura Prescott; and From Paper Piles to Digital Files by Valerie Elkins.

Click here to see the list of sessions that will livestream and the times you can watch (note that you'll need to translate the times from Mountain Daylight Time to your own time zone).

• The Irish Genealogical Research Society has launched a new website, IrishAncestors.ie,  that broadens access to resources from the group's library. The public area of the website offers resources including a fragment of the 1871 census for the parish of Drumcondra, County Meath, a database of Irish marriage records and more.

• FamilySearch has added 1.7 million indexed records and record images to collections from Australia, Austria, China, Dominican Republic, England, Italy, Mexico, Nicaragua, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru and the United States. US records come from Arizona, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, North Carolina and Tennessee.

You see the list of updated collections here and click to search or browse them for free on FamilySearch.org.

• WikiTree, a free worldwide family tree website, has launched a new feature called Surname Following that lets you get updates when other WikiTree users post content related to names you're interested in. Log in to WikiTree and follow surnames to receive an email alert when related content is added to the WikiTree database or a related question, answer or comment is added to the WikiTree G2G (“Genealogist to Genealogist”) Q&A forum.

• Heads up: The early registration deadline is approaching for this year's National Genealogical Society annual conference, taking place May 8-11 in Las Vegas. You'll save $35 on your conference registration if you sign up before March 19. Click here to register.
  
  
• Speaking of conferences, registration is now open for the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference, Aug. 21-24 in Fort Wayne, Indiana (home of the well-known Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center). I'm hoping to be able to carve out some research time while there.
  

• FamilySearch has added 10.5 million indexed records and images to its free historical records search over the last two weeks, including 8,613,673 document images added to the New York Probate Records collection (1629 to 1971). Other notable collection updates are Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965, and Peru, Lima, Civil Registration, 1874-1996, collection.

Collections for Indonesia, Italy, New Zealand, and the US states of Minnesota and Ohio also have been updated. See more details and click through to the updated collections here.

• I got an email about a new iPhone/iPad app that helps you inventory family heirlooms. The $2.99 app, called Heirlooms, lets you store a photo of and information about an heirloom, and share it via an emailed attachment. A free version lets others read the attachment without having to buy the app.

• If you're up against a brick wall with some part of your genealogy research and you'll be in the Washington DC area on Saturday, March 16, the National Archives is holding a “Help! I'm Stuck” Genealogy Clinic. You can visit the Research Center main desk that day to sign up for a free, 20 minute consultation with an archivist between noon and 4 p.m. For details on this and other programs at teh archives, see the Archives.gov calendar.

• Ancestry.com has opened its AncestryDNA test to all US residents. From last May until now, the test was open just to Ancestry.com subscribers. This autosomal test analyzes more than 700,000 DNA marker locations and cross-references them with Ancestry.com's catalog of DNA samples.
  
  The AncestryDNA test also breaks down your ethnic heritage by percentage from 20 populations. See the September 2012 Family Tree Magazine for The Genetic Genealogist blogger Blaine Bettinger's take on the AncestryDNA test.

• Planning that long-awaited trip to the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City? Take note that the library will change its Saturday hours in April. Beginning April 13, the FHL's Saturday operating hours will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (current Saturday hours are 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.).  “This change is being made so that valuable staff and volunteer resources can be allocated to other busier times during the week that have greater patron demand,” says library director Don Anderson.

• The National Genealogical Society (NGS) is seeking Official Bloggers for the 2013 Family History Conference, May 8-11 in Las Vegas. Bloggers can register at the NGS website to request “Official Blogger, NGS 2013 Family History Conference” designation.
  
  These bloggers will be able to use the NGS logo on their blogs and get access to the Media Center on the exhibit hall floor. Apply to be an Official Blogger for the  NGS 2013 Family History Conference here.

• At the new, free website from Herthstone Legacy Publications called My Genealogy Hound, you can access thousands of biographies extracted from pre-1900 county history books. Biographies from Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Tennessee are available now, with more states to come. Search the site or browse biographies by surname or state and county. The site also has a selection of free, old county maps from Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Kanasas, Missouri, Oklahoma (including Indian nations) and Tennessee, with more to be added.

• The National Genealogical Society (NGS) has implemented student discounts for registration to its 2013 Family History Conference, May 8-11 in Las Vegas. Students can register for the full conference for $50 (NGS members) or $60 (nonmembers), nearly 75 percent off regular rates. To qualify, students must submit a letter on college or university letterhead from the dean or department chair. See the NGS blog for additional details and qualifications.

• FamilySearch has added 8.5 million new records to its free FamilySearch.org. The new records come from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Italy,  the Netherlands and the United States. You can find the full list of updated collections and click through to each collection here. Note that some of the collections aren't yet indexed; for these, you'll need to browse records by place, date or however they're arranged.

• MyHeritage.com has added millions of records including military records, yearbooks, mugshots and wanted posters from partnerships with Interment.net, Genealogy Today, CanadianHeadstones.net and others. The new records are available to subscribers through the site's SuperSearch engine. Find out more about the additions on the MyHeritage blog.

I know great genealogists who never share their research because they’re scared of source citations. They dread going back through their files to identify exactly where they learned a birth date or the name of Granddad’s church. They worry they didn’t copy down every little piece of publication information, like a volume number or editor’s name. And formatting footnotes sounds exactly NOT like the way they want to celebrate finding their family.
 
My presentation “Simple Tips for Solid Source Citations” focuses on a process of managing sources all the way through the research process to prevent most of those fears. What I'll show you is a way of thinking that makes us better researchers: more aware of our sources from the get-go, more organized and more confident in our conclusions.
 
First, I’ll talk you through the process of evaluating sources the first time you use them. I’ll talk about what information to gather, both from the source and about the source.

One valuable tip I share is how to find full source information on websites like Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org and some less user-friendly data sites. You’ll see different ways of capturing source data, whether you’re a paper-based person or a paperless person (or a combination). I’ll show you how to store source data in a way that links it to the information you found in it, so you don’t scramble years later to put the two together.

Finally, I’ll talk about options when you’re ready to write—yes, we’ll talk a bit about footnotes and Why They Are Not So Scary.
 
By the end, you’ll know how to handle sources well and, better yet, you’ll want to! Don’t miss out on learning this core skill during the Virtual Genealogy Conference.

I love the idea of managing sources from the start—so you can evaluate how reliable the information is, easily create a source citation and keep that citation with the data you found. I'm looking forward to Sunny's video class!

The Virtual Genealogy Conference is sponsored by

• Just a reminder: You have until Monday at 11:59 p.m. ET to register for our Family Tree Magazine VIP giveaway! Some lucky person will win a free one-year VIP subscription, which includes a subscription to the print magazine, a Family Tree Plus membership (giving you access to exclusive how-to articles on our website), tuition discounts at Family Tree University, 10 percent off every ShopFamilyTree.com order, and our Family Tree Toolkit. Register here for your chance to become a Family Tree VIP for free! 

• The Minnesota Department of Human Services is gathering bids for a project to digitize 5 million pages of old adoption records dating as far back as the late 19th century. The records are now on about 2,000 rolls of microfilm and likely include thousands of adoptions (the exact number isn’t known because files vary in length). Adoption records in Minnesota become public after 100 years, according to TwinCities.com, and 2017 is the 100-year anniversary of the law mandating adoption recording. 

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) has started a new society to promote the preservation of records in the National Archives and Records Administration. The Society of Preservation Patriots will recognize those who’ve contributed $250 or more to FGS’s Stern-NARA Gift Fund or to its Preserve the Pensions initiative (which supports the digitization of War of 1812 pensions). Learn more about the society and how to become a member on the FGS Voice blog.
  

• The official bloggers for the RootsTech 2013 conference, taking place March 21-23 in Salt Lake City, are holding giveaways for RootsTech registrations. Bloggers set their own means of entry; visit each blog (find a list here) to learn how to enter that blog’s giveaway.

• You might’ve heard about HBO's upcoming fictional genealogy series, "Family Tree." It stars Chris O’Dowd as a Brit who occupies himself by investigating his family history after he loses his job and his relationship. Thanks to contributing editor Rick Crume for sending me a link to an Entertainment Weekly article about the show. Do you plan to watch?

• FamilySearch has announced its US Immigration and Naturalization community indexing project is halfway to its goal of creating a free online collection of US passenger lists, border crossing records, naturalization records, and other immigration documents. Two months into the project, 85,000 volunteers have indexed more than 15 million records.
  
  FamilySearch hopes to have 30 million records indexed by the end of the year.  You can see what's been indexed so far and register to help out at FamilySearch.org/immigration.

• According to Ancestry.com, actor George Clooney is Abraham Lincoln's half-first cousin five times removed through Lincoln's maternal grandmother, Nancy Hanks. Then men also share a home state of Kentucky: Clooney was born in Lexington; Lincoln, in Hardin County.
  
  Most genealogists understand such connections aren't really big news—with every generation, each of us has exponentially more cousins, and some of them are bound to be famous (others are bound to be deadbeats)—but writing this little blurb let me gaze at photos of George Clooney.

• Our friend and frequent Family Tree Magazine contributor Thomas MacEntee is the subject of a recent Forbes article about turning your hobby into a job, which Thomas did with his genealogy hobby after unexpectedly losing his tech job in 2008. He's since founded the Geneabloggers website and the company High-Definition Genealogy. You can read the Forbes article here.

• Speaking of making money doing genealogy, the Board for Certification of Genealogists is offering new video testimonials from professional researchers to help you decide if certification is right for you. The site also has posted an hour-long seminar about what you can expect from the certification process (and what's expected of you). 

• click on the updated collection from the listing here

• use the place filters on FamilySearch.org: Scroll down on the home page, choose a world region next to the map, then choose a country, date range or collection on the left to narrow the collection list to those covering your ancestor's lifetime. Then click on the title for the collection you want to search.
  

• Ancestry.com has released a new Ancestry Facebook app that helps you use Facebook to add to your Ancestry.com family tree. The app lets you use your Facebook credentials to log into Ancestry.com, get hints about Facebook members who may be family, add family members on Facebook to your Ancestry tree and send copies of your tree to those relatives (which they can use to start their own trees on Ancestry.com). Watch a video of how the app works and get the app on Ancestry.com.

Note that when you add information from Facebook to your Ancestry.com tree, you grant Ancestry.com permission to use the information according to its Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement.

• Our Photo Detective Maureen A. Taylor's book The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation, will soon become a historical film! Visit LastMusterFilm.com to learn more about the project and how you can help the stories of the book's subjects come to life through a donation to the Center for Independent Documentary.

• FamilySearch is holding a Genealogists Say "Thanks!" video contest. Submit a video sharing an ancestral find in FamilySearch indexes and thanking FamilySearch volunteer indexers for their work. Five winners will each receive  a $25 Visa gift card and have their videos published on teh FamilySearch indexing Facebook page. The submission deadline is November 5; see the FamilySearch blog for contest rules and other details.

• British genealogy website Genes Reunited has added a Keepsafe feature where the site's members can store digital copies of their family records, photos and memories. Keepsafes can be public, private or shared with select others.  Also new are Relation Profiles, where members can view and edit details about people in their Genes Reunited family trees. Check out the recently revamped Genes Reunited here.

• Genealogists familiar with French Canadian family heritage won't be surprised by Ancestry.com's latest famous-roots discovery: Canadian celebrities Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne and Ryan Gosling are related through a family connection going back 400 years. The Biebs is also 10th cousins three times removed with singer Celine Dion. You can read more about how these stars are linked and see it charted out on Ancestry.com's blog.

• Got family who landed in Australia? This weekend, Ancestry.com.au (Ancestry.com's Australia site) is giving free access to its Australian Birth, Marriage and Death and Cemetery indexes, containing more than 17 million records of those who were born, married or died in Australia from 1788 until the early 20th century. The free period runs through Monday, Oct. 1, 11:59 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time on Monday 1 October, 2012 (that's 9:59 a.m. Monday EST in the United States). You'll need to set up a free registration with the site to search the records.
  

• Registration is open for FamilySearch's  2013 Rootstech genealogy conference, taking place March 21-23 in Salt Lake City. Organizers are planning for the 2013 conference to have a 40 percent larger exhibit hall and more classes, including a new track for those beginning their family history research. Registration fees range from $19 for a one-day pass to the Getting Started track ($39 for all three days) to a $149 early bird special (regularly $219) for a full three-day pass. Click here to register for the conference.
  

• A new tv series aiming to document American family heritage one family at a time is airing on some PBS stations this fall. You can preview the pilot episode of Our American Family, which documents a family of Mississippi tenant farmers, online, and apply to have your family featured on the show.
  

• Now that the 1940 Census Community Project is complete (just a few states remain to be processed) FamilySearch's next big volunteer indexing project is the US Immigration & Naturalization Community Project, which will make passenger lists, naturalization records, and other immigration-related records free to search on FamilySearch.org. If you want to participate, visit familysearch.org/immigration to learn more about the project.

• British genealogy subscription and pay-per-view website FamilyRelatives.com has relaunched itself in an upgraded beta website. The site's new "at-a-glance" design should help users easily find the site's record collections.
  
  And in September, it'll launch Family Tree Connect, social networking features such as photo-sharing, personal calendars, family tree building and cloud access.

• Subscription genealogy site Ancestry.com has announced it won't release a new version of Family Tree Maker this year. Instead, it'll make key updates to the current version, Family Tree Maker 2012, and release those updates free (so you need to be on Family Tree Maker 2012 to receive the updates). You can read more and see what the first of these "bonus" updates will be on the Ancestry.com blog.

• FamilyRelatives.com has more than 850 million records from more a dozen-plus countries including Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, United States and the "Rest of the World" (ROW). Records include parish records; births, marriages and deaths; military records, trade directories and more.

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies has published a new edition of its Bylaws Workbook: A Handbook for New & Established Societies, compiled by Marcia S. Lindley and revised by Roberta “Bobbi” King. This workbook will help genealogical societies create bylaws that prevent confusion and disagreement. It's available for purchase on Amazon.com.

• Arkansas
• Missouri
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Washington, DC
• West Virginia

Want to improve your genealogical skills and connect with other family historians—all from the convenience of home? Check out Family Tree University's Fall 2012 Virtual Genealogy Conference, taking place Sept. 14-16. Early bird registration ends Friday, Aug. 10 at 11:59 p.m.—just enter code FTUVCEARLY at checkout to save $50!

• Recent records updates to FamilySearch.org bring the site's free Slovakian records collection to more than 5 million searchable records. Plus, you can browse the Slovakia 1869 census on FamilySearch.org. Other record additions come from South Africa, Canada, Poland, Portugal and the United States.

Click here to see the updated collection and link to each on on FamilySearch.org.

• The National Archives and records Administration has posted videos of some of its most popular genealogy workshops on its YouTube channel. The videos, selected by researcher and NARA staff votes, cover NARA's Access to Archival Databases tool, Freedmen’s Bureau marriage records, National Archives Records on Ancestry.com and more. Click here to start watching the videos.
  
  
• Researchers from genealogy website findmypast.com have concluded that girls' names change in popularity much faster than boys' names do. According to their analysis of Social Security Administration records, the top 10 girls' names in 1940 have fallen in popularity rankings by more than 700 places. The top 10 boys' names in 1940 have fallen about 100 places. Three of the top 10 girls' names in 1940—Betty, Carol and Shirley—aren't even in today's top 1,000 names.
  
  You can read the entire press release on the GeneaPress website. 

• Alaska
• Arkansas
• Idaho
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• Missouri
• New Mexico
• North Dakota
• Oklahoma
• Rhode Island
• South Dakota
• Utah

• This week FamilySearch anounced it has added indexes to Scottish censuses for 1881 and 1891 to its free collections at FamilySearch.org. It also added new records and/or indexes for Canada, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Italy, Peru, Portugal, Scotland and the United States. You can get details on the updates and link to the updated collections here.

• Archives.com is sharing another one of its neat infographics—this one about California in the 1940 census. You'll learn interesting tidbits such as: The state had a population of 6.9 million, Betty White was an 18-year-old in Los Angeles, and a new Plymouth Coupe cost $645. You can see the infographic on the Archives.com blog.

• An online name index is now available for the service records of 320,000 WWI airmen in Britain's Royal Air Force (formed in 1918) and its forebears, the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service. Read about the index here and in this post on the archives' blog.
  
  I didn't find any search instructions, so the method I discovered by trial and error is going to the archives' catalog and selecting the All Collections tab. Click the More Options link, then scroll down in that window and check the Air Force box under Military. Type a name into the search box and click the magnifying glass. You might need to use the filters on the left to limit your results to the AIR (Air Ministry and Royal Air Force) collection.

To browse, go to this page on the British national archives website. Officers' records are arranged by name; airmen records are arranged by service number. Also see this guide to finding records of airmen in the Royal Air Force.

• Alabama
• Arizona
• California
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Indiana
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Michigan
• Montana
• Nebraska
• New Hampshire
• Oregon
• Washington
• Wisconsin

• Origins.net, which has genealogy records subscription sites for British and Irish records, plus a Scottish research site, has launched a new records image viewer. It'll allow easier searching, including for users on Macs.
  
  To test it out, Origins.net is inviting you to browse the Children’s Employment Commission of 1842 recordsfree. The viewer requires the free downloadable Java plug-in, which most browsers have pre-installed. (You can access the Origins.net image viewer Help page here.)

• FamilySearch has updated the historical records search at FamilySearch.org with more records for Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, England, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Spain and the United States. You can check out the list of updated databases here.

• Meanwhile, FamilySearch has extended the deadline to submit presentations for its RootsTech 2013 conference to June 30. If your presentation has to do with "limited, late-breaking technology research," you have until Oct. 15. Visit RootsTech.org to download the submission guidelines and submit applications to present.

• The Indiana Historical Society's (IHS) Midwestern Roots conference takes place Friday and Saturday July 20 and 21 in Indianapolis. Attendees can choose from more than 30 sessions from presenters including genealogy blogger and tech guru Dick Eastman, GeneaBloggers founder Thomas MacEntee, Hey America, Your Roots Are Showing author Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, findmypast.com's Joshua Taylor and other well-known genealogy experts. There'll also be a book fair and marketplace.
  
  Full conference registration costs $150 for non-IHS members—but the early bird price ends next Wednesday, June 27. Click here to learn more and register.

• Alaska
• Arizona
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Montana
• Nevada
• New Hampshire
• Oregon
• Utah
• Vermont
• Virginia
• Wyoming

• Ancestry.com: You can search name indexes for Delaware, Maine, Nevada and Washington, DC. A chart on the 1940 census page lets you see indexing progress.

• FamilySearch.org: FamilySearch's volunteer indexers so far appear to be outpacing the paid contractors Ancestry.com and MyHeritage are using. You can search 14 states/territories by your ancestor's name: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Kansas, Utah and Wyoming.

FamilySearch.org's indexing progress map colors searchable states orange. To search, click the state on the map.

• Archives.com: At this 1940 Census Community Project partner site, you can search name indexes to the same states available at FamilySearch. To access the unindexed portion of the census, this site sends you to the National Archives' 1940 census site (which Archives.com designed and hosts).

• FindMyPast.com: As a 1940 Census Community Project partner, FindMyPast.com has the same states indexed as FamilySearch (though Alaska, a territory in 1940, is missing from the color-coded map on the home page). Update 6/1: FindMyPast also now shows Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi and Montana as searchable, though these states are not yet searchable on FamilySearch.org. Look for that to change soon.
  

• MyHeritage: Here, you can search a name index for Rhode Island, and a partial name index for New York.

The 1940 census records also are available on FamilyLink.com, which MyHeritage purchased last year. You'll need to register for a free account on the site (if you don't already have an account there) to view the records.

• Subscription genealogy site Ancestry.com announced that its 1940 census index for the state of Maine is now searchable free on the site. The site also has 1940 census indexes for Delaware, the District of Columbia and Nevada.

• In addition to its six state indexes for the 1940 census (Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia), the free FamilySearch.org has added online records for Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United States, Venezuela and Wales.

US records come from Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Montana, New York, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. You can see all the new or updated collections and link to them here.

• The Southern California Genealogy Jamboree is coming up June 8-10 at the Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel. Besides the classes and the free exhibit hall, highlights include one-on-one consultations with members of the Southern California Chapter of the Association for Professional Genealogists, three-hour Genealogy World roundtable discussions and a DNA Interest Group that can help you interpret genetic genealogy test results.  

• The National Genealogical Society (NGS) has announced that the 2013 NGS Family History Conference, will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, May 8–11. The conference hotel and venue will be the LVH−Las Vegas Hotel & Casino (formerly the Las Vegas Hilton). Online conference registration isn't yet open. 

Archives.com: At this 1940 Census Community Project partner site, you can search name indexes to Colorado and Delaware. To access the unindexed portion of the census, this site sends you to the National Archives' 1940 census site (which Archives.com designed and hosts).

FamilySearch: Digitized records are available here for all US states and territories.

FamilySearch just announced that more than 85,000 1940 Census Community Project volunteers have already finished indexing 20 percent of the census, and thousands more volunteers sign up every week.

Not all the indexed records are available to search online yet. FamilySearch's indexing progress map colors searchable states orange; so far, you can search name indexes for the states of Delaware and Colorado. To search, click the state on the map. (I clicked on Kansas and tried a search because Community Project partner FindMyPast.com has a Kansas index, but the results were people in Colorado.) 

FindMyPast.com: On this 1940 Census Community Project partner site, digitize records are available for most states. Records for Texas, California, Utah, Tennessee, Minnesota, Wisconsin and several others are missing. You can search name indexes for Delaware, Colorado and Kansas—except for Kansas, they're the same states as for FamilySearch, because it's the same index.

MyHeritage: Records for all states and territories are available now for free. This site introduced the first searchable index, for the state of Rhode Island, but hasn't added any other states since. MyHeritage also has updated its mobile app so you can search 1940 census records from your iPhone, iPad or Android phone.

The 1940 census record images also are available on FamilyLink.com, which MyHeritage purchased last year. You'll need to register for a free account on the site (if you don't already have an account there) to view the records.

National Archives: Records for all states and territories are available here for free.

• Military records subscription site Fold3 has added records relating to the Sultana disaster. That's the steamboat whose boilers exploded April 27, 1865, killing 1,700 (mostly Civil War Union soldiers recently released from Confederate POW camps). The ship was carrying 2,200 passengers—far more than the 376 she was built for. Records include lists of former prisoners who survived and those who died. The records are free to search, at least for the time being.
  
  
• The Center for Jewish History (CJH) has announced a partnership with Jewish genealogy expert Miriam Weiner's Routes to Roots Foundation (RTRF). CJH will incorporate RTRF’s Eastern European Archival Database and Image Database into its online catalog, expanding access to genealogy resources from Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine. Weiner will serve as senior advisor for genealogy services at CJH's Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute.
  
  
• Besides adding 1940 census records and coordinatng the 1940 Census Community Project, FamilySearch has continued adding other records to the free FamilySearch.org. The new resources include seignorial records from the Czech Republic; city records from Nördlingen, Bavaria, Germany; church records from Estonia, Portugal and Slovakia; and marriages from New Jersey. See the updated colelctions and click through to them here.
  
  
• Remember to watch "Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr." this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on PBS, which will feature actors Robert Downey Jr. and Maggie Gyllenhaal. The European-immigrant stories in both stars' pasts are common to many Americans.
  
  
• NBC's "Who Do You Think You Are?" tonight will repeat the popular Reba McEntire episode. Next Friday will be an all-new episode featuring actor Rob Lowe.

• Ancestry.com: Record images for all US states and territories are available free, as are searchable name indexes for Delaware and Nevada. An index for Washington, DC, is "in process." A chart on the 1940 census page lets you see indexing progress.

• FamilySearch: Digitized records are available here for all US states and territories.

The name index for the state of Delaware is now completed and available to researchers. Search Delaware here.

You can use the map at FamilySearch's 1940 census site to see the indexing progress of the 1940 Census Community Project. The darker the state, the more records volunteers have indexed. The completed indexes will become searchable free on FamilySearch, as well as its commercial partners Archives.com and FindMyPast.com.

• MyHeritage: Records for all states and territories are available now for free, as is an index to all of Rhode Island. MyHeritage also has updated its mobile app so you can search 1940 census records from your iPhone, iPad or Android phone.

The 1940 census record images also are available on FamilyLink.com, which MyHeritage purchased last year. You'll need to register for a free account on the site (if you don't already have an account there) to view the records.

• National Archives: Records for all states and territories are available here for free.

• Ancestry.com : Record images for all US states and territories are available free, as are searchable name indexes for Delaware and Nevada. An index for Washington, DC, is coming soon.

• FamilySearch : Available record images are Alabama, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington

You can use the map at FamilySearch's 1940 census site to see the indexing progress of the 1940 Census Community Project. The darker the state, the more records volunteers have indexed. The completed indexes will become searchable free on FamilySearch, as well as its commercial partners Archives.com and FindMyPast.com.

• MyHeritage : Records for all states and territories are available now for free, as is an index to all of Rhode Island.
  
  MyHeritage also has updated its mobile app so you can search 1940 census records from your iPhone, iPad or Android phone.

The 1940 census record images also are available on FamilyLink.com, which MyHeritage purchased last year. You'll need to register for a free account on the site (if you don't already have an account there) to view the records.

• National Archives : Records for all states and territories are available here for free.

FamilySearch: Available record images are:

• Alabama
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Minnesota
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Texas
• Virginia

MyHeritage: Records for all states and territories are available now, as is an index to Bristol County, RI

National Archives: Records for all states and territories are available.

Check ShopFamilyTree.com for books, article downloads, online classes and CDs on how to research your genealogy in census records. Enjoy looking for your 1940 ancestors this weekend!

The site has almost finished uploading records for the states, predicting completion this morning. At this time, Ancestry.com has record images for all states and US territories except Arkansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and South Carolina.

FamilySearch:

FamilySearch has added a color-coded map showing its progress. Hovering over a state highlights the records-posting and indexing progress for each state (if nothing happens when you hover, try a different browser). On the map, Texas shows as "records unavailable," but they are online at FamilySearch, at least for the counties I tried.

• Alabama
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• New Hampshire
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Texas
• Virginia

MyHeritage:

Records for all states are available here, as is an index to Bristol County, RI

National Archives:

All states are available.

• Complete: Alabama, American Samoa, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Panama Canal Zone, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming
  
  
• Almost complete: Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Mississippi, North Dakota
  
  
• Next up: Maryland, Minnesota, Puerto Rico, South Carolina

• Alabama
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Virginia

National Archives: all states available

• Complete: Alabama, American Samoa, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Guam, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missuori, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Panama Canal Zone, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington, Wyoming
  
  
• Almost complete: Illinois, West Virginia
  
  
• Next up: Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin

• Alabama
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Kansas
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Virginia

FamilySearch also reported that 1940 Census Community Project volunteer indexers have finished indexing records for Delaware; the index is being processed (it's not yet on the site).

MyHeritage: Records for all states are available now, as is a name index to Bristol County, RI

National Archives: Records for all states are available

• Complete: American Samoa, California, Delaware, District of Columbia, Guam, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Panama Canal Zone, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virgin Islands, Virginia, Washington
• Almost complete: Kansas, Nebraska
• Next up: Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Kentucky, Nebraska, Oregon, Vermont

FamilySearch:

• Alabama
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Kansas
• Oklahoma
• Oregon
• Virginia

MyHeritage: all states available

National Archives: all states available

I didn't know when he moved there, but I was hoping it was before 1940.

The One-Step Unified ED Finder gave me 22 potential enumeration districts (EDs) to search. Yikes.

But on FamilySearch's 1940 census pages, you can type in keywords from an ED description. I was hoping "Carpenter's Home" would be in the description for the ED I needed. Here's how it works:

On FamilySearch's 1940 census page, I clicked Florida. On the next page, chose the county and typed carpenters home into the box labeled "city, township or enumeration district description."

I clicked search, and sure enough, there were two EDs containing the words "Carpenter's Home." So much better than 22. (Interestingly, these EDs weren't in the list I got from the One-Step ED Finder. Even though the home's address is Lakeland, I see that the EDs are categorized as "outside city limits.")

I went with the first option and clicked the link for Election Precinct 23 Carpenters Home (ED 53-85). Here's the first page of that ED:

I used the gray arrows at the upper right to flip to the next pages. On page four, the entries went from being handwritten to typed in alphabetical order (perhaps these residents were unable to answer the enumerator's questions, and their answers were compiled from the home's records).

There was my great-great-grandfather George Frost.

The columns for residence as of April 1, 1935, show he'd moved into the home by that date.

I clicked Save at the top of the page to download the record. The file is named "record image," so you'll want to rename it right away to something meaningful for your research.

1940 census record images for the entire United States are at 1940Census.Archives.gov. Here's where else to look for records from your ancestral states:

Ancestry.com :

• Complete: American Samoa, Delaware, District of Columbia, Guam, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, Panama Canal Zone, Rhode Island, Virgin Islands
• Almost complete: California, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington
• Next up: Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon & Vermont.

FamilySearch :

• Alabama
• Colorado
• Delaware
• Florida
• Kansas
• Oregon
• Virginia

MyHeritage :

• California
• Illinois
• Massachusetts
• Maine
• Michigan
• Missouri
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island (an index for Bristol County, RI, is available)
• Texas
• Virginia
• Wyoming

Ancestry.com:

• American Samoa
• California
• Delaware
• DC
• Guam
• Indiana
• Maine
• Nevada
• New York
• Ohio
• Panama Canal
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Virgin Islands
• Virginia
• Washington

FamilySearch:

• Colorado
• Delaware
• Kansas
• Oregon
• Virginia

MyHeritage.com: I can't find an at-a-glance list here. You'll see all states in the search dropdown menu, and when you search on one that's not yet available, you'll get results but with a "coming soon" message. Update: The folks at MyHeritage sent me this list of available records, with more coming soon:

• California
• Illinois
  
• Massachusetts
• Maine
• Michigan
• New Jersey
• New York
• Nevada
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• Texas
• Virginia

• The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced the official release of the census at 1940Census.Archives.gov, which took place after a ceremony at the archives' Washington, DC., location. The 3.9 million images constitute the largest collection of digital information NARA has ever released.
  
  NARA also announced it has "joined a consortium of groups to create a name-based index." That's the 1940 Census Community Project, led by FamilySearch and two commercial organizations, Archives.com (which designed NARA's 1940 census website) and brightsolid. Interesting. At least two other commercial entities—Ancestry.com and MyHeritage—are creating their own census databases which also will be free (at least through 2013) and will compete with the FamilySearch/Archives.com/brightsolid version.

• The 1940 Census Community Project put out another call today for volunteers to help create a free index to the 1940 census. This index will become searchable on FamilySearch, Archives.com and FindMyPast.com (owned by brightsolid). Go to the1940Census.com to participate.

• The 1940 census is of intense interest to people besides genealogists. Ancestry.com will work with the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota to make data from the 1940 census available to the scientific community. This research database—separate from the one genealogists will search to find their ancestors—will include all of the information collected on the 132 million Americans recorded in the 1940 census.
  
  Scientific researchers will be able to link recent economic and health surveys and mortality records to the 1940 database. This will allow researchers to study the impact of early life conditions, including socioeconomic status, parental education, and family structure, on later health and mortality. In addition to individual and family information, the database will provide contextual information on childhood neighborhood characteristics, labor-market conditions, and environmental conditions.