Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Genealogy News Summary for February

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Here's the genealogy news for late January and early February compiled from several genealogy news sources and my own research:

1. INTERESTING GENEALOGY WEB SITES

a) http://www.scribd.com - Scribd is a place where you publish, discover and discuss original writings and documents. More than 50 million people each month are finding or sharing documents of all sorts. Scribd accepts documents about most any topic, including genealogy. With Scribd's iPaper document reader, you can easily upload and immediately share their original works. There are two levels of access for Scribd documents: "public" and "private."

b) http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157607471461913/ - The Old Boston Collection, a series of late 19th century photographs of historic Boston sites, was rediscovered by the Boston Public Library (BPL) in 2007.

c) http://www.archive.org/details/Allen_County_Public_Library - The Internet Archive of books. This link is for genealogy books from the Allen County (IN) Public Library collection (4,771 items).

d) http://www.AllCensusRecords.com - a collection of links and information about the USA, Canada and UK census records available online.

2. NEW GENEALOGY DATABASES

a) at www.Ancestry.com - subscription site (US = $155.40, World = $299.40) - now available for FREE at San Diego FHC (Ancestry Institution with World databases) or San Diego City or County Public Libraries (Ancestry Library Edition). Ancestry has over 7 billion names in over 27,100 databases. See new content at http://www.ancestry.com/search/rectype/recent.aspx. New databases this month include:
* US Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938
* Georgia Confederate Pension Applications, 1879-1960
* US Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles
* Historic Land Ownership and Reference Atlases Collection, 1507-2000 (updated )
* Kansas State Census Records, 1855-1925 (Updated)
* US City Directories (Updated)
* US School Yearbooks (updated)
* Selected US Naturalization Records, 1794-1974 (updated)
* US World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946 (updated)
* England and Wales Birth Indexes, 1837-2005 (updated)

What's coming soon at Ancestry? Check out http://landing.ancestry.com/comingsoon/.

b) www.WorldVitalRecords.com - subscription site (US = $39.95 for 1 year, World = $119.95 for 1 year) -- now available for FREE at the San Diego FHC. Over 11,000 databases, over 1.35 billion names. Recently added content is at http://www.worldvitalrecords.com/recentcontentlisting.aspx. New US items are FREE at WVR for 10 days. New databases include:

* 15 collections of British records from the Anguline Research Archives (ARA), including birth, marriage, and death records, stories and histories, maps, atlases, and gazetteers. (World subscription required)
* 20 newspaper databases from Mexico and Canada. The databases range from 1833-1994. (World subscription required)

c) www.Footnote.com - subscription site ($69.96 annual retail, $11.95 monthly) - now available for FREE at San Diego FHC. They offer 7-day FREE trial. 455 Titles; over 50 million images, over 1 million free; over 90 million Footnote Pages. Content list at http://www.footnote.com/documents.php. Information added this month includes:

* African-American Collection (http://go.footnote.com/blackhistory/) launched, including:
-- Service Records for Colored Troops in the Civil War – Records for the 2nd-13th infantries including enlistment papers, casualty sheets, oaths of allegiance, proof of ownership and bills of sale.
-- American Colonization Society – Letters and reports relating to this colony established in 1817 for free people of color residing in the U.S.
-- Amistad Case – Handwritten records of this landmark case beginning in 1839 involving the Spanish schooner Amistad, used to transport illegal slaves.
-- Southern Claims Commission – Petitions for compensation resulting from the Civil War.
* Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940. Most of the records include the English and/or Indian name of the person, roll number, age or date of birth, sex, and relationship to head of family. Beginning in 1930, the rolls also show the degree of Indian blood, marital status, ward status, place of residence, and sometimes other information. Only persons who maintained a formal affiliation with a tribe under Federal supervision are listed on these census rolls. There is not a census for every reservation or group of Indians for every year. You can learn more at: http://www.footnote.com/documents/171116633/indian_census_rolls_18851940/?xid=395.

d) www.GenealogyBank.com - subscription site (trial $9.95 for 30 days, $69.95 for 12 months). It has archives for over 2,500 U.S. historical newspapers in all 50 states, from the 1600s to the present day, with over 224 million family history records, over 30 million obituaries from more than 1,150 newspapers in more than 139 million historical newspaper articles, and more than 11,700 historical books.

* Added 170 titles from 31 states

e) http://pilot.familysearch.org/ - the LDS FREE site for indexed and browsable databases -- recently completed projects:

* Massachusetts Death Records 1906-1915
* Guanajuato 1930 Mexico Census
* New Hampshire Early to 1900 Births
* Arizona– 1920 US Federal Census
* Illinois– 1920 US Census
* Florida– 1920 US Census
* Massachusetts– 1920 US Federal Census
* Arkansas Marriages [Part 1]
* Prince Edward Island 1861 Census
* Nova Scotia 1861 Census
* New Brunswick 1861 Census
* Kentucky– 1870 US Census (Part 2)
* Guerrero– Censo de Mexico de 1930
* Queretaro– Censo de Mexico de 1930
* San Francisco CA Funeral Home Records, 1835-1931

3. GENEALOGY EDUCATION

a) The 40th Annual Genealogy Jamboree, hosted by the Southern California Genealogical Society, will be held Friday through Sunday, June 26-28, 2009, at the Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel and Convention Center, in Burbank, California. Jamboree will offer over 100 lecture sections over the three days, nearly 25% more sessions than were offered in 2008. For up-to-the-minute Jamboree information, read the Genealogy Jamboree Blog at www.genealogyjamboree.blogspot.com. Sign up to receive your copy of the Jamboree program here: http://tinyurl.com/SendJamboreeStuff.

b) The Federation of Genealogical Societies conference titled “Passages Through Time” is 2-5 September, 2009, hosted by the Arkansas Genealogical Society in Little Rock, Arkansas. The FGS conference registration system is www.FGSConference.org. Choose from more than 160 lectures, workshops, and other learning opportunities presented by speakers from all over the U.S. over the course of four days. The Conference Blog www.FGSConferenceBlog.org has more conference details.

c) NBC TV will bring the television program "Who Do You Think You Are?" to American viewers, starting April 20 - now delayed until summer 2009. The show will feature American celebrities, including Lisa Kudrow, Sarah Jessica Parker and Susan Sarandon, as they unearth their family trees. series will examine a star's family tree and uncover stories about love, secrets and triumphs in his or her family's past, while also weaving the family story into the larger narrative of American history.

d) Wholly Genes, Inc., of Columbia, Maryland, announced the 2009 Genealogy Conference and "Land Cruise," 26-30 August 2009. Prompted by economic conditions, the company has broken from the tradition of its annual conference on a cruise ship and is hosting this year's event in the pastoral setting of an historic hotel in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, about 2 hours west of Washington D.C. See http://www.WhollyGenes.com/conference.htm.

4. SOFTWARE

a) Family Tree Maker 2009 has a free upgrade for registered users. It adds Book Building, source citation Templates and several other features.
GenSmarts (www.gensmarts.com) has a free upgrade to version 1.1.1.68 or 2.1.1.68. Version 2 handles Family Tree Maker 2008 and 2009, and RootsMagic 3. Version 1 is used for all others.

b) Howard H. Metcalfe has released an updated version of Personal Ancestry Writer II (PAWriter II), a free genealogy program for Macintosh systems. Two versions are available: one for the OS X operating system and another for OS 9. Personal Ancestry Writer II is modeled on the old LDS Personal Ancestral File program (PAF) for the Macintosh (for which all development stopped a few years ago after release 2.3.1). However, Personal Ancestry Writer II now contains features such as automatic generation of web pages in HTML, word processing files in RTF for AppleWorks and other word processors, and desktop publishing files in MML for FrameMaker. The generated report files include genealogical dictionaries, registers, ahnentafels and lineages, as well as a variety of text files and pedigree charts. You can learn more about Personal Ancestry Writer II at: http://www.lanopalera.net/Genealogy/AboutPAWriter.html.

5. ANNOUNCEMENTS

a) Ancestry, in partnership with FreeBMD, has made 134 million General Records Office (GRO) UK birth records for England and Wales, dating from 1837 to 2005, available online for the first time, fully searchable by name, registration date and district. This collection will be available to Ancestry World Deluxe members.

b) Library and Archives Canada (LAC) announced the launch of a new online database, Census of Canada, 1891. Researchers can access digitized images of original census returns featuring the name, age, country or province of birth, nationality, religion, and occupation of Canada's residents at the time of the 1891 Census. The database is available at: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/census-1891/index-e.html

c) Ancestry.com, has reduced the prices of its genetic genealogy DNA tests. The 33-marker paternal lineage test is now only $79 (down from $149). The paternal lineage test analyzes DNA in the Y chromosome, which is passed virtually unchanged from father to son.

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