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Obituaries are very important to genealogy research and sometimes reveal information that can’t be found anywhere else.
And now, a new website not only offers access to obituary information that dates back to the 1930’s, but it’s also promising to forever change the way people access obits and memorialize those who have been important to them. FULL STORY »
When DNA testing for genealogy enthusiasts first became available on the internet, the price was hundreds of dollars. While many websites now offer it for less, one claims to have the lowest price of them all.
Familybuilder.com has introduced both paternal (YDNA) and maternal (mtDNA) DNA tests for $59.95 each, coming in mid-October. The YDNA test is a 17-marker test and its mtDNA test will analyze 420 base pairs of the HV1 region. FULL STORY »
Another valuable genealogy database has debuted on the internet, this time featuring homestead records that data back to the 1890’s. These records typically feature pages and pages of information homesteaders provided when petitioning the U.S. Government for land.
It’s the latest big venture for the fast-growing Footnote.com website. Partners in the project include the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the National Parks Service, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and FamilySearch. FULL STORY »
Millions of names from hundreds of rolls of microfilm containing German records are coming soon to the genealogy database website WorldVitalRecords.com, thanks to a new collaboration.
FamilySearch recently announced an inaugural project in concert with FamilyLink.com, Inc., to digitize and index a valuable German genealogy collection containing over 3.5 million names from the period of 1650-1875. FULL STORY »
Genealogists with ancestors who operated estates or plantations in the British colonies have potential discoveries in one of Ancestry.com’s latest databases. There’s also hope within for those with enslaved ancestors to find the earliest mention of them in the record books. Since great numbers of people have emigrated to the U. S. from the Caribbean, this dataset is especially valuable for many Americans.
The database is titled “Slave Registers of former British Colonial Dependencies, 1812-1834.” It is accessible by paid subscription to Ancestry, and includes the names of millions of slaves (some with surnames), owners, FULL STORY »
It’s always encouraging to discover new projects that honor our ancestors. One way to make certain they are remembered is to preserve their burial data for future generations, especially when tombstones can become difficult to read over time.
Genealogy and history enthusiasts in the town of Westport, Massachusetts have done just that, and put it all into an online database called the Westport Historic Private Cemeteries. The project was years in the making and brought a number of dedicated volunteers together to make it happen. FULL STORY »
Genealogy pursuits often give way to historical excursions as researchers try to understand the times in which their ancestors lived. If, as the saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” then the website Old Pictures (old-picture.com), is worth a million or more.
The description “an educational site with a wide variety of old photographs,” simply doesn’t do this site justice, and seeing truly is believing. Categories like “Defining Moments” and “Themed Collections,” feature truly beautifully clear historical photographs. There’s everything from Native American chiefs to European American inventors, and lots more in between. FULL STORY »
The barriers to finding ancestors with ties to slavery continue to be pushed aside. The latest example of bringing enslaved ancestors out of the shadows can be found at the Lowcountry Africana website.
To quote from this data-rich site, it serves to “document the family and cultural heritage of African Americans in the historic rice-growing areas of South Carolina, Georgia and extreme northeastern Florida, an area that scholars and preservationists have identified as a distinct culture area, home to the rich Gullah/Geechee culture.” FULL STORY »
Genealogy and family history programs are finally moving out of the shadows of public television and becoming trendy enough to make the leap to mainstream broadcasting networks.
In fact, NBC is hoping Americans will be interested in the family trees of celebrities. The network is teaming up with U. S. production company “Is or Isn’t Entertainment” and the U. K.’s “Wall to Wall” productions for an American version of the popular BBC television program “Who Do You Think You Are?”
It took years to make it happen, but one of the newest online databases on the National Archives website contains long-awaited military records. It includes the names of nine million Americans who saw service in World War II, both in the United States Army and the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps.
The database can be searched on the National Archives website via its Access to Archival Databases (AAD) and documents the period 1938 - 1946. FULL STORY »