Massive Italian Records Collection Announced

A major announcement from FamilySearch this week, launching the release of over 150 million Italian historical genealogical records online. Search now and learn about how you can help index. Also new this week: the 1901 Ireland Census, a beautiful image collection for Nottingham, England, and millions of newspapers for the United States.

150+ Million Italian Records Now at FamilySearch

FamilySearch International has just announced free access to over  150 million Italian historical genealogical records—the largest online collection of its kind. From their press release: “The unprecedented initiative is the result of collaboration between FamilySearch, the Italian government, the Italian State Archives (Direzione Generale per gli Archivi or DGA), and many other archives. The free collections include over 200 years of digitized images of birth, marriage, death, and other significant family history records from all regions of Italy and many other repositories.”

Click here to start searching the Italian collection now.

FamilySearch says that they will finish digitizing all of the civil records of all Italian provinces in 2019, but efforts are still underway to index them all. They will remain available as images to view online for free, but indexing will make them fully searchable for anyone looking for their Italian ancestors. Volunteers from around the world are helping, and you can, too! To help index historical Italian records, go to  FamilySearch.org/Indexing.

Ireland 1901 Census

Also new at FamilySearch is the Ireland 1901 Census collection. Nearly 3.5 million records comprise this new collection. This is one of the two full censuses for Ireland. On “Form A” of the census is where personal information was captured. Everyone present in the house during the visit was counted. This included residents, visitors, boarders, servants, and anyone else who slept at that house on Sunday, March 31, 1901. The census returns contain: name, age, occupation, relationship to the head of household, marital status, education/literacy, religion, birth country, and other information. The index was created by the National Archives of Ireland.

Nottingham, England

A new website hosting thousands of Nottingham photographs will be launched from 1 November 2018, one hundred years after the city’s photographic collection was established. Picture Nottingham includes some of the oldest Nottingham photographs from the 1850s, taken by Samuel Bourne, as well as many local pictures, engravings and sketches dating from the 1700s onwards. If your ancestor lived in the Nottingham area, these photos are a wonderful glimpse into their daily lives.

And they’re still expanding! Library staff stated, “Here at Nottingham Local Studies Library, we continue to collect photographs – if you have images which you wish to donate to our collection you can do so on Picture Nottingham. We especially welcome photographs of views of local areas showing buildings, people, customs, activities and industry, both past and present.”

Visit the Picture Nottingham website to browse photos, learn more, and even order framed prints.

U.S. Newspapers at MyHeritage

Over at MyHeritage.com, millions of newspapers throughout the U.S. are now available to search:

Alabama Newspapers, 1870-2009 – 2.2 million
Arizona Newspapers, 1866-2009 – 870,000
California Newspapers, 1847-2009 – 2.1 million
Georgia Newspapers, 1881-2009 – 2.1 million
Idaho Newspapers, 1894-2009 – 680,000
Iowa Newspapers, 1837-2009 – 1 million
Michigan Newspapers, 1817-2009 – 1.1 million
Missouri Newspapers, 1845-2009 – 2 million
North Carolina Newspapers, 1852-2009 – 2.7 million
Oregon Newspapers, 1867-2009 – 1.5 million
South Carolina Newspapers, 1787-2009 – 1.9 million
Utah Newspapers, 1850-2003 – 1.1 million
Virginia Newspapers, 1792-2008 – 870,000
Washington Newspapers, 1855-2009 – 3.6 million

Free class on newspapers at MyHeritage

Lisa recently presented at the first ever MyHeritage LIVE User Conference in Oslo, Norway, where she taught genealogists from around the world how to tap into newspapers using MyHeritage SuperSearchTM. You can watch the recording of her presentation for free at the MyHeritage Facebook page. Click here and jump to about 40 minutes. And while you’re there, feel free to watch and enjoy all of the presentations from the 2-day conference, including both the genealogy and DNA tracks.

Lacey Cooke

Lacey has been working with Genealogy Gems since the company’s inception in 2007. Now, as the full-time manager of Genealogy Gems, she creates the free weekly newsletter, writes blogs, coordinates live events, and collaborates on new product development. No stranger to working with dead people, Lacey holds a degree in Forensic Anthropology, and is passionate about criminal justice and investigative techniques. She is the proud dog mom of Renly the corgi.

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