U.S. Naturalization Records & More New Genealogy Records Online

by | Nov 30, 2018 | 01 What's New, Records & databases | 1 comment

U.S. Naturalization Records at MyHeritage top the charts this week for new records collections online. Over 200 million records are available for Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Also new this week are German marriages, baptisms, and burials. Britain marriage licenses dating back to the 12th century may also pique your interest and are available online.  

U.S. Naturalization Records

New this week at MyHeritage are over 200 million U.S. Naturalization Records. First is the record index for Northern Illinois, 1840-1950, containing petitions for naturalization filed in northern Illinois circuit court and INS District 9. In addition to Illinois, INS District 9 covered parts of northwestern Indiana, eastern Iowa, and southern and eastern Wisconsin. Data collected prior to 1906 was limited, likely containing just the name of the petitioner, their country of origin, and record dates and numbers. After 1906, you’ll be more likely to see records with not only names, but also addresses, birth dates, witnesses present, and date and place of arrival the U.S.

Also new is the Naturalization Record Index for New England, 1791-1906. This collection is an index of naturalization documents filed in courts in the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont from 1791 to 1906. The 3X5 inch cards in this collection contain limited information. But the 5X8 inch cards will likely contain the name of the petitioner, petition for citizenship, oath of allegiance, record of previous citizenship, place and date of birth, occupation, place and date of arrival in the United States, name of the ship, place of residence at the time of application, and name and address of a witness to these statements.

German Marriages

Genealogy Giant website Ancestry.com has a new collection of Eberswalde, Germany, Marriages, 1874-1936. Within these records, you can find a wealth of information, including names, occupations, birth date, parents, witnesses, and more. Each document has a front and back and are displayed one after the other. Additional events from the life of the couple were sometimes recorded later on in the margins, but these notes are not indexed. In addition to these civil registers, complementary alphabetical directories of names may also have been created. These directories may tell you the names of the bride and groom, occupations, residence, and cross-reference to the marriage register.

Ancestry has also recently partnered with FamilySearch to provide free access to Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1971. From the collection description: “This collection contains parish registers from numerous Protestant communities and military garrisons found in former or modern German territories. The records are largely organized according to historical regions and church districts that may differ from current affiliations. These parish records primarily contain information about births and baptisms, marriages, and deaths and burials.” It’s important to note that this collection is in German, so you may want to reference the German Genealogical Word List on the FamilySearch Wiki.

Britain Marriage Licenses

If your ancestors were married in England, you’ll want to explore this great collection of Britain Marriage Licenses at Findmypast. Fifteen English counties are represented including London, Lancashire, Suffolk, Exeter, Lincoln, Yorkshire, and more, and records date back as early as 1115! These marriage licenses may be able to tell you the couple’s names, father’s name, and the marriage location. The collection consists of a mixture of more than 536,000 handwritten and typed record books from 1115 until 1906 provided by the College of Arms, Anguline Research Archives, and Gould Genealogy.

Reconstruct Your Ancestors’ Stories

When records have been destroyed, or simply remain elusive, you can still put the pieces together to discover your ancestors’ stories! In the new Genealogy Gems Premium eLearning Video, instructor Sunny Morton will show you how to reconstruct fascinating experiences from your own family history by combining clues from your family’s knowledge, documents from genealogy websites, good historical research and Googling to fill in the gaps. All while learning the riveting story of one of the worst disasters in U.S. history. Members can watch right now by clicking here. Not a member? Sign up today!

 

Lacey Cooke

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.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!

New MyHeritage DNA Feature: Shared Ancestral Places

by | Nov 17, 2018 | 01 What's New, DNA, MyHeritage | 1 comment

A brand new DNA test feature has just been launched at MyHeritage: the display of Shared Ancestral Places. This intriguing feature will arm you with more information to identify common ancestors and unlock mysteries in your family tree. Learn more about using this new tool and applying it to your DNA brick walls. 

Shared Ancestral Places

DNA Matching is the core of any genetic genealogy testing service. But sometimes matches leave you with more questions than answers, or simply don’t have enough information for further investigation. MyHeritage DNA is tackling that very problem with their brand new feature: Shared Ancestral Places.

From their recent announcement, “When you review a DNA Match, it’s not always clear how the match is related to you and who your common ancestor may be. Up until now, you may have been able to figure out how your DNA Matches are related to you by looking at the family trees of your matches, the Shared Ancestral Surnames, or Smart Matches™ that exist between your trees. As of this week, if you and a DNA Match have a Shared Ancestral Place, you will be armed with more information to investigate the match further. You may be able to determine which common ancestor you and your match share from whom you both inherited the same DNA segments.”

What are Shared Ancestral Places?

As described by MyHeritage, “Shared Ancestral Places refer to towns, countries, or U.S. states that appear in your family tree as well as in the family trees of your DNA Matches, where birth or death events of your ancestors (and those of your DNA Matches’ ancestors) took place. These places are identified going back up to 10 generations and can play a vital role in family history research.”

When you receive a match and it is unclear what common ancestor you share, having a Shared Ancestral Place can be a wonderful clue that you are indeed related. Having shared origins, whether in a large city or small village, provides evidence of connection and can aid you in pursuing your match further.

Accessing Shared Ancestral Places

To see your Shared Ancestral Places with any of your DNA matches (when they exist), head to your DNA Matches page. To view extended information about any of the common ancestral places, move the mouse over it. A tooltip will open with additional details. There you’ll see how many Shared Ancestral Places you have in common with this DNA Match.

Image from MyHeritage DNA

Click on the Review DNA Match button to see more detailed information about your match. If you and your match have Shared Ancestral Places, this section will show the Ancestral Places you have in common. The map will have pins indicating the cities in which the events took place and below the map, all events in that location from your family tree will be listed side by side with your match’s family tree events. Light gray pins on the map portray events in your family tree, dark gray pins show events in the tree of your DNA Match, and purple pins are used to denote shared places where there are events in both trees that occurred in that specific place.

Image from MyHeritage

Filtering Shared Ancestral Places

Filtering your matches is an indespensible tool, and now at MyHeritage, you can filter your results to show Shared Ancestral Places. Simply use the first entry on the Filter toolbar, which is Tree details, and select “Has shared place.” Isolating the DNA Matches that have Shared Ancestral Places may allow you to figure out how they are related to you.

Image from MyHeritage

This filter can be combined with other multiple filters, to filter matches by additional criteria, and it can also be combined with sorting and search options.

Cost

According to MyHeritage: “Some sections on the Review Match page, such as the new Shared Ancestral Places feature, require a family site subscription to view them in their entirety. Users with a Premium, PremiumPlus, or Complete subscription will have full access to all sections on the Review Match page, while Basic users will have a partial view of some advanced features. Learn more about our subscription plans here.”

Get started with MyHeritage DNA

To take advantage of the Shared Ancestral Places feature, as well as MyHeritage’s robust offering of matches and analysis, pick up a MyHeritage DNA test. They offer one of the most competitive prices on the market, and their powerful matching algorithms can unlock mysteries in your family tree. If you’ve already tested with another testing company, you can also upload your results to MyHeritage! It’s currently a free service, but only for a limited time. So get your results in now to be grandfathered in and receive access to their amazing tools.
Lacey Cooke

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.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!

Massive Italian Records Collection Announced

by | Nov 16, 2018 | 01 What's New, Records & databases | 1 comment

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:

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 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.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!

New Genealogy Records Online: WWI U.S. Records & More

by | Oct 29, 2018 | 01 What's New, Records & databases | 2 comments

Three new WWI U.S. records collections are available online now for free at FamilySearch! You’ll find census records for nurses in Connecticut, as well as Delaware servicemen records and navy card rosters for Florida. Also new this week are military and census records for France, and school records for Australia. 

Featured: U.S. World War I Records

Three new World War I collections for the United States are available now at FamilySearch.org for free.

Connecticut, World War I, Military Census of Nurses, 1917 – This small collection of about 5,500 records includes the “military census of nurses for the year 1917 in Connecticut. Pages may appear to be missing, but this is not necessarily true because many pages were attached to other pages of the same name but in a different area within this same group of records. A general index for this census’ codes is found in the first few images of each film.”

Delaware, World War I Servicemen Records, 1917-1919 – About 3,000 records are available for this collection. Digital images of the originals are held by the Delaware Public Archives in Dover, Delaware.

Florida, World War I Navy card roster, 1917-1920 – Explore nearly 6,000 records in this index and images of a card roster of Floridians that served in the United States Navy during the First World War.

France Military & Census Records

Also new at FamilySearch are military records for France, Rhône, Military Registration Cards, 1865-1932. You can search through this database of 40,000 indexed records of military draft cards for men born between 1865-1932. “Each record contains information about the solider such as name, birthplace, residence, occupation, parents’ names and their residence, a physical description of the soldier, military curriculum, and details about wounds.”

If your ancestors lived in western France, you’ll want to take a look at the France, Vienne, Census, 1896 collection at FamilySearch. Over 365,000 records are available to search online now for free. This collection may be able to tell you your ancestor’s surname, age, estimated birth year, province, marital status, and relationship to the Head of Household.

Queesland, Australia School Records

Over at MyHeritage, you can now explore the Queensland School Pupils Index, Part 5.  According to the collection description, this collection contains “names of pupils from 171 schools in Queensland, Australia. Dates range from 1866 to 2003. Schools range from large city ones with admissions in the thousands to country one-teacher schools with a total enrolment of hundreds. Some schools have long ceased to exist; others are still functioning.” There are nearly half a million records included in this collection.

Image courtesy of Findmypast

If you haven’t already, you can also check out the other collections in this series: Queensland School Pupils Index Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. These four collections contain “names of pupils from 331 schools in Queensland, Australia. Dates range from 1870 to 1993 with a30-year closure, as recommended by Education Queensland, when names were extracted directly from Admission Registers. Schools range from large city ones with admissions in the thousands to country one-teacher schools with a total enrolment of hundreds. Some schools have long ceased to exist; others are still functioning.”

If you’re a Findmypast user, you can also access Parts 1-4 at Findmypast.

Learn more about Australian records

Ready to start your Australian genealogy research? Check out our free article, courtesy of Legacy Tree Genealogists. Learn all about  essential Australian history, geography, genealogical record types and online resources to trace your family tree “down under.” Click here to read.
Lacey Cooke

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.

Disclosure: This article contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!

Live Streaming Announced for MyHeritage LIVE!

by | Oct 28, 2018 | 01 What's New, MyHeritage

MyHeritage is hosting MyHeritage Live! on November 2-4, 2018 in Oslo Norway. This first-ever user conference will feature keynote talks from Founder and CEO Gilad Japhet, and presentations from industry experts including Lisa Louise Cooke. If you aren’t able to make the trek to Norway, you’re still in luck! It has just been announced that live streaming will be available. 

The first-ever MyHeritage LIVE user conference is taking place November 2-4 in Oslo, Norway. This unique experience will bring together MyHeritage staff and internationally renowned genealogists while offering attendees the opportunity to expand their knowledge, ask questions, and give feedback. Lisa Louise Cooke is excited to be a speaker at this conference, where she will be teaching how to use MyHeritage SuperSearchTM to find your family history in newspapers.

MyHeritage has also announced that live streaming will be available on the MyHeritage LIVE conference website! This is a fantastic opportunity to hear from wonderful speakers and dig deep into the tools and resources that MyHeritage has to offer.

Tune in at 9 AM Oslo time on Saturday, November 3 for live streaming. If you need help calculating the time difference to your local time zone, you can use www.thetimezoneconverter.com. Make sure to visit the conference website to see the full schedule and tune in at the time of the lecture to watch the live stream. Both the genealogy and the DNA track classes will be streamed, and all sessions will be in English.

Whether you are attending in person or tuning in through live streaming, don’t forget to post and share all your experiences using the conference hashtag: #MHLIVE2018. See you in Oslo!

#MHLIVE2018

 

 

Lacey Cooke

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.

Pin It on Pinterest

MENU