If you missed Friday’s Who Do You Think You Are? featuring Paula Deen, be sure to watch it online now. And look below for a highlight along with two deleted scenes, which recount troublesome times for Deen’s ancestors during the American Revolution and Civil War eras.
PROVO, UTAH – (May 7, 2012) – Ancestry.com announced today a collection of more than 300,000 WWII Cadet Nursing Corps Card Files is now available at www.ancestry.com/nursing. The records date between 1942 and 1948 and detail the history of the Corps, providing personal information about Cadet Nursing Corps members, offering a glimpse into the backgrounds of the young women who joined this important program. Ancestry.com is the exclusive location to search the entire Cadet Nursing Corps collection online, making it easy to review this piece of American history and discover personal connections to former Corps nurses.
Upon the United States’ entry into World War II, the Cadet Nursing Corps was established to increase the number of nurses available for war efforts. This collection tells the story of more than 124,000 young women between the ages of 17 and 35 who committed to serve in the
nursing profession during this time. As a part of the program, cadets went through an accelerated training that fit a 36-month course into a
30-month period. Senior cadets then served their last six months in civilian, military and veteran hospitals and other public health agencies, which freed up registered nurses to help with the war effort. All cadets received a scholarship and a monthly stipend, effectively giving these young women an education they otherwise may not have been able to afford.
“As a former member of the Corps, I am excited to have buy soma medication this important part of our history not only acknowledged, but made available for more
people to learn about this unique wartime effort,” said Thelma Robinson, RN MSN PNP (retired). “I consistently speak with fellow Corps members who are trying to find information about this period of their lives. Putting these records online provides an invaluable resource for them and their families.”
The Cadet Nursing Corps not only served to meet the needs of the United States during World War II, but also promoted the profession of nursing among women. There was a unique social aspect to the program for this period in history – the Corps was non-discriminatory and trained nurses from a wide variety of backgrounds including Native Americans, African Americans and even displaced Japanese Americans.
Unlike other professions, where women left to pursue other interests after the World War II, 85 percent of all nursing students in the United States were a part of the Cadet Nursing Corps.
“While much of the focus around World War II remains on what happened overseas, groups like the Cadet Nursing Corps are an important reminder of the dedication of the U.S. citizens on the home front,” said Dan Jones, Vice President of Content Acquisition, Ancestry.com. “We are
proud to honor those who served as a part of this distinguished group and provide new generations with the opportunity to learn more.”
A team of more than 60 volunteers led by professional staff at the National Archives has crossed the 100,000 mark in a project to digitize Civil War widows’ pension files and is featured in a new National Archives video short. The National Archives holds 1.28 million case files of the dependents of Civil War Union soldiers who applied to the federal government for pensions.
Watch the new video short in the ongoing series “Inside the Vaults” which describes the project. “The Civil War Widows’ Pension Digitization Project at the National Archives”:
The files are an astonishing compendium of Civil War history. Testimony in these files from fellow soldiers, widows, children, siblings and bereaved parents describe their deceased comrades, husbands, brothers and sons and often the circumstances in which they died. The effect of the war on family members left behind is also brought to light in great
detail.
Volunteers are painstakingly preparing the documents for digitization while creating a searchable index. The index and images are available at www.Fold3.com, a research website in partnership with the National Archives. A second partner, FamilySearch, provides volunteers who create the digital images.
Archives specialist Jackie Budell, who is overseeing the project, says the volunteers range in age from 19 to 90 and come from a variety of backgrounds. Collectively they devote more than 700 hours each month to the effort. “The
volunteers are helping to shed light on a large aspect of the Civil War that many historians and sociologists have had little readily-available primary source material to go on – the effect of the war on families back home who were left behind after the soldier’s death,” said Budell.
While making these valuable files more widely available, the volunteers have discovered more treasures in the National Archives’ holdings – personal mementos that became “evidence” when sent to the Pension Bureau long ago
and not seen since: for example, the video includes images of some of these newly-discovered tintype images.
News Release – For Immediate Release: April 4, 2012
Santa Monica, CA. April 4, 2012: The 1940 Census has finally been released and you can now browse the images online. But the waiting’s not over, since you still won’t be able to search the whole census by person until it’s fully indexed in several months.
Help, however, is at hand. Findmypast.com has come up with a way to make your search quicker and simpler – by offering to do the searching for you.
Findmypast.com is the new U.S. addition to the global network of findmypast family history websites, launched in a limited, early form in time for the 1940 Census. Its unique new, customized feature, created for the 1940 Census, is called “We’ll find them for you” and is now live.
All you have to do is to visit findmypast.com, submit the name of the person you’re searching for, plus some extra clues, and findmypast.com will email you as soon as the person’s records become available.
“We’re taking the hassle and delay out of searching”, says Brian Speckart, marketing manager of findmypast.com. “With this new feature, findmypast.com is going the extra mile to help you find your past as quickly and easily as possible.”
While the whole census won’t be searchable for several months, the records of individual U.S. states will be made searchable earlier, one state at a time. A couple of them are likely to be done by mid-April.
Some genealogy sites are offering to alert users simply when a particular state has been indexed. “But we’re going further and finding the particular individual you’re looking for”, says Speckart.
You have to tell findmypast.com in which state the person was living at the time of the 1940 Census. “As soon as that state is indexed, we run a program against the data to find the individual you’re looking for you and then email you the links we find”, says Speckart.
The job of indexing states one by one is being done by an army of volunteers under the banner of the 1940 Community Project, of which findmypast.com is a proud member.
Visitors to findmypast.com will be able to use the site’s new “We’ll find them for you” feature to submit details of the person they want to find.
Supplying the person’s first and last name and state where they were living in 1940 is all that’s required but providing additional clues will help findmypast.com narrow down the search results. Other helpful information includes approximate year of birth, likely birth city, place of residence in 1940 and names of other household members.
The new service isn’t just limited to family members either. Users can submit details of celebrities or other public figures and ask findmypast.com to find them too.
“So, if you happen to know that Marilyn Monroe’s real name was Norma Jean and which state she called home in 1940, we’ll find her for you too”, says Speckart.
National Archives Launches New Video Short “Titanic at the National Archives – 100 Years”
Washington, DC. . . On the hundredth anniversary of the Titanic setting sail, the National Archives today is releasing its latest video short “Titanic at the National Archives – 100 Years,” taking viewers inside the Titanic-related holdings of National Archives at New York City. The 2:41 minute video is part of the ongoing “Inside the Vaults” series:
The film series is free to view and distribute on our YouTube channel at http://tiny.cc/Vaults. These videos are in the public domain and not subject to any copyright restrictions. The National Archives encourages the free distribution of them.
As the archival repository for the records for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the National Archives at New York City holds records in the admiralty case files related to Titanic, specifically the petition filed by the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, as the owner of Titanic, for limitation of liability. Among the documents are depositions of surviving passengers, blueprints of the ship, claims of loss and photographs. Often in the first buy cat medication online person, they tell the story of the sinking in dramatic detail. In this video, National Archives archivist Bonnie Sauer, public programs specialist Dorothy Dougherty, education specialist Christopher Zarr, education technician Sara Pasquerello and volunteer William Roaka talk about their favorite Titanic documents in the holdings. The documents are available to the public in New York City, and many can also be viewed on the National Archives’ online research system, ARC.
Background on “Inside the Vaults”
“Inside the Vaults” is part of the ongoing effort by the National Archives to make its collections, stories, and accomplishments more accessible to the public. “Inside the Vaults” gives voice to Archives staff and users, highlights new and exciting finds at the Archives, and reports on complicated and technical subjects in easily understandable presentations. Earlier topics include the conservation of the original Declaration of Independence, and the 1297 Magna Carta, the transfer to the National Archives of the Nuremberg Laws, and the launch of a new National Archives user-friendly search engine. The film series is free to view and distribute on our YouTube channel at http://tiny.cc/Vaults
Help, however, is at hand. Findmypast.com has come up with a way to make your search quicker and simpler – by offering to do the searching for you.
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