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Nu?
What's New? Gary Mokotoff, Editor Volume 20, Number 11 | March 17, 2019 Every
government puts value on preserving its history. That is why we have
national archives. Genealogy preserves history; the history of a
family. It cannot be done without access to records, just as historians
cannot preserve a nation's history without access to records. It is a
greater good than the right to privacy. It is a greater good than the
risk of identity theft.
Past issues of Nu? What's New? are
archived at http://www.avotaynu.com/nu.htm
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Underlined words are links to
sites with additional information.
FamilyTreeDNA Updates Terms of Service and Privacy Statement  In the
wake of publicity regarding FamilyTreeDNA cooperating with law
enforcement agencies, the company has updated its Terms
of Service and Privacy
Statements. They now require all law enforcement authorities
to register accounts under a special process, designed specifically for
law enforcement and third parties working with law enforcement, which
allows them to participate in our DNA matching program. Permission for
law enforcement to upload genetic files is granted only upon
submission, review, and approval of all required documentation by a
qualified staff member and under limiting circumstances as defined in
FTDNA’s Law
Enforcement Guide.
There is a procedure for individual contributors to opt-out of allowing
law enforcement agencies to have access to their DNA results. In
reaction to the European Union’s recently declared privacy
policies, all contributors from EU countries have been opted-out and
they must opt-in to participate. FTDNA has created a Citizen’s Panel comprised of seven individuals with various backgrounds in genealogy, genetic genealogy, and bioethics with whom we will continuously share and review initiatives that could have a potential impact on user privacy. How Many People Subscribe to the Various DNA Services? Leah Larkin, who calls herself the DNA Geek, has a website, http://thednageek.com, where she periodically publishes statistics on the growth of the DNA databases of the major DNA service companies. Here are the statistics she provides: • AncestryDNA > 14 million • 23andme > 5 million • MyHeritage > 2.5 million • Family Tree DNA > 890,000 The complete article can be found at https://thednageek.com/dna-tests/. Other DNA-related articles can be accessed from the home page at https://thednageek.com/. Ancestry Favors 14-Day Free Trial for Non-Subscribers  It appears that
Ancestry is discouraging limited free access to their genealogy
collection for non-subscribers. In the past, non-subscribers could
search using the full functionality provided subscribers from the home
page, https://ancestry.com,
but the results were limited information which acted as a teaser to
encourage subscribing to their service. Now the company is emphasizing
access to their data by oferring a 14-day free trial.Free access does exist in a very obscure way. On the home page, scroll down to the bottom and there is a column with the heading “Historical Collections.” Click the words “Family Search.” This opens the page to search the entire ancestry collection. The URL for this web page is https://www.ancestry.com/search/. New Society: Jewish Genealogy & History Society of South Australia  A third
Jewish Genealogical Society has formed in Australia: The Jewish
Genealogy & History Society of South Australia. The other
societies are located in Sydney and Melbourne. The group’s
next meeting will be at 2:30 pm, May 19th, at Concordia College, 24
Winchester Street, Highgate, which is approximately 5 km from the
Adelaide Central Business District.For more information about the Adelaide group, contact Margot Bailey at kwbailey@optusnet.com.au. JewishGen Course on Galicia  If you have
ancestors from Galicia and are relatively new to genealogical research,
JewishGen is offering a two-part course. The only requirement is that
you know your town(s) of ancestry. The course first discusses online town sources, then continues with surname research via vital records using four major websites: Routes to Roots, JRI-Poland, Gesher Galicia and JewishGen. Advanced students may continue by researching directly at the Polish archives’ websites. Registration is limited to 15 students. National Library of Australia Recently Launched the Australia Web Archive  Jan
Meisels Allen, Chairperson of the IAJGS Public Records Access
Monitoring Committee, reports that the National Library of Australia
recently launched the Australia Web Archive (AWA), one of the largest
online archives in the world. The archive contains 600 terabytes of
data across 9 billion records. It contains thousands of .au domain web
pages from 1996 to the present. The concept is similar to the Internet
Archive's Wayback Machine but is reported to have more functionality
and it is fully text-searchable. One does not need to know the URL,
instead they find content by using a Google-like built in-house search.AWA is accessible via Trove, (https://trove.nla.gov.au/) which is Australia's National Library online resource for newspapers, books, images, archives etc. The announcement can be found at http://tinyurl.com/NAAustraliaAWA. Essay on “Preserving Old Family Letters”  There
have been numerous articles on how to preserve documents, but this
essay on the MyHeritage blog focuses on a particular document type:
family letters. It makes suggestions on how to organize a family letter
collection, what to do with letters that are still in their original
envelope and encapsulating the letters and envelopes to completely
protect them from damage while being handled. The essay can be found at https://blog.myheritage.com/2019/03/preserving-old-family-letters/. MyHeritage Offering
Free Access to Irish CollectionIn recognition of St. Patrick’s Day, MyHeritage is offering free access to their Irish collection at https://www.myheritage.com/research/catalog?location=Ireland. The offer is good until March 20. Free Access to Ancestry’s Irish Collection In recognition
of St. Patrick’s Day, Ancestry is offering free access to
their Irish records collection through March 18. This includes
passenger lists, peerage and royalty directories, census records,
photos, and more.When I accessed the site, it required that both a given name and surname be provided. The link is at https://www.ancestry.com/cs/stpatricksday. FamilySearch Adds More Than Million Records This Week  A
list of recent additions to FamilySearch, more than 9 million indexed
records, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch031119.
This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They
include records from England, France, Iceland, Peru, South Africa, and
United States: Georgia, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and
Utah. Most of the records (8 million) are Christian records from England and France, but if you have roots/relatives from South Africa, nearly 200,000 index records have been added to Transvaal Civil Deaths, 1869–1954. Note that at the website, announced collections may not be complete for the dates specified and will be added at some later date. Also note that counts shown in the announcement are the number added, not the total number available in the collection, which can be greater. New Collections at Ancestry.com Ancestry has
added/updated the following record groups at their site. The list with
links to individual collections can be found at https://www.ancestry.com/cs/recent-collections.
Announced collections may not be complete for the dates specified and
will be added at some later date. New Collections 1891 Norway Census 1900 Norway Census 1910 Norway Census Cork, Ireland, Marriage License Bonds Index, 1623-1750 Updated Collections England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1916–2007 U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Church Records, 1781–1969 London, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813–2003 London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538–1812 Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874–1945 Belfast, Northern Ireland, The Belfast Newsletter (Birth, Marriage and Death Notices), 1738–1925 London, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813–1917 London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1932 New York State, Marriage Index, 1881–1967 Pennsylvania, Birth Certificates, 1906–1911 Surrey, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754–1933 FindMyPast Adds U.S. Passport Applications and Records for Costa Rica  More
than 62,000 additional records spanning the years 1795 to 1925 have
been added to FindMyPast’s collection of United States
Passport Applications. This collection of regular passport applications
has been compiled from the National Archives and Records Administration
(NARA) collections M1372 and M1490. Search the collection at https://tinyurl.com/FMPUSPassports.
Four new indexes have been added from Costa Rica. The new indexes contain more than 800,000 records covering baptisms, marriages, deaths and civil registrations between 1700 and 1975. These records have been sourced from the International Genealogical Index. Search the collection at https://tinyurl.com/FMPCostaRica. The Ancestor Hunt Now Has 30,000 Free Online Historical Newspaper Links  The Ancestor Hunt
now provides 30,000 links to online historical newspaper archives whose
data is available free of charge. Countries covered are the United
States, Canada, Australia and Europe.The announcement is at http://tinyurl.com/TAH30000. At the bottom of the home page (http://www.theancestorhunt.com) there are links to their collection of online newspapers, obituaries, bmd links, photos, yearbooks and videos. New England States Free Historical Newspaper Links. 145 new and updated free historical newspaper links have been added to the New England States' free newspaper link lists. The new total is 1,418 titles for all six states. Access the lists at https://tinyurl.com/TAHNewEngland. Reminder: Renew Your Subscription to AVOTAYNU AVOTAYNU subscribers living in the United States, whose subscription ended with the recently published Winter issue, had a yellow insert included with the issue indicating how to resubscribe to the journal. Resubscribe by March 30 at http://avotaynu.com/Renew.htm to receive a discount on the annual subscription rate.
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