Nu? What's New? Vol. 20 No. 33

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

Did You Receive the Last Two Issues of Nu? What’s New??
There were problems with publishing the last two issues of Nu? What’s New? in that some ISPs were treating our ezine as spam. Hopefully the problem has been resolved. If you did not receive the last two issues of Nu? What’s New?, they can be found at https://tinyurl.com/AV2031 and https://tinyurl.com/AV2032.

Wiki Genealogy Site Publishes 90,000th Article

Are you aware there is a Wiki site for genealogy? It is maintained by FamilySearch and it just published its 90,000th article? It describes itself as an online genealogy and family history guide that lists websites, provides research strategies, and suggests records and resources to help you find ancestors from all over the world.

Searching using the word “Jewish” produced numerous results including Jewish Genealogy Research, Jewish Records, Jewish Archives and Libraries, Jewish Genealogy, Jewish Population Maps, Jews Found in Records of Other Denominations, Jewish languages, Jewish Search Strategies, Jewish Names Personal and many others.

The Poland wiki page is enormous. It starts with the following topics: Getting Started with Poland Research, Poland Research Tools, Finding Your Ancestors' Town in Poland and Town Details Needed for Finding Records. All told, there are 12 topics.

Visit the site at https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page?cid=bl-ftc-8839.

Colorize Your Photos

A website will colorize your photos at no charge. After performing the process, the results are displayed on a split screen. The left half is still black/white and the right half is colorized. Left click your mouse at the place where the separation occurs and drag the mouse to the left. This will then display the entire photo in colorized form. Right click the mouse to save the new image.

The website is at https://colourise.sg/.

Findmypast Describes UK Census Records

Findmypast has produced an essay titled “Everything You Need to Know About UK Census Records.” It notes that the first UK census was taken on 10 March 1801 but no longer exists apart from fragments. From 1801 to 1831, census records were used to create summaries of localities and later destroyed. Each census, 1841–1911, is illustrated with brief comments. The 1921 census is the next census to be released.

The article can be found at https://www.findmypast.co.uk/blog/-familyrecords/uk-census-records.

DNA Collections Can Show Migration Routes

In an article titled “When Your Family History Meets Technology,” AncestryDNA demonstrates how clusters of DNA results can demonstrate migration routes of populations. Ancestry scientists can now detect groups of people based on DNA connections (matches) that they call “communities.” As they have looked to see what these groups have in common, what they have found is history. They can see the diaspora that followed the Irish Potato Famine more than 150 years ago recorded in the genes of the descendants of the million Irish who left, or the Great Migration of African Americans from areas in the South to northern cities that started a century ago.

The complete article can be found at https://tinyurl.com/AncestryDNAMigrations.

MyHeritage Offers Essay on DNA Basics Chapter 11

MyHeritage continues its essays on DNA Basics with “Chapter 11: What is Genetic Genealogy.” It states that genetic genealogy is the use of DNA testing in combination with the traditional arsenal of genealogical tools, such as personal and historical records, to draw a complete picture of the family relationship between individuals.

It notes that incorporating DNA data into your research can help discover previously unknown family. This is especially useful for adoptees searching for biological parents, children of sperm donors obtaining missing pieces of their medical history, and Holocaust survivors reuniting with family they had no hope of finding after World War II. It can also help extend beyond the memories of living relatives to discover distant cousins you may never have found otherwise.

The article can be found at https://blog.myheritage.com/2019/08/ dna-basics-chapter-11-what-is-genetic-genealogy/.

Ancestry Canada Offering Free Access to Occupational Records Through September 2

Ancestry Canada is offering free access to their occupational records through September 2. Occupational records include such collections as nursing registers, railway employment records, medical registers and merchant seamen death records. Access the records at https://www.ancestry.ca/cs/labourday.

Free Access to Ancestry’s Yearbook Collection Through September 2

Ancestry is offering free access to its U.S. yearbook collection through September 2. A yearbook is a book published annually by high schools and colleges to record, highlight, and commemorate the past year at the school. While the main part of the yearbook identifies events of the year through text and photographs, the major interest is the section that has portrait photos of all the students graduating that year. Ancestry states they have digitized more than 400,000 yearbooks.

The collection can be searched at https://www.ancestry.com/cs/yearbook-pictures.

MyHeritage Offers Free Access to U.S. and Canadian Census Records Through September 2

MyHeritage is offering free access to its U.S. and Canadian census records collections through September 2. They include U.S. federal censuses 1840–1940 and numerous state censuses. For Canada, they include national censuses 1851–1921 and a few provincial censuses. The complete announcement can be found at https://tinyurl.com/MHCensusAccess.

New Historical Records Added by MyHeritage in August

MyHeritage announced that it added more than 16.8M records during August in four new historical record collections. They are:
• Pennsylvania Death Index, 1906-1964
• Netherlands Newspaper collections, 1659–1899
• Netherlands Newspaper collections,1900-1948
• France, Nord Civil Marriages, 1792-1937

The announcement can be fund at https://blog.myheritage.com/2019/08/ new-historical-records-added/. It provides a detailed description of each collection.

FamilySearch Adds More Than 5.6M Records This Week:
Major Addition is New York State Death Index (1880–1956)

A list of recent additions to FamilySearch, more than 5.6M indexed records and images, can be found at http://tinyurl.com/FamilySearch082619. This site provides direct links to the individual collections. They include records from Austria, Brazil, Norway, South Africa, and the United States, including Arkansas, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri and South Carolina.

Most notable for persons with Jewish family history is New York State Death Index, 1880–1956 which it received from Reclaim The Records. There are also additions to the index of Austria, Vienna, Jewish Registers of Births, Marriages, and Deaths (1784–1911}. Also additions to the index of South Africa, Cape Province, Civil Deaths (1895–1972}.

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.

Findmypast Adds Numerous Scottish and Lancashire Records to Its Collection

Findmypast updates this week include:
• Scotland, Newspaper Birth Notices. 121,000 new records
• Scotland, Newspaper Death Reports & Obituaries. 500,000 additional records
• Scotland, Newspaper Marriage & Anniversary Notices. 201,000 additional records
• Lancashire Wills & Probate (1457–1858). 26,000 new records
• British & Irish Newspaper Collection. More than 147,000 pages added
• Netherlands. More than three million births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials that took place in the Netherlands (1564 and 1945)

LInks to the collections can be found at https://tinyurl.com/FMP090219.

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. There is also no indication of how many records were added to the updated collections.

New Collections
New York, State Employment Cards and Peddlers' Licenses, 1840–1966. State employment cards are for people who worked for the State of New York. I found a record for a cousin who was a doctor who briefly worked at a state hospital.

Updated Collections
Netherlands, Civil Marriage Index, 1795–1950

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