Nu? What's New? Vol. 20 No. 50

Underlined words are links to sites with additional information.

Happy New Year!!
The Christmas/New Year season has blunted organizations from having new announcements.

Group Asks Genealogists to Comment on USCIS Plans to Raise Fees

A group calling themselves “Records Not Revenue” is encouraging Americans to respond to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) proposal to raise their fees substantially for searching and copying their records. The deadline for comments is December 30, 11:59 EST. To date 24,000 people have submitted their views.

The group also recommends that individuals submit comments to their Senators and House representatives. Two weeks ago, Senator Mitt Romney of Utah issued a press release opposing the proposed fee hikes.

Comments can be made at https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=USCIS-2019-0010-0001.

The group has created a website at https://www.recordsnotrevenue.com/.

Free Offer from MyHeritage to Evaluate Your Health Risks from DNA Ends with New Year

MyHeritage is offering—until the end of this year—a free analysis of health risks based on an analysis of your DNA. If you have tested your DNA through Ancestry, 23andme, FamilyTreeDNA(?) and others, upload your results to MyHeritage’s subsidiary, Promethease, and you will receive health-related conclusions from an analysis of your DNA.

I took advantage of the offer and submitted my 23andme results to Promethease. The results were many, many (100?) statements that I had either an increased or decreased likelihood of scores of diseases. Some diseases were so obscure, I had to look on the internet to determine what they were. There was only one statement of fact; that I had blue eyes (which is true).

Frankly I came away with learning nothing about my health risks. The first few conclusions were:
• 1.9x increased risk for coronary artery disease
• 7x risk of male baldness
• carrier of Phenylketonuria allele (I have no symptoms of this trait)
• More sensitive to sunlight (I am), higher risk of melanoma (I have had four), more likely to have blue eyes (I have) and numerous other features common to light skinned Caucasians

All told, there were perhaps 100 health analyses. I gave up after viewing about 40.

Information about the offer is at https://tinyurl.com/MHHeathRisks. If the prices are kept the same in 2020, the cost for the analysis is not that great: $12 for the first analysis and $4 for each additional analysis.

Geni Posts a Year-End Review
In its year-end review of accomplishments they have made, Geni notes that they now have nearly 140 million profiles on their World Family Tree. The complete announcement is at https://www.geni.com/blog/2019-year-in-review-3105001.html.

Sub-Carpathia Genealogy Inc. Launches Website

A company called Sub-Carpathia Genealogy Inc. has launched a website at https://sub-carpathia-genealogy.org. The site includes freely searchable databases of vital and census records of interest pertaining to the villages and towns located in Sub-Carpathia, Ukraine—formerly in the Hungarian megyek (counties) of Bereg, Máramaros, Ugocsa and Ung, and, in Czechoslovakia (Podkarpatská Rus').

The company indicates they have nearly 500,000 records online. The website has as its primary focus:
• Searchable databases of vital, census, Holocaust and other records
• Community websites and tombstone images from 224 places in present Sub-Carpathia with surviving cemeteries

Royal Air Force Museum Launches New Website: Casualty Forms

The Royal Air Force Museum launched a new website, “Casualty Forms” that enables visitors to explore the casualty forms of officers of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force who served on the Western Front and in the Middle East during the First World War. The forms include information on casualty details, postings, periods of leave, promotions and decorations. Some may also have information on place of burial and name of the officiant.

The site is located at https://www.casualtyforms.org/. Reported by Jan Meisels Allen.

MyHeritage Adds Seven New Record Collections in First Half of December

MyHeritage has just added seven new collections in the first half of December encompassing 16.2 million records:
• Netherlands, Notarial Records
• Inwards Unassisted Passengers to Victoria, Australia
• Jewish Holocaust Memorials and Jewish Residents of Germany 1939–1945
• Copenhagen Emigration Index
• Burial collections from Canada, Ireland, and the UK

A description of each collection and the number of records added can be found at https://tinyurl.com/MHDec20191.

Persons who are MyHeritage subscribers and have their family tree on the MyHeritage site automatically receive notifications of possible matches through the company’s Record Matching feature. As a MyHeritage subscriber, last week I received matches to the Mokotoff family tree from the “Jewish Holocaust Memorials and Jewish Residents of Germany 1939–1945” collection. I was able to add exact dates of birth for a number of Holocaust victims.

No Additions to FamilySearch This Week

There are no announced additions to FamilySearch this week, likely because of the Christmas season.

FindMyPast Adds Texas County Tax Rolls (1846–1910)
In addition to church records, FindMyPast added Texas County Tax Rolls (1846–1910) to their collection. This also exists on FamilySearch at https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1827575.

Only One Addition to Ancestry This Week

There was only one updated collection on Ancestry this week: Their U.S. School Yearbook Collection.

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