Twittering the Salt Lake Family History Expo

WAHOO!! Tomorrow, Aug 28th is the start of the two day Family History Expo in Salt Lake and I will be attending. I am listed amongst several Bloggers of Honor. Bloggers will be posting on their blogs while attending the conference. I'm not sure if I will get around to articles while I'm there, they take time to compose - BUT, I will be twittering the conference.

Twitter is a short message service that allows users to send short text messages of up to 140 characters in length from their cell phones and laptop computers. (Of course you can use it from your desktop computer at home too!)

I will be twittering my experience while attending 13 different classes at the conference, plus from the banquet on Friday evening. There are over 100 classes offered at the FH Expo and 13 bloggers twittering.

Here's the lineup:

Holly T. Hansen: Blog, Twitter

Anastasia Tyler: Blog

The Ancestry Insider: Blog, Twitter

Arlene H. Eakle: Blog, Twitter

Gena Philibert Ortega: Blog, WVR Blog, Twitter, and WVR Twitter.

Jean Wilcox Hibben: Blog

Lee R. Drew: FamHist Blog and Lineage Keeper Blog, Twitter

Lisa Alzo: Blog, Twitter

Lisa Louise Cooke: Blog, Twitter

Renee Huskey: Blog, Twitter

Renee Zamora: Blog, Twitter

Family History Expos will be tweeting live from the expo you can follow at @FHExpos.

While you can follow people individually on Twitter you can also search on the expo hashtag #FHX09-SLC (a Twitter account is not required to search). Simply go to http://search.twitter.com and search for #FHX09-SLC

All attendees are invited to use Twitter to communicate highlights of the Expo activities, share photos, and link to blog posts. Non-attendees are invited to make comments and ask questions via Twitter, someone will respond (be sure to include the above mentioned hashtag so we will see your comments).

Everyone attending is invited to stop by the Blogger Bistro and Twitter Café to ask questions, use one of our work stations to blog or tweet, you can also follow what is happening "live" on a 32" big-screen TV (located in exhibit hall).

Twittering live from a location is a new experience for me - I am way to excited! I hope I get some sleep tonight. ;)

See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!

WorldVitalRecords is Hiring

Job description:

Outbound Sales Consultant

WorldVitalRecords.com is the fastest growing online genealogy and family networking company who is seeking sales consultants that are anxious to share with others how our products and services will benefit them.

- Competitive hourly wage + generous commissions
- Great environment
- Advancement opportunities
- Current shifts are Part Time Mon-Fri: 9-1pm and 1- 5pm
- Location: Provo, UT

Responsibilities:

• Chosen candidates will initiate outbound phone calls.
• Establish and maintain a high level of customer satisfaction in all transactions.
• Utilize computer and software tools to maintain accurate customer profile records.

Requirements:

• Excellent phone etiquette and demeanor accompanied.
• Consistent and proven achievement of sales quotas.
• Sales experience preferred, ideally in a telesales/call center capacity.

For further information regarding the position please contact Sharon Larson at slarson@familylink.com. Mention you read this posting on Renee's Genealogy Blog and that Renee Zamora referred you!

New FamilySearch Hits the Wasatch Front

WAHOO!! It's official my day has come! The Oquirrah Mountain Temple District also received word today. There may be others so I will keep you posted.

New Process for Preparing Ancestral Names for the Temple

24 August 2009

To: Family History Consultants in the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple District

This e-mail is to notify you that within the next several weeks, the stake in which you live will begin using a new Web site as part of the process for preparing ancestral names for the temple. The Internet address for the new Web site is new.familysearch.org. You should be able to register in the new Web site immediately upon receipt of this e-mail. TempleReady will no longer be used for this process.

The attached information packet will help you prepare to help members use this new process once the temple begins accepting the new Family Ordinance Request forms in place of TempleReady disks. Copies of the attached release packet will also be sent by U. S. mail. Center directors will receive their copy directly from the Family History Department. The copy for family history consultants will be sent to their bishop in their normal weekly priesthood mailing. An informational DVD will accompany the copy sent by mail.

Important note: You must have the Adobe Reader installed on your computer to view the attachments in this e-mail. It may be downloaded for free at www.adobe.com. To install the Adobe Reader, click on the Get Adobe Reader button on the Adobe Web site home page, and follow the instructions.

It is important for you to follow the preparation instructions found on the New FamilySearch Utah and Idaho Release section of the consultant registration website. Simply go to consultant.familysearch.org and click on the Click here to go to the Utah and Idaho instructions button to view the preparation instructions.

We will send you a follow-up e-mail announcing the actual release date approximately one week before the release in your stake.

If you have any questions, please contact FamilySearch Support.

Sincerely,


FamilySearch Support

support@familysearch.org

Toll-free: 1-866-406-1830

PDF Attachments:
08367_000_UT & ID Packet Cover Notice Hi-res 24 Aug 2009.pdf
08364 Utah & Idaho Rollout Packet Hi-res Aug 24, 2009.pdf

Monday is the Last Day to Pre-register for the Salt Lake Family History Expo

What:
Salt Lake City, Utah Family History Expo

Where:
South Towne Exposition Center
9575 South State Street
Sandy, Utah 84070
Ample free parking

When:
Friday August 28th, 2009. 8 AM to 6 PM
Saturday August 29th, 2009. 8 AM to 6 PM
At the door registration begins at: 7 AM Friday & 7:30 AM Saturday

Cost:
Exhibit Hall: Open free to the public
Keynote Address: Open free to the public
Classes and Workshops:
Pre-Registration: $68 (ends August 24th, 2009)
At the Door: $78 for both days, $48 for a single day, or $12 per class

Register right now online and receive immediate access to all class syllabi! Note: Online class syllabi are available only to those who register online for both days.

Your paid registration includes:

• Concessions and tables available in the Exhibit Hall for lunch)
  
• Printed Event Program
  
• Name Tag
  
• CD syllabus (to print your syllabus in advance, register online now and get immediate access!) (Note: Family History Expos will print your syllabus for an additional $25.00. Printed syllabi will be available at the event and can be shipped after the event. Purchaser pays shipping. To purchase your syllabus in book format, click on the button below.)
  
• Goody Bag stuffed full of coupons, discount offers, information and free trials
  
• Opportunity to have a FREE research consultation with a professional researcher at the Family History Expos Ask-the-Pros booth. E-mail expos@FHExpos.com to set up an appointment (you may also bring your research questions and sign up at the booth for available times)

WorldVitalRecord Renewals 50% off

It's been crazy busy at work right now. WorldVitalRecords.com is offering renewals at 50% off until this Friday, 21 August. The annual US subscription is now $19.95 and the World Unlimited is $59.95, plus a free gift, William Dollarhide's ebook "Getting Started in Genealogy ONLINE". This is a fabulous price and members know it.

Emails were sent out to all current and previous members with instructions to log into the site first, then click on the link in the email to take advantage of the offer. Logging into the site first will make sure that your order will be recognized as a registered member and not make you re-register with a different email address.

If you need assistance, you can always call us at 866-377-0588 (M-F 8am-5pm MST) to place your order. I personally have never seen the call center this busy. We appreciate your patience while you wait for us to take your call. The wait really shouldn't be that long, we have vamped up the number of employees taking calls.

P.S. New customers can take advantage of this offer by clicking here.

New Census Records Available Online

The following is from FindMyPast.com

1901 census completed for England & Wales - 24 counties added

A brand new transcription of the 1901 census with newly scanned high-quality images is now complete on findmypast.com. The final 24 counties and other UK territories have just been added comprising over 5.6 million new records - so you can now search the census in full at
http://mail.findmypast.com/cgi-bin11/DM/y/eA0THoAO0GEV0BPLV0EL. This new transcription has already helped researchers to find many individuals whose names have been wrongly transcribed in earlier versions.

The new additions are:

England

Cumberland
Devonshire
Durham
Northumberland
Westmorland
Worcestershire

Wales

Anglesey
Brecknockshire
Carnarvonshire
Cardiganshire
Carmarthenshire
Denbighshire
Flintshire
Glamorganshire
Merionethshire
Montgomeryshire
Monmouthshire
Pembrokeshire
Radnorshire

Other

Guernsey and Adjacent Islands
Isle of Man
Jersey
Royal Navy at Sea and in ports abroad


More new census records available soon

The completion of the 1901 census brings findmypast.com a crucial step closer to a full set of 1841-1901 England and Wales censuses. The 1851 census - the only remaining incomplete census - will be available in full within the next few months. Findmypast.com recently added records of 180,000 individuals from the Manchester, Chorlton, Salford, Oldham and Ashton-Under-Lyne registration districts, previously never filmed and missing from all other versions of the 1851 census. These pages were severely water damaged many years ago by flooding, some so badly that no writing was visible and many were too fragile to be scanned. Volunteers from the Manchester and Lancashire Family History Society (MLFHS) transcribed the records. Using the latest ultraviolet equipment the team was able to see writing that had not been visible in natural daylight, and to recover text invisible to the naked eye.

Over the coming months a full set of high-quality 1881 census images will be added to the transcriptions already available, thus completing the 1841-1901 census collection on findmypast.com.

Family History Expo - Free Consultant Training Pass

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Surname distribution maps on dynastree.com

Press Release from dynastree.com

Surname distribution maps on dynastree.com

Hamburg, August 11, 2009 – The family network dynastree.com features maps for showing the distribution of one's surname for eight countries at the moment. Such maps are not only available for the US, Canada, the UK, but also for Spain, France, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Versions for the Netherlands and Argentina will follow soon.

The free map service, which shows the absolute and relative distribution of surnames for the respective countries, is based on data from telephone books and address databases. One can very easily and quickly get an overview of the geographical distribution and origin of one's own surname. The name of interest only has to be entered into a search field to view the corresponding map. Statistics about the number of persons with the same name are shown for single counties or regions. The relative display of the distribution also factors in the distortion caused by metropolitan areas.

These maps are a helpful service and very popular among the users, it is especially used to narrow down research of one's own family history to single regions. The results can be used to research the origin of a name, and to find further trails of the family's history. If the name searched for is not limited to one country, the user is notified and can also use the international maps for displaying the name's distribution there. This is useful to track down ancestors or relatives if the family emigrated from a country decades or centuries ago. The name "Jackson" for instance is found only about 1,000 times, while there are about 640,000 entries in the US. It is therefore on the 18th rank of the most frequent surnames in the US.

The surname distribution maps can also be integrated into blogs created with WordPress, dynastree.com offers such a widget. It only takes some minutes to let the visitors of one's blog access the maps. The widget also automatically recognizes the visitors' language settings and shows the corresponding map in the right language.

Profile of dynastree.com

According to experts, dynastree.com and its international language versions have been among the fastest growing social networks worldwide in the last two years. By now, more than nine million families have created their tree at dynastree.com, and more than 15.000 new family trees are added each day. The venture capital corporations Neuhaus Partners and Hasso Plattner (co-founder of SAP) Ventures recognized the young start-up’s potential early and support dynastree.com as investors.

Dynastree.com was founded by the experienced internet entrepreneurs Daniel Grözinger and Sven Schmidt. They have already founded and maintained several internet projects since studying together, such as getgo.de (an online ticketing service), and the FIFA Soccer World Cup Ticketing Center (responsible for managing the ticketing for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006).

GenSeek on Facebook

I work for FamilyLink/WorldVitalRecords.com and I have personally been very excited to see GenSeek come online. The wait has been terrible but it will be way worth it. GenSeek will bring FamilySearch's Family History Catalog into web 2.0. It will become the place to look for genealogy reference materials.

The first phase of GenSeek's release is the Facebook application. I was very excited to see two well done articles on this application written by others. I see no need in reinventing the wheel so I am going to refer you to both. Both have great screen shots.

• "GenSeek on Facebook" (best read using Mozilla Firefox) on Tamura Jones' website Modern Software Experience

• "GenSeek on Facebook Application is Available"on Randy Seaver's Genea-Musing blog

I couldn't wait to download the app on Facebook and play around. WAHOO!! I found new materials on my Weatherwax family that I didn't know about. I love how you can click on the link to have it notify you when an item is digitized. It will send you an email notification when it becomes available online. Way cool!

You will find not only listings from the Family History Library Catalog, but also from Google books. It will link to more and more record holders as time goes on. If a resource is digitized you will be able to view it, make comments about it, mark it in your favorites, etc. It's just fantastic and this is only the first phase.

Oh, I'm just having too much fun!

See ya tomorrow for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!

Free Access to WorldVitalRecords

The following is from WorldVitalRecords.com

WorldVitalRecords.com Opens Site Allowing for Free Public Access to More Than One Billion Family History Records

With the addition of the largest number of records to be released in a single day since the site launched in 2006

PROVO, UT, August 11, 2009 – WorldVitalRecords.com, an online family history resource, today announced the addition of the largest number of records to be released in a single day since the site launched in 2006. To commemorate this milestone, for the first time WorldVitalRecords is offering free public access to its entire online collection of historical and genealogical records beginning August 11 and continuing through August 13, 2009. The public will have unlimited access to more than one billion records in over 11,000 databases from around the world including newspapers, census, birth, marriage, death, immigration and military records; family trees; stories and publications; and yearbooks.

“As a genealogy enthusiast, I’m thrilled that people can go to one place like WorldVitalRecords.com, try family history research for free and find their parents or grandparents, and see how simple it is to start tracing back and discovering stories that bring family history to life,” said Jim Ericson, Vice-President of Marketing for Family Link. “This is a rare opportunity to delve into the records and discover information about your family and ancestors you may have never known.”

Featured records in this release include:

Historical Newspapers
Through a partnership with Newspaper Archive, WorldVitalRecords is adding access to pages from a variety of newspapers from all over the United States, dating from 1759 through 1923. This collection features images of entire newspapers from the western frontier, the Midwest at the turn of the century, and the long-time standard of our nation’s news, “The New York Times” which includes over 7 million names. Newspaper Archive produces the largest historical newspaper database online, and the collection is fully searchable by keyword and date, and individual pages can be saved or printed.

According to Gena Philibert Ortega, Genealogy Community Director for FamilyLink, “Part of the fun of family history is uncovering details about our ancestors’ daily lives — the events of the day, the goods and the services they bought. Newspapers allow us to better understand our ancestors.”

Immigration Records
Living in a country of immigrants, ship passenger lists and other records documenting immigration can be an essential part in learning more about your family history. It is a thrilling experience to see their names transcribed on paper the day they entered this country through the Port of New York. Browsing and searching these passenger lists is a perfect way for someone to start researching their family history.
This record collection provides documentation of over 150,000 passengers who arrived on nearly 8,000 ships at one of the busiest ports in the United States, New York, from 1820-1832.

Yearbooks
In partnership with the website E-Yearbook.com, WorldVitalRecords is doubling its collection of digitized yearbooks. This collection features university yearbooks from the late 1800 to mid 1950’s. E-Yearbook.com houses the largest collection of old college yearbooks on the Internet. Universities featured this week include Duke University, University of Oklahoma, Iowa State and the College of William and Mary.

Vital Records, Military Records and Tax Lists
Other records being released on the site include birth, marriage, tax lists, military records, and death records from Maine, North Carolina, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Focused on helping users discover and share their family history, WorldVitalRecords adds new records to their online collection everyday.

About WorldVitalRecords.com
WorldVitalRecords.com is simplifying family history research by providing many easy-to-use tools and resources to discover and connect with others interested in family history. WorldVitalRecords provides access to more than one billion international and U.S. records WorldVitalRecords.com provides affordable access to genealogy databases and family history tools used by more than 258,000 monthly visitors. The site registers 3.6 million monthly pages views and serves tens of thousands of paying subscribers. With thousands of databases—including birth, death, military, census, and parish records—WorldVitalRecords.com makes it easy to fill in missing information in your family tree.

WorldVitalRecords is part of the FamilyLink.com, Inc. network of family-focused interactive properties including, GenealogyWise, WebTree, WorldHistory, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook.

WorldVitalRecord.com Free for 3 days

World Vital Records is announcing the addition of the largest number of records to be released in a single day since the site launched in 2006.

To commemorate this milestone, for the first time World Vital Records is offering FREE PUBLIC ACCESS to its entire online collection beginning August 11 through August 13, 2009. This is a perfect opportunity to participate in this incredible promotion.

Ancestral Quest Releases New Ordinance Reservation and Tracking System and Helper Access

Salt Lake City, Utah (July 24, 2009) – Today Incline Software announced the release of two major new feature sets in its product, Ancestral Quest (AQ). AQ was the first desktop family tree product to interface with New FamilySearch (NFS), and these new features continue to expand the ways in which Ancestral Quest works with New FamilySearch. The first of these is the Ordinance Reservation and Tracking System (ORTS), which allows a user who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) to determine whether the records in his/her personal family tree database have had all the LDS temple work completed, and if not, to reserve those ordinances, create Family Ordinances Requests (FORs), and track the progress of the ordinance work while updating their personal records along the way. The other feature is a Helper Access capability, which allows one person who has access to the New FamilySearch.org website to sign in to help another person, usually someone who does not yet have access.

Ordinance Reservation and Tracking System (ORTS). Ancestral Quest has received Ordinance Reservation and Ordinance Request certification from FamilySearch. AQ’s new ORTS will provide LDS users with the following capabilities:

• See at a glance which PAF or AQ records are missing LDS ordinances.
  
• Link PAF or AQ records with their corresponding records in New FamilySearch, or allow these records to be uploaded to New FamilySearch if NFS is missing them.
  
• View the official temple ordinance records for these individuals. If the local PAF or AQ record is out of date, easily download temple records to keep the local records accurate. If ordinance work needs to be done, then reserve the ordinances immediately. If the official temple records are missing ordinance information, this information can be uploaded from the local PAF or AQ record into the temple system, so that the ordinances will not be duplicated.
  
• Reserve any ordinance to be assigned either to the temples or to the user. For example, the baptism could be reserved for the user to handle, and the confirmation could be reserved for the temples to handle.
• Unreserve ordinances. Whether a user has reserved an ordinance using AQ’s ORTS, or by using another product, such as NFS to reserve the ordinance, AQ will allow the ordinances to be unreserved. Gaylon Findlay, president of Incline software, stated, "Many LDS members have reserved ordinances only to find out later that the work had already been done. By unreserving the ordinances, the user can now add the ordinance information to that individual’s record in NFS or combine the individual with another record in NFS that already contains the ordinance information. This feature will help stop individual instances of ordinance duplication."
• Create Family Ordinance Requests (FORs). The user can select several reserved ordinances to be printed on an FOR, which can then be taken to a local temple where the ordinance cards can be printed.
• Track the progress of reserved records. In addition, if the user has already reserved ordinances through another system, like NFS, these records can be downloaded into AQ’s tracking system to make it easier to update the local PAF or AQ records.
• Assign printed ordinance cards to others. Once a user has printed ordinance cards, these can be assigned to friends, relatives or other church members to take to the temple. ORTS will record which person has possession of the card, and will let the user track the progress of these cards by assignee.

Helper Access. Ancestral Quest has been Helper certified by FamilySearch. The Helper Access function is very important to LDS users, especially in Utah and Idaho, where many do not yet have access to New FamilySearch. The LDS Church has been sending out notices indicating that it will require that all ordinances be submitted through New FamilySearch. Most of the LDS Church members in these areas have their personal records stored in the Church’s desktop application, Personal Ancestral File (PAF), which was derived from an earlier version of AQ. This new feature allows a PAF user, as well as AQ users, to bring his/her PAF or AQ database into a local Family History Center (FHC) and request that one of the staff members use Ancestral Quest to sign into New FamilySearch as a helper, open up their database in AQ, and use the Ordinance Reservation and Tracking System to reserve names for temple work and produce the necessary FORs. According to Gaylon Findlay, "We are very excited about this new capability, which will help PAF users as well as users of AQ throughout many areas of Utah and Idaho to reserve their ordinances without duplication, and to prepare the Family Ordinance Request. This is an answer to the question many have had as to how to continue to use the data they have collected in PAF for many years, while moving forward with the LDS Church’s new methods of reserving names for temple work."

These new features are a free upgrade to users of AQ versions 12.0 and 12.1.

Incline Software has been developing Ancestral Quest for over 15 years. Products derived from Ancestral Quest include PAF (Personal Ancestral File) and AFT (Ancestry Family Tree). The millions of users of these products will find that they can use these new tools in Ancestral Quest without having to learn a new software program. According to Gaylon Findlay, "Over the last 10 years, since we helped the LDS Church with their Windows versions of PAF, millions of PAF users have experienced the features of Ancestral Quest. They will find, now that PAF has not been updated to work with NFS, that Ancestral Quest is the easiest desktop program for them to migrate to, as they will find that most screens and reports are similar or identical in AQ, and that AQ can help them connect their PAF data to NFS. PAF users can even continue to use PAF and simply use AQ’s additional features as an add-on to PAF."

Free Trial. To find out more about Ancestral Quest or Incline Software, or to download the 60-day free trial of Ancestral Quest, visit the web site www.ancquest.com or call Incline Software at 1-800-825-8864. Several training tutorials to help users get the most out of AQ are available online at no charge.

Ssshhhh....Don't Tell Anyone!

WorldVitalRecords.com has some exciting changes coming up...including doubling their current 1.2 billion records. Look for a big announcement on Tuesday!

Oh, did I tell you I work for them...mums the word, OK!

Salt Lake Family History Expo ‘A Massive Family Reunion’

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Footnote's 1930 Census for the month of August

I've been behind in getting out a lot of genealogy information while I was on vacation and then recovering from vacation. One thing I planned of blogging about was the fantastic offer from Footnote - free access to the 1930 U.S. Federal Census for the month of August.

To get to the census for free, you have to go through the promotional page at http://go.footnote.com/1930census. Going through this page allows Footnote to place a cookie that gives you special access to the 1930. Once you’ve got that cookie, as long as you are on the site, you should be able to search from anywhere on the site and get into the 1930 census free. If you close the browser and come back, you’ll need to go back to the 1930 promotion page again.

I was just reading on the Footnote blog an update on how the promotion is running. It appears the first day or so when people tried to print a page they would get a message that they needed to sign up in order to do so. Well, that was an error and its been fixed.

Now it appears that so many people are trying to access the free census that they are overwhelming the servers. Things are becoming slow, frustrating, error prone and opposite of what the Footnote experience should be.

Footnotes response is:

"We are doing what we can to improve the experience and will be upgrading our systems to handle more visitors, but this will take some time. In the mean time, we expect that as the initial excitement dies down (or is dampened by the slowness of the site), things will improve.

If we can’t get things stabilized in the next few days, we will postpone the free 1930 offer until the systems are ready to handle it. We hope we don’t have to do that, but we want you to be able to use the census while it’s free and we need to be sure that we provide a quality experience for our current paying members.

We’ll post additional updates about the status of the traffic problems here on the blog."

I sure hope things clear up. I haven't even gotten on the site yet!

See ya tomorrow, for tomorrow is always another genealogy day!

brightsolid acquires Friends Reunited Group

The following press release is from brightsolid.

BRIGHTSOLID ACQUIRES FRIENDS REUNITED GROUP

brightsolid today announced it is to acquire Friends Reunited Group from ITV plc for £25 million. The completion of the deal is subject to clearance by the competition authorities.

brightsolid is a fast growing online innovation business owned by DC Thomson, one of the largest privately owned media and publishing groups in the country. A key part of brightsolid's strategy is building businesses that link "people and places" on the internet.

Friends Reunited is the original social network with 20.6 million members. It was launched in 2000 to put old school friends back in touch with each other and swiftly became a British media phenomenon. Sister site Genes Reunited was launched in 2003 and is currently the UK's largest family history website with over 9 million members worldwide and 650 million names listed. Together with Friends Reunited Dating, the group attracts three million unique users per month.

The acquisition of Friends Reunited Group would create Britain's leading genealogy business by bringing together Genes Reunited and findmypast.com (which operate the official 1901 and 1911 Census websites respectively in association with The National Archives) and ScotlandsPeople in partnership with General Register Office for Scotland, the National Archives of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon.

Chris van der Kuyl, CEO brightsolid, said: "We see the acquisition of Friends Reunited Group as an exciting opportunity to provide new focus for and build on the iconic status of the Friends Reunited brands. Between them these brands attract over three million unique users per month. This also marks another step forward in the future strategy of brightsolid, widening its offering to the consumer marketplace, in particular by creating Britain's leading genealogy business."

Andy Baker, MD Friends Reunited adds: "We are delighted that brightsolid can see the great value and future potential in the Friends Reunited Group. brightsolid is an innovative online group and by bringing our companies together this way we can build the Friends Reunited business to offer something new and different to our customers. We look forward to working with Chris and the team to develop the business further."

brightsolid is led by digital media entrepreneur CEO Chris van der Kuyl, who joined in October 2007. The broad reach of its online innovation means The Friends Reunited Group will also benefit from brightsolid's resilient data centre and managed hosting services.

brightsolid was advised by HMT Corporate Finance on this transaction and Macfarlanes provided the legal services.

dynastree.com offers free 14-day trial premium subscription and adds new features

The following press release is from dynastree

Free 14-day trial subscription to dynastree’s premium version

Hamburg, July 29, 2009 – The family network dynastree.com just deployed a new version which comes with several new features and improvements, such as better hinting, a variety of PDF-lists of one’s family tree, and the possibility to upload and share documents. Dynastree would like to offer all users the possibility to test the premium subscription with its many additional features, free of charge and with no obligations. Therefore, it is now possible to get a 14-day trial period of the premium services, which can be canceled at any time during the trial period. This gives users the opportunity to test the many additional premium features dynastree offers before actually subscribing. The premium features include full usage of the recently introduced extended search, a premium family page, automatic profile match, and more. The free PDF-files of one’s family tree included in the regular premium subscription are not included in the free trial subscription, but it can be converted to a regular subscription at any time.

It is now possible to create different kinds of lists from the family trees, including a list of ancestors, a list of descendants, a birthday list, and a family list. The lists adhere to official genealogical standards and are numbered following the Kekulé-system (list of ancestors), an internationally accepted system that numbers male descendants with even numbers and female descendants with odd numbers, starting at 1 for the original person. Premium users can create as many lists as they like, at no additional charge.

The new features also include the possibility to upload documents of all kinds, such as genealogical records, letters, certificates, etc. These can be shared with family members also active on dynastree, allowing the users to access such documents remotely.

Furthermore, the hinting on dynastree has been improved. The number of matches for each profile is now displayed for each user, premium users can access the actual matches to find possible relatives and collaborate with them.

Profile of dynastree.com

According to experts, dynastree.com and its international language versions have been among the fastest growing social networks worldwide in the last two years. By now, more than nine million families have created their tree at dynastree.com, and more than 15.000 new family trees are added each day. The venture capital
corporations Neuhaus Partners and Hasso Plattner (co-founder of SAP) Ventures recognized the young start-up’s potential early and support dynastree.com as investors.
Dynastree.com was founded by the experienced internet entrepreneurs Daniel Grözinger and Sven Schmidt. They have already founded and maintained several internet projects since studying together, such as getgo.de (an online ticketing service), and the FIFA Soccer World Cup Ticketing Center (responsible for managing the ticketing for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in Germany in 2006).

Croatian Genealogy web site released

Samobor, Croatia, 28 July 2009 Press Release

After careful preparation and beta testing, Croatian Family History & Genealogy web site was officially released on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009.

It contains various resources interesting for genealogy researchers who has the focus on Croatians and their heritage. The site includes Directory of most common Croatian surnames as well as first (given) names, the Croatian Parishes address book, news articles and educational material on how to start your Croatian Genealogy research.

The web site is supported by Sambunjak Genealogy Research, a group of dedicated genealogy specialists that offer research services for anyone whose ancestors are from Croatia or Slovenia. Their experience and knowledge gained during years of genealogy research will be offered to the public through this web site.

The Croatian Family History & Genealogy web site will be regularly updated with new services and resources. Currently, the web site is published only in English, but there are longer term plans to expand the availability of the site in other languages.

You can visit the web site at the address www.croatian-genealogy.com

For further information, please, contact us through the contact form. Thank you!

Continued Need for Church Service Missionaries

The following is from FamilySearch - I understand the need is urgent!

Family History Center Directors and Consultants,

The Family History Department continues to need Church Service missionaries who can serve in a support role in answering family history questions. Please help by contacting Church members you know who would be interested and able to serve and encouraging them to consider this opportunity. These individuals will enjoy a unique missionary experience by providing assistance to FamilySearch patrons all from the convenience of their homes.

FamilySearch Support missionaries serve part-time from home, using their home computer and phone to receive phone calls and / or e-mails to provide assistance to patrons across the world. Missionaries receive help and training through a variety of computer and Internet-based systems. The missionaries assist in supporting the following family history programs and resources:

· The new FamilySearch

· Familysearch.org

· Internet Indexing and Name Extraction

· Record Search

· Family History Center Support

· Research Support and the Research Wiki

Missionaries help in the release and testing of new family history programs, and provide feedback and suggestions essential to this great effort. There is a special need for missionaries fluent in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese. Missionary candidates may include those currently unable to serve a full-time mission due to health or other concerns. Priesthood leaders may see this service opportunity as ideal for temple-worthy young men and women who are unable to serve full-time missions.

To serve as a Church Service missionary, members will review specific service requirements with missionary support personnel. In addition, members are to meet with their local priesthood leaders to discuss the opportunity and complete a church service missionary application.

Prospective FamilySearch Support missionaries should meet the following qualifications:

· Be temple worthy (not necessarily endowed)

· Be willing to commit to a mission call of at least 12 months, and preferably 18-24 months (can extend up to 30 months of total service)

· Be able to serve at least 15-20 hours per week, and be available for 20 hours a week of training during the first two months of service

· Have prior family history experience

· Have access to a personal computer, phone line, and broadband (DSL, Cable or other) speed internet connection

· Have considerable personal computer and internet experience

For more information, please contact FamilySearch Support at 1-866-406-1830 or by e-mail at support@familysearch.org.

Thank you for your help in sharing this FamilySearch missionary opportunity with interested members.

Sincerely,

FamilySearch

support@familysearch.org

U.S. and Canada: 1-866-406-1830

International: go to http://contact.familysearch.org for more toll-free phone numbers

FamilySearch Indexing: New projects for Italy, New Zealand, Peru, and the U.S.

The following is from FamilySearch.org date 22 July 2009.

New projects for Italy, New Zealand, Perú, and the U.S. were added this month. FamilySearch has 42 international indexing projects underway currently (see charts below). It has a growing need for more volunteers who can help with the increasing number of foreign language projects. Please feel free to encourage and recruit friends, family, colleagues, and society or special interest group members to help with any projects of interest. Sign up is easy at FamilySearch Indexing. The average assignment only takes about 30 minutes to complete. Many volunteers make quick work—which equates to quicker access to the completed indexes!

New indexing projects added in July:

• Italy, Trento—Baptisms, 1784-1924 [Part 2]
• New Zealand—Passenger Lists, 1871–1915
• Perú, Lima—Registros Civiles, 1910–1930 [Part 2]
• U.S.—Freedmen Marriages, 1861–1869
• U.S., Delaware—Birth Records, 1861–1922
• U.S., Georgia—Deaths, 1930
• U.S., Indiana, Carroll County—Marriages, 1811–1959
• U.S., Oklahoma—1920 U.S. Federal Census
• U.S., Tennessee—1920 Federal Census
• U.S., Virginia—1920 U.S. Federal Census

(See the chart below for a complete list and current status of all indexing projects.)

Recently Completed Projects

(Note: Recently completed projects have been removed from the available online indexing batches and will now go through a final completion check process in preparation for future publication. Patrons can search other published collections for free at the FamilySearch Records Search pilot.)

• Australia, Greenwich—Genealogical Records, 1776–1980
• België—Overlijdens Registers—In het Nederlands, 1796–1910
• België—Overlijdens Registers—Kalmthout, 1851–1900
• Canada, Nova Scotia, Antigonish—Catholic Diocese, 1823–1905
• France Registres Protestants, 1612–1906 [Part 1]
• U.S., Indiana, Blackford County—Marriages, 1811–1959
• U.S., Indiana—Marriages, 1882–April 1905
• U.S., Massachusetts Marriages, 1896–1897

Current FamilySearch Indexing Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion

Argentina, Buenos Aires—1855 Censo	Spanish	63%
Argentina, Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman—1869 Censo	Spanish	81%
Argentina, Santiago, Santa Fe—1869 Censo	Spanish	22%
Australia, NSW—Bounty Immigrants, 1828–1842	English	57%
Australia, Sydney—Cemetery Inscriptions, 1800–1960	English	20%
Belgium, Antwerp—Foreigners Index, 1840–1930	Dutch, Flemish	47%
Canada, British Columbia—Marriages, 1859–1932	English	19%
Canada, Quebec, Trois-Rivières—Registres Paroissiaux, 1800–1900	French	65%
Deutschland, Baden—Kirchenbücher, 1810–1869	German	16%
Deutschland, Brandenburg—Kirchenbücher, 1789–1875	German	68%
Deutschland, Mecklenburg—Volkszählung, 1890 Div 24–38	German	55%
España, Avila, Moraleja de Matacabras—Registros Parroquiales, 1540–1904	Spanish	60%
España, Lugo—Registros Parroquiales, 1530–1930 [Part 1]	Spanish	20%
France, Cherbourg—Registres Paroissiaux, 1802–1907	French	1%
France, Coutances—Registres Paroissiaux 1802–1907	French	1%
France, Coutances, Paroisses de la Manche, 1792–1906	French	90%
France, Paris—Registres Protestants, 1612–1906 [Part 2]	French	14%
France, Saint-Lo—Registres Paroissiaux, 1802–1907	French	2%
Italy, Trento—Baptisms, 1784–1924 [Part 1]	Italian	93%
Italy, Trento—Baptisms, 1784–1924 [Part 2]	Italian	2%
Jamaica, Trelawny—Births, 1878–1930	English	38%
Mexico, DF—Registros Parroquiales, 1886–1933 [Parte 1]	Spanish	74%
Mexico, Mexico—1930 Federal Censo	Spanish	30%
Mexico, Yucatan—1930 Federal Censo	Spanish	59%
New Zealand—Passenger Lists, 1871–1915	English	(New)
Nicaragua, Managua—Registros Civiles, 1879–Present	Spanish	77%*
Perú, Lima—Registros Civiles, 1910–1930 [Parte 1]	Spanish	74%
Perú, Lima—Registros Civiles, 1910–1930 [Parte 2]	Spanish	(New)
Russland, Sankt Peterburg—Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1833–1885	German	1%
South Africa, Cape Province—Church Records, 1660–1970	English	2%
Tschechien, Litomerice–Kirchenbücher, 1552–1905 [Teil 1]	German	1%
U.K., Cheshire—Parish Records, 1538–1850 [Part 2]	English/Old English	25%
U.K., Warwickshire—Parish Registers, 1538–Present	English/Old English	3%
U.S.—Freedmen Marriages, 1861–1869	English	(New)
U.S., Arkansas—County Marriages, 1837–1957 [VI]	English	83%
U.S., Delaware—Birth Records, 1861–1922	English	(New)
U.S., Georgia—Deaths, 1930	English	(New)
U.S., Illinois, Cook—Birth Certificates, 1916–1922 [Part 2]	English	18%
U.S., Indiana, Adams County—Marriages, 1811–1959	English	87%
U.S., Indiana, Allen County—Marriages, 1811–1959	English	22%
U.S., Indiana, Carroll County—Marriages, 1811–1959	English	(New)
U.S., Minnesota—1885 State Census	English	61%
U.S., New York—1905 State Census	English	65%
U.S., Oklahoma—1920 U.S. Federal Census	English	(New)
U.S., Pennsylvania—1920 U.S. Federal Census	English	83%
U.S., Tennessee—1920 Federal Census	English	(New)
U.S., Virginia—1920 Federal Census	English	(New)
U.S., Washington—County Marriages, 1858–1950	English	74%
Venezuela, Mérida—Registros Parroquiales, 1654–1992 [Parte 1]	Spanish	34%
Österreich, Wiener—Meldezettel, 1890–1925	German	1%
Украина, Киев—Метрические Книги, 1840–1842	Russian	23%

(*Percentage refers to a specific portion of a larger project.)

Current FamilySearch Partner Projects, Record Language, and Percent Completion

Australia, Victoria—Probate Records, 1853–1989	English	69%
België, Mechelen—Overlijdens Registers, 1851-1900	Dutch, Flemish	16%
Belgique—Registres Des Décès—En Français, 1796–1910	French	31%*
Belgique, Charleroi—Registres des Décès, 1851-1900	French	56%
Belgium, Flanders—Deaths, 1796–1900	French, Dutch, Flemish	81%
Deutschland, Bremen—Schifflisten, 1904–1914	German	63%
Norway—1875 Census [Part 1]	Norwegian	48%
U.S., Arkansas—County Marriages, 1837–1957 [IV]	English	72%
U.S., Ohio—Tax Records, Post 1825 [Part 2]	English	80%
U.S., Ohio—Tax Records, Post 1825 [Part 3]	English	1%
U.S., Utah, Salt Lake County—Death Certificates, 1940	English	(New)
U.S., Utah, Salt Lake County—Death Registers, 1848–1940	English	(New)
U.S., Vermont—Militia Records, 1861–1867	English	49%

(*Percentage refers to a specific portion of a larger project.)

About FamilySearch
FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

FamilySearch Records Search Update: New Collections for Cheshire, England, Minnesota, and New York

The following is from FamilySearch.org date 23 July 2009.

New record collections were added to the FamilySearch Record Search pilot this week for Cheshire, England, Minnesota, and New York.

These collections can be searched for free at the FamilySearch.org Record Search pilot (click Search Records, and then click Record Search pilot).

Special thanks to the online volunteers who help make these collections freely available by donating a few minutes of their time or talents to the FamilySearch Indexing program.

Collection Name	Indexed Records	Digital Images	Comments
England, Cheshire Non-conformist records, 1671-1900	74,925		NEW. Index only.
Minnesota State Census, 1895	1,542,818		NEW. Complete census. Index only.
New York State Census, 1905		44,005	NEW. Images only. Index is currently in progress through FamilySearch Indexing.

About FamilySearch

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org or through over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.