FamilySearch Records Update 21 Feb 2012

The following is from FamilySearch.

Oh Canada! And England, Hungary, Italy, Russia, and US 

Mountain of free historic records online keeps growing weekly

FamilySearch added 2.8 million new, free records online this past week for Canada, England, Hungary, Italy, Russia, and the U.S. Got Hungarian roots? Check out the new 900,000 Hungary Reformed Church Christenings records. You might be surprised to know that FamilySearch now has over 2.5 billion free searchable records online now in its historic record collections. Find your ancestors now for free at FamilySearch.org.

Searchable historic records on FamilySearch.org are made possible by thousands of volunteers from around the world who transcribe (index) the information from digital copies of handwritten records to make them easily searchable online. More volunteers are needed (particularly those who can read foreign languages) to keep pace with the amount of digital images being published online at FamilySearch.org. Learn more about how to personally help provide free access to the world’s historic genealogical records as a volunteer indexer at FamilySearch.org.

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer–driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter–day Saints. 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. 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.

 

Collection	Indexed Records	Digital Images	Comments
Canada, Lower Canada Census, 1831	91,908	0	Added indexed records to existing collection.
Canada, Lower Canada Census, 1842	46,467	7,674	New Index and browsable image collection.
Canada, New Brunswick, Late Registration of Births, 1810-1899	0	24,015	New browsable image collection.
England, Dorset, Parish Registers, 1538-1910	332,615	0	New index collection.
Hungary Reformed Church Christenings, 1624-1895	914,441	0	Added indexed records to existing collection.
Italy, Torino, Torino, Civil Registration (Tribunale), 1866-1899	48,155	0	New index collection.
Russia, Tver Confession Lists, 1728-1913	0	953,146	New browsable image collection.
U.S., North Carolina, Estate Files, 1663-1964	9,675	250,339	Added indexed records and browsable images to existing collection.
United States, Index to Indian Wars Pension Files, 1892-1926	0	52,315	New browsable image collection.
United States, Remarried Widows Index to Pension Applications, 1887-1942	0	6,749	New browsable image collection.
United States, World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942 (HI)	33,914	71,648	Added index records and browsable images to existing collection.

Ancestry.com Teams Up with Actor Blair Underwood to Support Big Brothers Big Sisters

The following is from Ancestry.

Philadelphia, PA (February 24, 2012) -- Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, has teamed up with one of its high-profile celebrity customers to support a national non-profit organization that helps youth overcome what are too often generational cycles of adversity.

Actor Blair Underwood will appear in a commercial promoting Ancestry.com’s support of Big Brothers Big Sisters, the nation’s largest mentoring network, proven to help children overcome adversity to achieve in school and succeed in life.

In the commercial, scheduled to air February 24, Underwood says discovering his family history on Ancestry.com gave him a greater understanding of himself.  He goes onto say that while it’s incredible to know where you came from, it’s also important to know where you are going.

“That’s why I’m joining with Ancestry.com to support Big Brothers Big Sisters, an organization that helps kids reach their full potential,” states Underwood.

Big Brothers Big Sisters provides one-to-one mentoring services to children of single, low-income or incarcerated parents as well as sons and daughters of military personnel or those who face other forms of adversity.  The new TV commercial airs February 24 on the heels of the announcement of the Big Brothers Big Sisters 2011 Youth Outcomes Survey Report, which shows statistically significant improvements for youth throughout the first year of enrollment.  The improvements are in three areas – educational success, avoidance of risky behaviors and socio-emotional competency, measures that researchers link to long-term outcomes, such as high school graduation, avoidance of juvenile delinquency, and college or job readiness.

Ancestry.com has worked with Underwood on a network TV show that airs on Friday nights. The company provided important family history research for the show, including tracing the roots of the featured celebrities including Underwood. Each episode takes one celebrity on an emotional, and often times soul-searching journey to discover the lives of family members who came before them.

Ancestry.com is donating 20 percent of proceeds of all new subscriptions donated throughwww.ancestry.com/donate from February 24-29, 2012 to Big Brothers Big Sisters.  Funding is used by Big Brothers Big Sisters to carefully screen volunteer mentors and match them with youth in long-term, staff monitored and supported friendships.

To view the commercial and to support Big Brothers Big Sisters, visit www.ancestry.com/donate.

About Big Brothers Big Sisters

Big Brothers Big Sisters, the nation’s largest donor and volunteer supported mentoring network, holds itself accountable for children in its program to achieve measurable outcomes, such as educational success; avoidance risky behaviors; and higher aspirations, greater confidence and better relationships.  Partnering with parents/guardians, schools, corporations and others in the community, Big Brothers Big Sisters carefully pairs children (“Littles”) with screened volunteer mentors (“Bigs”) and monitors and supports these one-to-one mentoring matches throughout their course.  The first-ever Big Brothers Big Sisters Youth Outcomes Summary, released in 2012, substantiates that its mentoring programs have proven, positive academic, socio-emotional and behavioral outcomes for youth, areas linked to high school graduation, avoidance of juvenile delinquency and college or job readiness.

Big Brothers Big Sisters provides children facing adversity, often those of single or low-income households or families where a parent is incarcerated or serving in the military, with strong and enduring, professionally supported one-to-one mentoring relationships that change their lives for the better, forever.  This mission has been the cornerstone of the organization’s 100-year history.  With about 360 agencies across the country, Big Brothers Big Sisters serves nearly 630,000 children, volunteers and families. Learn how you can positively impact a child’s life, donate or volunteer atBigBrothersBigSisters.org.

About Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq:ACOM) is the world's largest online family history resource, with more than 1.7 million paying subscribers. More than 8 billion records have been added to the site in the past 15 years. Ancestry users have created more than 31 million family trees containing over 4 billion profiles. In addition to its flagship sitewww.ancestry.com, Ancestry.com offers several localized Web sites designed to empower people to discover, preserve and share their family history.

LDS Church toughens stand against 'improper' proxy name submissions

The following article is by Joseph Walker, Deseret News.

LDS Church toughens stand against 'improper' proxy name submissions

SALT LAKE CITY — The LDS Church is taking a tougher stand against the unauthorized submission of the names of Holocaust victims for proxy baptism.

According to a statement that appeared Tuesday afternoon on the church's Newsroom website, official church disciplinary action may be taken against the offending parties.

"It takes a good deal of deception and manipulation to get an improper submission through the safeguards we have put in place," the statement reads. "While no system is foolproof in preventing the handful of individuals who are determined to falsify submissions, we are committed to taking action against individual abusers by suspending the submitter's access privileges. We will also consider whether other church disciplinary actions should be taken."

Those "other church disciplinary actions" could ultimately include excommunication, or loss of membership in the church.

The new, tougher statement comes in the wake of a tumultuous week, (cont'd)

Hertfordshire Archives to be digitised by findmypast.co.uk

The following is from FindMyPast.

FINDMYPAST.CO.UK TO PUBLISH HERTFORDSHIRE ARCHIVE RECORDS ON THE WEB

.       Project announced to increase access to up to 4 million baptism, marriage and burial records dating back to 1538
.       First time that images of the original parish records from Hertfordshire will appear online

Leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk has today announced at the Who Do You Think You Are Live Show at London's Olympia that it has been awarded a digitisation contract by Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies. This significant new project will lead to the publication online for the very first time of between 3.5 and 4 million historic records from the Archives. The records are expected to launch later this year and will become fully searchable, only atfindmypast.co.uk.

Spanning the years 1538 to 1990 (1910 for baptisms and 1928 for marriages), the records cover parish churches and bishops' transcripts from the whole of Hertfordshire, including:
.       historic Hatfield, childhood home of Elizabeth I and the birthplace of the jet airliner
.       the garden cities of Letchworth and Welwyn
.       Ayot St Lawrence, home of writer Sir George Bernard Shaw
.       Hemel Hempstead, Watford, Cheshunt and Barnet

Guy Strachan, Digitisation Manager at findmypast.co.uk, said: "The addition of these historic records from Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies to findmypast.co.uk will be keenly anticipated by family and local historians alike, and will undoubtedly reinforce the website's position as the place to go for UK parish records."

Susan Flood, County Archivist at Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, added:  "This is a fantastic step forward for us to have our parish registers available on the web for all to access easily."

The joint announcement by findmypast.co.uk and Hertfordshire Archives & Local Studies was one of a number made by the rapidly expanding family history website at the 3 day Who Do You Think You Are Live Show, where it has a major presence.  There they will be showcasing the many record collections on the site, including parish records from Manchester Archives, Cheshire Archives and over 40 million parish records from family history societies throughout the UK, in partnership with the Federation of Family History Societies.


Anyone wishing to be notified when the Hertfordshire Collection becomes available can register online at findmypast.co.uk to receive a newsletter.



About findmypast.co.uk
Leading UK family history website findmypast.co.uk was the first company to make the complete birth, marriage and death indexes for England & Wales available online in April 2003, winning the Queen's Award for Innovation.
Findmypast.co.uk has subsequently digitised many more family history records and now offers access to over 750 million records dating as far back as 875 AD. This allows family historians to search for their ancestors among comprehensive collections of military, census, migration, parish, work and education records, as well as the original comprehensive birth, marriage and death records. The company runs the official 1911 census website for England & Wales in association with The National Archives and has digitised several other record sets from the national collection.

About Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies (HALS) at County Hall, Hertford preserves and promotes archive and library resources for the discovery and enjoyment of Hertfordshire's diverse heritage.  HALS holds over 7,000 individual archive collections dating from 1060 to the present day, over 30,000 books, and 40,000 photographs on 5 miles of shelving.  Our documents cover many aspects of life in the county, including the environment, businesses, institutions and societies.  Over 11,000 people visit HALS every year and in 2011, volunteers contributed 6,271 hours on a variety of archive and conservation projects.