Melanie Mayo

This “Genealogy” Site is Openly Sharing Your Personal Details Online: Here’s How to Remove Them

Here at Family History Daily we have spent a great deal of time researching free genealogy sites. While large paid websites, like Ancestry or MyHeritage, can offer a wealth of information to family history researchers, there is an growing selection of no-cost genealogy databases available online that provide just as much value. These sites, which are generally made available through the work of dedicated organizations, local governments, and volunteers provide a staggering amount of data that would be nearly impossible to access otherwise.

Generally, these sites provide information on those who have passed long ago, meaning that privacy is no longer an issue. But sometimes data about living people will be found. This is true on many sites – such as Ancestry – where you might just as easily find your own marriage record as that of your great great grandmother. But what happens when a site crosses the line? When they provide too much personal information about a living person and make it too easy to access?

Need Help Deciphering Old Genealogy Documents? Explore These Free Handwriting Resources

From online databases to image archives, researching our family history has never been easier. However, there is one problem that digitization and online databases cannot fix: historical handwriting. From words no longer used to character formation, cursive style and even sentence structure, it can be very frustrating to the genealogist when deciphering old family documents or official papers. To assist you in this process, let me share some tips and tricks that I have learned in my own research.

While the official study of historical handwriting is known as Paleography, there is a lot more to it than you might think. Some basic themes and issues that you might encounter first are abbreviations and styles.

More Than 100,000 Free Genealogy Records Can Now Be Found on Internet Archive

No matter how experienced of a genealogist you are you’ve no doubt discovered that one of the most valuable resources available to you are digital libraries. Not so long ago, in order to access these family history records, one had to travel to the specific places where those documents were stored. Now, with digital libraries, there is a treasure trove of resources available from wherever you are.

Of course what is available through digital libraries is limited by how fast those historical documents are being digitized and uploaded. And one of the leaders in digitizing the world’s archives and providing free access to the resulting library is Internet Archive.

Internet Archive has made finding family history records simple by providing a specific portal dedicated to genealogy. At the time of writing, this free resource contained 129,580 items of valuable genealogical information, and it is continually growing. Better yet, the available documents are taken from a wide array of sources, including texts uploaded from places such as Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, the Boston Public Library, the National Library of Scotland, the Leo Baeck Institute Archives of German-speaking Jewry and many more.

From Pension Applications to Bounty Warrants: Free Revolutionary War Records Online

Do you have ancestors that served during the American Revolutionary War? A surprising number of records exist from this period and there are now numerous free collections online that will allow you to uncover records about these ancestors and their families.

From War Pensions and Bounty Warrants, to the collections of the Daughters of the American Revolution – we have gathered together some of the best free Revolutionary War collections online and linked to them below for easy searching.

FamilySearch to End Microfilm Distribution, Plans to Digitize All Records by 2020

On Sept 1, 2017 FamilySearch will make a big change to how they handle their vast collection of microfilmed genealogy records by no longer distributing them to the thousands of Family History Centers in the US and elsewhere.

Currently, researchers can request microfilms of millions of not-yet-digitized records to be delivered on loan to a local center. This service is provided at a nominal fee and allows researchers access to these records without having to travel to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.

Tens of Millions of British and Irish Genealogy Records Are Free This Weekend Only

UK genealogy research leader Findmypast has announced that they are offering nearly all of their British and Irish records completely free of charge this weekend. From now until midnight Monday you can access these records without cost and without entering a credit card. Findmypast is only requiring a name and email address. We love that. Start by searching here and then easily view and download records of interest.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Needs Your Help Researching Old Newspapers

On March 22, 1933 The State in Columbia, South Carolina ran an article titled “Treatment of Jews by German Regime Stirs Washington” about the first Nazi concentration camp, Dachau. This early article covering the horrors of the Holocaust was one of countless published by U.S. papers in the 1930s and 40s. And now, a project from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is attempting to find them all.

MyHeritage is Offering Free DNA Ethnicity Reports to All Uploaders

MyHeritage has announced that they have released an updated 42 population Ethnicity Estimate and are offering it free to anyone who uploads their DNA. MyHeritage has been accepting free uploads of DNA and providing matching for some time but, until now, ethnicity reports were only available to those who purchased a MyHeritage DNA test. Now anyone who has already tested with Family Tree DNA, AncestryDNA or 23andMe can upload raw data to MyHeritage and get the Ethnicity Estimate without cost. Find the upload link and instructions in this article.