Europeana is a digital doorway to European cultural heritage that everyone with European roots will find interesting and enlightening.
Funded by the European Commission and Ministries of Culture in 21 member states, the Europeana website is home to nearly: 19 million images; 13 million texts (including books, archival papers and newspapers); half a million each sound and video files and 16,000 3-D models of objects.
Europeana’s World War I Digital Archive
A major part of Europeana is its World War I digital archive. As the site describes, Europeana “has been running World War I family history roadshows around Europe, helping to digitize people’s stories, documents and memorabilia from 1914-1918. People can upload their own digitized items onto the Europeana1914-1918.eu site. In 2014, the centenary of WWI, 100,000 images and scans have already come into Europeana, creating a virtual memory bank that reflects all perspectives on the conflict.”
Europeana 1989 and the Fall of the Iron Curtain
A sister site, Europeana 1989, collects “stories, pictures, films relating to the events of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe.” You can upload your own materials or, as the site says, “let us take you on a journey through the Fall of the Iron Curtain, see it from all sides and draw your own conclusions.”
The top countries to supply images to Europeana are Germany, France and the Netherlands, each with more than 3.5 million items, and then Spain, Sweden, Italy and the U.K. The site attracted 4 million unique visitors last year. Click here to read a guide to using Europeana for genealogy and local history research.
Historical Newspapers at Europeana
Historical newspapers are another great source for genealogical and historical research. Europeana now includes the Europeana Newspapers collection which features hundreds of newspaper titles and millions of newspaper pages, spanning four centuries and 20 countries from across Europe. In addition to viewing digitized newspaper pages, many now support readable text files. These files allow you to keyword search within their contents. You can zero in on these files by using feature called ‘Search for records with full text’.
Europeana’s Newspaper Collection offers a variety of ways to access and use the content including:
searching for newspapers in a date range or on a specific date
reading blogs on Newspaper-related themes
downloading
It’s worth investing a few minutes in reviewing the historical newspapers guidesat Europeana In order to get the most from the collection. The helpful guides explain how to navigate, search, find, and reuse Newspapers content.
More at Europeana
Other Europeana links to try:
The Europeana portal is the search engine for the digitised collections of museums, libraries, archives and galleries across Europe.
The 40 millionth record has been added to WorldCat, the enormous multi-library catalog that helps people find library materials all over the world.
Even cooler, that 40 millionth record was harvested to WorldCat through the WorldCat Digital Collection Gateway. This gateway allows for “unique, open-access digital content” to be brought into WorldCat, according to owner OCLC. “Once there…collections are more visible and discoverable to end users who search WorldCat as well as Google and other popular websites.”
If you haven’t used WorldCat for genealogy, you may be missing out on a lot. Like published history books (regional, county, local, ethnic, religious and more). And published family histories (search by the surname as a subject). The holdings of the enormous Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah are now included in WorldCat, too (click here to read a blog post on that).
The idea that digital archives are integrating into WorldCat–hence becoming more searchable for us–is fantastic. What kinds of digitized materials might be cataloged here? Well, the Arizona Memory Project is the digital archive that provided that 40 millionth WorldCat record. The Arizona Memory Project “provide(s) online access to the wealth of primary sources in Arizona libraries, archives, museums and other cultural institutions including government documents, photographs, maps and objects that chronicle Arizona’s past and present.” Good stuff!
Remember to also search ArchiveGrid, WorldCat’s sister search interface for archival materials, for original family history documents.
I’m going to share with you my 10 “DON’T MISS!” features of MyHeritage. If you don’t currently use the site, this is your chance to see what it can do for you. If you do use it, let me introduce you to some of the GEMS you should be using. Scroll down to watch the video replay and get the show notes.
Watch Episode 63
Video & show notes below
Episode 63 Show Notes
10 Awesome MyHeritage Features You May be Missing:
1. Instant Discoveries™
Want to get started fast? After you add what you know about your family, you can start taking advantage of instant discoveries. You’ll find Instant Discoveries in the menu: Discoveries > Instant Discoveries.
There are three types of Discoveries:
All Discoveries
Person Discoveries
Photo Discoveries
I particularly like Photo Discoveries:
Finds photos of people in your tree
Consolidates into packages of up to 10 photos from different family sites.
Photos will originate only from family sites where the privacy setting for allowing photos to be copied from Smart Matches™ is enabled.
Click the View Discovery button for a batch of photo discoveries. Click “View original photo” to see a larger version and who else is tagged in it. By default, all photos in a Photo Discovery will be
copied to your tree when you add the discovery. Exclude specific photos by clicking the checkmark to deselect it. Click Add to add all selected photos to your tree.
To reject a Photo Discovery, click Reject this Discovery at the bottom of the list of photos.
Rejected discoveries will not be offered again. After applying a discovery, your tree will change,
and new discoveries will need to be recalculated (up to 24 hours.) Unlike SmartMatches, once a person or photo discovery is added, you can’t “undo”. You’ll need to remove them manually.
PremiumPlus and Complete subscribers have access to unlimited Discoveries.
2. Tree Consistency Checker
No tree is perfect! That’s why MyHeritage provides this handy tool that accelerates your ability to find and correct problems.
You’ll find the Tree Consistency Checker in the menu under My Family Tree > Consistency Checker.
MyHeritage’s Consistency Checker flags three types of issues:
Errors: Obviously incorrect. (red triangle icon)
Warnings: Possible but unlikely. (orange circle icon)
Notices: Maybe OK but worth a look. (grey square icon)
To adjust what the tool searches for, click the gear icon to change the settings. The Consistency Checker searches for 37 types of issues. Make adjustments as desired.
As you review the found issues, you can:
dismiss individual issues
hide issues
dismiss checking for this issue.
3. U.S. Yearbooks
After starting with what you know, the next logical and honestly one of the most fun record to go after is yearbooks! MyHeritage has over 250,000 yearbooks. To find the yearbook collection, go to the menu Research > Collection Catalog > U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890-1979. To find even more school related records head the to grey column on the left side of the page and click School & Universities.
Description from MyHeritage: “This collection contains almost 290 million records…A student or faculty member often appears in a yearbook several times. Part of the work conducted to produce this collection merges all occurrences of the same name in a yearbook into one record with references to the pages where the person is mentioned. Records in this collection will list the person’s name, often their gender, school’s name and location, and likely residence based on the location of the school. Additional work was done to identify the grade of the students to be able to infer their age and an estimated year of birth for some of the records.
The same person will often occur in previous or subsequent editions of the same yearbook and these related yearbooks are presented at the bottom of the individual’s record – to assist the researcher in finding other books where their person of interest might be found.
This collection is a name index produced by MyHeritage from the U.S. Yearbooks, 1890-1979 collection and is based on the same set of yearbooks…In case you didn’t find what you were looking for, we encourage you to check out the U.S Yearbooks 1890-1979 collection to search the entire free-text index of this amazing collection.”
Yearbook Search Tips:
Review the entire yearbook carefully for handwritten notes.
Look for people in their social circle.
Take a look at the Advertisers
Keep in mind that yearbook content had to be submitted early, often by early spring. Events occurring after that may be missing.
In the menu: Collection Catalog > U.S. City Directories
561,503,516 records in 25,468 directories
Description of the collection from MyHeritage: “City directories contain an alphabetical list of adult residents and heads of household, often with their spouse, with addresses and occupations and additional information. This collection is a huge genealogical compilation from 25,468 city directories published in 1860-1960 across the United States, created exclusively by MyHeritage using advanced machine learning technologies developed specifically for this purpose.”
“City directories, like census records, contain information that helps genealogists establish residences, occupations, and relationships between individuals. The added benefit of city directories is that they were published annually in many cities and towns throughout the United States.”
MyHeritage says that this collection will be updated soon to include pre-1860 directories as well as a large and unique set of directories published after 1960.
Snagit
In the video I showed you how I use Snagit to capture clippings. Learn more by watching episode 61. Get Snagitwith our affiliate link and get a discount for a limited time. (thanks for supporting our free content!)
There’s a ton of data in your family tree, and MyHeritage has the tech tools to help you see it in many forms. One of the coolest and most fun is Family Statistics. You’ll find it in the menu under Home > Family Statistics. Here you’ll find stats on:
Gender
Living or Deceased
Marriage Status
Common Last Names
Common First Names – Male
Common First Names – Female
Places of Birth
Places of Death
Places of Residence
Age Distribution
Average Life Expectancy
Oldest Living People
Youngest People
Lived the longest
Lived the shortest
Birth Months
Zodiac Signs
When Were People Born
6. MyHeritage PedigreeMap™
PedigreeMap™ is a free feature on MyHeritage. It allows you to visualize and navigate information found in the Place field of the ancestors in your family tree from a geographic perspective. You’ll find PedigreeMap in the menu under Family Tree > More > PedigreeMap.
Use MyHeritage’s PedigreeMap to help identify errors and migration patterns over time.
At the center of the PedigreeMap screen, you’ll see a map of the world with circles indicating the locations listed in your family tree.
Gray circles = aggregations of locations in the same country or state
Orange circles = specific locations
To the left of the map you’ll see your ancestral places in list form, sorted by the number of references in your tree and grouped by country or state. By default, PedigreeMap™ will display places associated with your extended family, with you as the central person. In the field where you as the central person are name, type in the name of any family member to change the view to focus on them. Then use the filtering options in the bar at the top of the map to change which groups of people in your tree are displayed (ancestors, descendants, etc.)Click the funnel icon for even more filtering controls.
PedigreeMap™ Top Tips:
Click Heat Map in the bottom right corner. This displays concentration areas for your family. It is especially useful when combined with filtering by year and type.
Click Not Found in the list on the left to quickly find family members who need Place information added.
Look for grey exclamation marks which indicate that the place name needs more clarification.
Because PedigreeMap™ is based on Google Maps, it can be best to use the current country so you can accurately locate it on the map. For example, you could list the country as “Poland (formerly East Prussia).”
7. MyHeritage Relationship Report
Have you ever found a person in your family tree and lost track of how you are related to them? MyHeritage’s Relationship Report makes it quick and easy to visualize your connection to any person in your tree. In fact, it will show you the relationship between any two people in your tree.
You’ll find the Relationship Report in the menu under Family Tree > More > Relationship Report. Simply enter the names of the two people and click the Display Relationship button. Change the detail drop down menu to show the amount of detail you want.
8. Confirm or reject a Theory of Family Relativity™
The Theory of Family Relativity ™ helps provide theories about how you and your DNA matches might be related by incorporating genealogical information from MyHeritage’s records and family trees. Of course, some theories might not be accurate.
Until recently, you didn’t have the option to confirm or reject theories. Now you can review theories, marking the ones you have already processed so the new ones are easier to notice.
Status Options: Pending, confirm, or reject.
Go to the DNA Matches page and use the filters to see only those DNA Matches that have a Theory of Family Relativity™.
Theories can be confirmed or rejected in two places:
Review DNA Match page, which includes a summarized view of the theory.
2) Full theory view.
In the list of DNA Matches, once you’ve confirmed a theory, it will be displayed in the DNA Match card. Change your mind? Click View theory and then undo your confirmation or rejection, returning the theory to pending status.
Learn more about DNA at MyHeritage. Watch episode 42 on Genetic Groups at MyHeritage.
9. MyHeritage Photo Tools
Some of the most exciting advances coming from MyHeritage recently have been in the area of family photos. Currently they offer three outstanding tools:
Photo Enhancement
Photo Colorization
Animation
You try them a few times for free. Complete plan subscribers get unlimited usage. You will find the photo enhancement tool in the menu under Family tree > Enhance Photos. It works much the same way as colorizing your photos.
Use the Comments section under the photo to share information and collaborate with others.
How to colorize a photo at MyHeritage: Under Family Tree in the menu select Colorize Photo. Click the Upload photo button and select a photo from your computer. You can drag and drop it onto the screen. In a few seconds your colorized photo is ready.
After colorizing your photo you can:
Share the colorized photo to Facebook
Share to Twitter
Copy link to clipboard
Download the photo
Go back to your photos and click the photo. You can compare the before and after. You can click to view the photo full size and use the zoom tool for an even closer look. Click the edit icon to edit the photo title, date, and place. Click Apply to save the changes. You can also make manual adjustments to the colorization.
Animate photos: You can upload a photo by going to the menu: Photos > Animate Photos. If you plan on enhancing or colorizing the photo do that first. Then from the photo page click the Animate button for that image. Currently you can animate one face at a time in a group photo. Closeup faces animate better than smaller faces in a bigger photo. Once the animation has processed you in the animation window, you can download the video or select different types of animations.
Photo Tools as Research Tools: Sometimes colorizing and enhancing your photos can help you spot more information in the photograph than was originally visible. You can colorize both photos and documents to improve clarity, readability, and visibility.
MyHeritage recently published the following announcement about their commitment to privacy:
“Earlier this year, prior to MyHeritage’s acquisition by leading private equity firm Francisco Partners, we issued a press release in which we promised to expand MyHeritage’s strong privacy framework for the benefit of our users.
The current updates to our Privacy Policy fulfill this promise. The highlight of the updates is the unequivocal commitment not to license or sell genetic data to any third party. This is highly unique among the larger genealogy and consumer DNA industry…”
This week, we bring you new and updated record collections from genealogy societies around the world. We are often familiar with the record sets available at FamilySearch, Findmypast, and MyHeritage, but many more wonderful virtual repositories exist online. Check out these records for New Zealand, Belgium, Israel, Britain, and Ireland.
New Zealand – Civil Records
FamilySearch has added a large new collection this week for New Zealand. New Zealand, Civil Records Indexes, 1800-1896 is an index only, but numbers 857,382 records. This index collection contains birth, marriage, and death records between the years of 1800 to 1896. The original records are located with the New Zealand Government, Internal Affairs.
Birth records may contain:
First and last name of child
Date of birth
Location of birth
First and last name of father and mother
Marriage records may contain:
Date and location of wedding
Bride’s first and last name
Groom’s first and last name
Death records may contain:
Date and location of death
First and last name of deceased
Date of birth
Age at death
Belgium – Civil Registrations
Though FamilySearch has only added to these collections, it is a good idea to check back in to see what’s new. This week, four Belgium collections regarding civil registrations have been added to.
Each of these civil registration collections contain birth, marriage, and death records for the town locations and time periods listed. The records for Limburg are written in Dutch or Flemish depending on the timeframe. You will find names, dates of events, and sometimes details such as residence, marital status, and names of parents in any of these civil record sets.
Israel – Misc. Records
Societies around the world bring a wealth of information to our research. A Gem’s reader, Elena, shared with us this next record collection set for Israel. The Israel Genealogy Research Association has over 730,000 records from over 260 databases on their website. You can search in English or Hebrew and for free, though you are required to register.
The IGRA adds or updates their record collections about every two months. In particular, record collections cover:
They also have miscellaneous records from various parts of the world, such as a list of Russian Jewish POW’s in World War I and a list of Jewish soldiers in the International Brigade that fought in the Spanish Civil War.
Britain – Registers
Findmypast has released the new Britain, Registers of Licences to pass beyond the seas 1573-1677 collection which records the details of early travelers who left Britain for Ireland, continental Europe, New England, Barbados, Bermuda and other overseas colonies.
The collection includes over 27,000 fully searchable transcripts and scanned images of original documents. It includes lists of soldiers who signed a statutory oath of allegiance before serving in the “Low Countries” between 1613 and 1633, licences for individuals traveling to Europe between 1573 and 1677, and registers of individuals traveling to America between 1634 and 1639.
The records showing passengers licensed to sail to the Americas are very rare, making this collection quite significant. They record groups headed for colonies in New England, Maryland, Virginia, Barbados, Bermuda, St Kitt’s, and the Providence Island colony during the 1630s. Very few original records from this early period of American history are available online. Registers record the details of some of earliest English settlers to arrive on the continent.
After 1609, all travelers over the age of 18 had to swear an oath of allegiance to the monarch before the Clerk of the Passes could issue them with a licence to leave the country. The dates shown in these records are the date the oath was taken or the date the licence was issued – not the date of actual departure.
Ireland – Indexes
Societies around the world continue to amaze us, as does The Irish Genealogical Research Society with three recent updates. These updated collections include new birth, marriage, and death confirmations of citizen of Ireland.
In particular, the birth index was most recently updated to reflect information gathered from several thousand records taken from Index of Nuns, a CD publication in 2015 by the Catholic Family History Society. which notes biographical information for about 14,000 nuns, many of them from Ireland.
Also, there are entries from a census-substitute dated 1887 recording the Roman Catholic residents of the parish of Kirkinriola, Co. Antrim and entries taken from Emigrants from Ireland, 1847-1852.
IGRS is another genealogy society around the world containing Irish records.
The full database is available only to Members. However, a restricted but free surname-only search of the database can be made by non-members. A search will tell you how many entries in the database match your search criteria. It will not provide all the details of those matched records. You can however become a member with all access by visiting their subscription page here.
Genealogy Societies Around the World
You may never have considered joining a genealogical society outside of your country, but may find it is just what you need to break through that brick wall. Do you know of a genealogy society that has an extensive collection of records? If you do, would you share it with us? We would love to hear about it in the comments below. Be sure to leave a link so that we can check it out!
New and updated genealogical collections for the Royal Irish Constabulary are just the tip of the iceberg this week. Scroll down for more cool finds for New South Wales, Scotland, U.S. marriages, and an update to the Freedmen’s Bureau collections at FamilySearch.
Each search result includes an image of the original document and a transcript. The nature of the information recorded will vary significantly depending on the subject and type of the original document. The following is a list of what types of records can be found in this collection:
Auxiliary division general registers: These are nominal rolls that recorded member’s service number, rank, dispersed date, and company name. The registers also include division journals that recorded dates of appointment, promotions, and medical details.
Clerical staff: record of service and salaries: These lists of clerical staff include birth date, age at appointment, rank, department and salary.
Constabulary Force Funds: These correspondence registers are of members who paid into the fund with notes on whether they had been pensioned, died or received any rewards from the fund.
Constabulary lists: These are lists of chief constables created during the first year of the Royal Irish Constabulary.
Disbandment registers: These registers are of serving members who were with the force in 1922 when it disbanded after the creation of the Free Irish State. They also noted the number of years the constable served and their recommended pension.
General registers: Records of constables’ service history are contained in these general registers. The entries include the individual’s birth date, native county, religion, previous occupation, date of appointment, and promotions, as well as any rewards or punishments received and the date of pension or discharge.
Nominal returns, arranged by counties: Nominal returns are lists of all serving members of the Royal Irish Constabulary organised by county that recorded the individual’s number, rank, name, religion, date of appointment, marital status, and station location.
Officers’ registers: These registers are lists of Officers that include transfers and dates, favorable and unfavorable records, dates of promotions and details of previous military service.
Pensions and gratuities: Pension records reveal the constable’s rate of pay and the amount of pension calculated.
Recruits index: Lists of new recruits, their dates of appointment and arrival, and their company can be found in the recruits index.
Also at Findmypast, Ireland, Royal Irish Constabulary History & Directories has had a significant addition of over 43,000 records. You will be able to explore a variety of publications between the years of 1840 and 1921. These records will provide insight into the administration and daily operations of the police force.
Each record includes a PDF image of the original publication. The collection includes training manuals, codes of conduct, salary scales, circulars and staff lists that cover promotions, deployments, and rules & regulations.
Ireland – Valuation Books
At FamilySearch, the Ireland, Valuation Office Books, 1831-1856 are now available to search. These records are the original notebooks that were used when the property valuations were conducted between the years of 1831-1856. They are arranged by county, then alphabetically by parish or townland.
Land valuation records may contain the following information:
Land occupier’s name
Location, description, and monetary valuation of each land plot surveyed
New South Wales – Passenger Lists
The New South Wales Passenger Lists is a collection at Findmypast that contains over 8.5 million records. The collection includes records of both assisted and unassisted passengers. The assisted passenger lists cover 1828 to 1896 and the unassisted passenger lists span the years 1826 to 1900. Assisted passengers refers to those who received monetary assistance from another party or agency/government for their passage.
Each result will provide a transcript and image of the original record. The information included on the transcript will vary depending on whether your ancestor was an assisted or unassisted passenger, although most will include your ancestors name, passage type, birth year, nationality, departure port, arrival port and the dates of their travels.
Scotland – Parish Records
The Scotland Non-Old Parish Registers Vital Records 1647-1875 found at Findmypast is a collection of registers created by churches outside of the established church. It contains over 12,000 transcripts of births, marriages, and deaths.
Non-old parish registers are different from the Church of Scotland’s old parish records.
Though these are only transcripts and do not include a digital image of the original, you may find the following information on the records included in this collection:
With each result you will be provided with a transcript of the details found in the original source material. The detail in each transcript can vary depending on the event type and the amount of information that was recorded at the time of the event. Here are some of the facts you may find in the records:
Name
Birth year, date, and place
Event year
Event type – birth, marriage, or death
Register name
Parish and county
United States – Freedmen’s Bureau Records
FamilySearch has updated their magnificent collection of United States Freedmen’s Bureau, Records of Freedmen, 1865-1872. Records found in this collection include census returns, registers, and lists of freedmen. They also include letters and endorsements, account books, applications for rations, and much more. Many of the records will hold valuable genealogical data.
For a complete list and coverage table of the full collection, click here.
Washington State historic newspapers added to their digital collection of newspapers this week. With nearly 50,000 digitized pages from historical newspapers based in Centralia, Eatonville, Tacoma, and Spokane newest titles include the Centralia Daily Hub (1914-16), The Eatonville Dispatch (1916-61) and Den Danske Kronike (1916-17), a Danish-English publication based in Spokane.
The Centralia and Eatonville papers were added this month and Den Danske Kronike was added last summer, along with the Tacoma Evening Telegraph (1886-87).
Europeana is a digital doorway to European cultural heritage that everyone with European roots will find interesting and enlightening.
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