We Dig These Gems! New Genealogy Records Online

Here’s our weekly roundup of new genealogy records online. Do you see anything you should be searching for your ancestors?

ENGLAND – LAND AND TAX. About a quarter million land tax and valuation records for Plymouth and West Devon (1897-1949) are now searchable for Findmypast.com subscribers. Transcriptions and images can reveal an ancestor’s owner/renter status, property location and size, property use and more.

US – ARIZONA VOTERS. A new database of Arizona voter registrations(1874-1932) is available at Ancestry.com. According to the collection description, “This database consists of Great Registers [lists produced from voter registrations] compiled by county recorders for each county in Arizona, by district. They list the names of eligible voters who registered to vote within the state of Arizona.” In this database you’ll see the state’s transition to female suffrage in 1912.

US – CALIFORNIA PASSENGER ARRIVALS. Over 375,000 names have been added to an existing collection of free FamilySearch.org passenger arrival records for San Francisco, CA (1954-1957). These include inbound passengers, crew lists and changes in crew.

US – DELAWARE WILLS AND PROBATE. Ancestry.com has updated its collection of  Delaware Wills and Probate records(1676-1971). The indexed images now span nearly 300 years and include records from all counties (some locales and time periods are not included). Over 134,000 names are indexed.

US – MASSACHUSETTS VITAL RECORDS. Now available to search for free on FamilySearch.org is a new collection of indexed images of Massachusetts delayed and corrected vital records. Spanning about 150 years (1753-1900), the collection is relatively small (31,710 indexed names) but often delayed and corrected vital records can be brick-wall busters!

Use these Google Gems to Find Records You Need

Google AlertsGoogle Search Tips 101: Keyword Search Tips

2 Mysterious Deaths in the Family? How to Google for Answers

Google Alerts for Genealogy

 

Genealogy Websites: #1 – 4 of our 25 Websites for Genealogy!

In this video, my guest presenter Gena Philibert-Ortega covers 4 of the biggest genealogy websites that are must-have for family history research. This is a great chance for you to discover some new online tools as well as refresh your memory about terrific sites that may have fallen off your radar. This video is part of a 5 part series totaling 25 essential websites for genealogy. 

Websites 1 through 4 of Gena’s 25  Websites for Genealogy

I’m Gina Philibert Ortega, and welcome to 25 Websites for Genealogy, What I’d like to do is talk to you about websites that are must-haves for your genealogical research. 

Some of these websites will be new to you, and others are going to be very familiar to you. In talking about the familiar websites, I want to get you thinking about them differently, explain a little bit more about what you can do at these websites, and how to get the most out of them.

In this series of 25 Websites for Genealogy, we’re going to be looking at websites in different categories. Our first category is the big genealogy websites (#1 through 4). So let’s go ahead and get started!

Download the ad-free Show Notes cheat sheet for this video here. (Premium Membership required.)

Websites #1: FamilySearch

https://www.familysearch.org

The number one website for me is always Family Search. Why is it number one? Well, first of all, Family Search is free. And it’s always nice to find free stuff, right? We want to exhaust what’s free, and what’s available, before we spend money or travel or do anything like that. So for me, the first place you should always go is Family Search.

Learn more: Deep Dive FamilySearch Wiki!

 

Website #2: Ancestry

https://www.ancestry.com

as of the time of this video, Ancestry had 33,000 databases that can help you in your genealogy research! Remember to move beyond the search engine and dig into that Card Catalogue to find all the available gems. 

Learn more about using Ancestry effectively with our videos:

 

Website #3: Findmypast

https://www.findmypast.com

Even though Findmypast is based in England and is heavily focused on British research, you don’t have to have British ancestors to find it useful. It has records from the United States and other countries as well. If you haven’t been using Findmypast, I suggest you go on the website and sign up for a free account. This will allow you to see what they have. You can also go to a FamilySearch center near you and possibly use it for free as many of these genealogy websites have library editions.

You may remember that find Findmypast has PERSI, the periodical source index. Although no longer have PERSI, you can find it at the Allen County Public Library’s Genealogy Center website. Check out our videos below to learn more about using PERSI at the Genealogy Center, and a terrific photo collection at Findmypast. 

Learn more about using Findmypast effectively with our videos:

 

#4: MyHeritage

https://www.myheritage.com 

Like Ancestry and Findmypast, MyHeritage also provides a platform for building your family tree, and has a card catalog called the Collection Catalog featuring over 7000 collections. You can even order a DNA test or upload results from other companies. Use the filters to filter collection, and then by location.

Learn more with our video about 10 of the best features at MyHeritage:

MyHeritage 10 “Don’t Miss” Features You Need

Resources:

Download the ad-free Show Notes cheat sheet for this video here. (Premium Membership required.)

Not a Premium Member yet? Discover the benefits and join today. 

iPad Bookmarklets

Here’s the code you will need for some of the coolest iPad bookmarklets. For these to work properly they must be copied EXACTLY! No extra spaces or characters.

Evernote:

javascript:(function()%7BEN_CLIP_HOST%3D%27http://www.evernote.com%27%3Btry%7Bvar%
20x%3Ddocument.createElement(%27SCRIPT%27)%3Bx.type%3D%27text/javascript%27%3
Bx.src%3DEN_CLIP_HOST%2B%27/public/bookmarkClipper.js%3F%27%2B(new%20Date().get
Time()/100000)%3Bdocument.getElementsByTagName(%27head%27)%5B0%5D.appendChild(x)
%3B%7Dcatch(e)%7Blocation.href%3DEN_CLIP_HOST%2B%27/clip.action%3Furl%3D%27%2
BencodeURIComponent(location.href)%2B%27%26title%3D%27%2BencodeURIComponent(docum
ent.title)%3B%7D%7D)()%3B

Premium_MembershipYou can learn much more about how to use Evernote for Genealogy by becoming a Genealogy Gems Premium that includes my 1 hour video class on Evernote, and the Evernote educational mini-series, in addition to over 100 Premium podcast episodes, and video classes.

Find Text:

javascript:void%28s%3Dprompt%28%27Find%20text%3A%27%2C%27%27%29%29%3Bs%3D%27%28%27+s+%27%29%27%3Bx%3Dnew%20RegExp%28s%2C%27gi%27%29%3Brn%3DMath.floor%28Math.random%28%29*100%29%3Brid%3D%27z%27%20+%20rn%3Bb%20%3D%20document.body.innerHTML%3Bb%3Db.replace%28x%2C%27%3Cspan%20name%3D%27%20+%20rid%20+%20%27%20id%3D%27%20+%20rid%20+%20%27%20style%3D%5C%27color%3A%23000%3Bbackground-color%3Ayellow%3B%20font-weight%3Abold%3B%5C%27%3E%241%3C/span%3E%27%29%3Bvoid%28document.body.innerHTML%3Db%29%3Balert%28%27Found%20%27%20+%20document.getElementsByName%28rid%29.length%20+%20%27%20matches.%27%29%3Bwindow.scrollTo%280%2Cdocument.getElementsByName%28rid%29%5B0%5D.offsetTop%29%3B

Instapaper:

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27ipt%27),b%3Dd.body,l%3Dd.location%3Btry%7Bif(!b)throw(0)%3Bd.title%3D%27(Saving…)%
20%27%2Bd.title%3Bz.setAttribute(%27src%27,l.protocol%2B%27//www.instapaper.com/j/ETD1
Wukqqnu1%3Fu%3D%27%2BencodeURIComponent(l.href)%2B%27%26t%3D%27%2B(new%20
Date().getTime()))%3Bb.appendChild(z)%3B%7Dcatch(e)%7Balert(%27Please%20wait%20until
%20the%20page%20has%20loaded.%27)%3B%7D%7Diprl5()%3Bvoid(0)


google search
You can get more great tips and tricks by subscribing to the free Genealogy Gems newsletter in the upper right corner of this page. As a thank you gift you’ll receive my free 20 page ebook “5 Fabulous Google Search Strategies for the Family Historian”.

 

 

Pin It:
javascript:void((function()%7Bvar%20e%3Ddocument.createElement(%27script%27)%3Be.setAttribute
(%27type%27,%27text/javascript%27)%3Be.setAttribute(%27charset%27,%27UTF-8%27)%3Be.setAttribute(%27src%27,%27http://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js%3Fr%3D%27%2BMath.random()*99999999)%3Bdocument.body.appendChild(e)%7D)())%3B

 

If you use any of these online services there are more bookmarklets for you at iosbookmarklets.com:

CiteULike (Search, organize and share scholarly papers for free) <citeulike.org>

Hootsuite (Social media management) <hootsuite.com>

PDFmyURL (save anywebpage as a PDF) <pdfmyurl.com>

ProfessorWord  (improve your vocab) <professorword.com>

RecordSeek  (the only genealogy bookmarklet listed as of this writing) <recordseek.com>

Thesaurus.com

Wunderlist – <wunderlist.com>

Zotero (Collect, organize, cite and share sources) <zotero.org>

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