New Genealogy Records Include UK Suffragettes and Travelers’ Records
New collections about Great Britain Suffragettes and travelers on the S.S. Great Britain headline this week’s roundup of new genealogy records online. Read here about more new genealogy records for England, Scotland and Ireland: parish records, newspapers and more....How to Organize Old Letters
Do you have old family letters that really should be shared with loved ones, but you’re not sure how to go about doing it? You’re not 
alone. Jane wrote in recently with that very question. She came across my blog post 6 Tips: How to Organize Your Family History while searching the web for ways to solve her own family history problem:
“Now that the grandchildren of my parents (long since deceased) are raising children of their own, I would like to share at least some of the 75 or so letters that my mother wrote to my dad in their first year of marriage, 1947. Her letters are filled with many of the same concerns that still plague new moms.”
Jane goes on to mention three options she’s considered:
- “Scanning them, and then printing out the sheets into a spiral binder has some possibilities, but the chances of busy moms with young children sitting down to read such a tome seem minimal.
- Taking just a few of the letters, and adding a photo (I have very few from that time period!) to make a little book (through Shutterfly or Picaboo or such) would be another idea. Although that doesn’t really do justice to the whole year of letters.
- Emailing a transcription of one letter a week (for a year?) has also occurred to me, but I’m really not sure I know how to proceed.”
She concluded by asking me to direct her to anyplace on my website where can i buy malaria medication in india I’ve addressed a question like this. Here’s what I told her:
“If you are comfortable with the letters being public, I would recommend starting a blog and featuring a letter in each post. Our kids and grandkids are much more comfortable online and they can easily subscribe to your blog which can automatically email the posts to them. An added benefit of blogging is that other folks who might be related can find your family history content through Google search, perhaps helping you connect. I talk a lot about this on my free Genealogy Gems Podcast (at my site and in iTunes). I have a series of free videos at my Genealogy Gems YouTube channel that show you how to start a blog for free.
As for publishing small books through a service like Shutterfly or Lulu, I’ve also covered that on my website. Genealogy Gems Premium Members have access to three Premium episodes on the subject that include instructional videos:
- Premium Episode 54: Publish Your Family History on Demand Part 3
- Premium Episode 53: Publish Your Family History on Demand Part 2
- Premium Episode 52: Publish Your Family History on Demand Part 1
I also cover these books including an example of one I created in my book Genealogy Gems: Ultimate Research Strategies (Chapter 13).”
Hopefully these resources can help you with your challenge, Jane, as well as any others who want to know how to organize old letters (or other precious family memorabilia) and share them.
Comparing the Newspaper Giants (Premium)
Here’s your answer to the question “which newspaper website should I use?” Internationally-known genealogy speaker and award-winning writer and editor Sunny Jane Morton provides a head-to-head analysis of the top five digitized newspaper websites for genealogy:
- Library of Congress Chronicling America
- Old Fulton New York Post Cards
- GenealogyBank.com
- Newspapers Archive
- Newspapers.com
Watch Now:
- Video Quality: Click the gear icon in the bottom right corner to select the video quality up to 1080 HD.
- Full-Screen Viewing: Click the Picture-in-picture icon and drag the player to the desired size. The Play button is at the bottom center of the player.
Resources:
Download the Show Notes for this video here.
About My Special Guest Presenter: Sunny Morton
Sunny Jane Morton is a longtime Contributing Editor at Family Tree Magazine; Contributing Editor and Content Manager for YourDNAGuide.com; frequent contributor to FamilySearch’s blog; and past Editor of Ohio Genealogy News.
She has twice received prestigious awards from the National Genealogical Society, most recently for her book How to Find Your Family History in U.S. Church Records, co-authored with Harold Henderson, CG. Her book, Story of My Life: A Workbook for Preserving Your Legacy, is now in its 2nd edition. Her presentations are packed with try-this-now strategies and delivered with humor, humanity, and plenty of motivating examples and stories.
- Visit Sunny’s website: https://www.sunnymorton.com
- Sunny on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sunny.morton
Special thanks to Family Tree Magazine
Thank you to Family Tree Magazine for the use of Sunny’s article Titans of Industry in the downloadable show notes for this video. You can download the show notes PDF in the “Resources” section below the video above.
Find Your U.S. Ancestors in These New Genealogy Records Online
Learn more about U.S. ancestors in new genealogy records for Navy and Marine officers, WWI veterans, historical and genealogical journals, and new genealogy records for 12 U.S. states: Ala., Ark., Hawaii, Kan., La., Mass., Miss., Mont., N.Y., Texas, Utah, and Va.
Following are new genealogy records (and updated collections) for the U.S. and several U.S. states. In which may your ancestors appear?
U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Officer Registries. Ancestry.com subscribers may search a new database, “U.S., Navy and Marine Corps Registries, 1814-1992.” From the collection description: “This collection includes registers of officers of the US Navy and Marine Corps from between the years of 1814 and 1992. Within these records you can expect to find: name, rank, ship or station.” (Note: the above image shows the first group of female Marine officer candidates in 1943; click here to learn more and see this image’s citation.)
World War I Veteran’s History Project: Part II Launches. The Veterans History Project has launched “Over There,” the second in a three-part, online web series dedicated to United States veterans of the First World War. “Over There” highlights 10 digitized World War I collections found in the Veterans History Project archive. Click here to access Part II and other veterans’ collections featured in “Over There.” Part III will be available in fall of 2017. (Click here to read the full announcement from the Library of Congress.)
U.S. and Canada journals. 
PERSI, the Periodical Source Index, has been updated with historical and genealogical journal content covering Ontario, Canada as well as Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, & Rhode Island. Search PERSI at Findmypast.com to discover articles, transcribed records, and images of your ancestors and their communities, churches, schools and more in thousands of journals. Some journals are index-only and others have digitized articles: click here to learn more about PERSI.
Statewide: New genealogy records
- Alaska: Ancestry.com has a new database of Alaska, Vital Records, 1818 -1963. It contains birth, marriage, and death records.
- Arkansas: A new digital exhibit tells the story of the first African-American college west of the Mississippi River, located in Phillips County. Lives Transformed: The People of Southland College “includes photos and scanned images of letters, circulars, forms, the Southland newspaper and other ephemera, including invitations, the catalog of studies, a diploma, and a commencement program,” states a news report.
- Hawaii: Over 300,000 indexed names have been added to a free FamilySearch.org collection of Hawaiian obituaries since 1980.
- Kansas: New browsable image collections of Kansas state census records for 1865, 1875, 1885 and 1895 are now free to search at FamilySearch.org. The growing size of each collection by year–from 4,701 pages in 1865 to 116,842 pages in 1895–witnesses the tremendous growth of this prairie state after the Homestead Act of 1862 opened its land for cheap purchase and settlement. (Did you know? Kansas census records 1855-1940 at Ancestry.com are also available for free to Kansas residents.) Click here to learn more about state census records in the U.S.
- Louisiana: Over 100,000 new images and thousands of indexed names have been added to FamilySearch’s free collection of Louisiana death records (1850-75, 1894-1960).
- Massachusetts: More than half a million names are in 22 volumes of sacramental records (baptisms, confirmations, marriages, deaths) for the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Archdiocese of Boston, now online at AmericanAncestors.com.
- Mississippi: Ancestry.com has updated its collection of Mississippi Naturalization Records, 1907-2008. This collection pertains to naturalizations finalized after 1906, when most were taken care of in federal courts.
- Montana: Find a new collection of Montana County Marriages, 1865-1993 at Ancestry.com. Details for both the bride and groom may include name, age at marriage, and marriage date/place. (You may also access this collection for free at FamilySearch.org.)
- New York: The Leon Levy BAM Digital Archive has added more than 70,000 playbills, posters, and ephemera from the history of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, dating to the Civil War era. (We found this in a New York Times report.)
- Texas. Ancestry.com has updated its database, “Texas, Select County Marriage Records, 1837-2015.” The collection description states, “This collection consists of a mix of marriage licenses, returns, certificates, affidavits, and indexes. The documents that are available in this database vary depending on the county. All marriage records include the names of the bride and groom, as well as the date of the license and/or marriage. In many instances, additional details are available as well.” This collection continues to be updated: keep checking back!
- Utah: There’s a new digital archive of photos, yearbooks, and other documents relating to the history of Brigham Young College in Logan, Utah. The school taught high school and college courses and was open 1877-1926. Learn more about it in a news report at HJnews.com.
- Virginia: A decade’s worth of obituaries from the Evening Star (Winchester, 1899-1909) are now available at subscription site Findmypast.com.
Did you see the new Genealogy Gems Book Club announcement for this week? It’s a new memoir by a U.S. journalist who tracks down an old family story about her immigrant roots. You won’t want to miss this family history murder mystery! Click here to learn more about the book and watch a trailer for its PBS documentary.
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