Where You Can Find Over a Million British Church Records that are Now Indexed!

Over a million Church of England records from the county of Norfolk are among materials now indexed at FamilySearch.org.

Happisburgh church

Happisburgh church of St. Mary’s, Norfolk. Image by Martin at Flickr Creative Commons.

The collection includes bishops’ registers of baptisms, marriages and burials from the mid-1600s to the mid-1900s.

  • Baptismal records may include the child’s name, date and place of baptism, parents’ names and residence, legitimacy status of the child, father’s occupation and minister’s name.
  • Marriage records may include the names, ages, marital status and residence of bride and groom; date and place of marriage; fathers of the bride and groom and information on whether banns were published.
  • Burial records may include the name, age, and residence of the deceased and the date and parish of burial.

The Church of England was a state-sponsored church. This helps genealogists because it means that most everyone who lived there (until the mid-1800s or so) is likely to show up in Church of England records. So if you had English ancestors who lived in Norfolk, take a look. These images have been online since 2010, but the new index makes them a lot easier to search!

Follow Your Commuter Ancestors in NYC Subway Maps

If your ancestors lived or worked in New York City, did you know you can follow them home from work? At least virtually.

New York City Subway History

New York City Subway History

David Pirmann runs a website dedicated to the history of the New York City subway system. NYCSubway.org includes great historical background, photos, maps and other documents.

Start by reading about elevated rail service that began in the 1860s and the development of the transit system since then. Then consult route maps for several time periods, either in the Historical Maps section or the Line by Line Guide (both under the Maps and Stations tab).

The fun part is browsing the rest of the site: learn how “The Great White Hurricane” snowstorm of 1888 paralyzed the city, or how things have worked behind the scenes (fares, power, signals, etc). You can even check out images of abandoned stations and old cars.

Thanks to Gizmodo.com for an article that pointed me to this fun resource.

FamilySearch Photos and Stories: 1 Million Images Uploaded

FamilySearch users have created one of the largest family photo albums in the world in record time: one million images in just under five months. That’s a lot of pictures upload, tagged, linked to relatives and now just waiting for us to go in and snag copies.

Why the massive response? Pick your favorite reason:

  • uploading photos from your computer, smart phone or tablet is easy;
  • If you post a photo, you can share a direct link through Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or email;
  • pictures are publicly available to anyone (with or without a FamilySearch account);
  • you can caption pictures and tag subjects to link them to their profile in FamilySearch’s family tree;
  • you can collaborate with other descendants to identify everyone in a group photo;
  • the site promises free online storage of your digital images forever (“. Every photo is backed up with a redundant system and preserved in state-of-the-art archive facilities”).

If you have a tree at FamilySearch (which is free), you can easily click to see what pictures others have uploaded of your relatives. Just log in, click Photos, then Find Photos of your Ancestors.

FamilySearch offers these tips for sharing your photos on their site:

“If you don’t have a traditional scanner, you can use your cell phone. Just take a picture of your family photos, use the browser on your phone, and go to FamilySearch.org. Then click on Photos, and proceed from there.

If you know photos that exist of your ancestors but belong to other family members, contact these relatives and ask them to publish the photos to your family’s tree, or set a date to scan or take pictures of their collection. You can also send out a request for family photos over social media to your relatives. If there are family heirlooms (photos, furniture, bric-a-brac, letters, mementos, medals), take pictures of them and upload the photos to the profiles of your ancestors in the family tree. Then stories can be added by anyone to support the photos and describe them. These photos and stories will become keepsakes for everyone to have and will be preserved freely for future generations.”

Check out this 4-minute video on using Photos and Stories feature at FamilySearch, and you can contribute to the next million photos!

Listener-Recommended Jewish Genealogy Resources

The world of genealogy is so huge that one person can’t possibly know everything. That’s why I’m always glad to hear from readers who research different ancestries. Recently I heard from Diane Goldman in Bethesda, MD, USA, who wrote in about her favorite Jewish genealogy resources:

“Dear Lisa,

I love listening to the tips and interviews on your podcast.  So I’m excited to send a recommendation your way. You haven’t broadcast much on Jewish genealogy, but there are some fabulous resources.

  • Salt Lake City just welcomed the latest conference of the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies The last 2 conferences were in Boston and Paris; next year’s will return to Jerusalem. (My tip: Use their website’s member list to find a Jewish genealogy organization for you–either one near you or one that focuses on the right region of the world for your family.)
  • A conference highlight is always the update for JewishGen.orgbegun by Texan Susan King and now associated with New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage.  JewishGen’s grown from a bulletin board linking researchers across the globe to a resource complex featuring personal stories, databases, and digitized materials. Each regional/topical Special Interest Group features its own wealth of resources, often the only access to materials of a particular country or of a region now split among several countries, such as the Galician or Sub-Carpathian group.
  • JewishGen also hosts the independent LitvakSig (Lithuanian data) and Jewish Records Indexing (JRI)-Poland.  The latter has mushroomed from an individual’s medical research to an invaluable resource complex: ‘The largest fully-searchable database of indexes to Jewish vital records accessible online.  4 million records from more than 500 Polish towns.'”

Thank you, Diane! It’s a pleasure to share these resources with Genealogy Gems readers.

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