Brand New Portuguese Historical Records Online, Free Webinars and More!

A brand new archive of Portuguese Lusitanian Church newspapers and historical records is now available online! Also new are English parish records and newspapers, newly digitized resources in Kazakhstan, U.S. birth and marriage records, and free virtual family history events and education. 

Portuguese historical records

Portugal: Church newspaper and historical records database

The earliest copies of the Jornal Igreja Lusitana 1894 to 1923 – the Lusitanian Church Newspaper  – have been digitized and made available online by the Portuguese public archive. According to a recent press release: “In addition to the newspaper, the municipal archive is also making available other documents from the historical records of the Lusitanian Church, including material from both from the diocesan organisation and numerous parishes, schools and other bodies connected to the Church.” Click here to access the archive

Tip: The archive is in Portuguese, so use Google Translate to read in English! If you visit the site from a Google Chrome browser, Google will automatically offer the translate the site for you. 

Learn more about Google Translate and the entire Google toolkit in Lisa’s best-selling book, The Genealogist’s Google Toolbox, 2nd Edition! Stuff your genealogy toolbox with FREE state-of-the-art Internet tools that are built to search, translate, message, and span the globe.

English bastardy indexes, parish records, and newspapers

Uncover secrets of your ancestor’s past! Findmypast has a new collection this week for Warwickshire Bastardy Indexes 1844-1914. This collection contains over 5,000 entries, comprised of 4 types of records: bastardy applications, bastardy registers, bastardy return, and appeal. “Each record provides the name of the mother, and most records include the name of the putative father. The records do not contain the name of the child.”

New at Ancestry.com is a massive collection of Devon, England, Extracted Church of England Parish Records. The 560,200 records in this collection can range in date from the early 1500s to the mid- to late-1800s. More records for England are new at Ancestry.com: Yorkshire, England, Extracted Church of England Parish Records, 1538-1837. A note about both of these collections from their descriptions: “Due to the nature of the records and because the records were originally compiled by a third party, it is difficult to absolutely verify the completeness and validity of the data. The information in this collection is as correct as it was when Ancestry.com received it, and has merely been reproduced in an electronic format.”

Next, we head over to the British Newspaper Archive for two new titles. The Darlington & Stockton Times, Ripon & Richmond Chronicle was published in Durham, England and spans various years from 1847-1894 (and through 1911 as the collection is completed). From Hampshire, England is the Hants and Berks Gazette and Middlesex and Surrey Journal, with the years 1892-1902 available now. Completion of the collection http://www.mindanews.com/buy-effexor/ will cover the entire 1878-1910.

Kazakhstan: Periodicals, books, and more being digitized

Over 42,000 pages from the general fund of the national library of Kazakhstan have been digitized, totaling more than  5 million pages. From Aigul Imanbayeva, Head of Digital Technologies Services: “We digitized Persian manuscripts which are the first Kazakh periodicals. This is the Kazakh newspaper. Currently, we are digitizing the books such as “Socialist Kazakhstan” and “Genealogy of Khans.” Click here to learn more and see a short video about the project.Kazakhstan historical records

United States

New York. Over at Ancestry.com is a new collection for New York City Births, 1910-1965. Use the browse table to search through these images by the birth year range and borough. The images for this collection are provided courtesy of www.vitalsearch-worldwide.com.

New Jersey. Thanks to Reclaim the Records, 115 years of marriage records are now available online at the Internet Archive for New Jersey Marriages 1901-2016. Each file is listed year-by-year (or occasionally by a year range), and then the marriages are listed alphabetically by surname.

Free virtual family history events

Mark your calendars! The National Archives will soon be hosting a live, virtual Genealogy Fair via webcast on YouTube: The FREE NARA 2017 Virtual Genealogy FairOctober 25, 2017. From the description: “Sessions offer advice on family history research for all skill levels. Topics include Federal government documents on birth, childhood, and death; recently recovered military personnel files; Japanese Americans during World War II; 19th century tax assessments; and a “how to” on preserving family heirlooms.” Simply tune in to their YouTube channel to watch live!

November 4, 2017 is the North Carolina Virtual Family History Fair. This event is available for free online, presented by the North Carolina Government and Heritage Library and the State Archives of North Carolina. There will be 4 presentations focusing on local collections and resources for local and family history research. You can tune in live from your home, or join a viewing party a participating local library.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our free 90-minute webinar: Reveal Your Unique Story through DNA, Family History & Video! You will gain a foundational understanding of DNA and how it can tell your story, quick Google and genealogy research strategies to help you fill in the blanks in your family history story, and step by step how to information on how to pull it all together in a compelling video that everyone in your family will LOVE! Watch for free below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iXqxWAnHRQ

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links and Genealogy Gems will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on these links (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for supporting Genealogy Gems!

Can You Believe Google Earth is 10 Years Old?? Are You Using Google Earth for Genealogy Yet?

Google Earth 10 years old invitationTen years ago in June, Google Earth was born. The world put it right to work. Within months, recalls a Google Earth employee, “Hurricane Katrina showed us how useful mapping tools like Earth could be for crisis response efforts. Rescue workers compared before and after Satellite imagery in Google Earth to better locate where people were stranded.”

“In the years after,” the blog post continues, “with more than 2 billion downloads by people in nearly every country in the world, Earth has enabled people to discover new coral reefs, journey to the Moon and into deep space, find long-lost parents, clear landmines and much more.”

What about YOU? How have you harnessed the power of Google Earth for good?

What about using Google Earth for genealogy?

Google Earth for Genealogy classIn honor of Google Earth’s birthday, we invite you to watch a free video recording of a special presentation of Google Earth for Genealogy! Check out these blog posts, too:

Google Earth for Genealogy and Toolbox bundleReady to take Google Earth to the next level? Pick up your copies of the video CD series Google Earth for Genealogy at the Genealogy Gems Store.

Google Keep versus Evernote for Your Note-Taking Needs

organize app Evernote google keepGoogle Keep, Google’s note-taking app, is getting better. According to a post on an unofficial Google blog, “Google Keep now lets you add labels to your notes. Just click the 3-dot icon below the note and select ‘add label.’ There are 3 default labels (inspiration, personal, work), but you can add your own labels.” The post goes on to describe the navigation menu, show how to export notes to Google docs and create recurring reminders.

According to the post, “The new features are available in Google Keep’s web app, Chrome app and Android app (Google Keep 3.1).”

Google Keep Versus Evernote

How does Google Keep compare to Evernote? Well, I’m a longtime Evernote user who wrote a genealogist’s quick guide to using Evernote (see below) and provides the Ultimate Evernote Education to my Genealogy Gems Premium members. I might be just a bit biased when I say I still whole-heartedly prefer Evernote–but that’s because of what I do with Evernote, which is full-scale organization of my life and genealogy research across all my devices.

One tech writer’s post on Google Keep v Evernote indicates that she likes the simple functionality of Google Keep for quick notes. Yet, she writes, “I’m a big fan of Evernote as well, because of its strong organizing options–tags and saved searches, notebooks and stacked notes–but it can be overwhelming for simple note-taking. It is, however, cross-platform and, unlike Google Keep, more likely to stick around (former Google Reader users might be afraid to sign up for a new Google app that could be pulled suddenly).” I have to agree with this last comment. Actions speak louder than words, and they are evidence worth pondering.

Another post, though it’s a little older, sings a similar tune: “While there is some overlap [with Google Keep], Evernote is still a much more robust product with a bigger feature set and far greater device compatibility. Google Keep has an attractive user interface and is being met with a pretty positive response—an average rating of 4.4/5 stars in the Google Play store so far, but it’s presently nowhere near Evernote’s capabilities.”

Still a third writer has figured out how to use both apps, just for different tasks. For my part, reading through all these opinions reminded me how fortunate we are that technology gives us so many options to help us meet our needs. The challenge is figuring out how to use the powerful tools we have at our fingertips. That’s what we specialize in here at Genealogy Gems.

For me, I’m sticking with Evernote. One of the most compelling reasons in addition to many (cross-platform functionality, synchronization to all devices, OCR…) is that note-taking is Evernote’s primary focus. It’s not one of dozens of products (which is the boat that Google Keep and OneNote are aboard.) Instead, it is the singular purpose of Evernote’s research, development and execution. I like that kind of dedication when it comes to something as precious as my genealogy research notes.

Resources

Evernote for Genealogy Quick Reference GuideMy Evernote for Genealogy laminated quick guides for Windows or Mac will get you started right away and keep you going as an everyday quick reference guide.

How to Get Started in Evernote, and the Ultimate Evernote Education

How to Add Text to a Web Clipping in Evernote

Should Evernote be my Digital Archive?

FAQ – Premium eLearning

Genealogy Gems Premium eLearning Membership – FAQ If you want inspiring and entertaining genealogy education on-demand, Premium eLearning is for you! World-renowned speaker Lisa Louise Cooke has built this program to be accessible for all ages, all skill levels,...

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