Most Recent Genealogy Records for the United States
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Below is a list and discription of the most recent genealogy records for the United States (see list of most recent records for other countries). Many of these records can be searched using our free Genealogy Search Engine.
May 2012
US – Ancestry.com has put online a collection of 300,000 World War II cadet nursing corps card files. These are records of individual cadet nurses from between 1942 to 1948. In total, the collection covers some 124,000 young nurses who served in civilian, military and veteran hospitals in the United States during the war. These records are basically membership cards that list the name of the nurse, date of birth, date of admission to the corps, etc. Access is by subscription. [World War II Nursing Records]
National – Ancestry.com the number one genealogy website purchased the sixth most popular genealogy website Archives.com in a deal that valued the company at US$100 million. Archives.com runs a subscription genealogy search engine that focusses primarily on free ancestral records found on the internet (which incidentally is essentially the same as the free Genealogy Search Engine).
Archives.com had 380,000 paying subscribers, had over 5million monthly visits and generated some $15 million in annual revenue. This translates into Ancestry paying about 6.7 times sales for Archives. Ancestry now has access to the Archives team, who has done very well since Archives launched in July 2009 (as GenealogyArchives.com). The company behind Archives is Inflection, which specializes in people search websites (it also runs PeopleSmart.com and Identity.com).
Ancestry plans to continue to run Archives as a separate website with a differentiated offering from Ancestry. As Ancestry continues to grow, however, there are now less independent genealogy websites on the internet. According to the Top 100 Genealogy Websites List, Ancestry now owns five out of the top ten genealogy websites: (#1)Ancestry.com; (#6)Archives.com; (#7)Genealogy.com; (#8)Ancestry.co.uk and (#10)MyFamily. In addition, Ancestry.com owns ten other websites in the Top 100 List: (#14)Ancestry.ca; (#17)Fold3; (#18)Ancestry.com.au; (#31)Ancestry.de; (#36)FamilyTree Magazine; (#37)Jiapu; (#46)Mundia; (#53)FamilyTree Maker; (#74)ProGenealogists and (#77)Ancestry.se. It is starting to look a little lonely here at (#20)GenealogyInTime Magazine.
April 2012
National – The US Genweb Census Project has been very active since the release of the 1940 census records. Volunteers have been busy transcribing the new census records. This is a wonderful, website to check if you are looking for free census records from 1940 or earlier censuses. It is also a great website to volunteer your time doing some transcribing work. One particularly nice thing about the US Genweb Census Project is that they make their records freely available to all search engines.
Other participants in transcribing the 1940 census (Archives.com, FamilySearch, FindMyPast), who are also looking for volunteers, tend to hide their 1940 census records behind firewalls where they cannot be searched by Google and other search engines. By comparison, the US Genweb Census Project is fully searchable by Google as well as our free Genealogy Search Engine, which will automatically pick up the new 1940 census records as they are added to the website. [US Genweb Census Project]
National – FamilySearch.org has set up a special page on their website dealing with the recent release of the 1940 census. You can search the digital images from the census as well as keep track to see which records by state have already been published. This is a very useful page to check out. Access is free. [US 1940 Census Records]
2012 January to March
National – MyHeritage will be offering images and a searchable name index of the US 1940 Census. To coincide with this release, MyHeritage also plans to launch a new family history search engine to provide better name matching and search capabilities. As well, the results from the 1940 census will be integrated into family tree data stored on MyHeritage. Access is free. [US 1940 Census Records]
Massachusetts – Ancestry.com has created a new collection of Massachusetts town vital records. Comprising some 8.2 million records and going back over 300 years, this collection consists of vital records collected by various Massachusetts towns. Included in the collection are birth records, baptism records, marriage records, courthouse records and even some death records. Access is by subscription. [Massachusetts Vital Records]
California – FamilySearch.org has been on a tear recently with various California records. This week they have added a California death index spanning the years 1940 to 1997 and a divorce index from 1966 to 1984. The death index contains some 9.4 million names and the divorce index has 3.5 million names. The death index comes from the California Department of Health Services and lists the name, sex, date and place of birth, date and county of death as well as the father’s family name and the mother’s maiden name. Access to both indexes is free. [California Death Index] [California Divorce Index]
Nevada – FamilySearch has added a marriage index for the state of Nevada. It covers the years 1956 to 2005 and is composed of some 5 million names. Now you can see how many of your friends got married at those funny little white chapels in Las Vegas. Access is free. [Nevada Marriage Index]
California – FamilySearch.org has released a massive new index collection of California births. The collection contains reference to some 24.6 million birth records from 1905 to 1995. This is not a complete birth record, but an index to birth records created by the California Department of Health Services. The index contains the following: name, date of birth, place of birth, sex and mother’s surname. The index can be searched by first and last name. Access is free. [California Birth Records Index]
National – Archives.com will be adding over 3,000 US high school, college, middle school and military yearbooks to its website during the month of March. In total, over 300,000 pages of yearbook information will be searchable by name and keyword. The yearbooks are organized by state, city, school and year. The first batch has already gone online. This represents about 360,000 high school records and 10,000 college records. Access is by subscription. [US Yearbooks]
National – Archives.com has launched a new database called Patriots of Color in honor of Black History Month. This database is compiled from research collected by the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Director of this institute. Basically, the database contains records of anyone who was identified as non-white and who played a part in the Revolutionary War. This would include such diverse groups as soldiers, seamen, wagoners, scouts, guides, carpenters, craftsmen, servants, laborers, etc. or anyone who provided aid to the military.
The records in the database come from a fairly extensive list and include pension applications, bounty land applications, muster rolls, pay rolls, troop lists, court records, legislative records and census records. Records can be searched by first name, last name, state, alternate name, type of military service, complexion and type and state of pension application. Searches currently just pull up a brief summary with no access to the source or the underlying record. As well, at the moment, there does not appear to be too many records in the database. For example, a search for the last name “Williams” (the most common African American last name) pulled up just 11 records, while “Smith” and variants only pulled up 28 records. A search for the first name “James” (with variants, such as “Jim”) brought up 105 records. More records are expected to be added later. Access is free. [Patriots of Color]
National – The release of the US 1940 census is scheduled for 2 April 2012. In preparation, the National Archives has announced with their partner Archives.com a new website called 1940 census. At the moment, the website contains no data. There is, however, an interesting video that discusses how the National Archives has digitized the 1940 census, which you can watch below. The actual census results will be released at 9am EST on the morning of 2 April. Access is free. [US 1940 Census]
US – Ancestry.com has updated their privacy policy. The details are discussed at the Ancestry.com blog [Ancestry Privacy Policy].
This is good timing on the part of Ancestry given the recent changes to the Google privacy policy, which has made some people nervous. The video below, although a bit dated gives an interesting overview of the scope and magnitude of Google’s activities. Although we don’t necessarily agree with the conclusions of this video, it is fascinating and it does give one pause for thought.
National – Fold3 is making it easier to search its Civil War collection by adding the index to its Compiled Service Records of Union Soldiers. At the moment, the new index covers four states: Ohio, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Each index card lists the name of the soldier, rank and unit. Access is by subscription. [Civil War Soldier Service Records]
Virginia – The Virginia Historical Society has launched a free database devoted to identifying slaves. Called Unknown No Longer, it currently contains supporting documents to identify some 4,000 slaves. Eventually, the database is expected to contain reference to some 8 million unpublished documents related to the identification of slaves. These documents include such things as letters, diaries, ledger books and various farm documents. Most of these documents come from the vast collections of the Virginia Historical Society. Some of the items date back to the 1600s. More details about this new database can be viewed in the video below. Access is free. [Virginia Slave Documents]
Pennsylvania – Pennsylvania has changed the state law regarding the public release of birth and death certificates. Birth certificates will now be made available to the public 105 years after issuance and death certificates will be made available 50 years after issuance. Thus, birth certificates up to 1906 and death certificates up to 1961 are now available. The records can be ordered for a fee from the Pennsylvania Department of Health [Historic Pennsylvania Birth and Death Certificates]
Florida – FamilySearch.org has created a new collection of 5.2 million records from the Florida death index. These records cover the period from 1877 to 1998. Access is free. [Florida Death Index]
Wisconsin – FamilySearch.org has added about 950,000 marriage records from Wisconsin in addition to 435,000 death records from the state. The marriage records span the years from 1973 to 1997 and the death records are from 1820 to 1907. Access is free. [Wisconsin Marriage Records] [Wisconsin Death Records]
California – FamilySearch.org has added a rare collection of electoral rolls (voting registers) for the state of California. This searchable collection has some 1 million records. It lists eligible voters by county. These lists were created every other year for most California counties. The records span the time period from 1866 to 1910 (it varies somewhat by county). This is a great collection to use if you want to trace the movement of your California ancestors between censuses. We suggest you read the article Searching Electoral Rolls for Ancestors to get the most out of this collection.
California voting registers provide a considerable amount of information that would be valuable to a genealogist. This is because much of the information that was collected in the voter registration was done to help counteract fraud (in particular to prevent someone else from impersonating a voter). In addition to providing the name and address of the voter, the California voting register also gives the age, business/occupation, height, visible marks or scars (and their location), disabilities, country or state of birth, date of naturalization, date of registration to vote, ability to read English and the ability to write name. See the image below. Access to this collection is free. [Historic California Voter Registers]
Historic California voter registers are full of useful genealogy information.
Wyoming – Genealogy Trails has updated their website with more genealogy data from Wyoming. In particular, more records were added for the following counties: Albany, Big Horn, Carbon, Johnson, Laramie, Lincoln, Natrona, Niobrara, Park, Teton and Uinta. Access is free. [Wyoming Genealogy Records]
Arkansas – FamilySearch.org has added new searchable indexes for the state of Arkansas. Included are a marriage index (1933 to 1939) and a death index (1914 to 1950). In total, some 1 million names are in the indexes. This data comes from Ancestry. Access is free. [Arkansas Marriage Index] [Arkansas Death Index]
Florida – FamilySearch.org has added a massive marriage index for the state of Florida that spans the years 1822 to 1875 and 1927 to 2001. There are some 11.7 million names in this collection and it is searchable by name, by spouse and by parents. The records originate from the Florida Department of Health. Access is free. [Florida Marriage Records]
Tennessee – FamilySearch.org has created a new collection of a Tennessee marriage index from 1780 to 2002. This index comes from the Tennessee State Library and Archives and lists some 3.3 million names. The index can be searched by name. Access is free. [Tennessee Marriage Records]
Minnesota – FamilySearch.org has added a marriage index for the state of Minnesota. The some 2.4 million records in the collection cover the period from 1958 to 2001. The index lists the name of the bride and groom, their parents, the calculated birthdates of the married couple and well as the marriage date and place. The easiest way to search this index is to know the name of either the bride or groom or the date and place of marriage. Access is free. [Minnesota Marriage Records]
National – A major new genealogy website has just quietly and unofficially been launched. It is from the Scottish genealogy company brightsolid. It clearly shows the company has moved into the US genealogy market in a big way. The company has yet to make an official announcement, but the website is called CensusRecords.com As the name implies, this website is all about US census records.
At the moment, transcripts of all the US censuses from 1790 to 1930 are already available for viewing except 1860, 1870, 1890 and 1920 which the website says will be available soon. There are no census images available on launch, but these are also expected to be ‘coming soon’. Transcripts for the 1790 to 1840 censuses are free once you register. The rest of the census records can be viewed by pay-per-view or by subscription. [US Census Records] This site will quickly become popular with genealogists.
A bit of background on the company: People researching their ancestors in the UK will be familiar with brightsolid. They run the popular genealogy website FindMyPast.co.uk (ranked #13 on the global list of the Top 100 Most Popular Genealogy Websites). The company also runs ScotlandsPeople (in concert with the Scottish government, ranked #75 in the Top 100), 1911 census, findmypast.com.au and most recently findmypast.ie (ranked #91 of the Top 100). Brightsolid also formed a partnership with the British Library for the recently released website British Newspaper Archive, which already ranks #43 on the Top 100 list. Thus, brightsolid already has several popular genealogy websites and this new US website adds to their collection.
It is interesting that brightsolid has not made any announcement about this new website. GenealogyInTime Magazine picked it up through the automatic scripts that we use to monitor the internet. Brightsolid is one of the sponsors of RootsTech being held 2-4 February 2012 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Perhaps an announcement will be made at the conference, so consider this a special sneak peek.
Virginia – American Ancestors (the website of the New England Genealogical Society) has put online volumes 1 through 49 of the Virginia Genealogist. This is essentially a database of Virginia genealogical records that was first published in book format. The database contains approximately 483,000 records. It includes such things as compiled genealogies, property tax lists, deeds, court orders, wills, marriage records and other records from various county sources. Also included are transcripts of bible abstracts, church records, military records and mercantile lists. Access to this database is by membership (anyone can join). [Virginia Genealogist]
National – Arlington National Cemetery has been plagued over the last couple of years by reports of mislabelled graves, misplaced remains and general mismanagement. Now it is reported that the number of people buried at the United States’ national cemetery has been significantly underreported. It is now estimated that 400,000 people are interred at Arlington National Cemetery, about 20% more than the previously stated number of 330,000 people.
Examples of underreporting include situations where the husband and wife are buried in the same plot but only the husband’s name is on the tombstone and multiple soldiers buried together but not all of them were identified. There are also reports of multiple errors in the spelling of names and discrepancies between records and tombstones on the dates of birth and death. The exact number of people buried within the 150-year old cemetery will not be known until the summer of 2012 when the full survey is completed. But it is known that thousands of markers in the cemetery will need to be replaced or changed. [Arlington National Cemetery]
Pennsylvania – Ancestry.com has put online a collection of 7.5 million ancestral records from the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The collection spans the years 1593 to 1908. The highlights of the collection are birth, church and town records from 1593 to 1708 that have been sourced from churches, funeral homes, cemeteries, newspapers and historical societies. There is also a naturalization database (1794 to 1908) that includes petitions for citizenship, certificates of citizenship, court naturalization lists, and country of origination lists. This is a significant collection for anyone with Pennsylvanian ancestors. You can learn more by watching the video below from Ancestry. Access is by subscription. [Pennsylvania Ancestral Records]
North Carolina – GenealogyBank has announced that their collection of historic North Carolina newspapers now numbers more than 100 in total. Many of the newspapers in the collection are recent, although some newspapers go back as far as 1787, with most of the historic newspapers starting in the early 1800s. Access is by subscription. [Historic North Carolina Newspapers]
National – Fold3 has added a significant new collection of Revolutionary war documents know as Numbered Record Books. These include orderly books, oaths of allegiances, lists of men and officers in state regiments, quartermaster accounts, correspondence, and supply records. The orderly books are particularly interesting because they include rosters, instructions for troop movements, promotions, reprimands, findings of court martial cases and camp regulations. Most of the numbered record books date from 1775 to 1783. The books are indexed and searchable. This is quite a collection. Access is by subscription. [US Revolutionary War Record Books]
US – The Martin Luther King digital archive has opened online. It contains over 200,000 personal documents belonging to and related to Martin Luther King Jr. Included in the collection are letters, speeches, telegrams, notes and other items of interest. Access is free. [Martin Luther King Archive]
Texas – Archives.com has added over 900,000 Texas and North Dakota cemetery and vital records. Access is by subscription. [Texas Cemetery Records]
New York – The Troy Irish Genealogy Society has added over 5,100 interment records from St. Mary’s Cemetery of Troy, New York. Each record shows the last known city of residence, interment date and section/lot number. The records can be searched by name. St. Mary’s cemetery covered the general population in the area and burials were not restricted to people of Irish origin. The Troy Irish Genealogy Society also has a great variety of other genealogy records from the region of Troy, New York. Access is free. [Troy, New York Burial Records]
California – FamilySearch.org has added a California marriage index composed of some 4.9 million names and covering the period from 1960 to 1985. The index was provided by Ancestry.com and lists the following information: name of bride and groom, bride’s parents, groom’s parents, ages of bride and groom and the marriage date and place. This collection can be searched by name. Access is free. [California Marriage Records]
Pennsylvania – The Scranton Public Library in Scranton, Pennsylvania has created a new website called the Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives that will serve as the archive for the area’s past. The collection contains letters, books, paintings, city directories, photographs and other artefacts that can be viewed online from 1850 to 1865, which was the key industrialization period for the area. More content is expected to be added in the future. Access is free. [Lackawanna Valley Digital Archives]
National – FamilySearch.org has added a variety of death indexes from various states: Connecticut (1.4 million records - 1949 to 2001); Indiana (800,000 records – 1882 to 1920); Massachusetts (2 million records – 1970 to 2003); Michigan (2 million records – 1971 to 1996); Minnesota (2.9 million records – 1908 to 2002); Montana (660,000 records – 1860 to 2007); Oregon (1.5 million records – 1903 to 1998) and Wisconsin (1.6 million records – 1959 to 1997). Access is free. [US Death Indexes]
Texas – FamilySearch.org has added 17.1 million Texas birth records from 1903 to 1997. Each record lists the child’s name, date and place of birth and the parent’s name. Access is free. [Texas Birth Records]
2011 October to December
Vermont – FamilySearch has expanded the collection of vital records from Vermont. The newest additions cover the period from 1760 to 1954. The entire collection covers some 2.1 million images and it is now complete for the years 1871 to 1908. Access is free. [Historic Vermont Birth, Marriage, Death Records]
North Carolina – Ancestry.com has released 2 million World War II draft cards from the state of North Carolina. These were completed by men living in North Carolina in the early 1940s and who were born between 1897 and 1929. Information on a typical draft card included name, address, age, place of birth, employer’s name and physical measurements. Access is by subscription. [North Carolina World War II Draft Cards]
California – FamilySearch has created a new collection of passenger lists for the Port of Los Angeles. These records date from June 1907 to June 1948. A typical record lists name, place of birth, age, gender, occupation, nationality, date and port of entry, name of ship, last permanent residence, final destination, and the name and address of a relative or friend in the United States. There are approximately 120,000 images in this collection. Access is free. [Port of Los Angeles Passenger Lists]
Texas – FamilySearch has created a major new index collection of Texas death records. The collection spans some 7.25 million records and covers the years 1903 to 2000. This is a major new collection for anyone with Texas ancestors. Access is free. [Texas Death Records]
Texas – FamilySearch has added some 424,000 new birth certificates for the state of Texas. The records span the years 1903 to 1934. The entire collection now totals some 1 million records. The nice thing about Texas birth certificates is they usually list the birth place of the parents (see image below). Access is free. [Texas Birth Certificates]
Texas birth certificate showing the birthplace of the parents.
Iowa – The Daily Iowan newspaper has launched an online archive of the newspaper. The archive goes back as far as 1868 and is complete with the exception of two brief periods (fall of 1918 and summer of 1984). Included in the archive are the Daily Iowan’s predecessor newspapers, such as the University Reporter (1868 to 1881), the Vidette (1879 to 1881), the Vidette Reporter (1881 to 1901) and the University Mirror (1881). The archive is housed under the University of Iowa library system. In total, the collection consists of some 750,000 scanned images. The collection is full text searchable. Access is free. [Historic Iowa Newspaper Archive]
National – Ancestry has added more than 50 million new birth, marriage and death records to its US vital records collection, which now numbers close to 500 million records in total. The new records come from 23 different states. Some of the highlights include Connecticut deaths and burials (1650 to 1934), Maryland births and christenings (1622 to 1911), New Hampshire death and burials (1654 to 1949), New Hampshire marriages (1637 to 1947) and New Jersey births and christenings (1660 to 1931). Access is by subscription. [US Vital Records]
Tennessee – The Tennessee State Library and Archives has come to an agreement with Ancestry.com to put online records held by the archive. The first batch to go online will be 1.2 million death records from 1908 to 1959. Access will be by subscription. No date has been set as to when these new records will be available on Ancestry, although the Ancestry website already contains some Tennessee death records. Alternatively, these records are already available free on the Tennessee Electronic website (click on the Genealogy link). [Free Tennessee Death Records] Note: you need to be a Tennessee resident to access this free database (or be prepared to provide a Tennessee zip code and telephone number). FamilySearch also has some Tennessee death records, which are available here.
Alabama – The Alabama Genealogical Society continues to add to its probate court record collection. Thanks to the efforts of Caroline Horton, another 1000 names from probate records have been added to the Loose Records Collection, which now can be searched for over 57,000 names. Access is free. [Historic Alabama Probate Records]
National – GenealogyBank has just added another 134 million newspaper articles to its collection to bring their total record collection to over 1 billion. In total, the collection spans more than 5,700 newspapers in all 50 states, including a rare collection of African American and Hispanic American newspapers from 1827 to 1999. Access is by subscription. [GenealogyBank]
Guam – FamilySearch has created a new collection of land records from the territory of Guam in the western Pacific Ocean. Guam is one of five territories controlled by the United States. It played a major role in the battle of the Pacific during World War II. This new collection consists of 289,000 browsable images dating from 1898 to 1964. Access is free. [Historic Guam Land Records]
North Carolina – FamilySearch has added about 281,000 images for 12,000 people related to estate files from North Carolina. These records cover the years 1663 to 1917 and are from the North Carolina Department of Archives. These are files related to the settlement of estates and include such documents as the distribution of funds, land, property and slaves upon the death of the owner. This would be a good collection to check if you have African American ancestors from North Carolina. Access is free. [Historic North Carolina Estate Files]
2011 July to September
National - GenealogyBank has significantly expanded their US newspaper collection with the addition of 134 million articles. The GenealogyBank newspaper collection now contains over 1 billion genealogy references in US newspapers dating from 1690 to the present. The collection also includes African American and Hispanic American newspapers. Access is by subscription. [Historic US Newspapers]
New York – FamilySearch has added about 2.6 million browsable images of New York City ship passenger arrival lists covering the period from 1925 to 1942. A typical record lists the name of the passenger, age, birthplace, marital status, nationality, occupation, date of arrival and port of departure. Access is free. [Historic Port of New York Ship Passenger Lists]
Illinois – FamilySearch has added about 1.5 million naturalization records from the state of Illinois (northern district). The records span the years 1840 to 1950. The records after 1906 are more complete and typically include the name of the petitioner, address, name of the court, country and date of birth, date and place of arrival in the United States, date of naturalization and name and address of witnesses. Access is free. [Historic Illinois Naturalization Records]
National – FamilySearch has increased their collection of World War II draft registration cards. The newest addition is about 814,000 records from the 1942 draft. This was the fourth draft the US conducted during the war and was done on April 27, 1942. It was specifically for men aged 45 to 64 at the time (born between 1877 and 1897). This is a good record set to check even if your ancestor did not fight in the Second World War as they may have been listed in this draft. Access is free. [World War II Draft Registration Records]
National – FamilySearch has added about 90,000 records to its collection of US pension applications for the War of 1812. A typical pension application lists the name of the solder, enlistment date, military action and discharge date as well as the address of the soldier, name of widow, date of marriage and (if applicable) date of death of the soldier. This collection can be searched by first and last name as well as place. Access is free. [US War of 1812 Pension Applications]
National – FamilySearch has posted online a variety of soldier service records from the US Civil War (1861 to 1865). By state, the records are as follows: Kentucky (over 1.5 million records, both Confederate and Union soldiers), Louisiana (779,000 records), Maryland (44,000 records), Mississippi (about 1.3 million records), Missouri (348,000 records), North Carolina (almost 2 million records) and Tennessee (about 1.1 million records). Access is free. [US Civil War Soldier Records]
Michigan/Canada – FamilySearch has put online a browsable collection of 851,000 images of manifests of arrivals at the port of Detroit. The records span the years 1906 to 1954. The Windsor/Detroit corridor was (and still is) the main crossing point between Ontario and the United States. This would be a good collection to check if you suspect you had ancestors that migrated from Ontario to the United States during the early 1900s. This record set is particularly valuable because it predates that creation of most custom records between Canada and the US since customs posts (and thus full customs records) between the two countries were not formalized until the 1930s. Access is free. [Historic Detroit Arrival Records]
Indiana – Indiana University has just completed digitizing 5,000 images of the Indianapolis Recorder newspaper, which covered Indianapolis’ black community for over 100 years. The online collection spans the years 1899 to 2005 (with 1917 - 1925 and parts of 1932 missing). The newspaper was originally established in 1897, meaning this is an almost complete collection. The university is searching for anyone who may have copies of the newspaper from the missing years. The digital collection can be searched by keyword. Access is free. [Historic Copies of Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper]
National – Archives.com announced this week they had indirectly purchased a copy of the entire US federal population census indexes (1790 to 1930) from FamilySearch. The collection consists of some 500 million records in total. The transfer was not an outright sale, but was done for a consideration of future payments of at least $5 million, which is to go towards digitizing new record sets at FamilySearch.
Archives.com bought the US census collection for a cost of about 1 cent per record. If memory serves us correctly, buried deep within the IPO documents of Ancestry (their main competitor) it said that it cost Ancestry an average of 5 cents to obtain and transcribe a record (for more details see this article). This would suggest Archives.com got a real bargain.
The deal between FamilySearch and Archives.com was probably structured this way (future consideration of new records instead of an outright sale of a copy of the existing census records) to avoid alienating FamilySearch’s volunteer base, which is considerable. Volunteers might not be happy to know their work is going to support a for-profit enterprise like Archives.com. You can read the full press release here.
National – Ancestry.com has tripled the size of its online US schoolbook collection to a total of 35,000 yearbooks covering 155 million records. The collection covers high schools, junior highs, academies, colleges and universities. The yearbooks date from 1884 to as recent as 2009. Included in the expanded collection are 7 million images of people and events. It is very hard to get through high school without being put into a yearbook. In addition to checking out bad hairdos, you can see what your ancestor looked like and get some idea as to their academic capabilities. This would also be an excellent source to check for all those hard-to-find ancestors. [US School Yearbook Collection]
Michigan – FamilySearch has added some 380,000 new indexes to the Michigan state census of 1894. Access is free. [1894 Michigan State Census Records]
Michigan – The Delta County Genealogical Society of Delta, Michigan has been working for more than three and a half years transcribing Delta County death records going back as far as 1865. After much hard work on the part of many dedicated volunteers, these records are now online in an impressive database. Each record lists the name of the deceased, date of death, year of birth, mother’s name, father’s name, cemetery and funeral home. Records can be searched by any part of a name. This is a major new resource for anyone with ancestors from the region. The Delta County Genealogical Society has now begun work on the county’s marriage records, which will also eventually go online. Access is free. [Delta County Michigan Death Records]
National – FamilySearch has officially completed the 1930 US census. Access is free. [free US 1930 Census Records]
North Carolina – The State Archives and State Library of North Carolina is continuing to grow its online collection of family Bible records. Since 1967, the archives have been collecting Bible records from people in the 96 counties across North Carolina. Nearly 1,500 of the roughly 2,200 family Bible records are now available online. It is rare to see a collection of family Bible records online and they can provide a unique and valuable source of information. You can browse the collection by family name. Access is free. [North Carolina Family Bible Records]
National – JTA has launched a digital archive containing 250,000 articles going as far back as 1923. JTA is a not-for-profit organization that reports on current events and issues of interest to Jewish people. Highlights of the new digital archive include extensive reporting from Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, and the founding of the Jewish state after World War II. The archive is searchable by keyword and date. Access is free. [Historic JTA News Archive]
Illinois – Yearbooks from Shurtleff College in Illinois have now gone online. The yearbooks cover the period from 1911 to 1957 (with some missing years). Shurtleff College ceased to be an independent college in 1957, when it became part of the Southern Illinois University system. Access is free. [Shurtleff College Yearbooks]
National – Randy Majors has created a great interactive tool that allows you to trace US historical county boundaries on Google maps. Over the years, the boundaries of many counties often shifted several times. This means your ancestors homestead could be located within different counties at different points in the past. This can make it difficult to track down local genealogy records. For example, courthouse documents often reside in the lead town or city within each county. This free tool will allow you to track all these changes, making it much easier to correlate the location of your ancestors to the location of local records on your ancestors. [US Historical County Boundary Maps]
2011 April to June
Virginia – A new Virginia website allows you to trace your ancestor’s movements on civil war battlefields. Over two million soldiers fought in the US Civil War and Virginia saw more action than any other state. Now you can track the movements of your ancestor’s regiment with a new feature called Walk in Their Footsteps. This feature is brought to you by the Virginia Civil War Commission to celebrate the sesquicentennial of the war. The interactive website provides a database of various military regiments that served in Virginia during the war and ties it to genealogical information that allows you to directly connect your descendants to particular battles. This allows you to plot a customized “battle plan” for your ancestor. Be sure to watch the video tutorials to understand how the process works. Access is free. [Plotting Civil War Troop Movements in Virginia]
Iowa – FamilySearch has added about 132,000 county marriage records for Iowa. The records date from 1838 to 1934. Access is free. [Historic Iowa Marriage Records]
Montana – The Great Falls Genealogy Society of Cascade County, Montana has launched a new website that contains many online resources that would be of interest to anyone who had ancestors from the region. This well laid-out website has an online collection of birth records (through to 1933), marriage records (1910 to 1919), death records, cemetery records and various local histories. New records are being added all the time. Access is free. [Cascade County Montana Genealogy Records]
New Jersey – The government of New Jersey has put online an additional 2,000 historic photographs documenting New Jersey farming from the late 1800s through to the 1970s. The collection now comprises some 7,000 photographs of historic New Jersey farm scenes. The database can be searched by subject, date and location. It is free to search and high-resolution copies of the images may be purchased for a fee. [Historic New Jersey Farm Photographs]
Ohio – FamilySearch has added 640,000 Ohio tax records spanning the years 1800 to 1850. Access is free. [Historic Ohio Tax Records]
Vermont – FamilySearch has added about 260,000 new Vermont vital records spanning the years 1760 to 1954. Access is free. [Historic Vermont Vital Records]
National – Ancestry.com has put online the complete World War II Navy muster rolls. This collection of over 33 million records lists US navy enlisted personnel from 1938 to the end of 1949. A typical record contains name, service number, occupation, date of enlistment, name of ship and date reported for duty on the ship. Access is by subscription. [US Navy World War II Personnel Records]
National - On the same day that Google announced the demise of their newspaper archive (see The Death of Google News Archive), the Library of Congress Chronicling America newspaper website announced that an additional 230,000 pages have been added to their website. In addition, users are being asked to test drive a new beta site. [Chronicling America beta site] Of course, a more convenient approach is to just use our free genealogy search engine, which fully searches the Chronicling America website plus a few hundred other ancestral record websites all at the same time.
National – Yale University has decided to convert its vast collection of online images to “open access”. This means that Yale University has moved its cultural heritage collection of images (those that would be of interest to genealogists) into the public domain. These images are now openly and freely available to all. According to the university, “Yale is the first Ivy League university to make its collection accessible in this fashion”. Already, the open access collection numbers over 250,000 images and the collection is expected to grow into the millions. In addition to many images of historic Americans, the collection also has images of less famous Americans, historic maps, street scenes, etc. The site has a full search function. Access is free. [Historic Images from Yale University]
Historic View of Philadelphia (from the Yale University Collection)
National – FamilySearch has released a massive collection of 10 million US Civil War records. The release marks the 150th anniversary of the war. The collection includes service records for both the Confederate and Union armies, pension records, probate records, widows’ certificates, US Army enlistments (1798-1914) and much more. In addition to the 10 million records that have already been indexed, FamilySearch has hundreds of millions more records associated with the Civil War that need to be indexed. They are looking for volunteers to assist with this multi-year project. Access is free. [Free US Civil War Records]
South Carolina – FamilySearch has launched a special South Carolina collection. Included in the collection are South Carolina probate records (1671-1977), death records (1915-1955) and Confederate service records (1861-1865). In total, this collection has millions of records. Access is free. [South Carolina Genealogy Records]
Kentucky – FamilySearch has started a new collection of Kentucky death records. The collection already contains some 1.4 million records and spans the years 1911 to 1955. Access is free. [Historic Kentucky Death Records]
National – A new website called Project Preserve and Honor documents American military personnel buried at Arlington National Cemetery. To many genealogists, this type of website will look familiar: images of tombstones and details on the deceased. What is remarkable about this website is that it was done by 17 year old Ricky Gilleland. His website documents Iraq and Afghanistan veterans laid to rest at Arlington, something that the US Army has not done. Access is free. [Arlington National Cemetery Gravesites]
New York – FamilySearch has added over 1 million new records from the 1892 New York state census. Access is free. [1892 New York Census Records]
National – A new website called the Immigrant Archive Project allows recent immigrants to the United States to tell their story online. The website specializes in Latino immigrants, but anyone can contribute. Access is free. [Immigrant Archive Project]
National – The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) has been expanding their free online databases. DAR is a group that focuses on patriots of the American Revolutionary War (1774 to 1783) and their descendants. About 4,500 names are added to the database daily and the total database now contains some 7.1 million names. The database is a good place to check for anyone with ancestors from across the American Colonies in the 1700s and 1800s. It contains more than just records on Revolutionary soldiers. Included in the database are such items as cemetery reports and bible records. Access is free. [Daughters of the American Revolution Historic Family Trees]
Pennsylvania – The Philadelphia Tribune has announced that they will digitally archive their entire photo collection of more than 250,000 images spanning 125 years. Most of the collection will showcase African American life in the Philadelphia region starting in 1884 when the newspaper was founded. The collection is expected to go online soon. This will likely become an important resource for anyone with African American ancestors from the Philadelphia region. You need to register to access the website. [Historic African American Photographs from Philadelphia]
Oklahoma – FamilySearch has added an additional 222,000 historic Oklahoma marriage records spanning the years 1891 to 1959. Access is free. [Historic Oklahoma Marriage Records]
National – Just in time for the 150 year anniversary of the Civil War, Ancestry has seriously beefed up their Civil War collection. The basis for the new collection are some 275,000 records from the National Archives known as the Consolidated Lists of Civil War Draft Registration Records, 1863-1865. Ancestry has also included records from some 20+ historic military cemeteries as well as Union and Confederate soldier service records 1861-1865. Access is by subscription. [Historic Civil War Soldier Records]
National – Virginia Tech has launched a website called American Civil War Newspapers. So far, the site has just one newspaper: the Daily Telegraph (1860-1865) from Macon, Georgia. However, it looks as though more historic websites will be added over time. Access is free. [Free US Civil War Newspaper Archive]
Arkansas – The Arkansas Catholic, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Little Rock, has begun the process of digitizing historic copies of The Southern Guardian, a predecessor newspaper. The year 1911 has already been digitized and put online. The plan is to eventually digitize the years 1912 to 2001. Access is free. [The Southern Guardian Newspaper of Little Rock]
Maryland – The Baltimore Sun has begun digitizing its library of 2 million historic photographs. The intention is to sell prints of the online images. Approximately 200,000 photographs have already been digitized. The pictures can be searched by subject and last name of the people in the images. [Historic Baltimore Photographs]
2011 January to March
National – A new Irish American museum has just been launched in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the museum is to bring Irish-American history to life. The museum’s website has an online library, which at the moment is limited to biographical information about famous Irish Americans. Click on the link to learn more about the museum. [Irish American Museum]
Wisconsin – Sheboygan, Wisconsin has put online historic city and county directories. The directories cover the years 1875 to 1898 plus 1918. Included in the directory listings are residents, businesses, schools, churches and societies. Access is free. [Historic Sheboygan Directories]
Vermont – FamilySearch has added some 220,000 vital records from Vermont covering the period 1760 to 1954. These are index cards of town clerk transcriptions of births, marriages and deaths. Access is free. [Historic Vermont Vital Records]
Tennessee – The city of Memphis, Tennessee has rapidly expanded their online historic archive over the last several months. It now contains an extensive collection of civil rights photographs, historic Memphis streetscapes, historic school classroom photographs plus several other collections of interest to genealogists. There is even a small, but interesting Elvis collection (see image below). Access is free. [Memphis City Online Archive]
That is not an impersonator. It really is Elvis doing karate.
Texas – FamilySearch has added 440,000 Texas birth certificates for the years 1903-1909 and 1926-1934. A collection of Texan county tax rolls for the period 1846-1910 has also been added. Access is free. [Historic Texas Birth Certificates]
New Hampshire – FamilySearch has added over 300,000 New Hampshire marriage records spanning the years 1637 to 1947. Information includes the name of the bride and groom as well as the town and date of marriage. Many records also contain additional information. Access is free. [Historic New Hampshire Marriage Records]
Alabama – The Florence-Lauderdale Public Library in Alabama has digitized and put online a Lauderdale County Circuit Court record book covering the years 1843 to 1850 (see image below). This is part of a pilot project on the part of the library, which is seeking funds to help digitize about 100 volumes of historic courthouse records. The library’s current online digital collection consists primarily of photographs and oral histories. Access is free. The library is looking for donations to help cover further digitization efforts. [Historic Lauderdale County Court Records]
New Jersey – FamilySearch has added approximately 1.3 million records from the 1885 New Jersey State census. Access is free. [1885 New Jersey State Census]
Louisiana – The Archdiocese of New Orleans has put online the first release of historic records from the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. This first release are baptism records covering the time period from 1777 to 1801 (the city was under Spanish control at the time). Other records are expected to go online in the future, including marriage and death records. This is big news for anyone wanting to trace their ancestry in New Orleans and will be of particular interest to anyone wanting to trace their black ancestry.
New Orleans only became an American city in 1803. Prior to that, it was ruled by the French (1718-1763 and then again 1801-1803) and the Spanish (1763-1801). During this entire period, the Catholic Church provided several functions usually associated with governments, such as the keeping of vital (birth, marriage, death) records. Over the years, many of these Catholic Church records have been documented and indexed by family name. The information was primarily recorded in several large print volumes, which can be accessed at the New Orleans Public Library. However, slaves and free people of color were usually not recorded in the print volumes even though the information was available in the original Catholic Church records. Now that the original records have been put online, this barrier has been eliminated.
One thing to note about the online records though is that they are scans of the original documents. The records have not been transcribed from the original Spanish. As well, the handwriting is in an ornate Spanish cursive style. It will take some time for a person to wade through the records. To further complicate matters, the Spanish priests used Spanish spellings of French names, which were prevalent at the time. The website, however, provides suggestions to help people read the records. [Historic New Orleans Baptism Records]
National – Ancestry has added 250,000 new historical records to its extensive African American holdings. The new records come from five collections: US colored troop service records 1861-1867 (Civil War records comprising enlistment papers, casualty sheets, death reports and correspondence); Savannah, Georgia slave ship manifests 1789-1859; New Orleans slave ship manifests 1807-1860; Freedman’s Bureau records 1865-1878 (formed after the Civil War to aid reconstruction efforts for former slaves); slave narratives 1936-1938 (a small collection of life stories of former slaves). Access is by subscription. [Civil War Colored Troop Service Records]
Wisconsin – The city of Eau Claire, Wisconsin has put online cemetery records from the two city cemeteries of Forest Hill and Lakeview. The records can be searched by first and last name. The records include date of birth, date of death, date of internment (if known) and a map button that you can click to show you the location of the grave within the cemetery. You can also submit online obituaries, memories, a life history, military records, video and pictures of the deceased. Access is free. [Eau Claire Cemetery Records]
National – FamilySearch has added about 8 million records of border crossings from Canada (1895 to 1956) and Mexico (1903 to 1957). This data comes from Ancestry’s collection. A word of caution if you do not see your ancestor in this collection. The US did not formally have border guards at all crossing points until the mid-1930s. Before this time, it was possible for someone to cross at smaller uncontrolled border points with no records. Access is free to this collection. [Historic US Border Crossing Records]
Montana – FamilySearch has added 338,000 Montana marriage records from 1865 to 1950. Access is free. [Historic Montana Marriage Records]
Rhode Island – FamilySearch has put online the detailed individual information from the 1935 Rhode Island State census. Access is free. [Rhode Island 1935 Census Records]
California, Delaware, Illinois– FamilySearch has added 3 million new digital images of US naturalization records. The records are from California (1852-1989), Delaware (1855-1955) and Illinois (1840-1950). Access is free. [Historic US Naturalization Records]
Missippi – The University of Mississippi has begun to put its Civil War archive online. The initial batch of items includes letters, diaries, wartime correspondence and field dispatches. The collection is searchable. Access is free. [Mississippi Civil War Archives]
New York – The Museum of the City of New York has put online over 50,000 historic images of New York City. This is their first step in putting more of their collection online. The site is a bit challenging to navigate. When you get to the Photo Collections page, you need to click on the word ‘Search’ in the upper right hand corner and then search the images by category. Access is free. [Historic New York City Photographs]
New York – The Northern New York Library Network has reached an important milestone of 2 million historic newspaper pages online. The newspapers are from the Upper New York State counties of Oswego, Jefferson, Lewis, St. Lawrence, Franklin, Clinton and Essex. The site is very easy to navigate and access is free. [Historic Newspapers from Upper New York State] Another good site for historic New York state newspapers is Fulton History. It has over 15 million pages online from various regions of the state. [Fulton History Newspapers] You can also search this site using our free Genealogy Search Engine.
Illinois – The Illinois State Genealogical Society has just launched a new website. The site is well designed and easy to manoeuvre around. It also has a small collection of free genealogy databases for Illinois ancestors. Included are Civil War certificates from the state as well as World Wars I and II certificates. [Illinois State Genealogical Society]
Ohio – Cemetery records for Cleveland Ohio have now gone online thanks to the diligent work of the East Cuyahoga County Genealogical Society. About 350,000 records from ten Cleveland cemeteries can be searched by cemetery and last name. Information includes date of internment, age, sex and sometimes name of parent. Access is free. [Cleveland Cemetery Records]
National – The John F. Kennedy Library has launched the first online presidential archive. The launch coincides with the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s inauguration (20 January 1961). The online archive includes 200,000 digitized pages, hundreds of hours of films, voice recordings and many photographs. Only a fraction of the archive has been digitized. It is expected to take several years to complete the process. However, already this is a great source for anyone looking for context for 1960s events in America such as civil rights, space flight, etc. Access is free. [John F. Kennedy Digital Archive]
Maine – Ancestry has launched a collection of Maine vital records. Birth records date from 1621 to 1922, marriage records from 1705 to 1922 and death records from 1617 to 1922. These records are transcriptions from the Maine State Archives. The records before 1892 are rather sparse. Although Ancestry doesn’t mention it on their website (and they should), before 1892 all births, marriages and deaths were not recorded at the state level in Maine. Individual towns and cities were responsible for keeping their own vital records. In the 1920s, the state made a formal request for copies of all the pre-1892 vital records from all the towns and cities in Maine in an attempt to reconstruct a more complete history for the state. Maine estimates that they were only able to collect about 20% of all the records. To put it another way, four out of five people are missing from the Maine State Archives (and thus the Ancestry collection) prior to 1892. Access to the Ancestry collection is by subscription. [Historic Maine Vital Records]
Missouri – The State Historical Society of Missouri has created an online database of thousands of historical articles, photographs and artwork (such as the example shown below) related to Missouri history. What will be particularly interesting to genealogists is that the society hopes to have 100,000 pages of historic newspapers online by the end of February. Included in the newspaper collection will be historic copies of the Kansas City Journal and the St. Louis Republic. Access is free. [Historic Missouri Newspapers]
George Bingham "In a Quandary"
2010 October to December
National – This is a preannouncement. The US National Archives (NARA) is about to launch a new search interface on their website. Part of the government’s Open Government initiative, the new NARA search interface promises to be more streamlined and make it easier to search across multiple databases. The results will also be grouped in a more logical format. [Announcement of the New NARA Search Interface]
New York – FamilySearch has completed indexing the 1905 New York State census. Images of the original census documents are available for viewing. Access is free. [1905 New York State Census]
Indiana – This is big news for anyone with ancestors from Indiana. The Indiana State Archives has upgraded and digitized some 2.7 million historic records and put them online for free. Much of the hard work was done by volunteers from The Friends of the Indiana State Archives. The records can be searched by first name/last name or keyword. The collection dates back to the Civil War era and contains such diverse record sets as naturalization records of immigrants who settled in Indiana; the “Negro Registries” – a list of citizens forced by a 19th century law to report their race; indexes of inmates in prisons and mental hospitals and muster rolls of more than 200,000 soldiers who fought in the Civil War. [Indiana State Archives]
National – Ancestry has put online about 115,000 records from West Point Military Academy. The collection spans the years 1805 to 1866 and includes letters of application, letters of recommendations and letters of acceptance. Access is by subscription. [Historic West Point Military Academy Applications]
National – Ancestry has added a rare collection of 75,000 prison records from some of the most infamous US federal prisons. Included are records from several prisons such as Alcatraz, Leavenworth, McNeil Island and Atlanta. The records in this collection span the years 1875 to 1963. The index can be searched for free. [US Penitentiary Records 1875-1963]
National - The Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office (GLO) has just launched a new and improved website. This is the official US federal land records site. It is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to trace American ancestors who were homesteaders. The new website contains many new and improved features, including access to more than five million federal land title records (up from three million records on the old site) issued between 1820 and the present. The new website (which is still in beta) also has a better layout for searching for land patents, survey plats & field notes as well as land status records. Finally, the new website now allows map-based searches. Access is free. [US Federal Land Records]
New York - The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society has digitized and indexed all issues of the NYG&B Record going back as far as 1870. All 563 issues can now be searched by surname and keyword. There are more than one million names listed in total. NYG&B Record is the oldest and one of the most distinguished genealogical journals in the country. Published quarterly, it concentrates on people and places in New York city and the surrounding state. The journal contains many compiled genealogies. The Society has also been busy adding other useful information to their databases, including part of the 1855 New York State census. Membership is required to access the databases and is highly recommended for anyone with New York city ancestors. [New York Genealogical and Biographical Society]
Virginia – The city of Newport News, Virginia has put historic documents on the city’s website. Everything from land deeds to postcards to historic maps is included in the new database (see image below). The material covers the period from the 1700s to the 1920s. Access is free. [Newport News Historic City Collection]
National – EBSCO and Brown University have teamed up to release a new database called European Views of the Americas: 1493 – 1750. The database contains more than 32,000 bibliographic entries about printed information on American written in Europe before 1750. A wide range of subjects are covered: exploration; slavery; natural disasters and Native American tribes, for example. The search function on this database is very sophisticated. For example, searching for ‘Smith’ will automatically pull up name variations such as ‘Smythe’. This is a worthwhile database to check for anyone who can trace their American ancestors back as far as 1750 or earlier. Access is free. [European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750]
2010 July to September
National – The US National Archives (NARA) has put online a very interesting collection of some 3,000 so-called Escape and Evasion Reports from World War II. The reports document escape and evasion activities of US soldiers in Europe during the war. For anyone interested in WWII history, these personal reports make fascinating reading (see an example of one below). It is also a possible route to finding mention of a relative or ancestor. Access is free. [National Archives World War II Escape and Evasion Reports]
Pennsylvania – Penn State University has received additional grants to digitize more key historic Pennsylvanian newspapers for the Library of Congress Chronicling America website. Phase 1 of the project (already completed) encompassed the time period 1880 to 1922. The new Phase 2 will span a broader time period of 1836 to 1922, which includes the Civil War period. Access is free. [Chronicling America]. Penn State also maintains a separate Pennsylvania Civil War Era Newspaper Collection, which spans the period 1831 to 1877. Access to this collection is also free. [Pennsylvania Civil War Era Newspaper Collection]
National – Ancestry has added 58 million school yearbook records to their US School Yearbook collection. The collection spans the years 1875 to 1988 and almost every state is represented for military, public, parochial and private schools. [Historic US Yearbook Collection]
Pennsylvania – A group of genealogists from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania have developed a website of marriage, divorce and death indexes for newspapers from the Pittsburgh area. Over 63,000 records from 1806 to 1987 are available. Access is free. [Pittsburgh Newspaper Indexes]
Washington – The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which had the dubious distinction of being one of the first US major city newspapers to be forced to go 100% online (see Why Newspapers are Dying), has created an online archive of historic Seattle images. The photo galleries are organized by topic. Access is free. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer Historic Photo Galleries]
New England – Historic New England, a museum of New England heritage and culture that chronicles the domestic life of the region over the centuries, has created a website for its collection. The website contains 400,000 photographs and images of its 65,000 square feet of artefacts. The manuscripts section contains papers from some of the most prominent New England families. Access is free. [Historic New England Museum online collection]
US & Caribbean – The Library of Congress has digitized its historic piracy collection, with some of the documents going back to the 1600s. Many of the documents involve reports on the trials of various pirates, both famous and obscure (see image below for the infamous Captain Kidd). Most pirates lived short, brutal lives and thus often did not leave descendants. Nevertheless, piracy was a major influence on the early history of the Caribbean and the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, a fact that is often overlooked today. These documents provide unique insight into the lives of many who lived during the period. [Library of Congress Piracy Trial Collection]
National – ProQuest has updated their African American Heritage collection with a set of rare African American records that predate 1870 census records. Some of the records go back to the early 1800s and include cohabitation records (North Carolina), registers of slaves and free persons of color (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana) as well as US Colored Troop records (1861 to 1865). The new records are searchable by name. ProQuest is a library subscription service that is usually accessible through local libraries. [ProQuest African American Heritage Collection]
Tennessee – The Tennessee State Library and Archives has received a grant to digitize their considerable state newspaper collection, which is currently on microfilm. The collection will be put online as part of the Library of Congress Chronicling America historic newspaper website. The process will start immediately and it is expected to take two years to complete. The first phase will involve 2,500 microfilm rolls covering the period from 1836 to 1922. The entire Tennessee state newspaper archive consists of some 20,000 microfilm rolls and dates back to the first Tennessee newspaper in 1791 (The Knoxville Gazette). Tennessee is the 16th state to put their newspaper collection on the Chronicling America website. Access is free. [Tennessee State Historic Newspaper Collection]
Maine – It seems that Maine has quietly added 13 more years to the Maine death database (records from 1960 to 2009) and the marriage database (records from 1892 to 1966 and 1977 to 2009). There is a fee to order a vital record. [Maine Vital Records]
National – The University of Vermont has begun the process of digitizing their historic newspaper collection. The collection consists of some 100,000 pages from various Vermont newspapers covering the years 1836 to 1922. The digitized images will be available free of charge as part of the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America digital newspaper collection. [Historic Vermont Newspapers 1836-1922]
National – Footnote has teamed up with Lowcountry Africana to launch a free collection of records on more than 30,000 slaves from South Carolina estates. The collection was put together from the historic records of the South Carolina Department of Archives and History and spans the period 1732 to 1872. This collection is currently not indexed. Lowcountry Africana is looking for volunteers to assist with the indexing project. [Lowcountry Africana South Carolina Historic Slave Records 1732-1872]
Arizona – The Arizona Memory Project has put online historic documents to an iconic American event now referred to as The Gunfight at the OK Corral. More of an interest to history buffs than genealogists, these documents are mainly transcripts of eye witness testimony filed by the coroner following the incident. These transcripts were misplaced for a number of years before recently being rediscovered in a local archive. Access is free. [Arizona Memory Project Gunfight at OK Corral Documents]
2010 April to June
North Carolina – The University of North Carolina has digitized some 3,200 historic maps of North Carolina. Included are many Sanborn fire insurance maps as well as coast and geodetic survey maps from the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of the maps also contain an interactive option allowing users to overlay the historic maps against current street maps and satellite images. Access is free. [Historic North Carolina Maps]
National – The US National Archives has now surpassed one million historic images available online through its Flickr collection. Many historic photos and Civil War photos are included in the collection. Access is free. [Historic US Civil War Photographs]
Illinois – The State of Illinois has changed the law allowing people adopted before 1946 to gain access to their birth certificate. The process involves filing a written request with the vital records division of the Illinois Department of Public Health. This will allow about 200,000 adoptees to learn the identity of their biological parents. After 15 November 2011, adoptees that are 21 or older and born after 1 January 1946 will be able to apply to access their birth records through the state’s adoption registry. Birth parents who do not want their name revealed will have the right to have their name redacted (black lined) from the birth certificate. [Illinois Adoption Records pre-1946]
Illinois – The Chicago Tribune has begun digitizing and selling photographs from their extensive archives. The Chicago Tribune is one of America’s great newspapers that first began publishing in 1847. Many of the images in their photographic library date back to the nineteenth century and some of the pictures have never before been published or seen by the public. Some of the images include such famous people as Al Capone, Bette Davis, Roy Rogers and Bing Crosby. This is your chance to load up on Americana and possibly even find an image of your ancestor. There is a fee to download the photographs. [Chicago Tribune Photo Archives]
Delaware – FamilySearch has added 120,000 Delaware State birth records (1861 to 1922) and 124,000 birth records (1873 to 1908) from Cook County, Illinois. Cook County is the second most populous county in the US (after Los Angeles County) and it is anchored by Chicago. This would be a good record set to search for Chicago-area ancestors. FamilySearch also added the 1875 Minnesota State Census this week. Access is free. [Historic Delaware Birth Records]
National – Yale University is celebrating the 150th anniversary as an official depository for documents from the US federal government. Until now, documents produced by the US government prior to 1976 were not catalogued online. However, now the entire collection from 1860 to 2010 is indexed and available online. Yale University also indexes collections from the Canadian federal government, European Union and the United Nations. Access to search the index is free but physical documents must still be ordered through the Yale library system. [Historic US Government Documents 1860-2010]
National – The David Rumsey Map Collection has added 764 new maps online to complement the some 20,000 maps and images already on the website. New maps are added online on a regular basis (the entire offline collection consists of over 150,000 maps). Most of the maps are of America. All the maps are high resolution and users can zoom in and out on various parts of the map. A great resource for genealogists. Access is free. Below is a sample image of part of a map of Philadelphia from 1860. [David Rumsey Map Collection]
New Jersey – Princeton University library has put online some 16,000 Sanborn maps of New Jersey towns and communities from 1884 to 1922. Sanborn maps were first created by the Sanborn Fire Insurance Company. These detailed maps enabled insurance companies to determine the risk of fire to buildings based on the building size, shape, function and structural material. Sanborn maps are particularly valuable to genealogists because they show specific details on individual buildings as well as showing how buildings relate to one another and how neighbourhoods are constructed. They are an excellent source for identifying how neighbourhoods, towns and cities have evolved over decades. The collection can be searched by county and town. Access is free. Note: the index is stored on an Excel spreadsheet called sanborn-web.xls [Historic New Jersey Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps]
Virginia – The state of Virginia has put online chancery records from Culpeper County (1829 to 1913). Chancery cases are legal cases surrounding circumstances not specifically covered by the law of the time. They can be thought of as legal exception cases and were common in America’s early history. Many of the chancery cases involved land disputes, resolutions of wills, division of estates and the buying and selling of slaves. Such chancery cases can be fertile ground for genealogists. A total of 36 Virginia counties and cities now have chancery records online at the Library of Virginia website. The database contains 191,000 cases and can be searched by surname and date. Access is free. [Historic Virginia Chancery Cases]
National – GenealogyBank has recently added 32 million new birth, marriage and obituary notices from 51 US newspapers in 28 states. The new records cover the period from 1793 to the present. Access is by subscription. [Historic US Newspaper Birth, Marriage and Obituary Notices]
Georgia – The Digital Library of Georgia housed at the University of Georgia has added to their online newspaper collection with 14 Atlanta newspapers. The period covered is from 1847 to 1922, which includes the critical Civil War period. Consisting of 67,000 newspaper pages, the images are full-text searchable. Access is free but you need to download the free DjVu browser plug-in to see the images. This plug-in is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. [Historic Atlanta Newspaper Archive 1847-1922]
National – All the back issues of the now defunct Ancestry Magazine can be searched online through Google. This magazine targeted primarily a US genealogy audience. Access is free. [Old Copies of Ancestry Magazine]
2010 January to March
National – The US Census Bureau has put online the 1870 Statistical Atlas of the United States. It joins the 1880 and 1890 Statistical Atlases that were previously put online. These atlases contain a wealth of information to genealogists. For example, below is an image from the 1890 census showing African American population density across the nation.
[1870 US Statistical Atlas] [1880 US Statistical Atlas] [1890 US Statistical Atlas]
Mississippi – The collected papers of Ulysses S. Grant has now gone online for the first time. The papers span some 350,000 items including thousands of letters. The collection of the former Civil War general and 18th President of the United States now resides at the Mississippi State University’s online archive. Access is free. [Ulysses S. Grant Papers]
National – The Internet Archive has placed the US 1930 census online for free. Most states have been put online with the remaining records to be added in the near future. There is no index however available for this free census. You have to know where your ancestors lived. [free US 1930 Census Records] If you know your ancestor's street name, but not the Enumeration District (ED), you can use Steve Morse’s website to find the ED. [US Ennumeration District Calculator]
North Carolina – The University of North Carolina has put online yearbooks from the university covering the period 1890 to 1966. Access is free. [University of North Carolina Historic Yearbooks 1890-1966]
New York – The New York Public Library launched a new historic map website this week. This free site takes online historical maps (mainly from New York State) and overlays it on top of Google maps. This is a very useful tool for genealogists that have ancestors from the New York area. The site does take a bit of time to understand though (it is still in beta), so it is worth looking at the video tutorial. [New York Historic Maps]
National – Footnote has partnered with the National Archives to release a collection of some 100,000 US Army photos taken during the Vietnam War. Each picture is captioned with the names of the soldiers featured in the photo. Access is by subscription. [Vietnam War Army Photographs]
Ohio – The Ohio Obituary Index is now available on Ancestry for those people who have an Ancestry subscription. You can still access this database for free by going to the Rutherford B. Hayes website. [free Historic Ohio Obituary Index]
National – Ancestry has released a substitute for the US 1950 census. The real 1950 census can not be released until April 2022, exactly 72 years after it was taken. Ancestry created their 1950 census substitute by aggregating information from more than 2,500 US city directories spanning the year 1950. City directories were the precursor to modern-day telephone books. A typical city directory from 1950 would list the name and address of each adult in a household along with their occupation and work address. Access is by subscription. If you already have a subscription, you can access the 1950 census substitute database directly from [US 1950 City Directories]
National – GenealogyBank has started an African-American newspaper collection. The first phase has already been rolled out and includes 61 US newspapers with an African-American focus covering the period from 1827 to 1999. The newspapers are searchable for births, obituaries, marriage announcements, etc. Eventually, GenealogyBank plans to have over 280 African-American newspapers on its website. Access is by subscription. [Historic African American Newspapers 1827-1999]
Minnesota – The Minnesota Official Marriage System (MOMS) has just gone online. This is a state-wide marriage index that covers 87 participating counties. About 80% of all of Minnesota’s marriage records have already been added to this system and more records are being added daily. The records go back well into the 1800s. You can search by last name, date range and (if necessary) county. The system has some interesting quirks. For example, you can only enter the first ten characters of a first or last name, but it seems to find all the records that match for longer names. It is free to search online although there is a fee to order copies of the marriage certificates. [Minnesota Official Marriage System]
Oregon: The Oregon State Archives has released a new searchable database of over 100,000 settlers who lived in Oregon prior to statehood. Most of the information in the database is from the period 1800 to 1860. The database was constructed backwards in time starting with information collected from the 1850 and 1860 federal censuses of the Oregon territory. This information was then supplemented with additional records including marriage records, death records, probate records and other official and semi-official records. Information was also incorporated from various publications and secondary sources. Access is free. [Early Oregon Settlers 1800-1860]
New York: The New York State Military Museum online more than 50,000 pages of New York National Guard reports dating between 1858 and 1955. This is a good source for biographical information on higher-ranking officers, many of whom were profiled in the various publications. Access is free. [Historic New York National Guard Reports 1858-1955]
North Carolina: The University of North Carolina has a new Digital Library on American Slavery. The online archive contains detailed personal information on slaves, slaveholders and free people of color. The searchable database spans records between 1775 and 1867 in all 15 slaveholding states. Access is free. [Digital Library on American Slavery]
Ohio: Hamilton County, Ohio (which covers the city of Cincinnati) has put online over 1 million probate court documents dating back as far as 1791. Included are birth records, death records, marriage records as well as estate records and naturalization records, etc.. Check out the actor Spencer Tracy’s marriage record here when he was first married at the age of 23. Access is free. [Historic Cincinnati Probate Court Documents]
2009 October to December
National: The University of Delaware library has increased its online digital collection of material from the American Civil War. Included in the new collections are lithographic prints and photographs from the Civil War. Access is free. [University of Delaware American Civil War Collection]
National: The US Army Heritage and Education Center has unveiled a digitized collection of some 23,000 Civil War photographs. This collection of Civil War photos is considered by historians to be the best and most extensive collection in the world. Known as the MOLLUS Massachusetts Photograph Collection, it contains many photographic portraits of individuals. Access is free. [US Army Civil War Photographs]
National: GenealogyBank has added an additional 100 million new newspaper articles in fully searchable form. The additions come from newspapers in New Orleans (1837-1942); Cleveland (1845-1955); Trenton, NJ (1883-1973); Seattle (1923-1939); Dallas (1885-1978) and Augusta, Georgia (1783-1977). Access is by subscription. [Historic US Newspapers]
Midwest: Footnote.com has launched a Native American records collection. The collection contains more than 1.8 million records. Included are Indian census rolls (which include name, age, place or residence and degree of Indian blood); ratified Indian treaties; Dawes packets (applications to establish Indian eligibility) and Dawes enrollment cards (1898 to 1914). The focus of much of the collection appears to be on Midwest Indian tribes. Access is by subscription. [Historic Native American Genealogy Records]
National: The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) and the University of Virginia have put online 5,000 previously unpublished documents from the founders of America. Included are letters and papers of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson amongst others. It is interesting, for example, to spend some time reading online the diaries of George Washington. Access is free. [Historic Papers of American Founders]
2009 July to September
National: The Lowcountry Digital Library of Charleston, South Carolina has gone online and expects to have more than 50,000 items from public and private archives. The digital archives contains everything from family diaries to correspondence to slave passes. Access is free. [Lowcountry Digital Library]
2009 April to June
National: The US government plans to put online over 100,000 data sources as part of the government's plan to share it's vast databases with the public. The first large batch of data sources is expected to be online by the end of June. Currently only 100 'teaser' sources are available on the website. It is not clear how many of these data sources will be useful to genealogists, although there is a category for "Births, Deaths, Marriages and Divorces" which has not been populated yet. [US Open Government]
National: The US Immigration Service signed an agreement to transfer over 21 million files compiled under the Alien Registration Act of 1940. This will be a gold mine for genealogists as the searchable files contain many things including photos, visa applications, birth certificates, personal letters and transcripts of interogations of celebrities, refugees, war brides and other immigrants. Most of the files are from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. A fee-for-service applies. [Historic US Alien Registration Documents 1850-1950]
National: The National Archives have put together a special exhibit entitled The Influenza Epidemic of 1918. The exhibit highlights selected records and images from the flu pandemic of 1918. Included in the collection are images of policemen and mailmen wearing masks as well as notices of cancellations of public meetings. Access is free. [1918 Influenza Epidemic Exhibit]
National: Readex, a division of Newsbank and a provider of digital historical collections has launched its American Newspaper Archives. The archives will initially feature nine US newspapers in fully searchable format from New Orleans Louisiana, Cleveland Ohio, Portland Oregon, Mobile Alabama, Trenton New Jersey, Seattle Washington, Springfield Mass, Dallas Texas and Augusta Georgia. Access is by subscription. [American Newspaper Archives]
2009 January to March
National: Ancestry.com launched a new database containing 2,000 US city directories from the year 1940. These city directories contain the name, address and occupation for the head of each household and provide a reasonable substitute for the 1940 US census, which by law can not be released for several more years. Ancestry.com has also completed a project to improve the quality of the images from the 1880 US census. Access is by subscription. [1940 US City Directories]
Wyoming: The Wyoming Newspaper Project aims to put online all the newspapers printed in Wyoming betweeen 1849 and 1922 including small town and regional newspapers. This involves about 900,000 newspaper pages, about half of which have already been uploaded to the website in searchable format. The database includes news articles, news briefs, obituaries and other items of interest to genealogists. The index can be searched by date, city, county and newspaper name. Access is free. [free Archived Wyoming Newspapers 1849-1922]
Michigan: The Library of Michigan and Archives Michigan have joined forces to create a one-stop online resource for people wanting to trace their roots in the State of Michigan. The new web site called Seeking Michigan is already well into the process of digitizing 1 million Michigan death records from 1897 to 1920. The index is searchable by name, location and date of death. The web site also includes Civil War documents and over 10,000 photographs. More content will be added over time. Access is free. [free Michigan Death Records 1897-1920]
National: Ancestry.com has significantly upgraded its Civil War collection to commemorate Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. Included (from the Library of Congress) are 20,000 letters to and from President Lincoln and drafts of speeches. Access is free to the Lincoln papers. Also recently included in the Civil War collection are New Orlean slave manifests 1807-1860, Confederate pension applications from Georgia, Confederate applications for Presidential pardons and 4.2 million records and profiles of almost every officer and soldier who fought in the Civil War (many with photographs of the individual). Access is by subscription. [US Civil War Collection]
National: Footnote.com is launching its African American Collection to coincide with Black History Month. In cooperation with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the collection includes military records from the US civil war and World War I & II as well as various letters, reports and petitions related to slavery. Access is free. [African American Collection]
California: SFGenealogy.com has completed indexing over 45,000 mortuary records from the San Francisco region for the years 1923 to 1960, with the results accessible online. Access is free. They are also looking for volunteers to help them index more records. [free San Francisco Death Records 1923-1960] These records can be searched using the free Genealogy Search Engine.
Oregon: The Jackson County Genealogy Library (JCGL) in Oregon has completed marriage indexes up to 1956. JCGL has the largest genealogical library in southern Oregon. Access is free to the indexes, although a fee is required to order copies of the original document. [Historic Marriage Records from Southern Oregon]
New England: The New England Historical Genealogical Society (NEHGS), the oldest non-profit genealogical society in the US, has added 5 million more records to its databases in 2008. This brings the total number of records to 120 million covering such items as birth records, marriage records and death records. The NEHGS databases are a key source for anyone looking for records in the New England states. Access is free to most of the databases. [free New England Genealogy Records]
National: GenealogyBank, a major provider of US historical newspaper articles, obituary, birth and marriage notices has added 170 more newspapers to its collection. GenealogyBank now has over 253 million searchable newspaper records. Access is by subscription. [GenealogyBank Newspaper Collection]
2008
Florida: Ancestry.com has added Florida state censuses for the years 1867, 1875, 1935 and 1945. Florida was one of the last states to conduct their own census (all states now rely on the U.S. census conducted by the federal government). Access is by subscription. [Historic Florida Census Records]
Missouri: The Jefferson County, Missouri library has indexed 45 years of (mainly) newspaper death and marriage announcements for the county from 1866 to 1910. Access is free to the index but a fee applies to order copies of the originals. [Jefferson County, Missouri Historic Newspaper Announcements]
National: FamilySearch.org has now digitized its 25,000th book for its family history archive. The archive is a collection of published genealogy and family history books. Access is free. [FamilySearch]
National: A new database cataloging the trans-Atlantic slave trade documents two-thirds of all slave trade voyages (about 35,000 trips in total) originating from England between 1514 and 1816. Access is free. [Catalogue of TransAtlantic Slave Voyages 1514-1816]
Tennessee: Death records for the state of Tennessee for the period 1908-1924 are now available on the Tennessee State Library and Archives web site. Note: death records for 1913 were not kept by the government. Access is free. [free Historic Tennessee Death Records 1908-1924]
Florida: FamilySearch.org has digitized Florida state censuses for the years 1885, 1935 and 1945. Access is free. [Florida Census Records]
National: The American Genealogical Biographical Index (AGBI), a 226 volume genealogical index of early America (some records date back to the 1700s) will no longer be available on Ancestry.com. Instead, it will be available at the Godfrey Library web site. Access is by paid subscription. [American Genealogical Biographical Index]
