Genealogy - Europe
Below are genealogy and family history news stories related to Europe. Click on the links for the full articles.
Facebook Announces Tighter Privacy Standards - Facebook announced this week that they were going to implement tighter privacy standards. The announcement came after a year in which Facebook was heavily criticized on multiple fronts for its weak privacy settings. We were part of that criticism as the first genealogy website to warn people in the spring of this year that there were serious privacy concerns with popular genealogy applications on Facebook like We’re Related...{Click here to read the full article}
Ancestors of Modern Scandinavians Immigrated to Region - A new DNA study from ancient remains has thrown into question the origin of modern Scandinavians. The study just published in the journal Current Biology suggests that modern Scandinavians do not come from ancient hunter-gatherers who inhabited the region more than 4,000 years ago. Until now, it had always been believed that modern Scandinavians were the direct descendants of people who had always lived in the region...[More]
Europe Demands Privacy Standards for Social Networking Sites - European privacy regulators issued an opinion this week on how European privacy laws should apply to social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. This comes a week after regulators expressed privacy concerns over the popular genealogy application We’re Related on Facebook. European privacy laws tend to be much more expansive than other parts of the world, including the United States. As a result, European privacy regulators are in many cases setting the standards for privacy on the internet...[More]
Privacy Fears Raised Over Genealogy Application on Facebook - A genealogy application on Facebook has drawn regulatory scrutiny. Facebook, the largest social network in the world, has a popular genealogy application called We’re Related that allows people on Facebook to link to other family members who are also on Facebook. Now, European privacy regulators say We’re Related may be violating people’s privacy because it demands too much personal data...[More]
Inbreeding of Spanish Royalty - A new genealogy study has just been released examining the inbreeding of Spanish royalty during the Hapsburg dynasty. The Hapsburgs ruled Spain for 184 years until the death of King Charles II in 1700. Charles II was a physically and mentally impaired imbecile who was the product of generations of inbreeding...[More]
Did Cleopatra Have African Ancestry? - Cleopatra (69 BC - 30 BC) was the last Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. She is perhaps best remembered for her looks and her personality, as well as her liaisons with both Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony...[More]
Cemetery Theft on the Decline - Grave robbers have been a constant curse of burial grounds for centuries. As attested by warnings against grave robbers on the walls of ancient Egyptian pyramids, stealing from the dead is a practice as old as civilization itself...[More]
DNA Confirms Remains of Russian Royal Family - Genealogists have always been fascinated with the bloodlines of royal families. Perhaps none is more fascinating than the House of Romanov that ruled Russia until Czar Nicholas II abdicated in 1917...[More]
Genetic Testing of Galileo’s Eyes? - Genetic testing has been a great boon to genealogists who want to trace their family history. Now Italian and British scientists want to use it to potentially rewrite history...[More]
Wait a Second - Everyone has heard of leap years. They usually occur every four years. But have you ever heard of a leap second...[More]
Cemetery Goes Green - Here is the genealogy question of the day: what is green, takes up a lot of space, can be found in most major cities, and is increasingly being thought of as an underutilized resource?...[more]
Gene Study Questions Spain’s Ancestry - There have always been two views of Spanish history: one that says Spain is a Catholic civilization that has been influenced by Jewish and Muslim cultures; another that says Spain is a melting pot of Catholic, Jewish and Muslim cultures...[more]
View Ancient Rome in 3-D - Google has come up with a tantalizing new tool that allows anyone to view ancient Rome from a totally new perspective...[more]
The Human Family Tree Has Many Branches - One of the most useful outcomes of modern genetic testing is that it allows scientists to discover the many branches of the human family tree...[more]
Identical Twins Swap Roles as Adults - Many families contain identical twins and family lore often revolves around how these twins swapped places with each other when they were children...[more]
A Diamond is Forever and So Are Your Ancestors - Diamonds are common heirlooms that are often passed down from generation to generation because of their sentimental and economic value...[more]
History of Neanderthals Revealed with DNA Sequence - The first complete genome of a Neanderthal has been sequenced from a 38,000 year old Neanderthal bone...[more]
Human Genes Used to Map European Origin - Many people have a European background, although most people do not know exactly where in a particular country their ancestors originate...[more]
