Minnesota Genealogical Society Conference

Paula Stuart-Warren  Conferences/Institutes, Minnesota Genealogical Society  Leave a comment

The Minnesota Genealogical Society’s North Star Genealogy Conference takes place September 18 & 19, 2009. The educational sessions will be held at the Minnesota Genealogical Society Library and Office location at concord Avenue in South St. Paul. The main speaker is Clare Mire Bettag, Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Lecturer. Clare is a nationally known genealogical educator. I count Clare as a friend and colleague and she is a fantastic lecturer.

For all the details on Clare’s presentations and some by other speakers visit the MGS website by clicking here.

August 12th on Twin Cities Live

Paula Stuart-Warren  TV shows  Leave a comment

If you happen to be within viewing range of Twin Cities TV station KSTP on Wednesday, August 12th, you might catch a glimpse of me on Twin Cities Live. The segment features two half-sisters who met because of “an afternoon on the Internet.” Ancestry.com was apparently the impetus for the connection. The station wants me to tell the viewers how to get started in family history research. How much info can I squeeze into a few sentences? I do hear you folks laughing at the thought of me trying to say only a few sentences. I just happen to be overly passionate about the subject.

Religious distribution in the U.S. today

Paula Stuart-Warren  Maps, Religion  Leave a comment

Today’s Boston Globe has a story about the distribution of religions in the U.S. today. You can read the entire story here. The story is accompanied by a series of maps showing the distribution of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Mormons, and those who consider themselves non-religious. I saw a few states that surprised me, but overall the map is what I expected.

This is the work of the polling company, Gallup. Gallup has a more complete article here. The survey was compiled via telephone.

For historic religious distribution maps check these websites:

  • The Library of Congress website has scanned images of religious distribution in 1890.

Many such maps and atlases can be found in map libraries and in the reference sections of public, historical and university libraries.

1930 Census Free during August at Footnote.com

Paula Stuart-Warren  census, Footnote.com  Leave a comment

I received this press release from Footnote.com yesterday. Today on Facebook, Footnote.com is saying that they are receiving a lot of traffic and that the site is operating a bit slowly but they are working on improving it. Footnote is a great subscription site. Just browse their content list that is constantly expanding.

1930 Census Free Through the Month of August

Dear Footnote Member,

The 1930 US Census is one of the most powerful resources available to anyone who wants to learn more about their ancestors.

During the month of August, we’re giving everyone free access to Footnote.com’s one-of-a-kind, interactive 1930 US Census.

With Footnote’s interactive census, viewing, downloading and printing images from the census are just the beginning. You can also add images and comments, spotlight interesting finds, create pages for your ancestors and tell their stories.

Let your family and friends know by simply forwarding this email to them or by pointing them to
http://www.footnote.com/1930census/

The Footnote Team

Google expands its “News Archive Search”

Paula Stuart-Warren  Newspaper Indexes, Newspapers  2 Comments

Have you used Google’s newspaper archive search? It is one of my favorite search capabilities for obituaries and other newspaper items. Many of the links that pop up are to other websites that require a fee. Many of these do have subscriptions for home users. Your public library may have subscriptions to these sites.

Google has also been digitizing newspapers and has recently quadrupled number of articles included in “News Archive Search.”

Try some searches here.

See the full notice on Google’s own blog.

Louisville Public Library floods

Paula Stuart-Warren  Libraries  Leave a comment

Libraries have so many challenges today. It’s impossible to miss the stories online and in print that tell the drastic news of budget, staff, and hours cuts. Hurricanes and tornadoes still wreak havoc. The Louisville Free Public Library has now suffered flooding with “three feet of water in the basement” and “thousands of books have been damaged.” Where does the money come from for such repair and replacement in today’s economy?

Read the article in the Courier-Journal.com

ANCESTRY.COM EXPANDS ONLINE JEWISH FAMILY HISTORY RECORD COLLECTION

Paula Stuart-Warren  Ancestry.com, Jewish  Leave a comment

This is a new press release from Ancestry.com:

Collaboration with the American Jewish Historical Society and the Routes to Roots Foundation offers online access to more than 200,000 Jewish records

PROVO, Utah, August 2, 2009 — Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online resource for family history, today announced an addition to its Jewish family history record collection through collaboration with two leading organizations committed to the preservation of Jewish heritage.

Ancestry.com has aligned with the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), which maintains millions of records that bear witness to the contributions of the American Jewish community to life in the Americas from the 16th century to the present, and Miriam Weiner’s Routes to Roots Foundation (RTRF), an internationally-known firm that specializes in Jewish research in the archives of Eastern Europe. Through relationships with these two organizations, Ancestry.com is digitizing and putting online a unique collection of records that can now be searched alongside the large collection of Jewish records already accessible on Ancestry.com.

“Ancestry.com built the largest online collection of Jewish family history records last year, through its collaboration with JewishGen and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee,” said Gary Gibb, Vice President of Content for Ancestry.com. “Now with the addition of records from the AJHS and Routes to Roots, Ancestry.com will be able to offer an even more diverse collection of Jewish-related documents that will help people discover their life story.”

The American Jewish Historical Society documents that have been digitized as part of this relationship include six remarkable collections:

  • Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum Records, 1878-1934 – applications for admission; and discharge ledgers
  • Selected Naturalization Records, New York City, 1816-1845 – declaration of intention for New York County; contains name, age, birthplace, nationality, place of emigration, occupation and place of intended settlement
  • New York Hebrew Orphan Asylum Records, 1860-1934 – applications for admission; and discharge ledgers
  • Industrial Removal Office Records, 1899-1922 – records of Jewish families and individuals who were assisted in moving from harm’s way in various countries
  • Selected Insolvent Debtor’s Cases, 1787-1861 – approximately 2,000 cases, some containing an inventory of assets
  • Selected Mayor’s Court Cases, New York, 1674-1860 – 6,000 selected briefs that include summons, complaints, affidavits, and jury lists

“We believe the value in the American Jewish Historical Society’s extraordinary holdings lies not only in what we have, but in how we make it accessible,” said Evan Kingsley, executive director of the AJHS. “Ancestry.com provides a new and important online access point that makes AJHS’ archives that much more valuable. The more our collections are used, the better we’re fulfilling our mission.”

Ancestry.com has also put online Miriam Weiner’s Routes to Roots’ Eastern European Archival Database, a significant historical collection that includes references to Jewish and civil records from archival holdings in Belarus, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland and Ukraine.

“The Eastern European Archival Database is the result of a twenty-year journey to help record and preserve Jewish materials from five countries,” said Miriam Weiner, founder of the Routes to Roots Foundation. “Through this important collection people will be able to discover a variety of documents including property records, census lists, vital records and Holocaust records, which will help them walk in the footsteps of their ancestors.”

Along with the records from AJHS and RTRF, Ancestry.com will also launch two new collections from JewishGen, including Lithuania: List of Donors of Charity from HaMagid (1871-1872), the Persian Famine donation list printed in the Hebrew newspaper HaMagid, and Hungary: Jewish Census (1848), a survey of Jews in Greater Hungarian countries including Hungary, parts of Slovakia, Croatia, Ukraine and Romania, among others.

To search through all the new Jewish record collections and Ancestry.com’s entire Jewish Family History experience visit http://www.ancestry.com/JewishFamilyHistory.

About the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS)
Founded in New York City in 1892, the American Jewish Historical Society’s holdings include 20 million documents, 50,000 books, paintings and other objects that bear witness to the remarkable contributions of the American Jewish community to life in the Americas from the 16th century to the present.

About the Routes to Roots Foundation
The Routes to Roots Foundation was established in 1994 with the goal to survey, study, research, inventory and document Jewish material, archives and Judaica in Eastern European archives. The organization fosters and promotes the study and preservation of Jewish genealogical material and assembles, catalogues, publishes and disseminates information from research and study of Jewish materials and compiles, maintains and updates library and/or archive of collections of Jewish historical, cultural and genealogical information.

About Ancestry.com
Ancestry.com is the world’s largest online resource for family history and has digitized and put online over 4 billion records over the past twelve years. Ancestry users have created over ten million family trees containing over one billion profiles. Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries, and more than 8 million unique visitors spent more than 5 million hours on an Ancestry Web site in May 2009 (comScore Media Metrix, Worldwide). For more information on Ancestry.com and its other family history resources, visit http://corporate.ancestry.com

FGS Conference Registrants — order paper syllabus in the next few days

Paula Stuart-Warren  Conferences, Conferences/Institutes, Federation of Genealogical Societies  Leave a comment

Only a month left till genealogists descend on Little Rock!
In just a month, genealogists from all over the United States and beyond will be getting together in Little Rock for four full days of learning more about genealogy, finding cousins, seeing how much is online, seeing how much is not online, figuring out how to get the most out of records, determining what archives or libraries have the answers, helping your genealogy society, and spending some money in the large Exhibit Hall. Don’t let this event pass you by. The Arkansas Genealogical Society is the host for this event which is the annual conference of the Federation of Genealogical Societies. You will be hearing about this event for years to come and will feel sad if you weren’t a part of it.

Syllabus
The syllabus consists of the handouts from most of the lectures and each registrant receives it on CD at the Conference. If you wish to receive a paper copy of the syllabus in addition to the syllabus on CD you must order it no later than August 1st. It will also be online before the conference but some prefer to have the full paper copy at the conference. Just order it online at www.FGSConference.org when you register for the conference. If you have already registered, go back to the registration page and add the paper syllabus for $20.00 using the PIN number you received when you registered.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun – Good Genealogy Luck

Paula Stuart-Warren  Uncategorized  Leave a comment

I once heard it said that you make your own genealogy luck. That could be very true in the case of one instance of genealogy luck. Many years ago I had traveled to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City so that was my part in making my genealogy luck.

For years I had tried to find my German ancestors on passenger arrival lists and in other resources. I had many things that led to a determination of a 1856 U.S. arrival date. But nothing was panning out.

On that trip to the FHL, I was waiting for someone to join me so we could go to dinner. I was tired and while waiting was antsy and picked up a volume of Germans to America. I simply opened it to a page and there were my Germans! The Schleichers, Fishers, and Rohrs were right there, arriving in 1853, not 1856. The names left a bit to be desired in the abstracting, but now I had them. They left via Bremen – the records for Bremen were largely destroyed.