Adding to the Collections: A Look at the Large Online Genealogy Websites

There is always a background of commentary on newly added digital records accumulating on the very large online genealogy websites (VLOGW). A recent announcement close to home started me thinking about this topic again. Here is a screenshot of the email post from Findmypast.com.

Here is a link to the Findmypast.com Blog with information about the new collections.

I decided to check out the other VLOGWs and see what was going on. Here is a list of the newly added collections from Ancestry.com:

This is from the Card Catalog sorted by Date Added. Most of what is shown was added in June, 2016. These illustrations demonstrate the importance of looking at all these websites on a regular basis and searching for new records. You never know when the records you need might be added. Next, is the current list of additions to the FamilySearch.org website's Historical Record Collections.

You can sort the list of Historical Record Collections by date by clicking on the heading of the date column "Last Updated." This will sort the column to show the last updated collections on the top of the list.

Last, but certainly not least, is the MyHeritage.com website. This website had a little bit of a setback when the NewspaperArchive.com was dropped. But notwithstanding the loss, the number of records added keeps climbing dramatically. Here is screenshot showing the total as of the date of this post:

You may not be able to read the number of records but the number is 6,832,762,726 and this number goes up by about 100,000,000 a month according to my observations.

The easiest way to monitor these VLOGWs is to upload your family tree and watch the record hints that get added to your ancestors. Not everyone has such an easy time, depending on where and when you ancestors lived, but the record hints are a benefit to many researchers.