MyHeritage to digitize and add more than 120 million historical records from Denmark

I just received the following press release from MyHeritage. I was extremely interested in this particular press release because outside of the British Isles my only ancestral lines are from Denmark. I note from the MyHeritage.com website, that during the past few weeks over 100 million records have been added to their online collections. The total number of historical records available for searching on the website today is 5,708,072,169 historical records.

MyHeritage to digitize and add more than 120 million historical records from Denmark

Millions of records dating back to the 1600s will go online for the first time and enable anyone with Danish ancestors to discover their roots

TEL AVIV, Israel & COPENHAGEN, Denmark – December 22, 2014: MyHeritage, the leading destination for discovering, preserving and sharing family history, today announced that millions of Danish historical records will be made available to search on its website. The announcement follows an agreement between MyHeritage and the Danish National Archives to index Census and Parish records from 1646 to 1930, providing access to significant sources of family history information in Denmark. The move will enable MyHeritage users to learn more about their ancestors and the lives they led, using records that were never digitally available before.

The records, spanning almost 300 years, provide a window to the lives of Danish ancestors during fascinating periods in history including the Napoleonic wars, liberalism and nationalism of the 1800s, the Schleswig Wars and industrialization. Users will be able to search for records about their ancestors using names, dates, locations, relatives and other keywords via SuperSearch, MyHeritage’s search engine for historical records. MyHeritage users also enjoy powerful matching technologies that research their family trees automatically and notify them whenever Danish records relevant to their family are found. This makes discoveries easier and quicker than ever before. Once indexed, this will be one of the most comprehensive and valuable data collections for millions of Danes, and millions of people with Danish roots.

The records will illuminate the lives and times of noted Danish historical figures such as Kierkegaard and Niels Bohr. Celebrity fans will be able to look into the family history of Danish Americans such as Scarlett Johansson and Viggo Mortensen for clues on their success. Many of the records will be made available on MyHeritage as early as April 2015 and the rest will be added during the year.

MyHeritage will index Danish national censuses, including approximately 9 million images and 31 million records, covering the years of 1787 through to 1930.  One of the most enlightening sources of historical content, census records provide a glimpse into a family's past listing information about each household including the names of occupants, information on residence, ages, places of birth and occupations.

In addition, MyHeritage will index 3.9 million images of Church records containing approximately 90 million names from 1646 to 1915. The Parish Register provides information regarding anyone who was born, baptized or confirmed (after 1737), married or died in a particular parish. The records include rich information about a person's family: for example, for baptisms they list the date of birth, date of baptism, name of the child, parent’s names, occupations and residence, and often names of witnesses and godparents.

MyHeritage Chief Content Officer, Russ Wilding, said: “We're very proud to partner with the Danish National Archives and add significant new content which will paint a more detailed and colorful picture of the family histories for hundreds of thousands of our users in Denmark and anyone with Danish ancestors. The move strengthens our leadership in the Nordic region – and we look forward to building on this in the coming months”.

MyHeritage is already the family history market leader in the Nordic region and is the only major company providing services in Danish, Norwegian, and Finnish. With more than 430,000 users in Denmark and an additional 600,000 registered users in Sweden, 500,000 in Norway, and 280,000 in Finland, MyHeritage has amassed the largest Nordic user base and family tree database in the market.

The records will be available on MyHeritage SuperSearch at www.myheritage.com/research.