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Friday, October 16, 2020

Highlights from New Collections on All Major Genealogy Database Websites

Each of the large online genealogy database/family tree programs continues to add large record collections to their websites. The results of this steady increase in online genealogical resources are beneficial to those who utilize the programs regularly and look for search results or record hints from the newly added content. Here are a few of the highlights from each of the major websites. 

Ancestry.com

Ancestry lists its newly added content in its Card Catalog. Here is a screenshot showing some of the newest additions. 


This is only part of the list of the new collections. One collection that stands out is the Norway, Church Records, 1812-1938 (in Norwegian) published on 10/12/2020 with 41,391,903 records. Another notable addition is the Newpapers.com Marriage Index 1800s - 1999 with 11,468,406 records. I also note the Arkansas, Marriage Certificates, 1917 - 1969 with 3,026,843 records. You may wish to go to the Card Catalog to see more new and established record collections. You can find the Card Catalog in the pull-down menu under the Search tab on the home page. Ancestry now has over 27 billion records on its website. 

FamilySearch.org

FamilySearch lists its newly indexed records on the list of all of the records in its Historical Record Collections by browsing all published collections. If it isn't already showing, you can further click on the heading of the list to view the "Last Updated" records. Here is a screenshot of the new records.


There is an index for Iowa, County Births, 1880-1935 with 2,279,1010 records. There are also large record collections from: 
  • Mississippi , County Marriages, 1858 -1979 -- 1,382,425 records
  • England, Herefordshire, Bishop's Transcripts, 1583 - 1898 -- 1,122,984 records
  • England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539 - 1988 -- 1,281,950 records
  • Venezuela, Catholic Church Records, 1577 - 1995 -- 1,239,652 records 
In each of these listings, it is important to realize that the entire content of the record collection may not be indexed. The "new" records include only the indexed records. 

MyHeritage.com

MyHeritage.com is based in Israel and focuses primarily on the European market but it does have a significantly large user base in the United States. There are some impressive collections on MyHeritage.com. You can see a list of all of the collections under the Research tab on the home page. If you view the list by Last updated, you will see something like this screenshot.


Here are a few of the notable collections:
  • U.S. City Directories -- 545,346,844 records
  • Sweden Household Examination Books, 1840-1947 -- 125,672,160 records
  • Historical Books - Index of Authors and People Mentioned, 1811-2003 -- 494,096,281 records
  • U.S. Yearbooks Name Index, 1890-1979 -- 289-914,598 records
  • Norway Church Records, 1815-1938 -- 42,248,250
Since there are over 12.5 billion records there are a lot more collections. 

Findmypast.com

Findmypast.com is based in Great Britain and has an outstanding collection of records from the British Isles and Ireland with records from all of the former British Colonies (including the United States). Here are some of the larger collections:
  • England & Wales Births 1837-2006 -- 133,086,915 records
  • England & Wales, Electoral Registers 1920-1932 -- 125,544,782 records
  • UK Electoral Registers & Companies House Directors 2002-2020 -- 118,791,383 records
  • People In The News -- 108,735, 838 records
  • England & Wales Marriages 1837-2005 -- 95,653,029 records 
Here is a screenshot of the All Record Sets webpage.


Filae.com

Filae.com is the largest source of French archives: civil records, censuses, and historical archives. Here is sample of some of the records on the website. 
  • Andriveau Fund - Marriages in Paris (1613-1805)
  • Reconstituted civil status of Paris (1798-1860)
  • File of deaths (INSEE)
  • "European" civil status - Algeria (1830-1904)
Filae.com does not provide a record count for each of its collections. Here is a screen shot showing many of its collections. 



Geneanet.org

Quoting from the website, "Launched in 1996 by genealogy enthusiasts, Geneanet is a community of more than 4 million members who share their genealogical information for free: more than 7 billion individuals in the family trees, some digitized archival records, some family pictures, some indexes, all available through a powerful search engine, and a blog."

Here is a screenshot of some of the larger collections available on the website. 


All of these websites have unique content. There are still hundreds (perhaps thousands) of additional websites with equally as important genealogical records. This post is only a small sample of the treasures that await the researcher online. 




3 comments:

  1. I wonder why your screen shot of the FamilySearch collections shows 2927 collections while mine, today, shows 2880. Are there different lists for LDS members and non-LDS observers?

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    1. I have never heard of that but it could be. I tried searching for church related topics and didn't find anything that I could identify as restricted in some way. I turned off the setting that shows LDS ordinances and that didn't change the number of collections. I will see if I can find out why there is a difference.

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    2. I notice that when I am signed in to the website the numbers are higher than when I am not signed in. I get the 2882 number when I am not signed in. There are collections that are only visible when you sign in.

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