The Genealogy Guys Podcast & Genealogy Connection

Drew's guest is Else Churchill, the Genealogist at the Society of Genealogists (SoG) in London, UK. 

Learn more about Else and the SoG by visiting sog.org.uk.

We are happy to celebrate our podcast’s 15^th anniversary this week!

News You Can Use and Pass On!

We have lots of news and awards information to share this week:

• The Genealogy Guys Podcast and Vivid-Pix announced the winner of the Unsung Heroes Society Grant for scanning equipment and software. It is the Morgan County Partnership in Martinsville, Indiana. They won a scanner and software worth $500! This win will enable then to scan and index much more before their bicentennial in 2022. See our blog for all the details.
• The Genealogy Guys Podcast and Vivid-Pix announced the winner of the Unsung Heroes Awards. The Individual Winner is Rosemary McFarland of Mount Eden, Kentucky, for her vast work on a wide variety of Kentucky records. The Society Winner is the Eller Family Society for its digitization of decades of their newsletters and chronicles and many other materials.
• The Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park announced that park volunteer Pat Rand was awarded the Regional Hartzog Award for 2020 for her work on the U.S.-Mexican War Soldiers and Sailors Database.
• The Federation of Genealogical Societies held its virtual conference on 9/2-4, 2020. They announced a wide range of awards. You can read the full press release in our blog at http://blog.genealogyguys.com/2020/09/federation-of-genealogical-societies.html.
• FamilySearch has announced RootsTech Connect 2021: A Free Global Virtual Event on February 25-27, 2021. Registration is open at rootstech.org.
• MyHeritage has announced that their search engine for historical records has been redesigned. It makes searching their treasure trove of 12.5 billion records easier and more intuitive. Read more about that at their blog at https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/08/the-myheritage-search-engine-for-historical-records-just-got-better/ and many other topics.
• Ancestry will provide for up to 10,000 K-12 teachers across the USA a free 6-month World Explorer subscription. The deadline to apply is September 30, 2020.
• Ancestry has completed digitization of archives featuring 19 million Holocaust records. They are available free and in perpetuity as part of the Arolsen Archives Collection.
• Findmypast has added new records to the Wales Probate Index (1544-1858); the Caernarvonshire Parish Registers; Denbighshire Burials; Montgomeryshire Monumental Inscriptions; Scotland, Burgess & Guild Brethren Index; and Scotland, Banffshire & Moray Life Events.
• Dick Eastman, author of the weekly update for the Plus Edition of Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter, has announced that the newsletter is now offline for a variety of reliability problems. However, he is working with professionals to create a new Plus Edition website and hopes to have the newsletter back up very soon.
• FamilySearch has partnered with Ontario Ancestors to announce a new book scanning project. They hope to commence the project before the end of 2020.
• Drew recaps the huge new and expanded collections at FamilySearch.

The Guys also talk about what they have been doing with their own genealogy.

We’d like to welcome and thank our new Patreon members. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started.

You should also tell your friends or your society about our free podcasts, our free blog, and our Genealogy Guys Learn subscription education website.

There have been numerous genealogical institutes over the last several weeks. As a result, we were unable to schedule a Genealogy Connection podcast recently. However, it will be back soon!

News You Can Use and Share!

• The Blackstone Group Inc. has reached an agreement to purchase a majority stake in Ancestry.com.
• Ancestry has extended to late August the deadline for saving your small DNA matches.
• Drew shares some recent large collection additions and changes for Ancestry.
• William Dollarhide has published a new 2020 multiple volume set of Census Substitutes and State Census Records at Family Roots Publishing Company - https://www.familyrootspublishing.com/store/product_view.php?id=3770&title=Census%20Substitutes%20&%20State%20Census%20Records,%20Third%20Edition,%20Volume%205%20%E2%80%93%20Western%20/%20Pacific%20States%20&%20Nationwide%20Chapter%20(Printed%20Book%20&%20eBook%20Bundle)
• Findmypast has updated their collections of Hampshire Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials.
• Drew recaps two weeks of highlights of FamilySearch record collection releases.
• Drew has been attending the virtual International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies conference this week. In preparation, he reviews Genealogical Publishing Company’s Genealogy at a Glance publication "Finding Eastern European Jewish Ancestors" by Janette Silverman, available at https://genealogical.com/store/genealogy-at-a-glance-finding-eastern-european-jewish-ancestors/.

DNA Segment with Diahan Southard

Drew asks Diahan to explain how the various DNA testing companies determine the best minimum matching thresholds.

Cyndi Says

Cyndi Ingle is taking this episode off because of backlogs from institutes and a family medical situation. (Don't worry, Cyndi herself is fine!)

Our Listeners Talk to Us

• In response to Lori’s email in Episode #382 about becoming a transcriber, we had two responses:
  • Floreen suggests getting involved with the National Archive and Record Administration’s Citizen Archivist program at https://www.archives.gov/citizen-archivist. You can choose which records you want to transcribe.
  • Dana also suggests the Citizen Archivist program. She also suggests Zooniverse, a site that allows transcribing of many disciplines. They are at https://www.zooniverse.org/. Five projects of especial interest to genealogists are “Anti-Slavery Manuscripts”, “The American Soldier”, “Every Name Counts” (Nazi murdered persons), “American World War I Burial Cards”, and “Measuring the Anzacs”.
• Linda writes in detail about the upcoming changes in the Ancestry Message Boards and her experiences. (We welcome email and comments from our listeners on this topic.)
• Jim shares his experiences having used DNA to locate a half-brother and the bad experiences he had. He also located a new half-niece and contacted her to find her “aloof” to the knowledge. (We’d love to hear from our listeners about their experiences with this, good or bad, to represent their own experiences.

We’d like to welcome and thank our new Patreon members: Kendell Carr and Melanie Green-Armstrong. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started.

You should also tell your friends or your society about our free podcasts, our free blog, and our Genealogy Guys Learn subscription education website.

The Genealogy Guys are available for webinars using Zoom, a simple-to-use online video meeting tool that handles up to 100 people logged in at a time. Our catalog of Genealogy Topics is available at https://ahaseminars.com/ along with information about Genealogy Webinars. Contact us to schedule a webinar for your society.

Send us email at genealogyguys@gmail.com.

News You Can Use and Share with Others

• The Upper Midwest Jewish Archives at the University of Minnesota is working to digitize its Jewish World archives, its collection of Jewish World Newspapers, 91 bound volumes from 1915 to 2007. The first three years’ newspapers are complete.
• The Society of Genealogists will reopen their library in London on 7 August 2020. Only a limited number of simultaneous SOG members will be admitted. No food or drink will be allowed.
• Findmypast added new records: Surry Baptisms; Surrey Marriages; Surrey Burials; Warwickshire Burials; Warwickshire, Coventry Pawnbroker Tickets 1915-1923; Idaho Reconstructed 1890 U.S. census; Yorkshire Monumental Inscriptions; Derbyshire Deaths and Burials; National School Admission Registers & Log Books 1870-1914; Peru Civil Registration Records 1874-1996; and 12 new newspaper titles.
• Ancestry added new collections in July: Wyoming BMDs; Idaho BMDs; Women of Protest (suffragette photos from the LOC); USC Shoah Interviews – Index only to be released at Ancestry; Doubs, France Censuses; and Westminster Parish Records.
• Ancestry is ready to change its messaging system. You can download the existing folder structure but you'll need to do it soon.
• Ancestry will shortly be eliminating the display of very small DNA matches, most of which likely would be nearly useless to researchers as they are false positives.
• Fold3 recently completed their collection of U.S. Veterans Gravesites (1775-2019). Records date to the Revolutionary War and include veterans, spouses, and dependents interred in military cemeteries.
• Drew recaps two weeks of highlights of FamilySearch record collection releases.

DNA Segment with Diahan Southard

Diahan and Drew discuss best practices for managing messages exchanged with DNA matches.

Best strategies for contacting matches:
How Contacting Your DNA Matches is Like a First Date

Cyndi Says

Cyndi Ingle tells us to pay attention to collateral relatives for our brick-wall ancestors.

Our Listeners Talk to Us

• Debbie asks how to subscribe to the Genealogy Guys Blog using Feedly. You'll find some information on the blog itself at blog.genealogyguys.com/2020/01/day-10-organize-your-rss-feeds.html, but Drew will create more instructions soon.
• John writes to add two more strategies for potentially identifying formerly enslaved persons after the U.S. Civil War.
• Edward shares his experiences with expanding information about family members, especially siblings, using cemetery records.
• Robin poses a great question about ways to publish errata for a previously published family history book that contains errors. The Guys offer several suggestions and encourage listeners to share their ideas and techniques in handling errata.
• Lori wants to know how to become a records transcriber. We welcome suggestions from our listeners.
• John writes from Scotland wanting to know why the iOS/iPadOS Ancestry app will be available only to users of the next iOS/iPadOS operating system. The Guys suggested contacting Ancestry directly, but we welcome input from our listeners.
• Marise writes about having heard about the Leeds method of using colored dots at Ancestry. She uses then to identify the town of origin of DNA matches. She also talks about using pseudonyms in her searches.

The Genealogy Guys are available for webinars using Zoom, a simple-to-use online video meeting tool that handles up to 100 people logged in at a time. Our catalog of genealogy topics is available at https://ahaseminars.com/ along with information about genealogy webinars. Contact us to schedule a webinar for your society.

Thank you again to our Patreon supporters! You can support us at https://patreon.com/genealogyguys. You can also tell your friends or your society about our free podcasts, our blog, and our Genealogy Guys Learn subscription education website.

Send us email at genealogyguys@gmail.com.

Drew's guest is LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, the President of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, and a specialist in African Ancestored Families in the South. Learn more about LaBrenda at her website at https://www.labgarrettgenealogy.com/