Tuesday, January 20, 2009

NEHGS Press Release - 2008 Databases

I received this press release from NEHGS today --

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Boston, MA – January 2009 – New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) announces the addition of 5 million names to its databases during 2008 to help its more than 23,000 members around the country with their family history research.

The new data includes more than 1 million new Massachusetts records and more than 3 million records to the Social Security Death Index database.

The NEHGS Web site,
www.NewEnglandAncestors.org, is home to more than 120 million searchable names in 2,500 databases covering areas like New England, New York, Canada, and the eastern United States.

Some of the new databases include:
- Massachusetts Vital Records Birth Indexes from 1911-1915
- New Netherland Connections; Vol. 1-7
- Torrey’s Marriages
- Boston Church Records
- Plymouth, MA Court Records
- Families of Ancient New Haven, CT; Vol. 1-8
- The Great Migration 1634-1635; A-F surnames

“We are thrilled with the success of last year’s content programs, said Sam Sturgis, Coordinator of Website Database Development. “Our goal is to digitize one or two databases every week and make them available on our Web site.”

NEHGS has more than 100 volunteers around the country who help scan and digitize the vast collections housed at NEHGS’ 8-story research library located at 99 Newbury Street in Boston.

The NEHGS Web site,
www.NewEnglandAncestors.org, has been providing access to important research information including vital records, published genealogies, manuscript archives, articles, resources, and other records since 1999. The site receives more than 15,000 hits per day.

About NEHGS
The New England Historic Genealogical Society, founded in 1845, is the country's oldest non-profit genealogical organization. With more than 20,000 members nationally, NEHGS collects, preserves, and interprets materials to help make accessible the histories of families in America. Located at 99-101 Newbury Street in Boston, the NEHGS research library is home to more than 12 million books, journals, photographs, documents, records, and microfilms. NEHGS also boasts one of the largest genealogy manuscript collections in the country, covering more than four centuries of local and family history.


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I am glad that NEHGS has publicized their achievements for 2008. Every database provider should do that, IMHO.

Each of the databases added in 2008 are important additions to the overall digitized genealogy compendium, and NEHGS is the only online resource for most of the ones listed.

There are many more databases on their website - you can see the entire list of databases here. Most of them are, of course, behind the membership firewall.

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