Saturday, October 10, 2020

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Your Top 5 or 10 Fee-Based Genealogy Sites

 Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

 It's Saturday Night again - 

Time for some more Genealogy Fun!!



Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):

1)  Ken McKinlay posted My Top 10 Fee-based Genealogy Sites this past week, so I've made it the challenge this week (thanks to Linda Stufflebean for the suggestion!).

2)  List your Top 5 or 10 top fee-based genealogy sites, and a short reason for listing them.

3)  Share you list on your own blog, in a comment on this post, or on Facebook.  Please leave a link to your list wherever it is.

Here's mine:

1)  Ancestry.com -- it has the most record collections, the most complex search system, the most record hints, etc.  I do a lot of my record finding there.  I'm in it every day.

2)  AmericanAncestors.org -- I have so many New England ancestral families and AA has so many records that other sites don't have.  This is my go-to site for probate records in estate file form, for many vital records, etc.  I'm in it every week at least.

3)  FamilyTreeWebinars.com -- this is my favorite education site, with several recorded webinars every week and a library of about 1,400 webinars.  Amazing breadth her.  I'm in it every week.

4)  MyHeritage.com -- it has many collections, and some are unique to MyHeritage.  The record hints are more accurate than any other site.  I love the search by source for people in my MyHeritage tree.  I'm in it several times a week.

5)  Newspapers.com -- the newspaper collections are wonderful, but the OCR indexing leaves something to be desired.  I'm in this site several times a week, often as a result of a Hint on Ancestry.  

6)  Findmypast.com -- it also has many collections, and some are unique to Findmypast.  I have many English (but no Irish, Scots or Welsh!) ancestral families so the breadth here is very useful.   I wish it had more from records Wiltshire and Somerset, though.  I use the NewspaperArchive and PERSI links occasionally.  I'm in this site several times a week.

7)  GenealogyBank.com -- this newspaper site (plus other useful collections) is excellent, and includes the San Diego papers.  I'm in this site at least once a week.

8)  Geni.com -- this collaborative family tree can be very useful for finding one-name study people, for other researchers with my ancestors, and for relationships with famous people.  I'm in it at least once a week.

9)  Fold3.com -- this site is my go-to site for military records, and it used to be the only site with indexed city directories and big city newspapers.  I'm in this site several times a month.

10)  FamilyTreeDNA.com (I count this as fee-based because I had to pay to use it) -- this DNA site is excellent, and the family trees can help me find distant cousins and most recent common ancestors.

That's my ten.  I don't use Archives.com or VitalSearch.com; I do use 23andMe.com but they don't have match's trees; I don't have a GEDmatch Tier 1 subscription; I do have a Genetic Affairs monthly subscription which was very helpful for DNA clusters before Ancestry canceled it;  I do have Virtual Genealogical Society and DNA Central subscriptions; I don't subscribe to ScotlandsPeople or The Genealogist or any Irish fee site; I don't have any other subscriptions to other fee-based sites to my knowledge.  I didn't consider software programs, genealogical or historical societies (except for NEHGS/AmericanAncestors) subscriptions.  

I know I've missed or forgotten about some websites - I look forward to exploring some that others comment on.

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Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Added and Updated Ancestry.com Record Collections - Week of 3 to 9 October 2020

 The following record collections were listed on the Recently Added and Updated List on Ancestry.com during the period from  3 to 9 October 2020: 

The ADDED and Updated record collections are:

Pennsylvania, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1800-1962; indexed records with record images, Updated 10/9/2020

U.S., Baseball Questionnaires, 1945-2005; indexed records with record images, Updated 10/9/2020

U.S., World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918; indexed records with record images, Updated 10/9/2020

Bedfordshire, England, Workhouse and Poor Law Records, 1835-1914; indexed records with record images, ADDED 10/8/2020

Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., Tax Records, 1822-1918; unindexed records with record images, ADDED 10/7/2020

U.S., Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1863-1865; indexed records with record images, Updated 10/7/2020

Moers, Germany, Deaths, 1803-1986; indexed records with record images, Updated 10/7/2020

Worcester County, Massachusetts, U.S., Probate Files, 1731-1925; unindexed records with record images, ADDED 10/7/2020

Colima, Mexico, Catholic Church Records, 1707-1969; indexed records with record images, Updated 10/5/2020

Querétaro, Mexico, Catholic Church Records, 1708-1961; indexed records with record images, Updated 10/5/2020

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The complete Ancestry.com Card Catalog is at    http://search.ancestry.com/search/CardCatalog.aspx.  

By my count, there were 3 NEW collections ADDED this past week, per the list above.  There are now 32,844 collections available as of 9 October, an increase of  11 from last week.   Where did the additional 8 collections come from?  Or have they miscounted for months here?

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Disclosure:  I have a complimentary all-access subscription from Ancestry.com, for which I am thankful.  Ancestry.com has provided material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and has hosted events and meals that I have attended in Salt Lake City, in past years.


Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Added and Updated Record Collections at FamilySearch.org - Week of 3 to 9 October 2020

  I am trying to keep up with the new and updated record collections at FamilySearch   (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list) every week.

As of 9 October 2020, there are 2,875 historical record collections on FamilySearch (an increase of 2 from last week):

New and updated collections this week are:


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My friend, Marshall, is away on holiday, so I've reverted to the old way of showing these collections, wherein FamilySearch doesn't tell us what was ADDED for several days.  I will update this post and add the word ADDED when I find out what was ADDED via email.

In order to select a specific record collection on FamilySearch, go to  https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list and use the "Filter by collection name" feature in the upper left-hand corner and use keywords (e.g. "church england") to find collections with those keywords.

Each one of the collections listed above has a Research Wiki page (use the "Learn more" link).  It would be very useful if the Wiki page for each collection listed the dates for when the collection was added as a new collection and the dates for major updates also.

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Copyright (c) 2020, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.