My Genealogy Digital File Folder Organization

I've written about this topic before, but with the Genealogy Do-Over in full swing, and many researchers "starting over" with their digital file folders, I thought it might be a good time to revisit this topic.

My file folder and file naming convention was derived after studying what others had suggested.  My overall goal has been to:

a)  Have a consistent file folder and file naming system so that anyone (especially ME!) can find something in it.

b)  Be able to find a specific file within a few seconds.  Sometimes I don't know if I have a record image or not, so I go check my files.  

c)  Be able to put a new file into the system within a few seconds.

The key to success is to adopt a file folder and file naming system before you start attaching your files to persons and events in your family tree genealogy program.  Then don't change the folder or file names because then you will have to reattach the files.

There are two major parts to my digital file folder system:

1)  File Folder naming:

I have all of my downloaded and scanned documents, photo images and created reports stored in a file folder system that has this heirarchy:

*  My Documents/Genealogy   ---  File folder for genealogy
*  My Documents/Genealogy/Ancestor Files/  --- file folder for Ancestor Files
*  My Documents/Genealogy/Ancestor Files/Family History - "familygroup" -- I have grouped my files by family group (my father, my mother, my wife's, my son-in-law)
*  My Documents/Genealogy/Ancestor Files/Family History - "familygroup"/"surname" --  within each family group, I have a surname folder
*  My Documents/Genealogy/Ancestor Files/Family History - "familygroup"/"surname"/"family" --- each family (husband and wife) has a separate file folder
*  My Documents/Genealogy/Ancestor Files/Family History - "familygroup"/"surname"/"family"/ "filetype" --- within each surname folder, I have several different file types (typically Documents, Reports and Photographs)

Within each of the "filetype" folders are the document and photograph images and saved genealogy reports, articles or books.

Here are some screen shots of the different file folders:

a)  The "Ancestor Files" folder:

This is also where I keep my master lists of items, any testing before I incorporate it, and the records "to be filed" after downloading and entering them into my genealogy family tree software.

b)  The "Surname" file folders  in the "Family History - Seaver-Hildreth-Richmond-White" file folder:

If I have more than one surname line for a surname, I usually add a place name to distinguish them.

c)  The "Family" file folder in the "Seaver-Hildreth-Richmond-White" file folder:

I number my families starting with 01 for the most recent generation with that surname.  I also add additional file folders for the surname when necessary - e.g., a surname book, collected records from vital record books or a website, etc.

d)  In each of these "Family" file folders are the "Filetype" folders:

The Genealogy Reports folder might contain family group sheets, pedigree charts, narrative reports, downloaded or scanned articles or book portions, etc.  Whatever might apply to the particular family.

The Photographs folder might contain photographs of the family members, with the standard file naming convention.

For families with a large number of members, I include a folder for "Related Families" - to cover the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

e)  Within each of the "Filetype" folders are the individual files (in the "Documents" and "Photographs" folders at least):

In some cases, I have added another file folder level to a "Family" folder for a specific record group that might have a lot of record images - for example, "Probate" or "Deeds" or "Pension File."

 2)  The File Naming Convention in the Filetype folder above usually has these components, separated by a hyphen:

:*  Person's name - first name, middle initial, last name (I use first name first so that all of the records for a family member are grouped together),  I don't use spaces between the parts of the name.
*  Year - the year of the event (I put it second so that the records for a person are in chronological order)
*  Record Type - the type of record in the file 
*  Additional persons in the record - spouses, multi-person pictures, etc.
*  Place Name - the locality where the event occurred
*  Any other useful information - a source name, page number or image number

The file names can get fairly long!  But they are descriptive.  One problem is that the overall file name from C to the end of the file name has to be 256 characters or less.  I shorten some elements when that happens.

I include records of children in their parents file folder until they marry.  Then they go into their own file folder with their spouse.  The marriage record goes into the "family" folder.

I have some inconsistencies in the file names shown above because of the passage of time, and don't want to change them.  As my readers know, I am often imperfect, but always trying to improve (except for typing, it seems).

3)  With this system, I know exactly where to find a record, or put a record, for a specific person.  When I open the Filetype folder, I can find the records for a person in the specific family easily - they're in alphabetical order by first name.  If there are two persons with the same name, then use "1" or "2" or Sr and Jr.

The downside is that there's a lot of clicking to go through the file folder hierarchy to get to the right file folder, but once I'm there it is organized and useful.

4)  If you are considering creating a File Naming convention, be sure to do it before you attach the records to a person or event in your family tree software program. 

Develop your convention, practice with it a bit, tweak it to suit your purposes, and then adopt it and use it for all of your downloaded and scanned records and photographs, and for any genealogy reports or books you create. 

Your file system needs to be yours - what works for you - and you can set it up any way you want. 

This method works really well for me and I'm happy that I created it before I started adding images to my genealogy software program.  With over 1,000 images attached to my database, I don't want to change it now.

The URL for this post is: http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/my-genealogy-digital-file-folder.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Treasure Chest Thursday - Post 247: 1726 Marriage Record of Robert Sever and Eunice Rayment

It's Treasure Chest Thursday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The treasures today is the  Boston, Massachusetts town record of the marriage publication of Robert Sever and Eunice Rayment in 1726:

The specific record is on the left-hand page:

The transcription of this record is:

Robert Sever       }

Eunice Rayment  } of Boston  19 ~ [Aug 1726]

The month and date are at the top of the left-hand page.

The source citation for this marriage record is:

Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), Boston, "Marriage Publications, 1713-1728, Vol. 2," page 252 (image 128 of 151), Robert Sever and Eunice Rayment entry.

This record is for the publication of the marriage - the announcement of intention to marry.

Another record has the actual marriage record of Robert Sever and Eunice Rayment:

The specific record is on the right-hand page above:

The transcription of this record is:

Sept. 2 " [1726]  Sever Robert     Eunice Rayment   " [Saml Myles Pres.]

The source citation is:

Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988, digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com), Boston, "Births, Marriages and Deaths" page 259 (image 2073 of 60705), Robert Sever and Eunice Rayment entry

There are several other documents with this same information in the Massachusetts Town and Vital Records database on Ancestry.com.

Neither of the records above are "Original Sources" - both records are from a "Derivative Source" - a transcription or abstract from an earlier, but now unavailable, record book.  At least all of the records are consistent!

Robert Seaver (1702-1752) and Eunice Rayment (1707-1772) are my sixth great-grandparents.  They resided in Sudbury and Framingham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts and had nine children between 1727 and 1752.  

I don't know why they married in Boston.  Robert was from Sudbury, but his grandfather, Shubael Seaver (1640-1729) resided in Roxbury.  Eunice Rayment was born in Marblehead, but had relatives in Boston.  

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/treasure-chest-thursday-post-247-1726.html

copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Finding the Simon Gates 1803 Home Farm Using Historic Map Works Overlays

After working on finding where Simon Gates home farm was in Farm-Spotting: The Simon Gates Home Farm in Gardner, Massachusetts (9 January 2015), reader Brad emailed me saying:

"I know of a neat website for historical maps.  You might have seen this and perhaps even written about it as I read about it on a genealogy blog.  I'm not sure where. The site is free to browse. The coolest thing about it is the ability to very rapidly overlie Google maps, including the satellite feature to see exactly where a site is.http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/6893/Gardner++Gilbertville/Worcester+County+1870/Massachusetts/

"You can zoom the maps a lot to see great details.  You can use the scroll button on your mouse to magnify and click and drag on the map to move around quickly. Looking at this map in detail there are a couple of more Gates in the immediate area of H. Gates--a Mrs. L. Gates and D. Gates just northeast of H. Gates.  I assume relatives. Once magnified to the site of interest, go to the bottom of the page and click "historic earth basic".  That overlies Google maps on the historic map automatically.  One can choose street map, satellite map, or hybrid map to overlie the historic map.  Then use the map opacity slider to see exactly where the historic map property is relative to the current map.  around 30% opacity is a good place to start with the overlay. In the case of the H. Gates' property one can really zoom in on the satellite map at 0 % opacity and see that the exact home site sits right next to the perimeter paved road along the east side of the correction institute. I can even see some big rocks where the home site was if I zoom in enough.  I don't see any remnant of a house.  Looks like your "red dot" is very close but not quite where the home was.

"The website has many maps that actually show the old property lines with names too.  If you get lucky you'll find maps with your ancestors on them.  Many town maps with streets are available in addition to county maps.  One thing that I've found interesting is that when viewing the satellite map overlay there is often the ability to see the actual cleared property lines with surrounding forest where an old farm once sat.  Mapping is a lot of fun and this is a neat site to use for it."

I worked through this today, and it was pretty much a piece of cake!  Thank you, Brad!  Here is what I did:

1)  On the Historic Map Works website, I found the 1870 map for Gardner, Worcester County, Massachusetts (two screens below):

There's the historic map, and the link for "Historic Earth Basic" is below the orange pricing button.

2)  I clicked on the "Historic Earth Basic" button and the Google Map appeared on the screen with the historic 1870 Gardner map overlaid. 

To the right of the overlaid map is the "Change Map Opacity" slider (set to 75% on the screen above).

I zoomed in (using the zoom controls, or my mouse wheel) to the area of interest and reduced the opacity to 50%:

And then to 25%:

If I change it to 0% opacity, I get the Google Map; if I change it to 100% opacity, I get the historic map.

3)  The user can select either Google Hybrid (streets and satellite), Google Satellite or Google Maps. I changed it to "Google Satellite" and zoomed in some more and can now see the home farm location at 50% opacity:

Zooming in a bit more shows me that the home farm was inside the current correctional facility perimeter:

I guess I won't be going to visit my ancestral home farm any time soon.

4)  Using Historic Map Works for this task is very easy, but it does require that there be a historic map to overlay on a Google map.

A close look at the roads on the historic map relative to the Google map shows many are in the same location, or have been slightly modified.  There are also more modern roads since 1870, of course.

Do you know of a cadastral map ( showing home locations with owner names) showing your ancestor's town and farm?  If it's on Historic Map Works, you can do this too!

This was cool, fun and instructive - thanks Brad!!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/finding-simon-gates-1803-home-farm.html

copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Top Ten 2014 Record Collections on FamilySearch

The FamilySearch Blog had a post on 29 December 2014 by Alivia L. Whitaker titled "2014's Top 10 Free Online Ancestry Databases."

The most popular list is further down the post:

The lead paragraph of the paragraph above says:

"Of FamilySearch.org’s 1,861 free online historic records collections, the top 10 most searched collections (See Chart) include the free US Censuses, public records, death, and immigration and naturalization indexes. The popularity of US historical records can probably be attributed to the fact that the United States is a country of immigrants. And those hundreds of millions of descendants today are curious about their ancestral origins—which many of us will eventually extend to other countries. In fact, only half of FamilySearch.org’s monthly patrons hail from within the U.S. The other half of its online family history seekers is distributed from dozens of countries from Europe, Central, and South America."

I am not surprised by most of the record collections listed in the Top Ten.  Number 3, the U.S. Public Records, 1970-2009, is somewhat of a surprise to me.  My guess is that researchers look for their parents and their aunts and uncles in the global search, and this database pops up.  It has the most number of records of any database that comes up when a search is performed (the International Genealogical Index has more records, but it does not appear in a search).

I am surprised that the Find A Grave database is not on the list, since it is the database with the 5th highest number of records.I am also surprised that the U.S. Immigration collection wasn't on the list, given that "descendants are curious about their ancestral origins."

Number one on the list is the "United States Censuses, 1790 to 1940."  Were other collections grouped for this list?  Some examples:  U.S. Passenger Lists; England and Wales Census, 1841-1911; England and Wales Civil Registration; Mexico Vital Records; etc.

It seems to me if you are going to group the Census records together, you would group other records with similar content together.  Why weren't the England Vital Records (Births and Christenings, Marriages, Deaths and Burials) grouped together?  Or Germany?  Or Mexico? Or Texas?

Either that, or list the individual U.S. Census collections in the Top Ten.  Perhaps it was because the Census records might take most of the Top Ten slots?

How do you find the list of FamilySearch collections with the most Records?  On the Record collections page, you can click on the "Records" link and see the list, as shown below:

It would be interesting if FamilySearch could provide statistics for how many records in each collection were accessed in the year.  They must have that information since they ranked the Top Ten above by number of searches.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/top-ten-2014-record-collections-on.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

San Diego Cowboys Randy and Stan -- Post 343 of (Not So) Wordless Wednesday

I'm posting old family photographs from my collection on Wednesdays, but they won't be wordless posts like others do - I simply am incapable of having a wordless post.

Here is one of the most precious (to me) images from my Seaver/Carringer family collection:

The two persons in this photo are:

*  In front, kneeling with the wheelbarrow, big hat with an under-chin tie, and big grin is my brother, Stan.  He was born in 1946.

*  In the background, standing with the big hat, under-chin tie, short pants, and six-shooter on the hip, is me, Randy Seaver, born in 1943.

This picture was taken in about 1950, probably by my mother or my grandfather, Lyle Carringer, looking to the northwest along 30th Street near Hawthorn Street in San Diego.

The two-story apartment house in the center background is directly across the street from where we lived in the second story apartment at 2119 30th Street.  

Stan and I were probably helping my grandfather with the gardening or clearing of the vacant lot at the corner of Hawthorn and 30th.  That was our "playground" where we played ball, flew kites, and chased lizards and bugs, in addition to picking and eating the fruit, vegetables and berries in the garden on the east side of the playground.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/cowboys-randy-and-stan-post-343-of-not.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

GenealogyInTime Top 100 Genealogy Websites for 2015

GenealogyInTime Magazine (a digital magazine, are you receiving it weekly?) published their Top 100 Genealogy Websites for 2015 over the weekend, and there were some surprises on the list.  Here is the first page of the Top 100 list:

This first page explains the process used by GenealogyInTime, and is their fourth annual survey.  At the bottom of each page are links to the other 8 pages in the Top 100 report.

Here is the top of page 2, which has the list of the Top 100 genealogy websites:

The columns are Rank, Website name, Category, Country, Free or Pay, 2014 Rank, and Address.

I don't know when these rankings were taken, it was probably in the last quarter of 2014, right after Genealogy.com, MyFamily and Mundia were shut down by Ancestry.  But Genealogy.com is still at #8 on the list.  I can't believe that the frozen message boards and the user webpages are all that popular still.

I am not surprised by any of the other websites in the top 10.  It looks like our Australian colleagues are pursuing genealogy on the Aussie Ancestry site bigtime!  Good on them.

You can scroll down the Page 2 listings and find 7 genealogy blogs on the list:

*  #28 (down from #11) Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter, written by Dick Eastman
*  #49 (down from #27) About: Genealogy, written by Kimberly Powell (this is listed as "Articles" for some reason)
*  #86 (not ranked in 2014) The Legal Genealogist, written by Judy G. Russell
*  #87 (#87 in 2014) Gould Genealogy, written by Alona Tester
*  #89 (#81 in 2014) Geneabloggers, written by Thomas MacEntee
*  #97 (#63 in 2014) Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections, written by John D. Reid
*  #99 (not ranked in 2014) Irish Genealogy News, by Claire Santry

Congratulations to these geneabloggers who made the list.  Of course, many of the websites on the Top 100 also have a blog associated with their Internet address, and the blog statistics are incorporated into the website numbers.

Where is Genea-Musings, you might ask?  We made the list the first three years, but have fallen out of the Top 100 this year, and hope to return in 2016.

My thought is that blogs don't receive as much credit as they should - it's unclear to me if RSS feeds "count" in the Alexa ratings, and I'm pretty sure that email subscriptions to blogs do not count in the ratings.  One thing that could help all geneabloggers on the list is to click through from the RSS reader or email and make a comment.

Page 3 provides an interesting analysis of the Top 10 most popular websites in terms of estimated number of daily visitors:

I was shocked to see that the average number of daily visitors for Ancestry.com was only 55,800.  For a website that lists over 2 million subscribers, that is less than 3% of subscribers that visit each day.

The number for FamilySearch, 17,300 daily visitors each day is even more of a surprise, especially since it is free, has records, a tree, education, information, etc.  It seems to me that FamilySearch is out-of-sight, out-of-mind for many genealogists.

Page 4 has a list of the Top 10 Free websites for 2015.

Page 5 has a list of the "Rising Stars" in the Top 25 and in the bottom 75.

Page 6 lists the new websites on the list.  The highest new entry is at #57, FindMyPast Australia.  Further down this page is a table of the holdings of the "Big Three" - Ancestry, MyHeritage and brightsolid.

Page 7 provides a list of the holdings of the Big Three - Ancestry has 13 sites on the list, MyHeritage has 13, and brightsolid has 8.  Further down the page is a table showing the growth of genealogy from 2014 to 2015 - to a total of about 356,000 visits to all genealogy websites (a 4.4% growth, of which the top 10 sites have 151,000, the top 100 have 302,000 daily visits).

Lastly, page 8 lists major takeaways (conclusions) drawn from the list results.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/genealogyintime-top-100-genealogy.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Best of Genea-Musings for 2014

I wrote about 964 posts during 2014, and it is a challenge to pick out the ten or twenty "best" from the list.  I'm going to ignore the daily meme posts of Amanuensis Monday, Tuesday's Tip, Wordless Wednesday, Treasure Chest Thursday, 52 Ancestors, Surname Saturday, Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, and Best of the Genea-Blogs, and try to pick them based on my subjective criteria of relevance to my research, and relevance and interest to the genealogy industry.

My selections for the Best Genea-Musings Posts of 2014 are (in posting date order):

*  My Genealogy Research Adventures in 2013 (2 January 2014)

*  Trying Out Flipboard, a Curated Magazine Website/Mobile App (20 January 2014)

*  Finding Marriage Gems in Historical Newspapers - GenealogyBank Has a "Marriages" Sub-Category (24 January 2014)

*  Dear Randy: Why Do You Write the 52 Ancestors Friday Posts? (27 January 2014)

*  My Top Ten FREE USA Genealogy Resource Websites (30 January 2014)

*  "Randy at RootsTech 2014" Flipboard Magazine Available (11 February 2014)

*  Ideas for Ancestry.com Search Improvements - Show Me My Cousins (13 February 2014)

*  Ideas for Ancestry.com Improvements -- Improve the Ancestry Public Member Trees Match List to Put the "Richest Tree Person" First (14 February 2014)

*  Using Puzzilla and FamilySearch Family Tree to Identify Autosomal, Y and mtDNA Candidates (18 February 2014)

*  Who Contributed to My X-Chromosome? My List (28 February 2014)

*  Ancestry Drops "Old Search" - Hysteria Ensues (7 March 2014)

*  Should I Add My Own Family Stories to my Ancestry Member Tree? (27 March 2014)

*  A Day In the Genealogy Life of "The Geneaholic" (3 April 2014)

*  Musings On Genealogy "Expertise," "Elites" and Education (7 April 2014)

*  Step-by-Step Process for Accessing and Finding New York Probate Records on FamilySearch (16 April 2014)

*  Dear Randy: How Can I Avoid Updating My Tree in 5 Different Places? (19 May 2014)

*  "Advice to the Ancestry-Lorn" Thoughts After the "Stump the Chumps" Meeting (28 May 2014)

*  Dear Randy: How Do You Keep Your Workload Manageable and Everything Up-to-Date? (30 May 2014)

*  My Flipboard Magazine for "Randy at Jamboree 2014" (13 June 2014)

*  How Should Genealogy Societies Nurture Beginners? (24 July 2014)

*  A.J. Jacobs Cousin Connections - Um, Not Really (10 September 2014)

*  Which Family Tree Programs Sync With Online Trees and/Or Have Mobile Apps? (25 September 2014)

*  One Family Tree File or Many Tree Files? (14 October 2014)

*  Demonstrating Adding Ancestry.com Hints in a Specific Database to my RootsMagic Database (30 October 2014)

*  Dear Randy: How Have You Saved Your Research So Someone Can Search For It? (20 November 2014)

*  So Many Matches, So Little Time! How Do I Deal With Information Overload? (21 November 2014)

*  I Am Not Doing a Genealogy Do-Over (17 December 2014)

That's the list!  Did you miss any of them?  If so, please go read them and make a comment if you wish.

Which one is your absolute favorite?

If you have a genea-blog, what were your best genealogy blog posts for 2014? 

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/best-of-genea-musings-for-2014.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

Tuesday's Tip - Visit the StoneLetters Website for Cemetery Monument Carving Information

This week's Tuesday's Tip is:  Check out Fergus Wessel's StoneLetters website for information about cemetery and gravestone carvings.

The StoneLetters website is at http://stoneletters.com/.  Fergus Wessel is the owner of this business and the website, and resides in Oxfordshire in England.

Fergus has a video explaining his work on the Video page - http://stoneletters.com/video:

There is also a StoneLetters blog - at http://stoneletters.com/blog.  One of the interesting articles on the blog is "Gravestone Symbols and Carvings - Meaning and Inspiration" posted 6 January 2015:

For readers interested in gravestone carvings, symbols, and the like, subscribing to the StoneLetters blog will be educational and fascinating.  For more information about the gravestone carving and inscription process, have a look around the StoneLetters website.  Watch the video, and see all of the beautiful examples - this is an artist at work.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/tuesdays-tip-visit-stoneletters-website.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

51 Developers Vying for Prizes at RootsTech 2015 Innovator Challenge

One of the really neat highlights of the RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City (February 11-14 2015 this year) is the FamilySearch Innovator Challenge.  FamilySearch challenged innovators to develop new process or programs and to enter the Innovator's Challenge contest.

The information from the Innovator Challenge website (https://rootstech.challengepost.com/) says:

"Do you have what it takes to launch the family history industry forward into the next generation?

"FamilySearch is challenging developers from around the globe to go head-to-head and create apps that solve any problem in the family history industry or another business, using family history data and services.

"The top 4 finalists will be invited to demo live, onstage, in front of 2,500+ attendees at RootsTech in Salt Lake City, Utah, where a panel of renowned judges and the audience will decide the winners! Many will enter, but only one app can take home up to $15,000 in total cash prizes and a ton of publicity."

There are 51 Submissions for the 2015 challenge.  Here is the top of the Submissions page (https://rootstech.challengepost.com/submissions):

If you click on any one of them, there is more information, and a short video, about the product.  I clicked on the IoTree product and saw the summary:

It wasn't hard to Google [ IoTree ] and find the IoTree website (http://iotree.thinkgenealogy.com/):

It turns out that the IoTree product (IoT is shorthand for the Internet of Things!) is:

*  A framed piece of art that can be connected to the Internet
*  There are 30 leaves on the tree in the frame
*  You can sync the 30 leaves to persons in the FamilySearch Family Tree
*  When information changes about one of the ancestors with a leaf on the Family Tree, or a vital event (birth, death, marriage) occurs on the current day, the leaf lights up on the art piece.

This is an interesting concept that connects family members to their ancestors by using modern technology to highlight ancestral events.

I picked IoTree to highlight because Mark Tucker, one of the developers and a geneablogger, highlighted it to me recently.  These might make great Christmas or birthday gifts for family members!

There are 50 more innovative and creative and useful products vying to win this Innovator Challenge. The four finalists get to present their products at RootsTech 2015, and attendees at RootsTech get to vote for their favorite in the People's Choice voting after the presentations.

This is genealogy entrepreneurship at its finest.  I look forward to the presentations, and seeing how the products work in the RootsTech Expo Hall.  I will try to post information about each of the finalists on my blog after they are selected.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/51-developers-vying-for-prizes-at.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

New or Updated FamilySearch Record Collections - January 12-18, 2015

I'm trying to keep up with the new and updated record collections at FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list).  As of 18 January 2015, there were 1,900 record collections on FamilySearch (up 9 from last week).

The 11 added or updated collections last week are:

*  South Africa, Transvaal, Estate Files, 1950-1993; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 16 Jan 2015

*  Isle of Man Parish Registers, 1598-2009; 424,389 indexed records with images, added or updated 16 Jan 2015

*  New York, Records of the State National Guard, 1906-1954; 724,527 ndexed records with images, added or updated  15 Jan 2015

*  Newfoundland Census, 1945; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 14 Jan 2015

*  Newfoundland, 1921 Census; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 13 Jan 2015

*  Newfoundland Census, 1935; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 13 Jan 2015

*  Guatemala, Huehuetenango, Civil Registration, 1877-1994; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 12 Jan 2015

*  Guatemala, Izabal, Civil Registration, 1877-1994; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 12 Jan 2015

*  Guatemala, Jalapa, Civil Registration, 1877-1994; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 12 Jan 2015

*  Guatemala, Guatemala, Civil Registration, 1877-2006; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 12 Jan 2015


*  Guatemala, Quetzaltenango, Civil Registration, 1877-1994; Browse Images only (no index), added or updated 12 Jan 2015

Unfortunately, it is difficult to tell which collections are brand new and which ones are updated.  The asterisk they use is for "Recently added or updated."  I am particularly interested in new collections, for the obvious reasons.

In order to select a specific collection, go to https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list and use the "Filter by collection name" feature in the upper left-hand corner.

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 major updates also.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/01/new-or-updated-familysearch-record_19.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver