FamilySearch Introduces Searching on Largest Genealogy Websites - Post 2: Searching on Ancestry.com

On the FamilySearch Blog recently, Matt Wright wrote New Feature: Search Genealogy Records on the World's Largest Sites. 

On each profile in the FamilySearch Family Tree there is a box with links to FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage and Findmypast:

I wanted to see how this feature works, so I am going to use one of my tree persons, Nicholas Brocke (1855-1938) (FSID L416-YCP) to see what records are found by each website.

I reviewed the search results on each site in:

*  FamilySearch Introduces Searching on Largest Genealogy Websites - Post 1: FamilySearch Matches (30 September 2015)

1)  Here are the John Nicholas Brocke search results on Ancestry.com (three screens shown):

For this search, Ancestry.com filled in these search fields for John Nicholas Brocke 

*  First and Middle Names:  John Nicholas (Broad search)
*  Last Name:  Brocke (Exact, Sounds Like, and Similar search)
*  Born:  1855 (Broad search)
*  Birthplace:  Michigan, USA (Broad search)
*  Death:  1938 (Broad search)
*  Death Place:  Lewiston, Nez Perce, Idaho, United States (Broad search)

2)  There were 118,710 matches for these search parameters in the Historical Records and Newspapers and Stories collection on Ancestry.com.  The ones that pertain to the subject John Nicholas Brocke (1855-1938) - in my judgment - are:

#1:  U.S. Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current
#2:  1930 U.S. Federal Census
#3:  1900 U.S. Federal Census
#4:  1870 U.S. Federal Census
#5:  Idaho, Death Index, 1890-1964
#6:  Idaho, Death Index, 1890-1964 (second entry)
#8:  Web: Rootsweb Death Index, 1796-2010
#9:  Web: Rootsweb Death Index, 1796-2010 (second entry?)
#10:  1880 U.S. Federal Census
#11:  1920 U.S. Federal Census
#13:  1910 U.S. Federal Census

There were 11 records for John Nicholas Brocke on Ancestry, all in the top 13 matches when searched from FamilySearch Family Tree parameters.

Note that the search on Ancestry.com did not find a birth record, a baptism record, or a marriage record, but it did find a death record, a burial record, and an 1880 U.S. census record not found on FamilySearch.

When I searched with the Family Trees and Photos & Maps collections on Ancestry.com included, there were 119,320 matches, including the Ancestry Member Tree and two photos attached to one of the trees.

Obviously, any search depends on the information put into the search fields and the name variations used in the search algorithms.  There may be other records for this person on FamilySearch that have different name spellings, different birth information, etc.

3)  I will review the search results for MyHeritage in the next post in this series.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/familysearch-introduces-searching-on.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Treasure Chest Thursday -- Post 282: Death Certificate of Edna Catherine (McKnew) Schaffner (1884-1974) of San Francisco, California

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 treasure today is the  death record of Edna Catherine (McKnew) Schaffner (1884-1974) of San Francisco, California:

The information extracted from this record includes:

1.  NAME:  Edna Catherine SCHAFFNER

2.  DATE OF DEATH:  November 11, 1974; 2:35 A.M.

3.  SEX:  FEMALE

4.  COLOR OR RACE:  WHITE

5.  BIRTHPLACE:  California

6.  DATE OF BIRTH:  Mar 7, 1884

7.   AGE:  90 years

8.  NAME AND BIRTHPLACE OF FATHER:  Elijah McKnew - Maryland

9.  MAIDEN NAME AND BIRTHPLACE OF MOTHER:  Jane Unknown - Austria 

10. CITIZEN OF WHAT COUNTRY:  U.S.A.

11.  SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER:  558-74-3827 T

12.  MARITAL STATUS:  Widowed

13.  NAME OF SURVIVING SPOUSE:

14.  LAST OCCUPATION:  Housewife

18.  PLACE OF DEATH:  Laguna Honda Hospital, 375 Laguna Honda Blvd., San Francisco, San Francisco

19.  USUAL RESIDENCE:  46 Rivoli Street, San Francisco, San Francisco, California

20.  NAME AND MAILING ADDRESS OF INFORMANT:  Muriel Mertes, 46 Rivoli Street, San Francisco, Ca

21,   PHYSICIAN:  Arthur O. Stone, 375 Laguna Honda Blvd., saw patient from 9-24-74 to 11-11-74, last seen on 11-11-74.

22. BURIAL ARRANGEMENTS:  Entombment, Nov. 13, 74 

23.  NAME OF CEMETERY OR CREMATORY:  Cypress Lawn Mem. Park, Colma, Ca.

24.  EMBALMER:  Walter B. Foster  3412

25.  FUNERAL DIRECTOR:  Halsted & Co

29.  CAUSE OF DEATH:  Immediate - Cerebrovascular Thromboses; Consequence of Cerebral Arteriosclerosis

30.  OTHER SIGNIFICANT CONDITIONS:  Arteriosclerotic Heart Disease

31.  WAS OPERATION PERFORMED:  No

32.  AUTOPSY:  No

The source citation for this record is:

"California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985," indexed database, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 31 October 2012), Halsted & Company, 1974 [year], 11 [month],  image 697 of 1017, Edna Catherine Schaffner entry; citing original data in San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985, Microfilm publication, 1129 rolls. Researchity. San Francisco, California.

Edna Catherine (McKnew) Schaffner (1884-1974) was my wife's maternal grandmother who lived her entire life in San Francisco.  Her father's name was Elijah Pickrell McKnew and her mother's name was Jane Whittle, born in Australia (not in Austria).  Apparently, she was cremated rather than entombed. 

I do not have a state or county issued death certificate for Edna Schaffner - I wonder if it has the same information as the above?  I think it probably does.

While this is a death certificate in the Funeral Home records, there are eight more pages, including:

*  Handwritten death certificate information by informant

*  Halsted & Company charges

*  Attorney's notice to creditors

*  Attorney's letter of payment to Halsted & Company

*  Halsted & Company Creditor's claim letter

*   Handwritten Funeral Notice prepared by Halsted & Company

*  Funeral Service Approval sheet signed by informant

*  Top part of Statement of Death by Funeral Director to Social Security Administration

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/10/treasure-chest-thursday-post-282-death.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Found: 1906 Death of Charles Woodward in Topeka, Kansas

After my small success yesterday finding the death of Eugene Woodward (1883-1895) in the Belleville [Kansas] Freeman newspaper on MyHeritage yesterday (see Found Death Record of a Cousin on MyHeritage), I looked for more articles about Charles Woodward (his father), Ada Woodward (his sister) and Nellie Woodward (his sister) in the MyHeritage collection.

The first article I found was in the Belleville [Kansas] Daily Freeman newspaper dated 13 December 1905 (MyHeritage accesses NewspaperARCHIVE newspapers):

The short notice says:

"Mrs. Dave Williams and Miss Nellie Woodward went to Topeka Sunday night where their father is dangerously sick. He was able to recognize them when they got there but has been unconscious ever since."

This is an excellent article for me - I had identified David Williams as the husband of Ada Woodward from census records, but had no marriage record to verify that.  

So I looked again on MyHeritage for an article about the death of Charles Woodward after December 1905.  I found an article in the Belleville [Kansas] Telescope newspaper dated 5 January 1906:

The OCT snippet is tantalizing - "...State Journal chronicles the death of Charles F. Woodward of  Topeka, a former well known..."  

The image would not come up for me.  I clicked on the orange "Full screen" button and saw:

I have tried this about 20 times in the past two days.  It NEVER comes up for me.  Drat.  Is this a problem with MyHeritage and/or NewspaperARCHIVE?  I don't know.

I went to Ancestry.com, which also has newspapers from NewspaperARCHIVE, and searched for Charles Woodward and Topeka in 1906.  The search capability of newspapers on Ancestry seems to be very limited.  I could not limit the list of newspapers to just Kansas.  I found no such article as the one above.

I went to NewspaperARCHIVE and noticed that they had a 14-day free trial, so I signed up (I had to give them a credit card number which will expire soon).  

A search in NewspaperARCHIVE Was successful - here is the death notice in the Belleville [Kansas] Telescope newspaper dated 5 January 1906:

The article says:

"CHARLES F. WOODWARD DEAD

"Wednesday's State Journal chronicles the death of Charles F. Woodward of topeka, a former well known and highly respected citizen of Republic county.  Mr. Woodward was Clerk of the Court of this county in 1878, and was a step son-in-law of F.N. Munger.  The family has the sympathy of his many friends in this part of the state in their bereavement."

So I gained a middle initial for Charles Woodward, and narrowed the date of death to the Wednesday before 5 January 1906.  That was a Friday, so the State Journal newspaper published on Wednesday, 3 January 1906 refines the death date to "before 3 January 1906" for me.  

Now I wonder if the State Journal newspaper is available online, perhaps at Chronicling America or another website.  I'm working through this slowly but surely.

Note to self:  opt out of the NewspaperARCHIVE account before 14 October to avoid the credit card charge.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/found-1906-death-of-charles-woodward-in.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

FamilySearch Introduces Searching on Largest Genealogy Websites - Post 1: FamilySearch Matches

On the FamilySearch Blog recently, Matt Wright wrote New Feature: Search Genealogy Records on the World's Largest Sites.   The post says:

"We have taken a step closer to the elusive genealogy “easy button.”

On the Person Page of each of your ancestors in FamilySearch Family Tree there are now three additional genealogy sites you can access for a genealogy records search.

"In addition to FamilySearch (naturally) you will find logos for three of the largest family history websites. A simple click on any of the logos takes you to that site and initiates a global search of that site’s records. When you arrive at the site, you are already looking at the results of your search. Search results are based on whatever information you have for that person in FamilySearch Family Tree, so names, birth date, spouse name, etc. It is a simple and efficient way to search vast databases of genealogically relevant information with a single click."

On each profile in the FamilySearch Family Tree there is a box with links to FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage and Findmypast:

I wanted to see how this feature works, so I am going to use one of my tree persons, Nicholas Brocke (1855-1938) to see what records are found by each website.

1)  Here is the Nicholas Brocke profile (selected semi-randomly) in the FamilySearch Family Tree (two screens shown):

As you can see, the list of the four websites is on the right side of the page in the "Search Records" box.

2)  I clicked on the link to search FamilySearch.  The results page for Nicholas Brocke, on the "Records" tab, looks like this (two screens shown) with all of the search fields expanded:

For this search, FamilySearch filled in these fields:

*  First Name = Nicholas (not exact)
*  Last Name = Brocke (not exact)
*  Birthplace = Michigan (not exact)
*  Birth Year = 1853 to 1857

3)  The matches on the list of 289 matches that I believe are for Nicholas Brocke (1855-1938) include:

*  #1  1900 U.S. Census
*  #2  1870 U.S. Census
*  #3  1930 U.S. Census
*  #4  1920 U.S. Census
*  #5  1910 U.S. Census
*  #13  Idaho Death Certificate for son

That's it.  The other 284 results are for persons other than Nicholas Brocke (1855-1938) born in Michigan, married to Anna Grieser, died in Idaho.

Note that the search on FamilySearch did not find a birth record, a baptism record, a marriage record, a death record, a burial record, or an 1880 U.S. census record.

Obviously, any search depends on the information put into the search fields and the name variations used in the search algorithms.  There may be other records for this person on FamilySearch that have different name spellings, different birth information, etc.  For instance, there are three "Record Hints" section of the person profile - all of them are for the birth of children to Nicolao and Anna (Grieser) Brocke.  Why weren't these listed in the Search results?

The search could be narrowed by adding a death year and place, a spouse's name, etc.  I didn't do this because I wanted to see whaq the link to search FamilySearch provides.

4)  I will review the search results for Ancestry.com in the next post in this series.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/familysearch-introduces-searching-on.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Linda Honored for Church Service -- Post 380 of (Not So) Wordless Wednesday

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

Here are some of the most precious (to me) images from my Seaver/Leland photograph collection:

At church last Sunday, my wife Linda was presented with a lap prayer quilt, a beautiful engraved cross, a fruit platter, and a tasty cake to honor and celebrate her 11 year stewardship of the Chula Vista Presbyterian Church Prayer Chain ministry.

In the photo above is Pastor Angie on the left, Linda in the middle, and Rose displaying the prayer quilt.  The photo below shows Linda with the beautiful cake and the fruit platter arrangement:

Linda was very surprised by the announcement and the honors, and is very thankful that the staff and members of the church honored her service.

In 2004, Linda started an email prayer chain - parishioners would call or email her with a prayer request, she wrote them down in a book, then wrote an email to the email prayer chain members (there were over 100 on the email list), and we made a list each week for about 15 parishioners who did not have email.  Over 11 years, there were over 1,100 emails and over 7,600 prayer requests.

She gave up this ministry two months ago to another church couple, but she still writes the incoming prayers in her notebook, and we save the emails received from the prayer chain.  

 The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/linda-honored-for-church-service-post.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Found Death Record of a Cousin on MyHeritage

The only thing I knew about my second cousin, twice removed named Gean Woodward, son of Charles Woodward and Nellie Bell Redfield, was that he was born in about 1884 in Belleville, Kansas.  The only information I had of his existence was my great-grandmother's list of descendants of her grandparents, Samuel and Mary Ann (Underhill) Vaux.  He was in no known census record, and I've found no vital record for birth, marriage or death.

I don't know much about Charles Woodward or Nellie Bell (Redfield) Woodward either.

This afternoon, I thought "I wonder if Charles Woodward was mentioned in the Belleville, Kansas newspapers?"  I knew that the newspaper was in the NewspaperARCHIVE collection on MyHeritage.

So I searched for Charles Woodward in the Newspaper collection on MyHeritage, limiting my search to Kansas and 1890 plus or minus 20 years.  There were 80 matches.

Near the top of the list was this article, in the "Died" section of the Belleville [Kansas} Republic County Freeman newspaper dated 21 November 1895, on page 5 of 8:

The transcription of the article is:

DIED
At Topeka Kns. Nov. 13th, of blood poisoning, resulting from diptheria with which disease he was stricken about Oct. 1st, Eugene Woodward aged 11 years and 11 months.  The little fellow's mother died 4 years ago this month and his father brought him and his two sisters here to live with his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. F.N. Munger, where he stayed until this summer when he went to live with his father at Topeka.  His death was very touching as he was conscious to the last and just a short time before he died he made quite a talk upon his future home and picked out hymns to be sang and said the Lord's Prayer.  All those present were greatly moved at the little ones words.  His remains were brought up at 4 o'clock on Friday morning and deposited immediately at the cemetery beside his mother.  The little fellow was a great favorite with all who knew him as he was a bright wide awake boy and cheerful at all times.  Mr. Charles Woodward, his father, accompanied his remains to this place."

The source citation for this article is (using the "Newspapers, Online Images" source template in RootsMagic):

"DIED," Belleville Republic County [Kansas] Freeman, 21 November 1895, page 5, column 5, Eugene Woodward death notice; online image, MyHeritage (http://www.MyHeritage.com : accessed 29 September 2015), NewspaperARCHIVE collection.

Now I know when Gean died, and that he was probably born in late 1883, and that his mother died in about 1891, according to this article.

I wonder if there are more articles for Charles, Nellie and their two daughters, Ada and Nellie.  I have 73 more matches to check on MyHeritage!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/found-death-record-of-cousin-on.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Ancestry Adds All "Events" to the LifeStory Page

The Ancestry.com Blog posted The New Ancestry: September 28th Feature Update on 28 September 2015, which highlighted changes in the past month to the Ancestry.com website.

The changes include:

*  Tree Viewer – You will need to now click to select a person on the tree. Hover effect has been removed due to incompatibility problems with touch-screen devices as the new Ancestry is about improving the experience across all device types. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

*  Person Card on the tree viewer – Quick Edit has been moved forward to the main view of the card so users can more easily access it to update any information. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

*  Show all events on LifeStory – All events now show on the LifeStory by default. This means that any facts that are added on the Facts view will be immediately available in the LifeStory.  Right now we show events like birth, death, residence, and etc. on LifeStory with auto-generated narratives. You can now easily view and create your own stories behind any facts or events for your ancestors on LifeStory. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

*  Media viewer –The people that the photo is attached to has been brought to the main screen from behind edit. This also allows users to more easily select who they want the picture show as a profile picture or to unlink the picture. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

Here are the top six Events on the LifeStory for my great-grandfather, Henry Austin Carringer (1853-1946):

There are 29 Events in his LifeStory from birth to death.

Some of the Events, with a short narrative, are automatically added by Ancestry - birth, marriage, death, etc.  Others were added as Events by me - the census events, occupation events, property events, residence events, etc.  When I added a document image and attached it to an Event, the LifeStory now shows the document image.

Then there are the "Historical Insights" - there are only two for Henry Austin Carringer, for "Homesteading in the West" (he didn't homestead) and "Colorado Statehood" in 1876.  He lived through the Civil War (didn't serve), migrating to Iowa in the 1850s, migrating to Colorado in the 1870s, migrating to San Diego in 1887, living through the Spanish-American War (didn't serve), World War I (didn't serve) and World War II (didn't serve), and many more historical events.

I'm glad that the LifeStory now includes all of the Events from birth to burial that I have input to the profile and that the document images for the Events are included.  This is a significant change.

These LifeStory Events can be edited, so I have added some content to some of the Events for Henry Austin Carringer.  For instance, here is the 1900 U.S. Census Event with some narrative added:

However, I tried to add a lot more to this Event - a summary of the Carringer family from the 1900 U.S. census.  But the Ancestry description can take only about 255 characters.  I couldn't add a line break.  So a user cannot add much information to the Event description.  That's unfortunate and makes it not worthwhile to even try to add family stories, research notes or event notes - mine are all more than 255 characters!

I guess the family stories, event descriptions, a life sketch, etc. could be added by creating or uploading a Story in the Gallery section of the profile.  I haven't done that because of the sheer volume of my Notes.  Of course, only persons invited to be a Guest, Contributor or Editor to my tree can view my Person Notes.

The user can Hide the Family Events or Historical Events by clicking on the Gearwheel at the top of the LifeStory page, as shown below:

Apparently, you cannot "Hide" the Individual Events (e.g., census, occupation, property) that the user has added to the Facts list.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/ancestry-adds-all-events-to-lifestory.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Tuesday's Tip - Check Out Missouri Digital Heritage Collections

This week's Tuesday's Tip is:  Check out the Missouri Digital Heritage record collections, especially the vital records.

After posting Tuesday's Tip - FamilySearch has 16 Missouri Record Collections last week, I was contacted by reader Trenton who suggested I look at the Missouri Digital Heritage website, especially the Genealogy collections.  Here is the top of the page:

Further down is a link to the Missouri Birth & Death Records Database Pre-1910:

And still further down the page is the Missouri Death Certificates link:

There are many other genealogy-related databases available on this website - if you have Missouri ancestry, you should be checking all of them out.

I want to focus only on the Missouri Death Certificates, 1910-1964 database:

The web page says:

"At the Missouri State Archives, it’s our goal to give Missourians easy access to our state’s rich history.  That’s why we’ve placed millions of documents and images online at   www.MissouriDigitalHeritage.com. And we’re adding more to that collection every week.

"But unless you’re already a genealogy buff, you might be surprised to learn that some of the most interesting and popular documents in our collection include more than 2.2 million death certificates.
You can see these death certificates of famous Missourians, such as John William “Blind” Boone and Laura Ingalls Wilder. But you can also find out a lot of information about your own family history.

"Missouri Digital Heritage allows you to search by name, county or by date. It’s an invaluable resource, and I’m sure that like me, you’ll discover something new about your Missouri ancestors."

There is a search box at the bottom of the page, and I entered "seaver" into the last name field.  The search provided 38 matches:

I picked the second one from the list - for Amelia Seaver, who died in 1923:

The death certificate for Amelia provides residence, death place, date of death, cause of death, sex, race, marital status, spouse, birth date, parents names, and burial information.  

Missouri is one of a handful of states that provides document images of death certificates.  In this case, it's a PDF that can be downloaded and saved by the user.

 Reader Sharon also commented on the earlier blog post with the same link and information.  Thank you Trenton and Sharon for sharing.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/tuesdays-tip-check-out-missouri-digital.html

Copyright (c) 2015, 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.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

Here Yesterday, Gone Today: the New Jersey Wills and Probates 1656-1801 Records

After I posted What Happened to the 1656-1785 New Jersey Probate Records on Ancestry.com? on Friday (25 September 2015), I received a number of comments and emails.  Here are some of them pertinent to the discussion:

1)  Michelle Tucker Chubenko (author of the Jersey Roots Genealogy blog) emailed saying:

"A quick note to let you know that this is one of those situations of 'here today, gone tomorrow' on the Internet.  The digitized will book that you found Thomas' will in is no longer online within the collection.  Unfortunately, the NJ State Archives did not grant digital permission to Ancestry for the Pre-1901 (NJ) Secretary of State estate packets and libers.  Thus, those name entries and images have been removed from the database collection!!"

Michelle followed up today saying:

"I've received my info directly from Joseph Klett, Chief of the Archives, NJSA. This situation happened in January of 2013 when FamilySearch released the collection -- New Jersey, Probate Records, 1678-1980. See my blog post... https://jerseyrootsgenealogy.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/new-jersey-probate-records-1678-1980/

"Bottom line is that all those colonial and original wills before 1900 were removed from the online collection. However, the Calendar of Wills 1678-1817 and Index to Wills 1678-1900 can still be found on line. This is in addition to the county level Surrogate's Court records.

"I'm working on a blog post to explain this in more detail. Should be online by  Thursday."

My response:  Thank you, Michelle, for the quick, authoritative and succinct summary of the reason for the removal of these records.  We will look forward to the blog post.

Read Michelle's blog post from 2013 noted above - FamilySearch had this problem also!

2)  Reader stluno commented on my earlier blog post, saying:

"Many thanks for posting this information so promptly. I made the same discovery late Friday morning, having spent a good deal of the past three weeks working with the new probate material. You probably noticed, as I did, that the transcription of names and the organizing of images was, well, let's say slipshod, but no matter: the records were online at last! Of course there was no online explanation. The "Updated" term was applied to the new listing on the Ancestry home page. If in the past we've ever wondered exactly what "Updated" means, we now know that one of the meanings in "Deleted." So I called the Ancestry 800 number immediately. Well, not quite, because it's no longer available on the home page, which has no "Contact us" prompt. I got through by calling the 800 number of the Ancestry genealogists-for-hire page. I reached a typically courteous representative, who knew nothing; put me on hold to explore the issue; and returned, still knowing nothing. So all we can do is hope, at this point. And put salve on our wounded pride, wounded from such crude mistreatment from the powers-that-be at Ancestry."

My response:  The phone number has always been 1-800-ancestry.  It appears that they had no choice.

3)  Reader Marian Koalski commented on my earlier blog post, suggesting:

Possibly you can use any index information that you acquired earlier to find the the images on FamilySearch among its browsable images:
New Jersey Probate Records, 1678-1980
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2018330

"This situation compounds my worries about how Ancestry does business."

My response:  Nope - these same records were removed in early 2013.  

My guess is that FamilySearch provided Ancestry with the digital images in early 2013, and they included the pre-1801 probate records.  Ancestry was probably assured that FamilySearch had obtained the requisite licensing permissions, and Ancestry indexed the records.  After they were released on 5 September 20`15, someone at the New Jersey State Archives learned they were indexed and available on Ancestry.com, contacted Ancestry.com, and demanded that they be removed from the collection.

I wonder if Ancestry.com requested permission to display the documents for every state, or relied upon the permissions granted to FamilySearch in years past.

4)  Reader Sharon shared on my previous blog post:

"As of Friday, Sept. 25, ALL of the probate records for Morris County were GONE. I have been working on Morris County estates as fast as I could, but I was far from done.

"I know there are many gaps in these records. I discovered the same with Morris County records. Certain rolls of film were not included in the digitized records on Ancestry. Some of the indexing was pretty poor, and the breaks between records were often not right. But since Morris County was not included in the FamilySearch collection at all, I figured I was still ahead of the game with Ancestry's collection -- until yesterday. 

I will be very interested to know what you hear from Ancestry about this. Are they working on it and it will be back up soon? I sure hope so."

Sharon added information about the New Jersey Probate Records:

"Prior to 1804, estates were handled by the State. In 1804 county surrogates offices were set up for handling estates. It appears that any records in the possession of the State (which includes all records prior to 1804, and original wills, inventories, etc. up to 1901) are now gone. Although some of the county books may be labeled with dates starting in 1785, there are probably no records as far back as that date. The county records from 1804 to late 1800's are missing many years, many records, and are not well indexed. Looks like this long-touted collection is pretty much a bust for New Jersey researchers."

In email, Sharon added these comments on 27 September:

"In looking through the records, I actually found NO original wills or inventories.  There are recorded copies of some records for some counties, but not the originals.  The originals were there last week.  This leads me to guess that the records that the NJ State Archives has (the original signed wills, etc.) have been removed.  What remains is whatever was obtained from individual counties -- along with (perhaps) a few miscellaneous state records that they missed in this purge.  Since the records from the Morris County Surrogate's Office were never on FamilySearch (the only county totally missing), they are not available anywhere.    Thus the explanation that this database contains records for ALL counties is incorrect."

And:

"There are 90 reels of Morris County probate records in FHL catalog.  All the numbers are followed by the letter N, which leads me to believe that they are the State (in other words, original) records, not the Morris County Surrogate's records.  So with the state records gone, there is nothing for Morris County."

"I find it hard to believe that Ancestry posted all these records without permission.  And even harder to believe that NJ will not grant permission.  They surely aren't making a financial killing by making a few copies of these wills for researchers at $10 a clip.  

"If all the state records for all of NJ are gone (as it certainly appears), this is a big blow to this database.  Without the state records, there isn't much left for many counties, as you already discovered with Sussex.  My guess is that all Ancestry will have is just what is on Family Search, which is a patchwork of dates, books and places for sure. "

My response:  See Michelle's note above, and my conjecture in response.  

Thank you for the insight on New Jersey probate records.  So it appears that Morris County, like Sussex County, "Records of wills, 1740-1900" have the State wills on FHL microfilm for Morris County.  For persons with a local FamilySearch Library, or visiting the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, using the microfilmed copies would be easier than visiting Trenton, I guess.

As we;ve seen, Ancestry.com received the document images from FamilySearch, and the value added was the indexing.  

4)  Reader Geolover commented on my previous blog post:

"There have been times when parts or all of some databases were removed by accident, but since Ancestry went to the trouble of changing the name of the database this occurrence seems to be on purpose."

And:

"Even more NJ estate records have been removed by Ancestry from the misnamed Wills and Probate Records collection. It is named 'New Jersey, Wills and Probate Records, 1785-1924' (the word Probate should be Estates), but just try to find anything prior to 1804 now."

My response:  Thank you for pointing out that the Ancestry.com database name changed from ...1656-1999" to "...1785-1924."  

I wonder if I should go back and change all of my source citations to reflect the new database name.

5)  Well - that is disappointing, but I think we all have to live with the reality of the situation.

Sharon raises the question about why won't the State of New Jersey permit the inclusion of these records in the Ancestry.com and FamilySearch collections.  My guess it's because they make "some" money from the fees for the requests for copies and don't want that to end I wonder how many persons are employed to respond to these requests).   Perhaps they don't want Ancestry.com to "make money" from their records, although I think that's a specious argument because these documents are such a small part of the overall Ancestry.com collection set with over 32,000 databases.

Why didn't Ancestry.com release a statement that said something like "we erred, and published these records, but we didn't have the required permissions to publish them so we had to remove them."?

There is a lesson learned here:  When you see a new collection appear on Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, Findmypast Mocavo, etc., go search it the best you can for records that you are seeking.  You never know when "here yesterday, gone today" will be the case.

I did that with these New Jersey wills and probate records - I downloaded, renamed and filed about 20 of the estate files from the now-missing years.  I'm glad I did.  I will continue to transcribe them and publish my transcriptions of these 20 files in hopes that other researchers can benefit from my work.

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