MyHeritage adds billions of records in new partnership with FamilySearch

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To spread the word about this important genealogical development, I am simply reproducing below the official announcement from MyHeritage.com. If this development interests you–and I believe it should–be sure to read the FAQs at the end of the announcement release.

We’re delighted to announce that MyHeritage has entered into a strategic partnership with leading genealogy organization FamilySearch, which will bring billions of global historical records and family tree profiles spanning hundreds of years to MyHeritage.

MH-FS Agreement Artwork

This is a “historical moment” in the family history industry and very exciting news for family history enthusiasts worldwide.

Historical records are the backbone of family history research and are vital for making new family connections and uncovering new information about ancestors. Family tree profiles are helpful for finding relatives and tapping into the collective knowledge of millions of other users.

In the next few months, we’ll add more than 2 billion records from FamilySearch’s global historic record collections and profiles from its online family tree to SuperSearch , MyHeritage’s search engine for historical records.

The records span hundreds of years and include vital records such as censuses, birth, marriage, and death records and hundreds of other collections from dozens of countries. The family tree profiles include all profiles in the collective family tree on FamilySearch except those of living people, plus any updates and additions that will be made in this tree.

Our matching technologies will be unleashed on these new records and profiles so MyHeritage users will receive Smart Matches™ and Record Matches whenever any of them match their family trees. This will bring significant new opportunities for MyHeritage users to grow their family trees and enrich their family history.

Adding this gigantic treasure trove of global content to MyHeritage is an important step towards fulfilling our mission of helping families everywhere explore and share their legacy online.

Below are a few questions and answers about the partnership. For more information, please read the official press release .

Q: What will FamilySearch provide MyHeritage?
A: FamilySearch will share with MyHeritage a massive number of international records and family tree profiles which are key to researching family history. These include all profiles of deceased individuals from the FamilySearch Family Tree (about 1 billion profiles), and a large selection of global historical records (about 1.2 billion additional records).

Q: Which collections will be added to MyHeritage, and from which countries?
A: The historical records come from hundreds of document collections from dozens of countries worldwide. These include vital records such as birth, baptism, marriage, and death records. The records originate from all over Europe and Latin America as well as the United States and Canada, Asia and other regions.

Q: How long will it take to add the international records and family tree profiles?
A: The collections will be added to SuperSearch over the next few months.

Q: Will Smart Matches™ and Record Matches be enabled on the new records?
A: Yes. MyHeritage users will receive Smart Matches™ and Record Matches on the records added, and be able to save the new information directly to their family trees. Our Record Detective technology means that many of these records will point to others, turning a single discovery into a door for more.

Q: Will this content be free?
A: Some of these collections will be made available for free. For viewing the others, MyHeritage’s existing data subscription will be required. A data subscription provides unlimited access to all Record Matches and all historical records and family tree profiles on MyHeritage, including newspapers and census, birth, marriage and death records.

Q: What will MyHeritage give to FamilySearch?
A: MyHeritage will give FamilySearch access to its technologies for Smart Matching™ and Record Matching so that FamilySearch users will be able to receive matches in the FamilySearch website, especially with the historical records shared by FamilySearch. This will be made available to FamilySearch members during 2014.

Q: Will MyHeritage give any family trees contributed by its users to FamilySearch?
A: No. Content uploaded by MyHeritage users will stay only on MyHeritage and this content is never licensed, shared, sold or given to any third party.

Q: What if I have a tree on MyHeritage and I don’t want it to be matched with FamilySearch?
A: Go to the “My privacy” page on MyHeritage under the account pull-down menu in top right corner of any page. Then go to the Content tab of your tree, and turn off the checkbox labeled “Enable Smart Matching™ with other MyHeritage websites and partners”.

Q: What does this mean for the family history community?
A: Millions of people worldwide, who are using MyHeritage and/or FamilySearch, will now have greater opportunities to discover their family history. MyHeritage users will benefit from historical records digitized by FamilySearch, and FamilySearch users will benefit from powerful technologies created by MyHeritage.

For information about MyHeritage subscription plans, go here: http://www.myheritage.com/subscription-plans

Ellis Island Has Reopened after Sandy Repairs

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Many Americans have immigrant ancestors who were among the 12 million people entering America through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924.

If you are like me, you were shocked when you learned about the devastation caused to Ellis Island by Hurricane Sandy as it struck the East Coast on 29 Oct 2012. Damage was so extensive that the facility had to be closed to the public. Most of the damage has now been repaired, and the Main Building, including the Great Hall http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellisislandnps/7093756649/in/set-72157625603576251, was reopened to the public on 28 Oct 2013. Additional exhibits reopened include the renovated “Peopling of America” and the Wall of Honor. Repairs continue in other areas and those will be reopened over time, officials say.

On a personal note, I still remember my visit in 1999 to the Ellis Island Great Hall. I was able to envision my paternal grandmother with four children (my aunts and an uncle) being admitted to America in 1903. During my visit, I saw an exhibit of immigrant trunks just like the one I have as a artifact of my grandmother’s journey http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellisislandnps/6947686560/in/set-72157625603576251. Stickers on the trunk chart her trip from Finland to England to America.

“We are looking forward to the opportunity to welcome visitors back to Ellis Island from our departure points in Liberty State Park, Jersey City, and Battery Park, New York City,” said Michael Burke, Chief Operating Officer for Statue Cruises. Tickets can be purchased online at www.statuecruises.com or by phone at 201-604-2800. Online reservations are highly encouraged. The cost to visit Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty will be $17 for adults, $9 for children (ages 4-12) and $14 for seniors (age 62 and up).

If you are planning a visit, be forwarned that visitors to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty must pass through security screening (similar to airport security procedures) before boarding a ferry. These are the prohibited items:
* All weapons, including firearms, knives (even tiny Swiss Army Knives), mace, “dual-use” items, tools, and any item that is or could be construed as a weapon are strictly prohibited in the park and on the ferries.
* No locker storage facilities are available at the ferry terminals.
* Do not carry any of these type items into the security screening area. They will be confiscated and not be returned. If you are unsure about an item, please do not bring it.
* LARGE packages, suitcases, carry-on luggage and other large parcels will not be permitted on the ferries to Ellis or Liberty Islands.

A visit to Ellis Island is one every descendant of immigrant ancestors who arrived through this portal should take, if at all possible.

For more information, including a historical overview, go to http://www.nps.gov/elis/index.htm

One Way to Kick-Start Your Family History /Genealogy Research

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Have you watched episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? on The Learning Channel (TLC), or Genealogy Roadshow on PBS? Have you wondered if you could find out more about your grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles, and other ancestors?

It’s a good time to start such research these days because so much information is available on the Internet (and no, you can’t just look up a complied ancestry report on the Internet—you still have to do the research one record at a time).

Here’s an idea to try your hand: Search for somebody who was alive at the time of the 1940 U.S. Census. Here’s how you can do it without incurring any expense. Type in the person’s name and 1940 Census in a Google Search window. If the person has a common surname or family name, it helps to add the name of the city or village or township, and state, where they lived, in the search window. Google immediately will search through the 1940 census database of Ancestry.com and display any “hits” it finds.

Now Ancestry.com is a subscription database, but it has allowed Google to index every name in its 1940 census database. So Google searches Ancestry’s total 1940 census database for the person you are looking for and brings up a list of “hits.”

When you click on a “hit,” what you will see is the transcribed record for the person you searched for. You have the option of looking at the actual census record if you register for a free account, giving you name and email address and creating a password. Ancestry.com allows you to create this free account because they want to follow up with you and send you offers by email.

If you don’t want to do this, you can go to your local library, which probably pays a subscription so patrons can use Ancestry Library Edition—for free. When you access Ancestry Library Edition at the library, you can search for far more information than what appears in the 1940 census.

At the library, you can learn if your person appeared in earlier censuses (the 1940 census is the most recent available to the public). In many cases, you can find birth and death information, details of immigration, military service, and so on and on. You then can print out copies of the records you find and share them with family members.

If you don’t find your person in the 1940 census, don’t despair. The person indexing the record may have misspelled the names he or she was seeing on the record. Try different spellings of surnames and even given names. Use a nickname. Change the locality where you think the person lived. In other words, use different search terms. If you strike out with one name, try others from among your relaitves alive in 1940.

Try it! We think you’ll like it.

Genealogy Guys Laud OGS in Oct Podcast

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The Genealogy Guys, Drew Smith and George Morgan, were the featured presenters at the Ohio Genealogical Fall Seminar, held in Bellville, on October 8.

I have just caught up with their very favorable comments about their visit to OGS at the beginning of their October 8, 2013, podcast (No. 256).

I thought others might like to hear what they had to say about OGS (go to http://ogs.org) in their approximately 3 minutes, 17 seconds of comments about the Seminar, the Library, and the upcoming 2014 Conference. So I clipped their comments and figured out how to put them in this blog posting. You can listen here: The Genealogy Guys Comment on OGS Library.

FYI, I used the free audio editing program, Audacity (go to audacity.sourceforge.net) to prepare the clip for your listening pleasure. The instructions and tutorials provided by this program’s website helped me learn what I needed to do. Using WordPress to add it to this blog posting made that step very simple.

I think I will be using other audio clips in this blog in the future.

FYI, the Genealogy Guys podcast is free. To see a listing of their podcasts, including the one dated October 8, go to www.genealogyguys.com. It’s really simple to download a podcast to your computer or other device and listen at your leisure.

Want To Be On Genealogy Roadshow? Here’s First Step

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We don’t know how the first season of Genealogy Roadshow (GR) was put together. If you watched the inaugural season on your local PBS station, you know that four cities were featured–Nashville, Detroit, San Francisco, and Austin, TX–and subjects came to a historic landmark building in each city to be presented with genealogical research results by GR experts Josh Taylor or Kenyatta D. Berry. The format was intended to resemble the format used by Antiques Roadshow, which has been running on PBS for years.

This year, the approach may be different. GR has made available an application form for candidates to fill out and submit. To see an application, go here: http://www.grcasting.com/.

Based on the details requested by the application, the production company obviously will make selections on the candidate’s “story” and even telegenic qualities. To me, that would seem to rule out aggregating the featured subjects in one city at a time. On the other hand, this same process may have been followed for the inaugural season. We don’t know the home cities of the subjects that were presented.

If you want to see the four episodes in the inaugural season of GR, go here: http://video.pbs.org/program/genealogy-roadshow/

How-to-Do-It Info Posted in Blog from Ancestry.com

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I have been subscribed for some time to the Ancestry.com Blog, but I must admit that I haven’t studied the content in any detail. Going forward, I will be paying more attention to the content, because it is really valuable.

For example, in the 17 Oct 2013 posting, the blog provides a discussion of The Genealogist’s Toolkit: Ethnic Research.

The toolkit consists of Research Guides and Research Centers. The guides are downloadable PDF documents with information about ethnic research. For example, I have downloaded the guide, Finding Your German Ancestors on Ancestry.com. I have some German ancestors back in Colonial times, and my wife has German ancestors who immigrated more recently.

The PDF starts off with the following statements:

More Americans today link themselves to German heritage than they do any
other ethnicity. Not surprising, since the first wave of German immigration
to the U.S. dates back to the 17th century.
Germans have influenced U.S. culture since their 17th-century arrival, building their first settlement in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1683. Key social contributions included manufacturing
expertise, the establishment of kindergartens, beer making and the pretzel.

The guide consists of five pages with screenshots from Ancestry.com records, and text to tell you how to find this information.

I have downloaded this PDF and saved it into my Evernote account. That way, I will have it available at home on my desktop, and on location with my laptop and Iphone, as well as on my wife’s Ipad.

FYI, other ethnic groups featured in these guides are African-American, Canadian, Irish, Swedish, UK, Mexican, Jewish, and Italian.

The Research Centers allow you to focus your searches on record collections of a particular ethnic group.

I may be wrong, but it appears that you need to be a subscriber to Ancestry.com to receive emails of the blog, but it does make the Ancestry.com subscription more valuable, at least to me.

Making Your Genealogical Research More Efficient with Evernote

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Evernote is a free, note-taking/capturing technology useful for collecting results during your research, whether online or on location. It also helps you organize what you have collected.

In a nutshell, Evernote is designed specifically to capture or record quickly what you are finding, and thus speed up your research and make it more efficient. Then, you can shift gears and take your time evaluating your findings and adding them to whatever genealogical database program you use–or even your online family tree on Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.

In her most recent Genealogy Gems newsletter (14 Oct), genealogy podcaster Lisa Louise Cooke points out two tips for using Evernote for genealogical research:

1) Create a New Note: When you’re working on your computer and you want to make a quick note of something in Evernote, you can get there with lightening speed by pressing these quick keys simultaneously: Ctrl+Alt+n.

2) Instant Note Search: What if you are knee deep in your research and you have a note that you need to quickly reference? Simply press Win+Shift+f from anywhere on your computer and Evernote will instantly open with your cursor in the search box ready to type a keyword and search!

Lisa states: “Evernote is certainly the fastest-growing (and FREE) note-taking technology out there, so it’s no wonder that it is incredibly popular with genealogists. But there’s a lot packed into it and I’ve noticed that many genealogists aren’t taking full advantage.”

I have been using Evernote daily for about three years now, and I must admit that I was one of the “many genealogists” who weren’t taking full advantage of this handy technology.

In September, Lisa announced that she was publishing Evernote for Windows for Genealogists, a four-page, laminated Quick Reference Guide. I ordered a copy and received it yesterday (19 Oct). It includes several categories of tips such as:

*Getting Started Checklist
*Quick Keys to speed up your use of Evernote
*Specialized Note-taking Actions
*How to Get the Most Out of Clipping
*Tips for Maneuvering the Desktop Client
*Genealogical Organization Suggestions
*Little Known Search Strategies
*Source Citation Tips, and
*Using Reminders

I’m going to be spending time studying Lisa’s guide, and adding what she points out to my Evernote toolbox. I expect some of what she suggests for genealogy will spill over into organizing and keeping track of my everyday activities as well. Thanks Lisa, for creating your helpful guide!

The guide, Evernote for Windows for Genealogists, is priced at $8.95. You can order it online at http://lisalouisecooke.com/lisa-louise-cookes-store/

Where’s Otto? The Final Chapter

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One year ago, I started on a journey to track down the family of my uncle by marriage, Frank Nikkari. When I started, I only had his obituary and his social security application card (I had purchased it back in the day, when it cost only $7).

But there was the Internet, and Ancestry.com, and FamilySearch.org, and other genealogy-specific websites, plus Google! So I set out to discover who his family was and their life stories. It was quite an experience, involving Internet “travel” to all corners of the U.S. and to Finland where the Nikkaris emigrated from in 1903 and 1904.

From Frank’s obituary (published 24 Oct 1966 in the Ashtabula Star Beacon), I learned that Frank had two surviving sisters named Hilda and Amelia and where they were living at the time. These names and locations, plus the info on his SS app card reporting that he came to America from Pori, Finland, were all I needed to reconstruct the story of a family that I never met, or even heard about.

Since early in 2013, I have presented various versions of “Where’s Otto? Using the Power of the Internet to Track Down Immigrant Relatives” to various groups, including WRHS, Cuyahoga Valley Genealogical Society, Northeast Ohio Computer Assisted Genealogy Society, Bohemian National Hall, OGS Librarians’ Seminar, and FinnFest USA 2013. This Sunday (20 Oct 2013) I will be presenting it to the Finnish-American Heritage Association of Ashtabula County.

So what did I learn in this research effort? The Nikkari family consisted of John, the father; Josephine, the mother; Frank; and seven siblings, including Otto, who was Frank’s twin brother.

As I noted above, they emigrated from Pori, Finland, heading for Kaleva, Manistee County, Michigan. They came in four separate passages in 1903 and 1904. The father and mother came separately in 1903 and the children came in two groups of four in 1904. The passenger manifests were very helpful in establishing family relationships.

Most of the family appeared in the 1910 federal census in Kaleva, Michigan. This census provided the additional information that the mother, Josephine, had 12 children, 8 of which were “now living.”

During my research, I found that family members had many occupations. They were farmers, miners, laundry service operators, loggers, and carpenters, among others. And I learned that they lived in 11 different states: Ohio, Michigan, New York, California, Arizona, Georgia, Montana, Virginia, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Florida. Researching in some of these states was a new experience for me.

Otto proved to be something of a mystery man. He was listed in the 1910 census, but not in any later census. I did find his World War I draft registration, and he married twice in New York City (I discovered his marriage records on the free website, www.ItalianGen.org, believe it or not).

What happened to Otto? I finally did a Google search for “Otto Nikkari.” And I got a very surprising result: A hit on a website, www.nekropole.lv. Yes, that’s right–the website is based in Latvia, and the page mentioning Otto was written in Latvian–and Russian!

It turns out that Otto went to the Soviet Union as a believer in communism in the mid 1930s. The record on Nekropole stated that he worked as a carpenter for the All-Union Agricultural Exposition. I used Wikipedia to research this grandiose Soviet project and learned that it fell seriously behind schedule. What did the Soviets do when projects fell behind? Find scapegoats. Otto was one of these. He was arrested, tried, and executed for counterrevolutionary terrorism in 1938. It turns out that no family members knew what happened to him. I owe a big debt of thanks to the proprietors of Nekropole for putting this information on their website and allowing the webbots/spiders of Google to find and index the record of Otto Nikkari. And I am thankful for Google Translate which helped me understand was written in Otto’s record.

My brother, Walfrid, made a connection with email with a researcher in Finland, who provided us with details of the family found in church records, involving three different parishes. Amongst this additional information, we learned that three of the Nikkari offspring died in Finland as young childeren. A fourth was murdered when he was about 19 and about to testify in a criminal case in Pori. That may have been a motivating factor for the family to leave Finland.

Recently, I made contact with three granddaughters of Hilda and Amelia, and learned a great deal more about the Nikkari family. I was able to figure out who these people were and their contact information using Internet research resources.

In one year’s time, I learned about the lives of nine collateral relatives, along with additional information about my uncle Frank. All in all, the project was quite satisfying, and it couldn’t have been carried out in a year’s time without the power of the Internet.

Amazing New Scanner for Family History Materials

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On Saturday, 12 Oct 2013, I attended a presentation by Norm Henke at the computer genealogy group, NEOCAG (a local genealogical society focusing on using computers in genealogy–go to http://neocag.net/), on going paperless in genealogy with a Fujitsu ScanSnap scanner.

This peaked my curiosity, so I went to the Fujitsu website http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/peripherals/scanners/scansnap/, scrolled down the list, and learned of a very interesting BRAND-NEW product that might fit the needs of WRHS in creating digitial files for preservation and database creation: The ScanSnap SV600 Contactless Scanner.

The SV600 is ready to go for $795 (list price)—-when connected to a computer and monitor. It was introduced world-wide only about a month ago. Check this website which provides the announcement details from Fujitsu: http://virtualization.sys-con.com/node/2775571

One Key Feature: the package includes software to convert the image to a “searchable PDF.” If you are digitizing books and similar printed materials, this would avoid the necessity of a separate indexing step. For hand-written materials, you would still need to create an index and link it to the relevant images. But the SV600 would be SAFE to use on this and other fragile materials.

Another Key Feature: the included software includes a page straightening feature to correct for any curvature in digitized pages. And if you capture a finger in the image, the software allows you to remove it.

Go to this web page http://content.webcollage.net/apps/cs/mini-site/fujitsu/module/fujitsuamerica/wcpc/1380659886048/tab/demo-b462bb77?enable-reporting=true&showtabs=&channel-product-id=PA03641-B005 to watch a video of the SV600 in action and also to read more about features and to download a brochure, in PDF format, of course. Note that one of the people operating the SV600 in the video is a receptionist in an office setting—not a scanning technician. It’s that simple to operate. There are YouTube videos from around the world as well, just do a search for Fujitsu SV600.

I have recommended this scanner to the Genealogical Committee, an auxiliary of the Western Reserve Historical Society, which is studying ways to improve access by WRHS Research Libary patrons to collections in the WRHS Archives. If I could afford it, I would buy one myself. Stay tuned.

Hello world! A fresh start.

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Wally Huskonen here, starting a new blog. I have been blogging before using Blogspot, and now I am using WordPress. So far, it seems to represents an upgrade in capabilities.

I am creating this blog in a website format using WebHostingHub. We’ll see how that works out.

Going forward, I will be adding material from my own research successes–as well as false starts, too. I also plan, from time to time, to add observations about developments in genealogy and family history.

While I am starting this blog on 15 Oct 2013, I will be retrieving older posts from my previous blogs and adding them here, so there will be “old” material for you to review, as well.