Ground Breaking Genealogy NEWS

I've decided to add genealogical content to my blog, periodically, and as I find great things to share. The first entry is this one.


1. Ancestry.com has chosen to make available the contents of the two best books for those doing American (US) research ... free and online through a beta version on their wiki. The titles are The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy and Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources. US research is one of my areas of expertise, and I can recommend both books as excellent resources books.

Beta simply means that it's a trial version. A wiki is a web site that is editable by anyone. For those not familiar with either beta or wiki, here's your opportunity to get started in a very safe manner.

Simply click on the following link, and read http://www.ancestry.com/wiki. If the link does not appear 'live' (clickable), copy and paste the link into your web browser and away you go.

Stay tuned to my blog for more genealogy updates. If you click on the FOLLOW link on my blog, you will be notified as I add new content.

Happy Searching Everyone!!



2. Mastering the 1911 Census of England and Wales is an awesome free site. Have a read.
http://lostcousins.com/pages/help/Mastering_the_1911_Census_of_England_&_Wales.htm [you will probably need to copy and paste the above link into your browser]



3. For those who are experienced researchers of Ancestry.com, you are possibly as frustrated as I am with since they switched from the 'OLD -style' searches. To continue using old-searches, go to Ancestry.com, then choose "Search All Records" from the Search tab. On the next page look at the far right end of the navigation bar - you should see the words Old Search or New Search just below the bar. Click to switch to the other type of search - and see how you get on.



4. When you begin researching in an unfamiliar area of England - or have had trouble in the past - a wonderful FREEWARE program will be of all kinds of assistance in sorting out parishes. This program enables you to locate any one of 15,000 UK parishes. It really is wonderful, but be sure to read the MANUAL. http://www.parloc.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ParLocDL.html



5. The Popularity of Your Last Name

The U.S. Census Bureau counts the number of Americans every ten years. The same government agency also asks a lot of questions of those people, such as how many bathrooms are in their house and whether or not the family owns a computer. The Census Bureau even counts how many people have the same first or last names.

The twenty most common surnames in America in the 1990 census were:

Smith
Johnson
Williams
Jones
Brown
Davis
Miller
Wilson
Moore
Taylor
Anderson
Thomas
Jackson
White
Harris
Martin
Thompson
Garcia
Martinez
Robinson

You can see how popular your family name is at: http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names with the full list available at http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/dist.all.last. The same site also shows the popularity of given names.