UK Wills and Probate Information- new service.

The new free UK Government website at:

https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/#wills

allows year by year searching of the Index of Wills and Probate Records. Each record has the Probate date and location and the Death Date. A separate index for Soldier’s Wills has  the Regimental Number and Death Date. In either search an entry with surname only brings up all records with that name for the chosen year.

US Census Help

Barry Ewell  has an excellent series of Tutorials on using the US Census returns 1790 – 1940. Whether you are a Newbie or a more experienced researcher he has something for everyone.

Sampling the 17900 Tutorial I was intrigued at the USA map showing the location and population size of the main cities. Comparing it with the map for the 1870 Census really brought home the westward expansion.

Access these Tutorials at:

http://genealogybybarry.com/genealogy-1790-u-s-federal-census-tutorial/

UK WW1 Service Records

A release of the Index of Records held by the Ministry of Defence (UK) contains eight large spreadsheets listing the Name, Service Number and Birth date for each service man born before 1901. They appear to be in order of birth date, so that finding B__GOOD entries involves resorting on the name field before scrolling down.

The eight spreadsheets start with: Attachment 1: service personnel indexed data for those with a date of birth date prior to 1901 and follow with Attachment 2 – 8 at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/foi-responses-released-by-mod-week-commencing-1-december-2014

FindMyPast Special Offer

Until midnight (local time) on Wednesday 19th November you can buy a 1 month Local subscription for just £1, $1, or 1€ – that’s a saving of about 90% on the usual price! You don’t need a discount code – just click the appropriate link below to jump to the relevant offer page:

Britain

Ireland

US & Canada

Australia & New Zealand

Each local subscription covers all the records on FindMyPast for that area.

This news by courtesy of LostCousins who have a very informative news letter.

Genealogy Immigration/Migration: English Immigration

For an example of the excellent articles that Barry Ewell has on his website view:

http://genealogybybarry.com/genealogy-immigrationmigration-english-immigration/

The whole site is well worth exploring: he has something for everyone interested in Genealogy.

Choosing a DNA company

Read Lorna Henderson’s  excellent review of how to select a company that can carry out DNA testing and provide meaningful results.

A must read in the DNA Testing Page.

 

Family Tree Now

This new free site may be useful to anyone searching for  recent B__GOOD data in the USA. Despite the claim on the home page a quick search did not come up with many results before the 1940 Census. Searching was quick and could be restricted to a single state. To check it out go to:

http://www.familytreenow.com