Looking for a Civil War ancestor

OliveTreeGenealogy.com has updated its Civil War Section of the site.

There are some very good Civil War records available online now, and links have been added to direct researchers to them. Some are free, some are pay to view, but they are invaluable in Civil War research. If you have a Civil War ancestor you won't want to miss these searchable Civil War databases

Search NARA Civil War Pension Files Find your Military Ancestors in Civil War Pensions Index; Confederate Soldiers for Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia; Southern Claims Commission; Confederate Papers & Confederate Amnesty Papers on Footnote.com

UK Censuses 1841-1901 Coming to WorldVitalRecords.com

Find My Past Partners With FamilyLink.com, Inc.
UK Censuses 1841-1901 To Be Online at WorldVitalRecords.com

PROVO, UT, March , 2008 ---Find My Past, a family history and genealogy website based in London, England, containing over 550 million family history records recently announced its partnership with FamilyLink.com, Inc. to bring UK Censuses 1841-1901 online at WorldVitalRecords.com (a service of FamilyLink.com, Inc.).

“I really admire what Paul is doing at WorldVitalRecords.com. We are excited to have our census records as part of the WorldVitalRecords.com’s subscription because it will make our census records more accessible to an American audience who probably wouldn’t think of using our company as the first place to look for these records,” said Elaine Collins, Commercial Director, Find My Past. “We are also excited for this partnership because WorldVitalRecords.com has a successful track record and will continue to succeed in the genealogical industry.”

The UK census records comprise WorldVitalRecords.com’s largest database in the World Collection. As part of this agreement, WorldVitalRecords has already added the 1861, 1881 and 1891 censuses to its collection. Search this new UK Census at World Collection of Records

NEW! One Step Search Engine to the three new NARA immigration databases

Steve Morse has just created a One Step Search Engine for the three new NARA databases for Germans, Italians and Russians to the USA.

Using Steve's form, the name of the ship, the port of departure, and the date. is presented when you do the initial name search. NARA just gives you is manifest ID and expects you to go to another form to enter that ID and get the name of the ship, the port of departure, and the date.

Another feature on Steve's form is the use of dropdown lists to select certain values (such as occupation) rather than NARA's method for getting the list of possible values for that field.

These new search tools are at the bottom of the OTHER PORTS section of Steve's home page.

2008 Conference of the Ontario (Canada) Genealogical Society

May 30 - June 1, 2008

2008 Conference of the Ontario (Canada) Genealogical Society

Come to he largest genealogy and technology Conference in London, Ontario, Canada, sponsored by the Ontario Genealogical Society. Join Dick Eastman, Steve Morse, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Geoff Rasmussen, David Lifferth, Fawne Stratford-Devai, Louise St. Denis, Valerie Adams, Paul McGrath, Dick Doherty, Halvor Moorshead, Rick Roberts, Stephen Young, and 11 other speakers as they explore how technology & the internet can enhance genealogical research. 48 presentations.

The Marketplace will have the most complete selection available of material relating to family research in Ontario as well as material for other provinces and countries. Membership in the Ontario Genealogical Society is not required to register.

Jumping on the DNA Genealogy Research Bandwagon!

After following the growing enthusiasm for DNA Genealogy Research for a year now, I decided to take the plunge. Because I wanted to follow my father's McGinnis lineage, I needed a male McGinnis relative for a Y-DNA test.


Males inherit a Y-chromosome from a father, who in turn received his Y chromosome from his father and so on. Males also inherit an X chromosone, but females only inherit the X chromosone and thus can only test their maternal DNA, called mtDNA. This follows their mother, her mother, her mother and so on back through her maternal ancestors.

My brother was pursuaded to swab his cheeks for a DNA sample, and I ordered my 33 marker Paternal Lineage DNA test kit.

More about the test results to come!

NARA Makes Some Passenger Arrival Records Available Online

This week, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) announced that it has made available for the first time online more than 5.2 million records of some passengers who arrived during the last half of the 19th century at the ports of Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia. The records can be accessed through NARA’s online Access to Archival Databases (AAD).

The records were transcribed from original ship manifests into electronic databases by Temple University’s Center for Immigration Research at The Balch Institute. The Center donated the digital records to the National Archives. The records are known as Data Files Relating to the Immigration of Germans to the United States, 1850-1897; Data Files Relating to the Immigration of Italians to the United States, 1855-1900; and Data Files Relating to the Immigration of Russians to the United States, 1834-1897.

This series consists of records of 527,394 passengers who arrived at the United States between 1834 through 1897 and identified their country of origin or nationality as Armenia, Finland, Galicia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia,Russian Poles, or Ukraine. There are records of passengers who were U.S. citizens or non-U.S. citizens planning to continue their travels, returning to the U.S., or staying in
the U.S. There are records of passengers arriving at the following ports: Baltimore, Boston, New Orleans, New York, and Philadelphia; the bulk of the records are for passengers arriving at the Port of New York.

Each of the passenger records may include name, age, town of last residence,
destination, and codes for passenger's sex, occupation,literacy, country of origin, transit and/or travel compartment, and the identification number for the ship
manifest. Information on each ship is in the manifest header file and includes the ship manifest identification number, the name of the ship, the code for its port of departure, and date of arrival. The ship manifest identification number indicates the port of arrival.

More Ships Passenger Lists can be found at Olive Tree Genealogy