Online family collection chronicles life in Upper Canada and War of 1812

My friend and fellow blogger Gail Dever passed on some very interesting information today about new records online.

 

Online family collection chronicles life in Upper Canada and War of 1812

Microfilm at Your Fingertips!

How many of you remember "the good old days" pre-Internet when we spent hours in libraries and archives scrolling through microfilm in a dark room? I sure do! 

Now, thanks to The Internet Archive, (part of the WayBack Machine) microfilm is coming right to your computer! Here is their description of the focus of this project:

As books become old and begin to fall apart, librarians depend on microform to preserve their content for the future. Tiny photographs on long strips of film (microfilm) or small cards of film (microfiche) are all that remain of hundreds of thousands of documents that have disintegrated over the last century. While microfilm is perfect for storing and protecting this material, it is a does not allow for much access. In following its mission to provide universal access to all human knowledge, the Internet Archive is teaming up with libraries all over the world to begin digitizing microfilm and microfiche. The goal is to get as much content off the shelves and online.

The books in this collection are from a variety of libraries including the University of Chicago Libraries, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Alberta, Allen County Public Library, and the National Technical Information Service.
You may also want to view the newspapers that have been digitized from microfiche.

So don't wait, click over to https://archive.org/details/microfilm and let your fingers do the walking!

Got New Netherland Ancestors? Don't Miss These New Online Records

Do you have New Netherland (now New York state) ancestors? The Dutch settled there early in the 17th century, along with Walloons, Huguenots and other ethnicities.  

Among my early New Netherland ancestors were Cornelis Antoniseen Van Slyke, Harman Janse Ryckman, Jan Damen, Lambert Van Valkenburg, Hendrick Vrooman, Albert Andriessen Bradt, Adrian Crijnen Post, Jan Martense Van Alstyne and more.

Recent additions to the Online Publications page of the New Netherland Institute include translations of  

 

• Fort Orange Records, 1656–1678;  
• Fort Orange Records, 1654–1679;  
• Laws & Writs of Appeal, 1647–1663; and 
• A.J.F. van Laer's 3-volume set Minutes of the Court of Albany, Rensselaerswyck and Schenectady, 1668–1685

If you have New Netherland ancestors you may also want to check out my books on New Netherland Settlers. Currently I have published the following:

The Van Slyke Family in America: A Genealogy of Cornelise Antonissen Van Slyke, 1604-1676 and his Mohawk Wife Ots-Toch, including the story of Jacques Hertel, 1603-1651, Father of Ots-Toch and Interpreter to Samuel de Champlain REVISED EDITION Coil bound 8.5x11. 287 p.  Order Form or Paypal Orders

New Netherland Settlers: Willem Pieterse Van Slyke aka Neef - A genealogy to five generations of the descendants of Willem Pieterse Van Slyke who settled in New Netherland (New York) in 1660. 198 pages. 8.5x11 Coil bound .  Order Form or Paypal Orders

New Netherland Settlers. A Walloon in New Amsterdam: The Story of Adriaen Vincent and his Wife Madaleen Eloy. Coil bound 8.5x11. 94 p.   Order Form or Paypal Orders

New Netherland Settlers. Boele Roeloffsen & His Wife Bayken Arents From Amsterdam with information on the European Origins of the Family.  Coil bound 8.5x11. 56 p.  Order Form or Paypal Orders

New Netherland Settlers: The Stevensen and Jacobsen Families. A genealogy to three generations of the descendants of Maria Goosens and her husband Steven Janse Coning who settled in Fort Orange in 1649 (Stevensen Family) and Maria Goosens and a man named Jacob (Jacobszen Family) .  8.5x11 Coil bound. 154 p.   Order Form or Paypal Orders

The Barheit Family Revealed: A Genealogy of Hans Coenradt and Barentje Jans Straetsman, the Immigrant Ancestors of the Barheit Family of Albany New York available as an Ebook 
 
Credits: Image from Minutes of the Court of Rensselaerwyck, 1648-1652 courtesy New Netherland Institute

Digitization of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Personnel Service Files – Update of March 2015

As of today, 129,271 of 640,000 files are available online via Library and Archives Canada Soldiers of the First World War: 1914–1918 database.

I still have not see my relatives' complete files go online but I just have to be patient. I hope other genealogists are finding their family members' files going online.

Unpaid Royal Navy pension claims now online at National Archives UK

Next of kin claims for unpaid Royal Navy pensions 1830-1860 are now available to search and download online at National Archives UK.

These records are applications for the unpaid wages or pensions of deceased officers or their widows.

The records cover officers of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and civilian employees of the Royal Navy and Naval Dockyards.

They can include vital information for researchers such as the officers' date of death, his rank, the name and address of the claimant, the date the claim was admitted and examined and the total value of the effects claimed.

The records are free to search in Discovery but there is a small fee for downloading them.

Search the records now.

Naval Officers Records Online at National Archives UK

National Archives UK sent an email about Naval officers' service record cards and files (c.1880-1950s) now online.

Press Release:

More than 5,000 naval officers' record cards in series ADM 340 are now available on DocumentsOnline. The introduction of cards and files in the early 20th century provided a single continuous record of an officer's service, whereas previous records in books and registers had often been more fragmentary.

To find out more about the records of commissioned officers in the Royal Navy, go to the research signpost.

Press Release: Catalogue of Stolen Cultural Artefacts From WW2

The National Archives joined with leading archives and museums in a global agreement to make records relating to cultural artefacts stolen by the Nazis available through an international online catalogue. The catalogue is intended to help families, historians and researchers trace the history and provenance of the looted art.

As part of the project, The National Archives worked with the Commission for Looted Art in Europe to catalogue and digitise more than 950 files. The records are now available on DocumentsOnline.