Olive Tree Genealogy Blog: Free Access

Showing posts with label Free Access. Show all posts

May 4, 2020

SPECIAL: Free Genealogy Records on Ancestry

The 75th anniversary of VE Day is this week. From May 4th - 8th, Ancestry Canada will be providing free access to all 10M Canadian military records on the site.

In addition, Canadians can access for free all content on online newspaper archive Newspapers.com, as well as all records on Fold3 – a site that provides access to military records, stories and photos.

March 31, 2020

Free on Ancestry During the Pandemic

Ancestry is offering many free items during this Pandemic. Please read on to see if there is anything of interest.

At-home educational resources for families and teachers: With parents educating their kids at home and teachers looking for creative ways to administer assignments, new virtual ways of learning are on the rise. Ancestry US is making teacher-developed lesson plans available for free for anyone to download, covering a range of educational topics for various ages. For more information, click here.
Helping to ease the isolation from social distancing with new connections: Ancestry US has collaborated with the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration to offer temporary free access to millions of historical records and images from the federal government. And we will continue providing free online tutorials and video courses to help people get started with family tree building. For more information, click here.

August 27, 2019

Free Access to Ancestry's U.S. School Yearbooks, 1900-1999

3 Generations: 1991, 1969, 1941

Ancestry now has over 450,000 yearbooks from all 50 states!

From Aug 27 - Sep 2, you can browse U.S., School Yearbooks, 1900-1999 for free!

Over 450,000 yearbooks

More than 62 million pages

Is your yearbook missing? Immortalize your yearbook by donating!

January 28, 2019

Great News! More Canadian Genealogy Records Free to View

The Héritage project is a 10-year initiative to digitize and make accessible online some of Canada’s most popular archival collections encompassing roughly 40 million pages of primary-source documents. Chronicling the country and its people from the 1600s to the mid-1900s, this collection represents a vast and unique resource for Canadian historians, students, and genealogists.

Great News!

As of January 1, 2019, all Canadiana content included in Early Canadiana Online, Héritage, and Canadiana Online will be available at no charge to users.

I've been using the free access since it became available, and I'm thrilled with it. If you have Canadian ancestors you will not want to miss this. Their genealogy collection is massive.

On the left is a screenshot of the the first few records that you see out of the 185 total.

Don't wait - go! Search! Enjoy!

December 1, 2018

Free Ships Passenger Lists & Naturalization Records

Visitors to Olive Tree Genealogy often ask me for a list of all the free ships passenger lists I have published online. My site is quite large and can take time to navigate to find the records, so I understand why there can be some confusion.

In hopes this might help genealogists, I've compiled a list of the free passenger lists and naturalization records on my sites.

Missing Friends The Missing Friends Project is abstracting the names of those who immigrated from UK to America or Canada and who were inquired about by family in various 19th Century newspapers.

Passenger Books of J & J Cooke, Shipping Agents sailings from Londonderry Ireland to Quebec, St. John New Brunswick, New Orleans Louisiana and Pennsylvania from 1847 to 1871

Pennsylvania Baggage Lists 1809

New York Almshouse Records 1819 to 1840 contain the names of the ship each person sailed on, plus dates of arrival. Includes arrivals in Canadian ports

Emigrants from England in New York City Almshouse 1818-1830 - 254 names of English immigrants to Canada & USA including the name of the ship they sailed on.

New York Almshouse Records 1855 to 1858 contain the name of the ship and the arrival date and port for each person.

List of those who died while in Staten Island Quarantine May 1849 - Dec. 1850 (not available at this time but coming back online soon)

Names of Emigrants from 1845-1847 from the Records of James Allison, Emigrant Agent at Montreal Quebec Canada

Return of Emigrants Landed at the Port of Kingston Ontario, Canada (1861-1882)

Peter Robinson Settlers sailing 1823 & 1825 Ireland to Canada

English to America 1617-1778 Child Apprentices in America from Christ's Hospital, London England (not available at this time but coming back online soon)

English Immigrants to USA 1773-1776

Poor Irish to England Includes Ports of Departure & Arrival plus number of years in England or Scotland. Over 1,600 names
(not available at this time but coming back online soon)

Irish Emigration Lists, 1833-1839 Lists of Emigrants Extracted from the Ordnance Survey Memoirs from Counties Londonderry and Antrim

Passenger Lists from the New York Times (Arrivals & Departures)1851-1929 (coming back soon)

New Netherland Ships Passenger Lists Project Lists of those sailing from The Netherlands to New Netherland (now New York) 1654-1664 came from the West India Company Account Book and consist only of names of those who owed for their passage. There is no published record of those who paid for passage before leaving. Olive Tree Genealogy has reconstructed several passenger lists for these ships using other primary sources.

Naturalization & Citizenship Records

Naturalization Records Naturalization Records in the USA & Canada. Includes searchable Naturalization Records, Declarations of Intent, Certificates of Citizenship

USA Passport Applications

USA Alien Registrations

USA Oaths of Allegiance

USA Voters Registrations

Canadian Passport Records

August 31, 2017

Check out Ancestry Free Access for Labor Day Weekend

Free Access to Occupational Records! Starting Thursday, August 31st until Monday, September 4th

Databases searched include census records, tax and assessment records, employment records, military records, voter registrations and more. Don't miss this chance to look for your ancestors.

Search Ancestry.com Occupational Records for free this Labor Day!

Search Ancestry.ca Labour Day Free Access to Occupational Records all Weekend Long

March 26, 2016

FREE ACCESS to Commonwealth Records on Ancestry

This weekend (March 25-28) Ancestry.ca is offering free access to their Commonwealth records.

Many genealogists do not realize that Ancestry offers two different freebies.

One is FREE ACCESS (which this is) and NO credit card is required. You have to sign up with your email address and name to view the records, but NO CREDIT CARD is needed.

The second is FREE TRIAL where a credit card IS required. At the end of the Free Trial period you cancel, and your card is not charged.

February 13, 2016

Free Access to Canadian & Immigration Records!

Olive Tree Genealogy received the following announcement:

While Family Day isn’t celebrated nationally – in fact, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C. are the only provinces to officially celebrate the day – Ancestry.ca is using this family-focused holiday to offer free access to all Canadians.

We hope this will be welcome news to the 93 per said of Canadians who said they were interested in learning more about their family history according to a recent Ancestry survey.

Until February 15, Canadians will have free access to all Canadian records in additional to Global Immigration Records – that’s more than 230 million records.

So while the extra day off will allow for some Canadians to catch up with their present family, this free access on Ancestry.ca also allows all Canadians to connect with family members of the past.

Image is a screenshot from Ancestry.ca

November 7, 2015

Don't Miss Free Access to Ancestry's Global Military Records

In honour of Remembrance Day, Ancestry.ca has launched an extensive collection of military records containing over 29,000 service files of Canadian military personnel killed in action during the conflict. Ancestry is also offering free online access to this, and its entire collection of global military records from November 6 to 11.

The WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947 collection includes a variety of different documents for each soldier from attestation papers to medical history forms, and even correspondence to family members back home in Canada, as well as more than two million images.

This dataset was of particular interest to me because my uncle James Nevin Bonar was killed in WW2 and his complete file is found there. The image on the left shows one of the dozens of pages in his file.

Some of the most heroic Canadian soldiers' records found are:

•                    John Robert Osborn (1899 – 1941) who was the first Canadian awarded a Victoria Cross in the Second World War, after bravely sacrificing himself by throwing himself on a grenade to save his comrades.

•                    Samuel Moses (“Moe”) Hurwitz (1910 – 1944) who was the most highly decorated non-commissioned member of the Canadian Grenadier Guards, earning the Military Medal in August and the Distinguished Conduct Medal

•                    David Ernest Hornell (1910 – 1944) who was the first member of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his last and final mission when he successfully sunk a German U-boat under extreme fire.

Don't wait to check out the free online access to Ancestry.ca's entire collection of global military records from November 6 to 11. I am not sure if this free access is also on Ancestry.com so if one of my readers discovers that it is available there, please leave a comment in the comment section below.

September 2, 2015

FREE 170 Million Wills & Probate Records on Ancestry!

Wow! Ancestry.com just published over 100 million wills written in the United States in the last 300 years for genealogists to search. More than 170 million pages from the largest collection of wills and probate records in the United States is now available online exclusively on Ancestry.

With searchable records included from all 50 states spread over 337 years (1668-2005), this unprecedented collection launches a new category of records for family history research never before available online at this scale the United States.

Until now, these records have only been available offline. Ancestry spent more than two years bringing this collection online, working with hundreds of different archives from individual state and local courts across the country and making a $10M investment to license and digitize the records. The documents cover well over 100 million people, including the deceased as well as their family, friends and others involved in the probate process. Ancestry expects to continue to grow the collection, with additional records available over the next several years.

To celebrate the launch of the new U.S. Wills and Probates collection on Ancestry,, the collection along with all U.S. birth, marriage and death records, will be available to explore for FREE, September 2 (12pm MT) through September 7 (10pm MT).

Here are the records available as of today:

June 28, 2015

Celebrate Canada Day with FREE Access to Ancestry.ca!

To celebrate Canada Day ^[FN1], Ancestry.ca is providing free access to all 235 million Canadian records on their site. The offer is in effect until July 1, 2015 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time.

You will need to register (for free) with your name and email. A username and password will be emailed to you which you can use to log in to view the free records. After July 1, 2015, you will only be able to view these records using an Ancestry.ca paid membership.

^[FN1] On July 1, 1867 Canada became a new federation with its own constitution by signing the Constitution Act - formerly known as the British North America Act. Canada Day is a national statutory holiday celebrated in all provinces and territories.

April 16, 2015

Free Access Immigration Records April 16-20

That's right. Ancestry.com is offering Free access to immigration records for the next 4 days!

Don't miss this great opportunity to search for your ancestors' arrival in N. America

March 20, 2015

ArkivDigital Free Weekend Access

Saturday March 21 is Genealogy Day in Sweden and many of the genealogy societies, libraries and archives throughout the country are hosting exhibits and lectures.

ArkivDigital, your online digital archive with nearly 53 million images, will be hosting an “open house” this week-end. We invite all who are interested in their Swedish history free access to our entire online historical archive on Saturday and Sunday (March 21-22, 2015). Take the opportunity to research your Swedish heritage and discover the wealth of records in our online archive.

All current subscriptions will be extended two days because of the two free days (March 21-22).

Each month approximately 600,000 new color images are added to ArkivDigital. During February, the following records were added:

More estate inventories (bouppteckningar) for the period 1901-1940.

Collection “Krigshandlingar Stora nordiska kriget: Krigsfångar” or “War Documents of the Great Northern War: War Prisoners” which includes information about the soldiers who were imprisoned in connection with Karl XII’s war or the Great Northern War.

Selected parts of the Poor Relief Board in Malmö (Fattigvårdsstyrelsen i Malmö) archive. In these volumes you will find not only information about paupers but information about foster children and much more.

Beginning to add material from The Public Orphanage of Stockholm (Allmänna barnhusets) archive.

August 28, 2014

Don't Miss Out on Free Access to Ancestry until Sept 1

The image says it all... Free access means NO credit card required! Free Access to billions of records until September 1st 2014.

July 5, 2014

U.S. Census Records Free Until July 6

In honor of the 4th of July, Ancestry.com will be opening up all of their U.S. Federal Census Records from 1790 through 1940 for FREE. These collections will be open through July 6^th