Season Two: The Generations Project

NOTE: The following was received from FamilySearch.

The second season of BYUtv’s The Generation Project premiers Monday, March 28 at 7:00 p.m. MDT. The Generations Project is a reality-based family history show that uncovers the remarkable stories and family histories of everyday people. The people take a hands-on journey to learn about their ancestors, and in the process they discover more about themselves.

The second season of The Generations Project “takes you from Germany to Holland to New York's 'Little Pakistan' and everywhere in between, following eleven journeys into the past: the Denkes explore the origins of their children’s life-threatening genetic disease. Kerry hopes his ancestors will help him find his estranged son, and Ty delves into his complicated heritage as a son of Nazi Germany. They along with eight other guests engage with the past to understand the present.”

BYUtv is available through many local satellite and cable companies. In addition, The Generations Project can be viewed live online at http://www.byutv.org (you'll need to register for a free account to view the show live). All episodes are also available to be viewed immediately after airing at http://www.byutv.org/thegenerationsproject/episodes (no registration required).


A link to more information has been placed on the home page of the FamilySearch.org website. Please share the information in this e-mail with others.

FamilySearch Indexing - Can you spare 30 minutes?

Are you tired of the bad weather and need a great "feel good" project? Are you finding nothing good on TV these days? Are you into genealogy? Do you read a foreign language? Well here's a great activity for you to get involved in. It's FamilySearch Indexing! 


72% of the thousands of people who are indexing genealogical records right now claim they are motivated to do it just because they want to help provide free records to the genealogical community! Wouldn't you just love to see your great-grandfather's military record or a record of grandma's marriage?


FamilySearch has published over 1.5 billion records so far including extracted records! Yes that's BILLION! And the indexing project just started in 2006! There are billions more records available that need to be transcribed and it's so easy for you to help!


Just go to FamilySearch Indexing and click on "Get Started".  Fifteen to 30 minutes is all you need. Once you get the hang of it you will become addicted and really have fun. This can be a great family project. You know our young people -- they love their technology and find the process to be a great break from their daily homework and fast-paced life! And indexing is something you can do at midnight when you can't get to sleep or after you get the kids off to school each morning. Get a challenge going within your family or with a group of friends. Maybe you even belong to an organization and you are interested in specific records. Well you group can contact FamilySearch and make arrangements to index specific records.


FamilySearch has a goal of completing 220 million more records this year alone. Volunteers have indexed almost 46 million records so far this year. But your help is needed. If you can read a foreign language, indexing needs your help. Even if you don't, you can use the language information on FamilySearch Wiki and give another language a try. For instance, here is the Spanish Genealogy Word List and the French Word List. 


FamilySearch has a number of new features that will be added to the existing system sometime soon. You'll be able to see your accuracy rate, get RSS feeds, be able to invite a friend, and create links from the old extracted records to their respective images. They are also working on creating an app for your mobile device! So lets all pass this info along and gather some extra help in getting these records available to the world for FREE.

9 Million Free Browsable Images from 9 Countries Added

New Records for Brazil, Canada, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala,

Italy, Mexico, U.S., and Venezuela

The bounty just keeps coming from FamilySearch’s digital pipeline. Mexico collections earned the top spot this week, with nearly 5 million new browsable images added. The Mexico records date from 1545 to 1984. In addition to Mexico, FamilySearch continued this week to strengthen its freeonline international collections by expanding 7 more of its collections. Millions more records or images were added for Brazil, Canada, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Italy, and Venezuela. The U.S. collections were also expanded, with new data for California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Texas, Union Provost Marshal’s File, and Virginia. See the table below for more details. You can search all of the record collections now for free at FamilySearch.org.

If you enjoy the steady stream of free records added weekly, please consider “giving back” by contributing a little time online as a FamilySearch volunteer. You can start and stop volunteering at any time. Find out more at indexing.familysearch.org.

Collection	Records	Images	Comment
Brazil, Catholic Church Records	0	1,007,788	New images added to existing collection: Minas Gerais: Diocese of Luz, Diocese of Patos de Minas; Paraná: Archdiocese of Curitiba; Rio Grande Do Sul: Diocese of Santa Cruz Do Sul; Sao Paulo: Archdiocese of Sao Paulo, Diocese of Itapeva, Diocese of Presidente Prudente.
Canada, Quebec, Notarial Records, 1800-1900	0	113,475	Added browsable images to existing collection.
Chile, Concepcion, Civil Registration, 1885-1903	0	696,721	New browsable image collection.
El Salvador, Civil Registration Records, 1836-1910	0	41,876	New browsable image collection.
Guatemala Civil Registration, 1877-1934	0	5,241	New browsable image collection.
Italy, Civil Registration, 1806-1940	0	115,035	New browsable images added to existing collection: Rovigo, Oristano, Trieste, and Teramo.
Mexico, Chiapas, Catholic Church Records, 1558-1978	0	752,385	New browsable image collection.
Mexico, Guanajuato, Catholic Church Records, 1576-1984	0	168,067	New browsable image collection.
Mexico, Morelos, Catholic Church Records, 1598-1969	0	1,448	New browsable image collection.
Mexico, Nayarit, Catholic Church Records, 1596-1967	0	452,505	New browsable image collection.
Mexico, Puebla, Catholic Church Records, 1545-1970	0	4,378,429	New browsable image collection.
U.S., California, County Marriages, 1850-1952	281,432	0	New index collection.
U.S., California, San Diego Naturalization Index, 1868-1958	22,506	0	Records courtesy of Footnote.com. Indexed records linked to images on Footnote.com.
U.S., California, San Mateo County Records, 1856-1967	0	18,857	New browsable image collection.
U.S., Illinois, Probate Records, 1819-1970	0	244,131	New browsable image collection.
U.S., Louisiana Confederate Pensions, 1898-1950	0	198,414	New browsable image collection.
U.S., Louisiana, Orleans Parish Estate Files, 1804-1846	0	83,768	Added browsable images to existing collection.
U.S., Maine, State Archive Collections	0	13,919	New browsable image collection.
U.S., Montana, Rosebud County Records	0	40,990	Added browsable images to existing collection.
U.S., Nebraska, Broken Bow Homestead Records, 1890-1908	39,373	0	Records courtesy of Footnote.com. Indexed records linked to images on Footnote.com.
U.S., New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1891	0	422,545	New browsable image collection.
U.S., New York, Kings County Estate Files, 1866-1923	26,082	492,465	Added images and index to existing collection.
U.S., Texas, Mills County Clerk Records, 1841-1985	0	1,506	Added images to existing collection.
U.S., Union Provost Marshal Files of Two or More Civilians, 1861-1866	0	107,471	New browsable image collection.
U.S., Virginia, Surry County Marriage Records, 1735-1950	0	19,618	New browsable image collection.
Venezuela, Civil Registration	0	88,680	New browsable image collection.

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org orthrough over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

9 Million Hungarian Records Added This Week

New Records for Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Philippines, 
Spain, U.S., and Zimbabwe Also Added

Can you believe that 11.5 million new international records were added this week? And 9 million of those were from Hungary! FamilySearch continued this week to strengthen its free online international collections by expanding 8 of its collections. It also added 2 million U.S. records. See the table below for more details. Search all of the record collections now for free at FamilySearch.org.

If you enjoy the steady stream of free records added weekly, please consider “giving back” by contributing a little time online as a FamilySearch volunteer. You can start and stop volunteering at any time. Find out more at indexing.familysearch.org.

Collection	Records	Images	Comment
Argentina, Catholic Church Records	0	202,698	Images added.
Brazil, Catholic Church Records	0	156,092	Images added. Minas Gerais, Diocese of Luz, Diocese of Patos de Minas; Paraná: Archdiocese of Curitiba; Rio Grande Do Sul, Diocese of Santa Cruz Do Sul; Sao Paulo, Diocese of Itapeva, Diocese of Presidente Prudente
Germany, Baden, Church Book Duplicates, 1810-1869	58,296	12,011	Portion of Achern index added.
Germany, Mecklenburg-Schwerin Census, 1890	37,625	864	Last portion of this census is now added.
Germany, Posen, Church Book Duplicates, 1794-1874	113,713	0	Records added to this collection. Images can be found at www.landesarhiv-brandenburg.de.
Hungary Catholic Church Records	9,065,513	0	Partial publication of records. First installment (38%) of a much larger collection that will be published over the next year.
Italy, Civil Registration, 1806-1940	0	119,921	More localities added: Revere, San Giorgio di Mantova, San Martino dall' Argine, Sermide, and Teramo
Philippines, Manila Civil Registration, 1899-1994	0	1,535,971	Images added.
Spain, Lugo Diocese, Catholic Parish Records, 1550-1930	11,629	0	Additional index data added to this collection.
U.S., Colorado State Census, 1885	0	3,520	New browsable collection.
U.S., Illinois State Census, 1855	256,004	0	Name indexes for the 1885 Illinois State Census. The census names the head of household. Schedules do not exist for the following counties: Carroll, Champaign, Franklin, Gallatin, Henry, Jefferson, Jo Davies, Lake, Stark, Will, and Woodford.
U.S., Texas, Comanche County Records, 1858-1955	0	283,870	Images added to existing content.
U.S., Texas, Mills County Clerk Records, 1841-1985	0	61,358	Images added to existing content.
U.S., Union Provost Marshal Files of Individual Civilians, 1861-1866	0	2,798	Images added to existing content.
U.S., Veterans Administration Pension Payment Cards, 1907-1933	0	1,800,495	New browsable image collection.
Zimbabwe, Death Notices, 1904-1976	0	328,546	Death notices from Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe, Rhodesia Death Registers, 1890-1977; Index to Death Register, 1892-1977	0	74,045	Register of deaths of citizens of Rhodesia.

FamilySearch International is the largest genealogy organization in the world. FamilySearch is a nonprofit, volunteer-driven organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. To help in this great pursuit, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide for over 100 years. Patrons may access FamilySearch services and resources free online at FamilySearch.org orthrough over 4,600 family history centers in 132 countries, including the main Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.