Free Weekend at FindMyPast

It's time to explore British, Irish, US records on FindMyPast! Also includes newspapers and military records!

As announced on the FindMyPast newsletter:

If you are not a subscriber to FindMyPast, they have announced a free weekend 18 - 21 September. If you are a subscriber, they will extend your subscription by 3 days!

For more information, go to FindMyPast Free Weekend.

Future Proofing Your Genealogy Research - Free e-book

After You’re Gone: Future Proofing Your Genealogy Research - FREE Ebook until May 11th

Thomas MacEntee has done it again - freely offering a great value to genealogists. 

What do you do about your copious genealogy research after you die? What about the subscription websites that continue to auto-renew your subscription? 

Thomas answers these questions and more in a very thoughtful way, getting you to think about an issue you may have been avoiding.

His book is available free through Amazon, but if you are in Canada don't click the first link! Take time to ready the whole blog post and then choose the Canada Amazon link to get his free e-book. But hurry, the offer ends on May 11th. 

http://www.geneabloggers.com/free-ebook-future-proofing-genealogy-research/

Who Do You Think You Are Live Conference Handouts Free

In the US & Canada, when one thinks of WDYTYA, you think of the US TV show.  In the UK, besides there being a TV show, there is also an associated conference held called Who Do You Think You Are? Live 

Since many of us have not nor will not ever attend this conference, it’s great that select presentation handouts are available online.

This link is to an archive of WDYTYA? Live Speakers’ Handouts (created by the Society of Genealogists) for conferences held in 2014 & 2015.  These are FREE to access and it’s a great collection of topics and not just about UK research!

Launch of Scottish Valuation Rolls 1875- free Index Search for 2014

Announced on ScotlandsPeople 

-- and you can search the index for FREE until Dec. 31st!

Among the hundreds of thousands of Victorian Scots who can be found in the latest year of Valuation Rolls to be released on ScotlandsPeople are two of the most celebrated sportsmen of the era, the golfers Old Tom Morris and his eldest son Young Tom.

Valuation rolls for 1875 covering the whole of Scotland have become available, enabling searches for property owners, tenants and occupiers across Scotland from 1875 to 1920, and often revealing valuable information about the inter-census years. The latest addition comprises over 900,000 index entries and almost 72,000 digital images taken from 141 volumes of Valuation Rolls.

All the Rolls are fully searchable by name and address, and researchers can investigate people living, working and playing all over Scotland – from country estates to city tenements, castles to crofts, and factories to golf courses. Researchers at the National Records of Scotland were particularly interested to spot 17 golf clubs and societies around Scotland – from Ayrshire to Aberdeen – plus three Golf Inns.

Tom Morris father and son were not only renowned professional golfers, but Old Tom was also a sought-after maker of golf clubs and balls at his shop in St Andrews, where he was helped by his sons. His family was also prospering. Young Tom was already a successful professional player, having won the Open three times by the age of nineteen, and was newly-married. In early 1875 his daughter Elizabeth also married, but the year turned out to be the family’s ‘annus horribilis’, when tragic personal loss followed professional success.

Using the newly-available Valuation Rolls, and records of births, deaths, marriages and wills that are already on ScotlandsPeople, archivists at the National Records of Scotland have pieced together the sad tale of Old Tom and his family. ‘Old Tom Morris’s Terrible Year’, a special display at the National Records of Scotland, enables visitors to learn more about this remarkable story of repeated family loss and extraordinary resilience as Old Tom outlived all his children and their spouses.Old Tom continued his business and designed many golf courses in Scotland and beyond. When this elder statesman of Scottish golf died in 1908 at the age of 86, as the result of an accidental fall in the New Golf Club in St Andrews, only his grandchildren, Elizabeth’s children, survived him.

Tim Ellis, Registrar General and Keeper of the Records of Scotland, said:“The Morrises helped Scotland’s golfing reputation to grow across the world, and we are using the outstanding historical resources of the National Records of Scotland to mark the Ryder Cup with a tribute to two remarkable Scottish sportsmen. The release of the Valuation Rolls for 1875 enables people worldwide to take a virtual peek into addresses throughout Scotland between 1841 and 1920 on the ScotlandsPeople website. This is part of the commitment of the National Records of Scotland to provide access to the key records that researchers want.”

The Valuation Rolls can be searched along with statutory registers, old parish registers, Catholic registers, census records, wills and testaments and coats of arms on the ScotlandsPeople website, at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh, and at local family history centres in Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Hawick and Inverness.

Ancestry.co.uk - FREE English Databases for the Easter Weekend

from the Toronto Branch's e-Newsletter:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/grouplist.aspx?group=easter_free_records

Click on the  link to see which records are free this holiday weekend.

Happy searching!