Ancestry.com is one of the most popular genealogy websites. It has plenty to offer genealogists who have purchased a membership or who are using a free trial membership. Ancestry.com also, from time to time, offers access to certain record collections for free. Here is some of what is new at Ancestry.com this week.
Right now, Ancestry.com is offering free access to records from the thirteen original colonies of the United States of America. Ancestry.com has a pattern of offering access to a particular collection of records, for free, for a limited amount of time. Often, the records that are offered relate to a certain holiday. It seems to me that offering access to records from the original thirteen colonies is Ancestry.com’s way of celebrating Independence Day.
Genealogists interested in accessing 65 million records from the original colonies, (and of other patriot records) for free need to act fast. This deal is good for just a couple of days. It will expire on July 8, 2012, and midnight ET.
Ancestry.com has a blog post called “Andy Griffith’s Legacy”. Fans can see images of his name in the census records, his registration card (for the World War II draft), and some photos from when he was in school.
You can view several webinars that have already been presented by Ancestry.com. The most recent one in the list is called “Finding Collections With State Pages”. It was originally presented on June 29, 2012. The video will show you how to identify the collections that you need to be searching through, in order to get the best results.
Ancestry.com Live has some live webinars planned for next week. These will be available through Ancestry.com’s Livestream channel. “Where in the World? Effective Place Research” will go live on July 10, 2012, from 1:00 in the afternoon to 2:00 in the afternoon EDT. On July 12, 2012, “Collaboration & Being in the Right Place at the Right Time” will go live at 1:00 in the afternoon, until 2:00 in the afternoon EDT. It looks like you may need to RSVP if you want to attend either of these live webinars.
There have been some record collections that have been updated or created since last week. The “1940 United States Federal Census” collection was updated on July 29, 2012. Two brand new record collections were added on July 5, 2012. One is called “North Carolina, State Census, 1784 – 1787”. The other is called “Puerto Rico, Special Censuses, Agricultural Schedules, 1935”. This collection is in Spanish.
Image by Daniel N. Lang on Flickr