The following is a press release from the National Archives and Records Administration:

WASHINGTON, March 13, 2025 – The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will host a substantive forum, “Transparency and Access to NARA Records,” on Wednesday, March 19, at 1 p.m. ET. This program will headline Sunshine Week, an annual nonpartisan, nationwide collaboration bringing together those in media, civics, and government. The forum will be held online and livestreamed on the National Archives YouTube Channel. Those interested in transparency may also attend an in-person livestream in the William G. McGowan Theater at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. Jill Reilly, NARA’s Acting Chief Innovation Officer, will moderate the forum, which will include a discussion with National Archives officials about NARA’s commitment to maximizing transparency and providing access to records. The discussion will focus on NARA’s efforts to digitize its records, leverage artificial intelligence, and improve its online experience for researchers. Reilly will be joined by Denise Henderson, Director of Digitization; Michael Knight, Director of Web Division; and Carol Lagundo, Director of Digital Partnerships and Outreach. This event is being offered in partnership with Sunshine Fest, organized and sponsored by the University of Florida’s Brechner Freedom of Information Project. For more information, visit https://sunshineweek.org/sunshine-fest/. More about past Sunshine Week at the National Archives programs: https://www.archives.gov/ogis/outreach-events/sunshine-week  Moderator and Speakers:  Jill Reilly is the Acting Chief Innovation Officer at the National Archives and Records Administration. Throughout her 20-year federal career, she has focused on digital engagement, access, and discovery. In addition to her 10 years at the National Archives, she has served at the National Agricultural Library with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Law Library of Congress, and the U.S. Department of Education. She holds a masters in library science with a concentration in archival administration and a master of arts in U.S. history from the University of Maryland Denise Henderson is the Director of Digitization for Research Services at the National Archives and Records Administration. In her role, Ms. Henderson coordinates digitization efforts to align with NARA's strategic goals and initiatives. These efforts include centralized mass digitization projects involving the systematic digitization of holdings, including textual, special media, and microfilm materials. From 2011 to 2018, Henderson worked in NARA's Office of Innovation in various roles including as the Chief of the Digital Public Access Branch. From 2007 to 2011, Henderson was a processing archivist in the Textual Services Division, where she successfully completed the Archivist Development Program in 2010 before attending the Archives Leadership Institute in 2011. She holds a masters in library science from the University of Maryland. Michael Knight serves as the Web Division Director in the Office of Innovation at the National Archives and Records Administration. Mr. Knight has led a wide range of website development projects that support NARA’s efforts to provide online public access to records and additional customer-focused resources. He is also a subject matter expert on agile product development methods and is a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), and a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He is a graduate of Delaware State University. Carol Lagundo started her career at the National Archives and Records Administration in 1993 and currently serves as the Director of Digital Partnerships and Outreach within the Office of Innovation. Ms. Lagundo has spent most of her NARA career managing IT software development projects to describe and provide online access to NARA’s holdings. She currently manages NARA’s digital partnerships and NARA’s digital reference platform History Hub and online chat Ask the Archives. She holds a FAC-PPM Level 3 certification. ###

In the 80's a woman was found dead in a wooded area in Orlando, Florida. It took years to identify the then Julie Doe.

After more than 36 years, a non-profit has identified the remains if a Kentucky trans woman who was murdered in Florida, according to a press release from the organization.

The DNA Doe Project (DDP) is a volunteer-driven non-profit organization with the mission to identify John and Jane Does and return them to their families and communities. They use investigative genealogy and work with local law enforcement to help identify people.

On September 25, 1988 a passerby looking for cypress wood to build lawn furniture discovered the body of a woman in a wooded area in the vicinity of Hwy 474 west of Orlando, Florida.

Authorities at the time suspected she had been sexually assaulted and murdered. 

Her initial autopsy in 1988 discovered she had healed fractures of her cheekbone and nose, along with a rib. She also had breast implants dated from before 1985. 

The original autopsy showed the woman as being a cisgender woman but it was later discovered she was a trans woman.

In 2019, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office reached out to DDP to try using investigative genetic genealogy to help identify the Julie Doe. They connected with volunteers who were also part of an initiative called the Trans Doe Task Force, who began the work on the case before leaving to focus full time on that group. 

“The team faced just about every possible hurdle, from unknown parentage, matches who were adopted, to endogamy,” team co-leader Eric Hendershott said. “Even up to the end, when we suspected that she was adopted, the team was stuck.”

Adoption records are not accessible to genetic genealogists. Adoption can also stall an investigation because the child is often removed from their community of birth and their name is changed. 

DDP discovered Julie Doe was adopted when she was 5-years-old.

“It was clear from the start that our Doe had strong family ties to Kentucky, but we didn't know for sure if she was born there or if she ever lived there,” investigative genetic genealogist Lance Daly said. “While searching Fayette County records, we discovered the names of two key relatives who were crucial to unraveling the mystery.”

After more than 36 years, Pamela Leigh Walton had finally been identified.

Walton grew up with her adopted family in Kentucky and officially changed her name before she was in her mid-20s, according to DDP. They say her name change likely happened around the same time she underwent gender affirmation surgery and hormone therapy.

“Pamela’s story includes many common themes that trans people face,” Executive Director of Media and Communications Pam Lauritzen said. “From derogatory notations left in high school yearbooks about her to a headstone pre-carved with her former male name, it’s heartbreaking to know that the community was not willing to accept her and the identity she chose.”

Walton's story was featured in a handful of publications but in the end it was genealogy research that resolved the case.

“Pamela Walton’s identification is the result of over five years of work by nearly 50 volunteers,” investigative genetic genealogist Emily Bill said. “Their efforts laid the foundation for a series of recent discoveries that finally led us to her name.”

To date, DDP says they have helped resolve more than 130 cases of unidentified human remains. 

For more about DDP's work, you can visit their website.

New to DigitalNC is our primary source set on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which traces the history of this popular tourist destination from its initial creation and construction in the 1930s to the building of its final “missing link” decades later. The Parkway is a well-loved and widely visited attraction today, but its history shows that conflict, especially disputes over land and route planning, played a key role in preventing the Parkway’s construction.

The Blue Ridge Parkway set consists of various written (newspapers) and visual (photographs, maps, postcards) material to demonstrate the history of the road through primary sources. Other sections of this set include background information, context statements, discussion questions, outside resources, and a timeline. Here is a brief look at the primary source set for North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway:

Yonahlossee Trail on Blue Ridge Parkway, Western North Carolina

North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway

Time period: 1933-1962

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a scenic road that stretches 469 miles across the states of Virginia and North Carolina. Since the 1940s, the Parkway has been a favorite destination of tourists, who travel the road to experience its mountain views and visit nearby towns and attractions. The project to create the Parkway was first funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA) in 1933. As one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agencies, the PWA was established to fight the impact of the Great Depression by providing funds to large public works projects where young men could find employment.

After the Parkway project received funding from the PWA, conflict over route planning began. The Parkway was meant to connect two national parks together: Shenandoah National Park in Virginia and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee. Officials from North Carolina and Tennessee gave conflicting proposals on the Parkway’s route, giving way to a long fight over which proposal would receive approval. Other conflicts soon followed, most related to Parkway routes or land ownership. Eminent domain issues troubled Appalachian landowners; the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians fought against routes that would cut through important sections of their land; one businessman pushed back against a route that would impact his mountain tourist attraction, preventing the Parkway’s completion until 1987.

Although the Blue Ridge Parkway was created to connect two national parks, increase tourism in the region, and provide jobs for the unemployed, conflict played a part in preventing the achievement of these goals and in extending the Parkway’s construction. 

Teachers, students, researchers, and anyone who is interested in learning more about the history of the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina can find the primary source set on our resources page. If you would like to provide feedback on the sets, please contact us here.

The following Book Review was written by Bobbi King:

The Genealogical Publishing Company publishes these condensed, well-structured guides designed to help genealogists plan and navigate their research either as beginners or as refresher guides for experienced researchers.

These 4-page, laminated, 8x11 folders highlight various records, such as censuses, military documents, online resources, unique church records, specialized archives, vital records, and any records unique to the topic’s time and place, along with information on how to interpret the records.

Each guide introduces its topic with historical background, a table of contents, and key dates and/or quick facts that illustrate the content. Links to digital resources and repositories offer fast access to further research. 

While the guides excel as quick references, their limited length cannot cover every aspect of research, so advanced genealogists may find these too elementary for their use. However, as starting points or refreshers, they serve their purposes well.

Recent updates include: 

Genealogy Research (updated edition) by Carol McGinnis

War of 1812 Research (updated edition) by Rebecca Whitman Koford and the War of 1812 Preserve the Pensions Project

Pennsylvania Genealogy Research (updated edition) by John T. Humphrey

Ontario, Canada, Genealogy Research by Lorine McGinnis Schools

Russian Genealogy Research by Vera Ivanova Miller

Welsh Genealogy Research by John Rowlands and Beryl Evans

Ukrainian Genealogy Research by Vera Ivanova Miller

These are useful additions to the genealogy toolkit, particularly for those who want a streamlined guide.

The following is a press release from TheGenealogist:

Comprehensive collection offers unprecedented access to early 20th-century property records across 1,400 square miles

TheGenealogist has announced the release of the Lloyd George Domesday Survey for Essex, a significant addition to its growing collection of historical property records. This extensive dataset contains 356,265 records of occupiers, owners and organisations, all meticulously pinned to annotated maps.

This brings the total coverage of the Lloyd George Domesday Survey to over 11,000 square miles, exclusive to TheGenealogist!

Named after David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer responsible for the 1910 Finance Act, the Lloyd George Domesday Survey was a comprehensive land valuation of England and Wales. The resulting records offer genealogists and historians an invaluable insight into property ownership and occupation in the early 20th century.

 The Lloyd George Domesday Survey Map for Maldon, Essex

"From the coastline, the countryside and up to the capital, these records provide an invaluable resource for those researching family and social history in Essex," said Mark Bayley head of online content at TheGenealogist. "By combining detailed records with precise geographical data, Map Explorer enables researchers to visualise exactly where their ancestors lived and understand the area they called home."

The collection features:

• 356,265 individual records of property occupiers, owners, and organisations

• Annotated maps covering 1,400 square miles of Essex

• Detailed property descriptions and valuations

• Names and addresses of both owners and occupiers

This release forms part of TheGenealogist's ongoing commitment to digitising and preserving these historically significant records. The Lloyd George Domesday Survey is particularly valuable as it records the exact locations of properties, making these property records an essential source for genealogical, social and historical research.

Researchers can access the Lloyd George Domesday Survey records for Essex through TheGenealogist's Diamond Subscription, where they can be searched by name, address, or through MapExplorer^TM, allowing for precise research across this historic county.

For more information about TheGenealogist's Lloyd George Domesday Record Collection or to begin searching these records, visit: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/1910/

The Courtauld family, one of Britain’s greatest industrial success stories can be found in this release - read their story here: https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2025/courtaulds-a-crape-british-industry-8018/

For a limited time, you can get our Diamond Subscription for just £99.95. You’ll also receive a 12 month subscription to Discover Your Ancestors’ Online Magazine plus four eBooks; Discover Your Ancestors' Occupations by Laura Berry, Regional Research Guidebook by Andrew Chapman, Researching and Locating Your Ancestors by Celia Heritage and Discover Your Ancestors Periodical Compendium, giving you a combined saving of over £100.

Explore these new records and start your genealogical journey today with TheGenealogist by claiming this offer here:https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/MGBLGD325

Offer expires 30th April 2025.

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, who put a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations, Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

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For more information on TheGenealogist, please contact Paul at paul@thegenealogist.co.uk

On September 25, 1988, an unknown victim was found dead 30 feet off the side of CR 272 in a rural and heavily wooded area of Clermont, Florida. Now, after years of difficult work from genealogists, the identity of the victim has officially been identified.

According to a release from the Lake County Sheriff's Office (LCSO), the victim had been deceased for about two to four weeks before being found. They appeared to be female with breast implants and wearing a skirt; further evidence suggested they may have been taking female hormone injections. It wasn't until 2015 when improved DNA technology revealed the victim to be biologically male.

With the victim's true identity still shrouded in mystery, LCSO, with support from Dr. Barbara Wolf and the District Medical Examiners for Districts 5 and 24, had the case evaluated by the DNA Doe Project — a non-profit organization that uses investigative genetic genealogy techniques to identify unidentified remains.

After 10 years of difficult work, DNA Doe Project genealogists were able to connect DNA from the cold case to possible relatives of the victim. LCSO contacted the potential relatives, who then sent in their DNA for comparison. These comparisons confirmed the relation, identifying the 'Julie Doe' as Pamela Leigh Walton.

Pamela Leigh Walton was born a biological male; at a young age, he was put up for adoption in Kentucky. Once adopted, he received the name Lee Allen Walton. At some point in Lee's adult life, he changed his name to Pamela and began transitioning from male to female. It is unknown whether or not Walton underwent any additional gender reassignment procedures.

While the discovery of Pamela Leigh Walton's identity marks a major milestone in solving the cold case, some details still remain uncovered. As of publication, it remains unclear how Pamela came to be in Florida, and the manner of her death is still undetermined. 

LCSO state that they continue to put effort into gathering information regarding Pamela's death circumstances and encourage anyone who may have information to contact their non-emergency line at 352-343-2101.

The digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi service recently surpassed the 30-million-page mark. The service contains newspapers, journals, ephemera, maps, library card indices, music notation and manuscripts. The digitised collection grows by two or three million pages each year.

Collection built around 20 million pages of newspaper material  

Newspapers have been comprehensively digitised for the periods from 1771 to the end of 1949 and from 2017 to the present year. In addition, the service includes other material sets digitised with separate funding, such as all Swedish-language newspapers published in Finland. Current efforts focus on the retroactive digitisation of newspapers from the 1950s.

Page views increase 

Last year, digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi recorded 16.9 million page views, up slightly from 16.3 million in 2023. The service was accessed from all continents. The highest number of users accessing the service in Finland were from Helsinki, Tampere and Vantaa. Year after year, Helsingin Sanomat and Hufvudstadsbladet remain the most popular newspapers, while Suomen Kuvalehti tops the statistics for journals and magazines.

Journals, books, maps, music notation and recordings also available

While not as comprehensively digitised as newspapers, the most frequently accessed journals have been digitised until the end of 1944. The digitised book collection includes Finnish classics, old doctoral theses and literature from the period of Swedish rule. Introducing users to maps of the world is the collection of Ptolemy atlases, which features map publications from the advent of the printing press to the 18th century. Music notation can be, for example, printed for personal use. To safeguard fragile material, the National Library digitises sound recordings, with most of the digitised content available only in the library facilities.

Four-year programme guiding digitisation

The latest digitisation programme for 2025–2028 was published in January this year. It covers not only newspaper and journal digitisation, but also material from various National Library collections selected with a view to its utilisation rate, customer requests, research needs and sustainable development.

The National Library will make all public-domain material available to everyone. Copyrighted material can be used at legal deposit libraries.

Digi.kansalliskirjasto.fi(opens a new tab)

Use of legal deposit materials

National Library of Finland Digitisation Programme(opens a new tab)

Launched in 1920, the Gazette was utilized by the British Mandate for official publications until it was discontinued in 1948, following the establishment of the State of Israel.

The Israel State Archives published on Sunday the digital collection of the Palestine Gazette, the official newspaper for the British government during mandatory Palestine.

The collection was published to mark the uploading of the 50 millionth paper to the archive’s website.

L

aunched in 1920, the Gazette was utilized by the British Mandate for official publications until it was discontinued in 1948, a few months following the establishment of the State of Israel.

''Palestine Gazette'' July 1, 1921 issue in Hebrew.  (credit: ISRAEL STATE ARCHIVES)

The mandatory government used the Gazette to publish regulations, municipal laws, and government announcements in addition to information regarding sanitation and transportation, among other subjects.

The Gazette was published in English, Hebrew, and Arabic on an infrequent basis. However, those currently available to the public are in Hebrew and English.

Digitization efforts

According to the archives, the collection includes some 700 files and constitutes an important historical, legal, and genealogical source.

The archives noted the efforts to complete the digitization that have been ongoing for a decade, with 250 million papers digitized so far.

The Maine Irish Heritage Center helps people learn more about their ancestry through DNA testing and historic research.

Helen Donahue Frazier, right, and her daughter, Elizabeth Frazier, left, try on matching hats at a shop in Galway. Photo courtesy of Helen Donahue Frazier

In 2018, Helen Donahue Frazier visited the genealogists at the Maine Irish Heritage Center. She knew her father was Irish, but he died when she was 3 years old and had no living relatives.

“I had no Irish family before I walked in the door that day,” she said.

She found her family — and her passion. Frazier has since joined the team of volunteer genealogists at the Maine Irish Heritage Center who helped her do her own research. She answered five questions about their services. This interview has been edited for length.

How did you get in touch with the Maine Irish Heritage Center for the first time?

I didn’t know at the time that most everybody in the Portland area come from an area in Galway called Spiddal. In medieval times, it was a hospital, and it was set way outside city limits. As Irish like to do, we do too, we hack up our words some. They just changed it to Spiddal. Now it’s a town.

I did a DNA test from Ancestry, and I got 8,000 matches, and I have no idea who’s who here. My husband said to me, “You really need to go into the Irish Heritage Center.” So I went in, and Maureen and Margaret said, “We run a test through FamilyTreeDNA, and we have a project with them.”

I went to Portland High School. Looking through my list of matches, I’ve found six, maybe seven, people that I went to school with that I’m related to that I had no idea I was related to, and they didn’t know I was related to them either.

What did it mean to you to find more information about your family tree?

I never knew my father, really. I was too young. Even though I knew my mother, I didn’t know anything about my father. And there’s something about the Irish, it’s just a pull. It’s amazing. I went to Galway with my daughter, and I was walking on, it’s sort of like down in the Old Port, on Key Street. It’s right in the center of the Claddagh. I was walking on a street there, and all of a sudden, I got this tingling rush all through me that I have never sensed anything like this in my life. It was very strange to stand there and look at people and go, ‘Oh my God, I could be related to some of the people on this street.’ And I am related to a whole lot of them. I have cousins over there now. I was just talking to one this morning — 83. I have a lot of cousins that I talk to, which is so cool. It brings tears to your eyes when you start to realize that there’s so much that you missed out on that you never knew before. I missed out on a half of my family that I’ve never known, and I’m hurrying to catch up with knowing them now.

What are the steps if people want to get advice or start their research at the Maine Irish Heritage Center?

A lot of them come in with just a tree. A paper trail. And they’re stuck. Because the records are so incomplete. They’re lost, they’re burned. We recommend that if these people are trying to narrow it down, to take a DNA test with us.

A lot of it is confusing. They find records that say their great-great grandparents came on a ship from Cork, we’ll say. So they say, I’m from Cork, because that’s where my great-great-great-grandfather came from. He got a ship there. But actually, they didn’t. They went anywhere they could to get a ship.

We take two appointments on Fridays, and we charge $100 an hour to go over anything you want. We’ll go over your ancestry. We’ll go over FamilyTreeDNA. Margaret has the trees. Maureen can tell you who the people are. Matt can tell you the history of some of them. You get four of us talking to you, and sometimes it can be mind blowing. I know because I was there once.

What kind of records are you looking for in addition to the DNA information?

Dates are important. Birth dates, death dates, marriage dates. And when you find those, then you can move on to census reports. In the census reports, you can figure out when they immigrated, how long they’ve been married, how many children they had and the list of their children’s names. It’s just a trail.

I was so desperate one day to find out about my great-great grandfather from Island Pond, Vermont. I had come back from Ireland, and nothing. I was getting nothing on Ancestry. So instead of putting in all this information that I had, I just put “Martin Donahue” and “Island Pond, Vermont.” One thing came up. It was a Boston Pilot. It was a newspaper, and it was published so anyone here in the New England could put a notification in that they were looking for their family. Because they got off the boat and went different directions. So my great-great grandfather had put in a notification saying he was looking for his two brothers — Thomas, and I think it was Patrick — and the last time he had seen them was 18 years earlier in New York City. And that my great-great grandfather was from the Aran Islands.

We’re coming up on St. Patrick’s Day. Do you tend to get a lot of requests at this time of year?

Yup. There was a woman who wrote me a few weeks ago who wants me to go over her father’s Y-DNA because she doesn’t understand it. I said, “Don’t wait, because it’s going to start filling in, right?” I keep getting more and more people who want to come in.

The Maine Irish Heritage Center is located at 34 Gray St. in Portland. Visitors can do self-guided genealogy research in the library from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursday. The cost is free to members and $25 for anyone else. The genealogists are available by appointment from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Fridays. The rate for a consultation is $100 per hour, and members get 50 percent off the first hour. For more information, visit maineirish.com or call the center at 207-780-0118.