The following announcement was written by the folks at Findmypast:

Thousands of records added for the English county of Norfolk this Findmypast Friday 

·         A bumper release for newspapers, with 12 new titles and 74 updated titles 

Norfolk Wills & Probate 

Brand new to Findmypast this week, this collection has over 257,000 records covering the years 1301-1858. The records cover 14 Deaneries, including Norwich and Lynn. You should normally spot an ancestor’s name year, residence and title, which will often include their occupation and birthplace.  

Norfolk Banns and Marriages 

Over 65,000 records have been added to this existing set, covering 1702-1923. You’ll normally discover details such as the marriage year, parish, and often the father’s first name. So, multiple generations could be unlocked with just one record.  

Warning: this article contains personal opinions.

I have been fascinated with the comments posted online concerning "unverified information on the Internet" and comments about linking to family trees without verification. I agree with some of the comments and disagree with some others. I thought I would add my two cents' worth.

First of all, I believe in verification of every bit of information I obtain. I don't care if a fact came from the Internet, from a book, or even from an original record. I still want to verify every bit of information I read. (Most original records are correct but you will find occasional errors even in the original records.) I always look to see who reported the information or who wrote the book I am reading. Even if I recognize the author as being a leading genealogy expert, I still want to verify the claim independently. I don't believe anyone! 

So you think I would be against unsourced, unverified information on the Internet? Wrong!

When I am looking for genealogy information about my ancestors, I want to see EVERYTHING. I want to see the sourced information, the unsourced information, the verbal claims from someone's Aunt Lydia, and even the guesswork. Since I don't know where my great-great-granddad was born, I want to see every hint and every bit of guesswork. I want to know what everyone else is thinking. I am hoping that someone, somewhere has an idea that I have haven't thought of so far. Sure, when I read someone else's guesswork or facts, I'll check them out and I will ask questions, but I still want all the hints.

The proof is always up to me, regardless of where I found the claimed information.

Yes, I constantly look at unsourced databases and I look for clues every time I see an ancestor of mine mentioned, especially if that claim is different from what I believe to be factual. A couple of times the "facts" that I determined in past years have later been proven wrong when new evidence was shown to me, evidence that I was later able to verify.

NOTE: I "lost" more than 100 ancestors one evening when I was able to verify a new claim I found in an online database. It contradicted something I previously believed to be true. Using the new claim as a hint, I followed a new path of investigation and found that the new "fact" was, indeed, correct. The information I previously believed to be correct had a significant error: two men of the same name lived in the same small town, something I didn't know previously. I had researched the ancestry of the wrong man!

I would never have recognized that error and been able to later determine the truth if I hadn't looked at an unsourced claim that was different from what I believed to be the truth.

I am a big fan of group collaboration. Some people call that "crowd sourcing." Such crowd sourcing will often be wrong, but it almost always includes some clues that I have not seen or thought of previously. Those can be valuable clues.

Bring on the Internet databases! I want to see Ancestry.com's user-contributed family trees.  I want to see the I.G.I.  I want to see the Ancestral File. I want to see OneGreatFamily.com's database. I want to see FamilySearch. I want to see the handwritten notes of every professional and amateur genealogist who shares ancestry with me. I want to see more of every bit of conjecture that I can find. 

What I do see is an education problem. A lot of newcomers will believe "I saw it on the Internet so it must be true." That is a problem. In fact, it is a huge problem but we will not solve it by sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that nobody else has information that can be trusted or even worth evaluating. The ostrich approach doesn't work very well for ostriches, it certainly does not work well for genealogists who seek the truth.

What we need is a warning label similar to that found on cigarettes and alcohol. "Warning: the information contained here may include erroneous data." That disclaimer should be in a big, bold font on the top of every genealogy web site, followed by a hyperlink to an article about why we want to verify every scrap of information we obtain.

We also should encourage our newcomers to document their sources and to include that documentation when posting information online. Of course, this is not a one-time effort. Newcomers appear all the time. We are watching a parade of newcomers. Some will drop out, some will slow down, and others will follow the parade route for years. Our challenge is to educate all of them early in the parade.

However, I still never automatically discard something simply because it is unsourced. I never look down my nose at any online genealogy database, regardless of the source of information. I do, however, maintain a healthy skepticism.

Do source citations "prove" anything? I would suggest they do not. Instead, I believe source citations are useful only as a courtesy to others that say, "Here is where I found the information I believe to be correct. You should check this citation and others for yourself."

A source citation simply is an example of being polite, trying to help others save time and effort. We still want others to verify the same information defined in the source citation. The genealogists who read the source citations can also offer valuable feedback: if 10 or 50 or 500 other genealogists look at these same source citation that I did and they all came to the same conclusion that I did, that's valuable feedback for me. Then again, if they all looked at the same source citation that I did and many of them came to a DIFFERENT conclusion, that's even MORE valuable feedback! Please let me know of any errors you find in my work!

Side comment: all genealogy works contain errors, even those works created by the best genealogists in the world. For verification, ask any expert genealogist. I bet they will tell you the same.

Finally, how are we ever going to improve the crowd sourced databases if we constantly encourage people to ignore them? Every time I read a comment from someone that belittles unsourced and unverified information, I want to grab that person and shake him or her vigorously. Pay attention! There are gold nuggets out there in the tons of sand!

As in Wikipedia and dozens of other online sources, the information in genealogy databases can only be improved if many people look at each fact and each person contributes his or her knowledge and expertise. The more people who look at the information and verify it independently, the higher the accuracy.

Going back to my example of great-great-granddad's unknown origins: if dozens of people look at the record in the public database, there is an excellent chance that someone will have the correct information and will enter it, alomg ith information where he or she found the info. As a result, we all will benefit.

In contrast, if we tell people to ignore the undocumented, unsourced databases and to never look at the information therein, the misconceptions and guesswork will never be corrected by later researchers. In fact, the misconceptions and errors will probably then continue to be published and propagated, year after year. We all lose.

So please, please, enter the genealogy information you have into online databases. Also, please look at what others have entered. If you see something you think is wrong, please, please enter a correction or append a contradictory view. If you have a source citation or other evidence that is not shown in the existing online record, please enter the information you have. If you do that and if I do that and if every other genealogist does that forever and ever, over a period of years we will all benefit. Crowd sourced genealogy databases can become valuable, but only if we all take the time and effort to contribute whatever information we have. 

The information you contribute can help another person. Maybe dozens of others.

The following announcement was written by the Ohio Genealogical Society:

December 1, 2022 - Bellville, Ohio: The Ohio Genealogical Society (OGS) announces a request for lecture proposals for the 2024 conference to be held April 9-14, 2024, at Kalahari Resort & Conference Center in Sandusky, Ohio.

Topics being considered include but not limited to the following: immigration, census records (especially the 1950), religious groups, migration, origins of early Ohio settlers, and the Old Northwest Territory, utilizing land records, military records, technology (including usage mobile devices, apps, social media), DNA, organization, society management and development, and methodology, analysis, and problem solving in genealogical research, Ohio history and its records, archives and repositories, and unique 1950’s topics.

The program committee is specifically seeking new, unusual, and dynamic proposals. Think outside of the box! Interested speakers are strongly encouraged to submit multiple proposals for either one-hour general sessions, or two-hour workshops. There is no limit to the number of proposals a speaker may submit. The deadline for submission of lecture proposals is May 31, 2023.

Submit proposals in PDF format. Each proposal must include the following to be considered:

Submit all proposals via e-mail to ogsconference@ogs.org no later than Midnight EST May 31, 2023. Multiple proposals may be sent in one email. Please limit your emails to no more than two (2) emails. Speakers are required to use an electronic presentation program. Projectors will be provided by Kalahari Resort & Conference Center.

Compensation

Selected speakers receive an honorarium, travel compensation, conference registration, hotel, and per diem based on the number of days lectures are presented. (Sponsored speakers will only receive conference registration and syllabus materials. See more about sponsorships below.)

Sponsors

Societies and businesses are encouraged to submit proposals for sponsored talks. The sponsoring organization will cover speaker’s lecture(s) honorarium. Sponsored speakers will abide by all speaker deadlines. Sponsored speakers will receive complimentary OGS conference registration and electronic syllabus materials. The deadline to submit sponsored lectures is also May 31, 2023.

Additional information

Camera-ready syllabus material, due February 1, 2024 is required for each general presentation and will be included in the syllabus distributed to all conference registrants.

Invitations to speak will be issued by mid-June, 2023. Syllabus format guidelines will be sent to speakers at that time. The deadline for acceptance and submission of signed speaker contracts is July 15, 2023. Letters of regret will not be sent out until all invited speakers have responded.

Sincerely,

Karen Cydrus

Deborah Litchner Deal

2024 OGS Conference Co-Chairs

If you had ancestors or relatives who died in while serving in the Canadian military  during the World War I years, be sure you’ve looked for their estate files. Those files will provide more insight into how the turmoil of war impacted on your family, as well as (with a little luck) some unexpected treasures.

It isn’t difficult to imagine that a war that caused the deaths of some 60,000 young Canadian men and women would affect the plans families had to pass on the goods and property they had accumulated over a lifetime or perhaps several lifetimes. The War years saw fathers or mothers acting as executors for their sons and daughters, and young wives administering their husbands’ estates—decades earlier than they expected. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to happen. It was supposed to be the other way around.

You can read a lot more in an article by Jane E. MacNamara published in the Where The Story Takes Me web site at https://wherethestorytakesme.ca/inheritance-interrupted/

My  thanks to newsletter reader Terry Mulcahy for informing me about this article.

From an article by Deepti Hajela published in The Washington Post:

The New York-based Center for Jewish History is launching the DNA Reunion Project, offering DNA testing kits for free through an application on its website. 

For those who use the kits it is also offering a chance to get some guidance on next steps from genealogists.

Those genealogists, Jennifer Mendelsohn and Adina Newman, have been doing this kind of work over the last several years, and run a Facebook group about Jewish DNA and genetic genealogy.

The advent of DNA technology has opened up a new world of possibilities in addition to the paper trails and archives that Holocaust survivors and their descendants have used to learn about family connections severed by genocide, Newman said.

You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/mucy72ne.

Quoting from the scotlandspeople.gov.uk web site:

The 1921 census records, made up of over 9000 volumes of enumeration district books, have now been released by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) on the online research service ScotlandsPeople. 200,000 images of 4.8 million individual records can now be searched, viewed and downloaded and have been added to the census returns already available on the website, covering every 10 years from 1841.

The census is a survey which collects information on every household, building and vessel in Scotland on a particular night. The enumeration books contain all of the information transcribed from the household schedules (which were destroyed after work on the census was completed) and can be seen online as full colour images.  

An example page from the 1921 census enumerating some of the inhabitants of the fishing village of Helmsdale in the parish of Kildonan
Crown copyright, National Records of Scotland, 1921 census, 052/3 page 9

The 1921 census revealed that the population of Scotland had reached 4,882,500 inhabitants; twice as large as had been recorded in 1831, and three times the size as in 1801. The effects of the First World War (1914-1918) and the influenza pandemic known as ‘Spanish ‘Flu’ (1918) had been felt, however, by local communities and were reflected in the 1921 returns. Between the 1911 and 1921 census the male population had grown by 38,803 and the female population by 82,790, totalling 121,593 individuals or a growth of around 2.5%. This was, however, the smallest increase since 1801 in any census period due to war and emigration.

Over the years, the questions which formed the census have varied, but all are a guide to what the government at the time wanted to know about its population, including its size and age, location, sex and the variety of occupations employing its citizens. Details captured by the census were used to inform government policy at the time; immediately after the census was taken, as is still the case, statistics were made available publicly for demographic purposes. Today, however, these records offer a rich resource of contemporary information which can be explored by historians and genealogists alike in order to trace people, the history of buildings or local areas. 

You can read a lot more at: https://tinyurl.com/y2phhws6.

MyHeritage users Vanesa and Emilio from Valencia, Spain, were adopted at birth and spent years searching for their biological families. Then, they took DNA tests through MyHeritage and discovered each other: full siblings!

“My message is simple… don’t lose hope, and take a DNA test. I had completely lost hope,” says Emilio.

You can read this heartwarming story in the MyHeritage Blog at: https://tinyurl.com/2p9nyk3e

This is somewhat of a duplicate of the article 1960 Census: NARA’s Already Working Toward 2032 published in this newsletter yesterday at https://eogn.com/page-18080/13007341. However, it was written by a different person at NARA, offers a slightly different "view" of the preparations, and provides some information not in yesterday's article.

The following article was written by the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration: 

Though genealogists and other researchers are still busy researching the 1950 U.S. Federal Census, which the National Archives released entirely online April 1, the agency is already preparing for the next launch: the 1960 population census.

Almost as soon as the 1950 Census schedules went live, work began on digitizing approximately 41,000 rolls of the microfilmed 1960 Census, a notable increase from the 6,373 rolls of the 1950 Census. The 1960 Census records are scheduled to be released in April 2032. 

For the next decade, the agency will work on digitizing the census schedules as well as administrative records related to the census.

“It’s amazing to see our staff shift from launching the 1950 Census to starting work on the next one,” said Digitization Division Director Denise Henderson. “Every census comes with unique, interesting challenges for digitization. We’re excited to figure out the best solutions for getting the 1960 Census online and sharing that wealth of information with the public in 2032.”

Staff have already digitized a series of meetings and conference papers related to the 1960 Census, which can be found in the Catalog.

Claire Kluskens, a Digital Projects Archivist and Genealogy/Census Related Records subject-matter expert, will be guiding researchers, family historians, and others through the 1960 Census, just as she did for the 1950 Census, via a series of blog posts and webinars. 

Her work on the 1960 Census debuted last month with her blog post on the topic on History Hub, “1960 Census: NARA’s Already Working Toward 2032.” 

Check out this post to find out why the 1960 Census has more than six times the microfilm rolls than the 1950 Census and why the agency has already begun its work.

Kluskens will continue to highlight major features of the 1960 Census and how to research it in the decade-long leadup to its release in April 2032. You can follow along on History Hub and also catch up on her series about the 1950 Census. 

The following article is from the (U.S.) National Archives and Records Administration Blog:

NARA expects to release the 1960 census on April 1, 2032.  This is the first in a series of blog posts on the 1960 census.

Less than 10 years from now, on April 1, 2032, NARA expects to release the 1960 population census. Staff members are already at work to make this happen on time!  Why so soon?  The sheer volume of records makes it imperative.  There are 41,000 microfilm rolls of 1960 census records, which is 6.4 times more than the number of microfilm rolls for the 1950 census. The table below shows the number of accessioned census microfilm rolls received by NARA from the Bureau of the Census for the 1900 to 1960 censuses.  The number of rolls needed for each census depended upon the number of census pages, the length of microfilm used, the photographic reduction ratio, and the number of census pages filmed per roll.

Why are there 41,000 16mm microfilm rolls? The 1960 census was conducted mostly by self-enumeration so each household has a separate census form. Separate forms meant more paper, and more paper meant more microfilm (photograph) images.  The paper forms were destroyed after microfilming.  In addition, 1960 census microfilm rolls tend to be around 100 feet in length, which is much shorter than most microfilm rolls from prior census years. 

What is NARA doing now?

• • We’ve started scanning the population census microfilm to create high quality digital images that will be released on April 1, 2032. As microfilm rolls are scanned, staff members will create “metadata” that identify state, county, Enumeration District number, and other necessary information.

• • We’ve started reviewing the administrative (background) records for interesting and useful records about the planning, taking, and analysis of the 1960 census. Digital images of some of these unrestricted records will be added to NARA’s Catalog over the next 10 years.  Our 1960 Census Blog post series will discuss that material.

What is NARA doing now?

Title 13 of the United States Code prohibits unauthorized disclosure of confidential census information, such as the 1960 and later population census records. NARA takes this responsibility seriously and protects the records in several ways:

• • NARA keeps confidential census microfilm in secure temperature and humidity controlled archival storage locations to which only specific designated individuals have access.
  • NARA limits the number of staff who work with confidential census records.  These staff members must be authorized by the Bureau of the Census (BOC) to work with confidential material and take the same annual training as employees of the BOC.  They are sworn for life (or until the materials are legally released for public use) to protect confidential census information.
  • NARA employees who are authorized to work with confidential census material are granted access only to the materials they need to conduct their immediate work assignments, and lose access to materials they no longer need to work with.
  • Digital images of restricted microfilmed census records are stored on secure servers that are not connected to the internet.

Census records tell us about the past, but archival institutions like NARA must continually think about and plan for the future.  As Fleetwood Mac once wrote, “Don’t stop thinking about the future, it will soon be here….”

Author's Note:  In the table above, the number of microfilm rolls is the total for both the United States and its territories and overseas possessions; the U.S. population figures are for the United States only.