The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Explore thousands of new church records from the Archdiocese of Southwark, Pembrokeshire parish registers, 27 new newspapers and additional pages for 45 existing titles. 

England Roman Catholic Parish Registers

The Catholic Heritage Archive has grown again with over 32,000 new baptism, marriage, burial and congregational records from the Archdiocese of Southwark.

Including both transcripts and images of original documents, these records will provide the dates and locations of important life events, birth years, the names of parents, spouses, children and more.

Read Findmypast’s Catholic records guide to grow your Catholic family tree. 

Pembrokeshire Parish Registers

Following last week’s community poll, Findmypast have added new Pembrokeshire baptisms from 1921 and marriages and banns from 1936.

Parish records are essential for progressing your Welsh family history research and Findmypast is home to the largest collection available online.

Newspapers

This week’s huge newspaper update sees 27 brand new papers added to Findmypast along with updates to 45 existing titles. This week’s new arrivals include:

• • Bell’s Penny Dispatch covering 1842
  • British Standard covering 1857-1866
  • British Statesman covering 1842-1843
  • City of London Trade Protection Circular covering 1848-1849
  • Cobbett’s Evening Post covering 1820
  • Consett Guardian covering 1860-1896, 1899-1900 and 1914-1929
  • Court Gazette and Fashionable Guide covering 1838-1841
  • Daily Politician covering 1836
  • Eastern Counties’ Times covering 1893-1895, 1897, 1899, 1901-1902, 1906-1908, 1911, 1914-1915, 1917-1929, 1932 and 1934-1935
  • High Life in London covering 1827-1828
  • London Packet and New Lloyd’s Evening Post covering 1801, 1803-1805, 1814, 1818-1820, 1830-1832 and 1834-1836
  • Myra’s Journal of Dress and Fashion covering 1875-1912
  • New Court Gazette covering 1840-1846
  • New Times (London) covering 1818-1828
  • Nonconformist Elector covering 1847
  • Oracle and the Daily Advertiser covering 1801-1809
  • People’s Weekly Police Gazette covering 1835-1836
  • Royal York covering 1827
  • Satirist; or, the Censor of the Times covering 1831-1844 and 1846-1849
  • Socialist (Edinburgh) covering 1920
  • South Wales Weekly Argus and Monmouthshire Advertiser covering 1892-1896, 1899-1901 and 1903-1905
  • Southall Gazette covering 1974-1976
  • Town & Country Daily Newspaper covering 1873
  • Trade Protection Record covering 1849-1850
  • Trades’ Free Press covering 1825-1831
  • Waterford Star covering 1899-1901, 1903-1906 and 1908-1913
  • Weekly Intelligence covering 1818

While the following papers have grown again with extra pages:

• • Aberystwyth Observer from 1870-1873, 1885 and 1905
  • Barrow Herald and Furness Advertiser from 1911-1914
  • Birkenhead & Cheshire Advertiser from 1873
  • Blackpool Gazette & Herald from 1908-1912
  • Bootle Times from 1878-1880 and 1883-1886
  • Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette from 1896
  • Coleshill Chronicle from 1875-1877, 1881, 1888 and 1896
  • Cotton Factory Times from 1896
  • Dewsbury Chronicle and West Riding Advertiser from 1889
  • East Riding Telegraph from 1900
  • English Mail from 1859
  • Essex Times from 1868-1869, 1876-1877, 1880, 1892, 1900-1902, 1909 and 1914
  • Evening Irish Times from 1904, 1909
  • Faversham Times and Mercury and North-East Kent Journal from 1862
  • Fleetwood Express from 1899, 1903, 1910 and 1918
  • Fulham Chronicle from 1973-1975
  • General Advertiser for Dublin, and all Ireland from 1924
  • Gorey Correspondent from 1881
  • Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review from 1863
  • Imperial Weekly Gazette from 1808 and 1810
  • Kenilworth Advertiser from 1901-1923
  • Lady’s Own Paper from 1866
  • Lancaster Standard and County Advertiser from 1893
  • Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser from 1834
  • Lloyd’s Companion to the Penny Sunday Times and Peoples’ Police Gazette from 1845-1847
  • Midland Counties Tribune from 1912
  • Mirror of the Times from 1805-1807, 1810 and 1812
  • Monthly Times from 1843
  • Morning Herald (London) from 1811-1812, 1815-1818, 1832-1833, 1835-1836 and 1854
  • Nantwich, Sandbach & Crewe Star from 1889 and 1892
  • Northern Daily Times from 1854
  • Northern Weekly Gazette from 1900
  • Penistone, Stocksbridge and Hoyland Express from 1912
  • Retford and Worksop Herald and North Notts Advertiser from 1912
  • Sleaford Gazette from 1894
  • Southport Visiter from 1894
  • St. Helens Examiner from 1909
  • Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser from 1910
  • Teignmouth Post and Gazette from 1894, 1897-1898, 1900, 1906-1907, 1909, and 1912-1914
  • Warwickshire Herald from 1898
  • Weekly Chronicle (London) from 1841-1847 and 1850-1867
  • Westminster & Pimlico News from 1976-1977
  • Westminster Journal and Old British Spy from 1805-1807
  • Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald from 1957-1968
  • Widnes Examiner from 1918 and 1920

The following is a press release written by ProQuest:

One of the most influential magazines of the 20th and 21st centuries, Rolling Stone provides a deep dive into music, film, culture and counterculture spanning decades

ANN ARBOR, Michigan, July 12, 2021 – Researchers can now access 50 years of the culture-defining journalism in Rolling Stone – digitally. The archive of one of the most legendary and influential consumer magazines in history is now available and easily accessible online for the first time to academic institutions and libraries globally through ProQuest.

With full-color, full-page content, The Rolling Stone Archive is a significant addition to library collections – giving users anytime, anywhere access to the entire publication’s backfile from 1967 to today. A key resource and guide to understanding the history of music, film, television, entertainment and popular culture, Rolling Stone is synonymous with culture and social relevance with its pulse on politics, social issues and the most significant countercultural movements of recent history, including contributions from writers like Hunter S. Thompson, Patti Smith and Tom Wolfe. The archive is also filled with articles that have defined history – including one of the first national features about the mystery of AIDS in the 1980s.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to partner with ProQuest in making half a century of our culture-defining and award-winning content available digitally,” said Rolling Stone President and Chief Operating Officer Gus Wenner. “It is truly incredible to showcase our body of work from our first issue featuring John Lennon to one of our most recent and iconic covers featuring BTS. This collaboration shows the breadth and scope of the full Rolling Stone archive and expands access to it in a meaningful way. I'm excited and humbled to have the opportunity to share Rolling Stone's catalogue chronicling where we’ve been, while continuing to inspire future generations for years to come.”

“Rolling Stone is long known for both shaping and chronicling cultural trends, making its archive indispensable in research and teaching across all social science and humanities disciplines,” said Susan Bokern, Vice President of Product Management at ProQuest. “And because its content is discoverable in one place and easily searched, users will be able to uncover insights about how events, people, trends and themes evolved over time from its unique coverage and perspectives."

With cover-to-cover issues, article-level indexing and searchable text, users can review all types of content from The Rolling Stone Archive, including articles, editorials, advertisements and more. Available on the ProQuest® platform, The Rolling Stone Archive can be searched along with a diverse selection of content – newspapers, books, journals, dissertations and more – giving additional context to a research topic.

About ProQuest (https://about.proquest.com/en/) 

ProQuest supports the important work in the world’s research and learning communities. The company curates six centuries of content – the world’s largest collection of journals, ebooks, primary sources, dissertations, news, and video – and builds powerful workflow solutions to help libraries acquire and grow collections that inspire extraordinary outcomes. ProQuest products and services are used in academic, K-12, public, corporate and government libraries in 150 countries. Along with its companies and affiliates Ex Libris, Alexander Street and Bowker, ProQuest helps its customers achieve better research, better learning and better insights. For more information, visit our blog (https://about.proquest.com/en/blog/blog-listing/) , follow us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or visit https://about.proquest.com/en/.

About Rolling Stone 

Rolling Stone, the number-one brand in music publishing, has been the leading voice of music and popular culture for over 50 years. The multi-media brand features the latest in music reviews, in-depth interviews, hard-hitting political commentary and award-winning journalism across several platforms including magazine, digital, mobile, social and experiential marketing. Headquartered in New York, Rolling Stone provides “all the news that fits” to a global audience of approximately 60 million people every month and publishes over 100 pieces of content every day. For more information, please visit https://www.rollingstone.com/.

Willie Hudspeth drove past the burial site the first time he went looking for the bodies.

The longtime activist was trekking down a country road in search of a freedman’s cemetery in Pilot Point, a small town north of Denton. But over time, nature had run its course. Grass and weeds blanketed some 400 graves of St. John’s Cemetery, the final resting place for a community composed of freed slaves. Before a fence was installed, cattle would occasionally roam through the wooded grounds.

But on that day several years back, Hudspeth encountered a caretaker on the gravel road. Upon spotting his vehicle, she assumed he may be yet another high-school kid out to steal headstones. She held a .45 pistol behind the door of her truck.

Hudspeth laughs when he tells the story, explaining how the caretaker soon relaxed and showed him the way to St. John’s. Looking back on it now, the 75-year-old civil rights activist and local NAACP president is amazed he was able to find the overgrown site, largely forgotten. Ask him, and he’ll say it’s divine providence.

“I don’t know how in the world we found this. I don’t know how we found her, I don’t know how we found the road to turn on. Nothing,” he said. “But that’s how we actually found it, and then I got her permission to come out and do some work out here whenever I could.”

You can read the rest of the story in an article by Simone Carter published in the Dallas (Texas) Observer at https://bit.ly/3wHmLMs.

From the Digital North Carolina Blog:

Thanks to a nomination by our partner, Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center, 1,357 issues of Black Mountain News from 1951 to 1976 are now available to view on our website. Black Mountain News is published in Black Mountain which is located in western North Carolina in Buncombe County near Asheville. This batch of Black Mountain News issues builds on our current collection of the paper which originally spanned only from the paper’s first issue on September 6, 1945 to 1950. 

Dancing, Singing, and Clogging This Friday, March 23, 1972

Long Description

Articles published in Black Mountain News center the stories, announcements, and advertisements of the Black Mountain community along with other surrounding communities such as Swannanoa. These articles provide readers with more information on Black Mountain’s community and history during the period. Featured articles include an ad for a 1955 Tupperware party, information on the 1972 Owen High School Folk Festival, and a call for donations from the Buncombe County community for the preservation of the U.S.S. North Carolina (which currently resides in Wilmington).

Digitization of these issues was funded in part by the North Caroliniana Society. 

To learn more about the Swannanoa Valley Museum and History Center, please visit their website.

To view more newspapers from around North Carolina, please visit here.

During WWII, Uzbekistan became a sanctuary for refugees fleeing from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc. Jewish refugees established a thriving cultural life there, including Yiddish theater.

Now an article by Mordechai Haimovitz published in the Jerusalem Post describes Uzbekistan's policy of researching and documenting the history of its Jewish community, which has existed in the central Asian nation since the region was crushed by the hooves of Genghis Khan’s horses. This also includes hundreds of thousands of Jews who managed to escape the chains of Germany’s Panzer tanks.

When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan generously opened its doors to Jews and many others fleeing the Germans. Now the republic is welcoming the public to step into the official Uzbek archives and view the history of its Jewish community for themselves.

The Central State Archive of the Republic of Uzbekistan has been instructed to make information about the lives of Jews during World War II and before available to the public. The archive is also currently in the process of signing an agreement with the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem, and soon afterward also with Yad Vashem.

You can read the full story at: https://bit.ly/3yYWuuI.

An article by Diane Xue of the University of Washington and Hanley Kingston of the University of Washington gives you still another reason to be thankful for your ancestors and especially for their ethnic origins.

They wrote:

"We are two researchers who have been working to find genes that affect people’s risk for various diseases. Our team recently found a genetic region that appears to be protective against Alzheimer’s disease. To do this, we used a method called admixture mapping that uses data from people with mixed ancestry to find genetic causes of disease.

"Genome-wide association studies

"In 2005, researchers first used a groundbreaking method called a genome–wide association study. Such studies comb through huge datasets of genomes and medical histories to see if people with certain diseases tend to share the same version of DNA – called a genetic marker – at specific spots.

(Some text omitted for brevity.)

"Disentangling race, ancestry and health disparities can be a challenge in genome-wide association studies. Admixture mapping, on the other hand, is able to make better use of even relatively small datasets of underrepresented people. This method specifically gets its power from studying people who have mixed ancestry."

The full article is lengthy but I found it fascinating. You can check it out yourself at: https://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/article/Mixed-ancestry-genetic-research-shows-a-bit-of-16313697.php.

Handing an ancient document can easily induce damage into a document that is irreplaceable. Even simply sneezing on a priceless document can induce damage. One archivist recently told of an experience of a friend of hers who had once sneezed on an illuminated manuscript. As the friend instinctively began wiping, the ink smudged. The more they wiped, the worse it got; the scene was practically the same nightmare that had been depicted on the old British TV show Mr. Bean.

What needs to be done to preserve historic old documents.? An article by Olivia Campbell and published in The Atlantic discusses the need to be extra cautious when handling historic documents. You can find the article at: https://bit.ly/3hBnRVS.

My thanks to newsletter reader David Brown for telling me about this article.

Our ancestors took great pains to "decorate" a home for a funeral. After all, most funerals were held at home.

Upper and middle-class families tried to memorialize their loved one’s passing like Queen Victoria herself. And that wasn’t easy. When Queen Victoria’s husband passed away, she remained in mourning for the rest of her life. For forty years she dressed in black and kept mementos in the royal castles as reminders of his death.

In truth, few could afford to mourn as fully as Victoria did, but even working-class families observed modest versions of the same traditions. Some hung black wreaths and others served funeral biscuits. They made do with what they had.

Photography was still rare in those days. A photographer was often called after a death. Deceased children were often posed in the arms of their parents. Sadly, this was sometimes the only family photo they owned.

You can read a lot more about Victorian-era funeral customs in an article by Cathy Wallace published in the BillionGraves' blog at: https://blog.billiongraves.com/preparing-the-victorian-home-for-a-funeral/.

The following announcement was written by FamilySearch:

The following is a notice sent to the IAJGS (International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies) Public Records Access Monitoring Committee's mailing list and is republished here with permission:

The National Archives has made several data sets relating to World War II available as open data.  Go to: https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/over-het-na/datalab-nationaal-archief/open-data-sets

The open datasets for the archive inventories can be downloaded, via the link to the archive inventory, as PDF and XML. For the indexes, the open datasets can be downloaded, via the link to the index, as a zip file containing a csv and xml file.  The text on the relevant web pages can also be used as open data.

Although these are open datasets, they may contain personal data of living persons. In chapter 5 of the privacy regulations of the National Archives you can read whether and how you may continue to use this data.  https://www.nationaalarchief.nl/privacyreglement-nationaal-archief

The open datasets currently made available by the National Archives largely consist of archive inventories and indexes. An archive inventory always consists of a description of the archive and a description of the archive components. An index is a list with data about, for example, people, place names or keywords from the archive components.

More than 400,000 open data photos from the National Archives are available through Wikimedia Commons. About 9000 photos have 'World War II' in the description.

To view and use the National Archives World War ll photos from Wikimedia Commons see:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?search=tweede+wereldoorlog+nationaal+archief&title=Special:MediaSearch&go=Go&type=image

Thank you to Yvette Hoitink, CG^®    Dutch Genealogy Blog for informing us about this data set.

Jan Meisels Allen
Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee