The following is a press release written by the folks at Ancestry:

LEHI, Utah and SAN FRANCISCO -- February 2, 2021-- Ancestry®, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics, today announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Deborah (Deb) Liu as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the company’s Board of Directors, effective March 1.

Liu joins Ancestry from Facebook where she most recently created and led Facebook's Marketplace product group. Prior to Facebook, Liu held leadership roles at eBay and PayPal. Liu is actively involved in promoting diversity and women in technology and co-created the Women in Product​ nonprofit. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Intuit Inc.

“It’s an honor to join Ancestry. I’m excited to help craft the company’s next chapter, accelerating growth in Family History subscriptions and AncestryDNA by bringing the product to more people around the world,” said Liu. “I have tremendous admiration for Ancestry’s rich history and powerful mission to empower journeys of personal discovery to enrich lives. Finding and sharing our family history and understanding the challenges and triumphs our ancestors faced helps u​s feel a greater sense of connection and belonging and ultimately realize our shared humanity.”

“Ancestry already leads the field in its category but still has the potential to attract many new customers and grow its business still further,” said Mark Thompson, chairman of Ancestry’s Board of Directors. “In the course of an extensive search, it became clear to all of us that Deb was the perfect next CEO of Ancestry. She has a proven track record of product innovation and deep experience in building global consumer technology platforms. She is an outstanding leader able to inspire and motivate teams to achieve their goals.”

David Kestnbaum, a Senior Managing Director at Blackstone, and Sachin Bavishi, a Managing Director at Blackstone, said: “Deb is a terrific leader with a very strong track record of driving innovation and growth, as well as building world-class product and technology platforms. We are excited about Ancestry’s future and look forward to partnering with Deb as she leads the company into its next phase of growth.”

###

About Ancestry

Ancestry®, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics, empowers journeys of personal discovery to enrich lives.​ ​With our unparalleled collection of more than 27 billion records and over 18 million people in our growing DNA network, customers can discover their family story and gain a new level of understanding about their lives​.​ For over 30 years, we’ve built trusted relationships with millions of people who have chosen us as the platform for discovering, preserving and sharing the most important information about themselves and their families.

According to an article by Lorraine Weiskopf in the WXXV25 web site, the ‘Brenda Brentz Heinsch Papers’ collection of the Singing River Genealogy and Local History Library (in Mississippi) was chosen to be published electronically as part of the Mississippi Digital Library at the University of Southern Mississippi. This collection follows the lives of Germans and German Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s through the Breutz/Brentz-Hansen family of Germany and Jackson County’s Escatawpa, Mississippi.

You can read more at: http://bit.ly/2NUceNb.

An extra year of Irish genealogy records can now be accessed online. Birth entries relating to 1920 are now available on irishgenealogy.ie, along with marriages from 1945 and deaths from 1970.

The Irish government says these records are vital in helping people find out about their ancestry.

The website is free to use and no subscription or registration is required to use it. It may be found at https://www.irishgenealogy.ie/en/.

Is this something else you inherited from your ancestors? After all, you have to find someone to blame, other than yourself! Right?

Researchers from Oxford University, the Netherlands, and the United States found that your genes partially decide whether you prefer to get up at dawn or sleep in, which they noted in their Sleep Medicine Reviews published study. In fact, they found that 46 percent of your sleep pattern is connected to your DNA.

The team took on an ambitious 36 studies that highlighted the quality and length of participants' sleep. Test subjects included 400 sets of adult twins, selected in order to determine if rest patterns had any genetic affiliation. Their findings? They noted that 46 percent of your sleep trends are tied to genes—but 44 percent of the quality of your sleep is influenced by DNA, too.

There is a lot more to the article by Nashia Baker published in the Yahoo web site at: https://yhoo.it/2LgdEAS.

For the best effect, I recommend you read the article at bedtime.

On Wednesday, people around the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day—the anniversary of the January 27, 1945, liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp.

Due to pandemic restrictions, survivors and educational groups couldn’t visit the sites of Nazi atrocities as they have in years past. But a new digital resource from the Wiener Holocaust Library in London offered an alternative for those hoping to honor the genocide’s victims while maintaining social distancing. As the library announced earlier this month, hundreds of its survivor testimonies are now available online—and in English—for the first time.

The archive, titled Testifying to the Truth: Eyewitness to the Holocaust, currently includes 380 accounts. The rest of the 1,185 testimonies will go online later this year.

You can read a lot more about this new online archive in an article by Livia Gershon in the Smithsonian web site at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/testimonies-holocaust-survivors-now-online-180976883/.

The following announcement was written by the (U.S.) National Genealogical Society:

Registration for the National Genealogical Society (NGS) 2021 Family History Conference opens 1 February, 1:00 p.m. (EST). Plans for the forty-third annual conference include a full week of virtual events* for individuals, societies, and organizations 17-21 May 2021.
 
The main event for individuals runs from Wednesday and Thursday, 19‒20 May. The NGS premier two-day virtual conference event―NGS 2021 Live! ―features award-winning authors Dani Shapiro and Ric Murphy; an opening session by esteemed genealogist and Virginia expert Barbara Vines Little; and presentations by nationally recognized speakers including

• • Elizabeth Shown Mills,
  • Thomas W. Jones,
  • Judy Russell,
  • Eric Grundset,
  • Craig Scott,
  • Janice Lovelace, and more.

Two full days are planned by NGS to offer exciting new ideas to energize family historians’ research, announce the winners of NGS awards, and offer a unique experience―the camaraderie of thousands of fellow genealogists from throughout the United States and the world. Program content will include bonus lectures provided by conference sponsors and sponsoring organizations.
 
In addition to NGS Live!, NGS will offer a choice of either a twenty or forty lecture package on-demand. Those who purchase a package may choose from more than eighty-five on-demand sessions available for viewing starting in June. Other programs will be priced separately. Throughout the week a virtual Expo Hall will be available.
 
Take advantage of the discounted Early Bird registration fee, plus member discounts, when you sign up by 15 March 2021.
 
NGS is also hosting three days dedicated to societies and organizations.
 
Monday, 17 May, begins the week with a Kickoff Workshop for the NGS Delegate Council, the new advisory committee for NGS member organizations. This event is invitation only.
 
Tuesday, 18 May, presents the debut of the SLAM! Idea Showcase, which highlights creative and innovative projects or programs by societies, libraries, archives, and museums (SLAMs). This event is for individuals and organizations looking for ideas and fresh approaches in serving research constituencies.
 
Friday, 21 May, caps off the week with Focus on Societies, which offers expert advice for society leaders on managing and growing their genealogical or historical society.

*Note: Due to ongoing mandates in Virginia in regards to COVID-19 and our concern for the well-being of our attendees, exhibitors, volunteers, and staff, NGS will no longer be able to host an in-person conference in Richmond, Virginia in May 2021.

To all subscribers:

Here is a list of all of this week's articles, all of them available at https://eogn.com:

(+) Crowdsourcing: the Most Valuable Genealogy Tool of the 21st Century? (So Far)

MyHeritage Announces the Release of the First Set of Improvements for Genetic Groups

What Attracted Our Ancestors to the New World

Randy Majors Announces a Video Walkthrough: Historical U.S. Counties Map Tool and Auto-Checker Extension

Is 23andMe in Talks to Go Public?

New Law Gives Pennsylvania Executors Power Over Decedents’ Social Media And Other Digital Content

Online Immortality: Microsoft Patent Details Tech That Could Turn Dead People Into AI Chatbots

Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs to Celebrate African American History Month

The Family History Federation and Parish Chest Are Hosting Their Second FHF REALLY USEFUL Family History Show

New Who’s Who Records Added to the Occupational Records on TheGenealogist

Findmypast Adds Brand New Crime Records and More

Ancestry® Announces the Appointment of Mark Thompson as Chairman of the Board of Directors

Recently Added and Updated Collections on Ancestry.com

Free Family History Classes and Webinars on FamilySearch for February 2021

New Free Historical Records on FamilySearch: Week of 25 January 2021

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Posts Notice of Preliminary Injunction Regarding Final Rule

It is the First Day of the Month: Back Up Your Genealogy Files

The article with a plus sign (+) in the title is only visible to Plus Edition subscribers.

Prolific programmer Randy Majors has produced still another product that will be of interest to genealogists. This time he has created a couple of video walkthroughs of a couple of the the software tools he has created. Here is Randy's announcement:

By popular request, I finally have gotten around to recording a couple of video walkthroughs of a couple of the tools. Certainly not polished and produced, but should give you a good understanding of these two tools:

Walkthrough of the Historical U.S. Counties map tool:

Walkthrough of the Historical U.S. Counties chrome extension:

I recommend you view them in the above order, as understanding the Historical U.S. Counties map tool will help you have better success with using the Auto-Checker chrome extension.

Be easy on me please, as its my first foray into doing a screencapture walkthrough for youtube :)

I hope these are helpful!

Today is the first day of the month. That is still a good time to back up your genealogy files. Then test your backups!

Your backups aren't worth much unless you make a quick test by restoring a small file or two after the backup is completed.

Actually, you can make backups at any time. However, it is easier and safer if you have a specific schedule. The first day of the month is easy to remember, so I would suggest you back up your genealogy files at least on the first day of every month, if not more often. (My computers automatically make off-site backups of all new files every few minutes.)

Given the events of the past few months with genealogy websites laying off employees and cutting back on services, you now need backup copies of everything more than ever. What happens if the company that holds your online data either goes off line or simply deletes the service where your data is held? If you have copies of everything stored either in your own computer, what happens if you have a hard drive crash or other disaster? If you have one or more recent backup copies, such a loss would be inconvenient but not a disaster.

Of course, you might want to back up more than your genealogy files. Family photographs, your checkbook register, all sorts of word processing documents, email messages, and much more need to be backed up regularly. Why not do that on the first day of each month? or even more often?

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Is a bad apple lurking in your family tree? Findmypast latest new records could help you find out.

Crime records, life events and newspapers. Findmypast have a feast of family history treats for you this week. Here are the details on what's new.

England & Wales, Crime, Prisons & Punishment, 1770-1935

Findmypast have added over 92,000 additional court and prison indexes to this criminally-fascinating collection. This includes:

Derbyshire Life Events

If you’ve got family roots in England’s East Midlands, Findmypast’s latest birth, baptism, marriage, death and burial records could help you trace them. New additions have been added to.

See Findmypast’s Derbyshire parish list to see exactly what's new and the timeframes covered.

Newspapers

This week, Findmypast have published six brand new titles along with updates to 15 others. Online for the first time are;

While significant updates have been added to;