On October 24, 1867, the Danish government signed a treaty that the then-Danish West Indies would be transferred to the United States, pending ratification by both governments. Prior to this treaty, the West Indies' residents were mostly Danish citizens. The Danish government also maintained a large military presence there until after the treaty was signed. If you have Danish ancestry, it is quite possible those ancestors spent some time in the Virgin Islands before traveling on to the United States or to other countries.

The St. Croix Avis newspaper published many articles about the activities and the departures of Danish citizens and others in its earlier days of publication. Your Danish ancestor(s) may be among those mentioned.

Public notices were often published in both English and Danish. If you see an interesting notice but can’t read the Danish, keep reading down the column. The notice would often be translated into English. Here’s an example:

You may search the St. Croix Avis newspaper by starting at:  https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84037526/.

Use of online genealogy and especially DNA web sites has become common in recent years. Most of the cases involve violent crimes and usually involve male criminals taking violent actions against females. However, one recent "cold case" is a bit different.

You can read the story in the KIRO (Seattle) web site at: http://bit.ly/38AXVEZ.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

With brand new records from London, Yorkshire and India, where will your past take you this Findmypast Friday?

This week Findmypast have published an eclectic mix of fire brigade reports, monumental inscriptions, life event records and newspapers. Here is what's new this Findmypast Friday.

London Fire Brigade Reports 1915-1918

These intriguing transcripts reveal the damage caused by bombs in London during World War 1, along with the names and addresses of those involved.

Some of the reports paint a devastating picture of wartime London. For example, H.T. and Carolina Good were “burned to death” while John Foot and Sons’ four-floor business in Islington was gutted by fire.

Yorkshire Monumental Inscriptions

Findmypast have added over 27,000 new records, spanning nine centuries of Yorkshire history to this collection. Use the newest additions to uncover vital family tree facts. 

You'll see the latest releases marked as new on the parish list which shows the timeframes covered and the number of records from each location.

British India Office Life Events

Privacy rules allowing, Findmypast release more records from this exclusive collection every year. In this latest tranche, you can explore new births and baptisms from 1921 and marriages from 1937. 

If your family has roots in the British Raj, these resources are essential for piecing together your past. Findmypast’s unique British India Office collection also includes deaths and burials, army and navy pensions, wills and probate and assistant surgeon records.

Newspapers

Six brand new publications have just been added to the site along with updates to 12 existing titles. Brand new this week are:

While thousands more pages have been added to:

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, MyHeritage is offering free access to all Irish records on MyHeritage, from March 11–18, 2021!

MyHeritage’s Irish record collection includes around 14 million records of all kinds: census records, vital records, directories, wills, and much more.

MyHeritage is also home to 120 million family tree profiles with Irish heritage — so even if you don’t find your ancestors among the free records, you just might discover a relative who’s already done some sleuthing and can give you some new insights!

Can search the collection yourself  at https://www.myheritage.com/irish-records and also read more about this offer in the MyHeritage blog post.

Martin Roe Eidhammer has written a blog post that perhaps should be required reading for anyone researching Norwegian ancestry. He writes about the archives that have been published on Ancestry, MyHeritage, and FamilySearch. The records that have been the focus are:

Martin Roe Eidhammer writes:

"The church records from 1801 to 1815 are completed. A large number of the records from the years after 1815 have also been done. This is thanks to the effort of a large number of volunteers. They should be commended for giving their time and energy to this work. There is, however, an elephant in the room that can not be ignored.

"While errors may and do occur in any product, it has turned out that the transcriptions produced by the AMF collaboration contain a disproportionally higher number of errors than records transcribed outside the AMF."

The Eidhammer's article then goes on at some length to describe the transcription problems. You can read his full article at: https://martinroe.com/blog/a-word-of-warning/.

In 2017, Kathy Gillcrist, newly retired from her job as a high school teacher, was wondering what she would do next.

She had always known she was adopted but had never felt a strong desire to learn about her birth parents. But curiosity and a need to fill her free time overcame that ambivalence.

She took a DNA test, the first step of a genealogical journey that led her to a stunning discovery: Her father was most likely William Bradford Bishop Jr., who vanished in 1976 after bludgeoning his family to death with a sledgehammer, law enforcement officials believe.

“It just was surreal,” Gillcrist, 63, said Tuesday. “It still is surreal.”

You can read the interesting story in an article by Maria Cramer published in The Berkshire (Massachusetts) Eagle at: http://bit.ly/3qBbWIL.

The following press release was written by DigitalNC:

176 issues of The Wilmington Sun (newspapers) are now available for browsing on DigitalNC. This a brand new addition to our newspaper collection and we would like to thank our partners at New Hanover County Public Library for making this possible.

Spanning October 1878 to May 1879, these newspapers give insight into the happenings of the late 19th century. During this time, The Sun published issues daily except for Mondays and select holidays. As Wilmington was quickly becoming the largest city in North Carolina at the time, each issue covered a wide range of topics, from the international to the local.

Notably, Wilmington had a thriving shipping port and railroad industry in the mid to late 1800s, so The Sun included a Markets and Shipping section. These sections list out the market activity of materials such as cotton, rosin, tar, spirits turpentine, and crude turpentine while also noting the arrival and clearance of national and international goods.

To take a look at all the new issues of The Wilmington Sun, click here. For more information about New Hanover County Public Library, you can visit their homepage here.

Congratulations to genealogy resource site Cyndi’s List, which is now 25 years old! “After all these years people still don’t often believe me when I say that I am the only person who works on the site. It’s true, it’s just me. This is my job, but it’s also my life’s work and my passion. I still enjoy what I do and still find it rewarding, particularly when I hear of success stories from all of you. I am happy to keep providing Cyndi’s List as a genealogical research tool for everyone to use.”

Here's to another 25 years, OK Cyndi?

Note: The following article has nothing to do with genealogy, DNA, or any of the other topics normally found in this newsletter. If you are looking for genealogy and similar articles, you might want to skip this one. However, this article references a recent article in ZDNet that I think all computer owners should read.

From an article by J. Vaughan-Nichols published in ZDNet at https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-cloud-storage/:

"Free and cheap personal and small business cloud storage services are everywhere. But which one is best for you? Let's look at the top cloud storage options."

Vaughan-Nichols then goes on to list 8 of the largest cloud-based file storage services available today. He then writes:

"With so many of us working from home, having reliable cloud storage is more important than ever.

"Personal cloud storage all started in 2007, when Drew Houston, Dropbox's CEO, got sick and tired of losing his USB drive. So, he created the first individual, small business cloud storage service. It was a radical idea in its time, and everyone loved it. Today, there are dozens of cheap or free cloud storage services. But -- beyond giving you storage -- they're very different.

"How do you choose which one is right for you? You could just pick by how much free storage space you get. That's simple, but it's only part of the story. A cloud storage service's real value comes from how well it works for you or your business. As you'll see, some work much better with some operating systems and business plans than others."

The article gores on at some length to describe the largest cloud services in some detail. You can find the article at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-cloud-storage/.

Comment by Dick Eastman: My belief is that everyone has any information on their computer(s) that needs to be saved should should be using one or more of the cloud-based file storage services.

I have accounts at several of the companies listed by J. Vaughan-Nichols. However, the one service I use daily is the last one on his list: pCloud.

Based in Switzerland, pCloud offers privacy (as dictated by Swiss laws), clients for Linux, macOS, and Windows as well as Android and iOS smartphones, and "lifetime" subscriptions at reasonable prices. I have found the service is also very reliable. I have never experienced an outage.

I have almost 2 terabytes of data stored on pCloud and every file on my desktop and laptop Macintosh systems is backed up to pCloud within a few seconds after it is stored on my computers' hard drives.

All in all, I can say I am very pleased with pCloud. However, I also will quickly admit that the other 7 services listed in the article all have excellent reputations and I doubt if you will be disappointed by any of them.

Again, you can find the article at: https://www.zdnet.com/article/best-cloud-storage/.

By the way, I am not compensated by pCloud or anyone else in any way for writing this article. I am simply a user who spent his own money to subscribe to pCloud and is very thankful that he did so.  I'd like to share my story with anyone else who may be interested.