Here is a bit of a nightmare that nobody envisioned 20 or 30 or more years ago: when you have an unknown, but undoubtedly large, number of step-brothers and step-sisters, you may meet many of them at most any time. This can be especially awkward when dating.

As one person remarked, "Not knowing how many siblings I have has damaged my dating life."

According to an article written by KC Archana:

"For 24-year-old Zave Fors, a dating app is nothing short of a nightmare as he keeps bumping into long lost siblings. In fact, it has happened so frequently that Zave is now mortified just by the word dating app.

"And all the blame goes to his 'serial sperm donor' father. According to reports, in the past few years, Zave has managed to track down eight of his siblings."

It seems that his biological father sold his sperm hundreds of times over a 10-year period. The donor is said to have an estimated 50 children.

There's details on the impact on how this has affected the son's dating life at: http://bit.ly/37jLPiW.

MyHeritage keeps adding more and more records to the company's online collection and hopefully I have posted their announcements of these records as they became available. However, this time the latest collection is one that I am intimately familiar with.

My own ancestry is 50% French-Canadian (thanks to my mother's 100% French-Canadian ancestry) and almost all of her relatives lived along both sides of the border dividing the northern area of the State of Maine from the provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick. In my genealogy research, I spent hundreds of hours going through the United States, Border Crossings from Canada, 1895-1956.

Unfortunately for me, the records were only available on microfilm years ago when I was researching these border crossings. It was a slow, meticulous, and often tedious process in those days. (MyHeritage: where were you when I needed you?)

I found my ancestors listed dozens of times. Not only did these people cross the border once to move to the United States, they often crossed the border in both directions for years in order to visit relatives for a weekend, to work on farms on both sides of the border, to be a midwife at a relative's delivery of new babies, and all sorts of other (undocumented) reasons. It was not unusual to find one of my ancestors or great-aunts or great-uncles listed a dozen different times over a period of years in these records.

(Some of my relatives still live in Canada while others are in the U.S.)

Yes, it was fun finding these records but also tedious. However, MyHeritage has now simplified the search process for today's and for future genealogists. Here is a brief announcement from MyHeritage and a much more detailed announcement may be found in the MyHeritage Blog:

During the late 19th century many immigrants to the U.S. arrived via passage from Canada to avoid harsh inspections at U.S. ports like Ellis Island. The collection, which includes images, is significant as it offers important details of travelers as they made their way to the United States. The MyHeritage index offers additional details not found in other versions of this collection, such as information on family members.

Search the U.S. Border Crossings from Canada, 1895–1956 collection now

The records include the individual’s name, age, gender, date of arrival, arrival port, marital status, birth date, birth place, last residence, destination, port of departure, and nationality, as well as the names and addresses of family members both in the United States and the home country. In addition to immigrants seeking citizenship in the United States, many of the records in the collection pertain to U.S. or Canadian citizens passing through the border for work or travel.

You can read more about the U.S. Border Crossings from Canada, 1895–1956 collection in the company's blog post.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Findmypast’s archives continue to grow with thousands of new and exclusive Welsh family records and a fascinating Antiguan petition dating back to 1830. Here is what's new this Findmypast Friday.

Denbighshire Parish Records

Over 23,000 new baptism, marriage and burial records from north-east Wales are now available to search exclusively on Findmypast. This includes;

• • Over 7,800 new Denbighshire baptisms
  • Over 11,200 new Denbighshire marriages
  • Over 4,500 new Denbighshire burials

All of this week’s new additions include both transcripts and images of original documents covering the parishes of Ruthin and Llanrhydd. See Findmypast’s Denbighshire parish list for all of the individual churches and date ranges covered by these collections.

Perfect for delving deeper into your Welsh heritage, transcripts will provide you with essential dates and locations as well as names of your ancestor’s parents or spouse. Images may provide additional details such as residences, occupations, the names of witnesses and even your ancestor’s signature.

Antigua, Petition Of The Coloured Inhabitants 1830

This relatively small but powerful new addition to Findmypast’s international record collection reframes a hidden part of Black history. Over 300 mixed-race males signed this fascinating document, demanding equality from the British parliament.

In the stratified and hierarchical society of the then colonies of the British West Indies, populations were divided broadly into three categories, these being white, “coloured” and “negro”. “Coloured” was the term that had replaced “mulatto” (and “mustee” etc.) for what we would now regard as persons of mixed race. The 1830 Petition of the Coloured Inhabitants of the Island of Antigua should be regarded in the above context. There are 316 signatories - all adult males.

The petition itself is significant as a claim for equal civil rights for the mixed race population as for the white colonial population. The tone is respectful but firm. The petitioners emphasise that, as loyal British subjects, they want parity, including the obligations that come alongside the privileges to which they feel entitled. Specifically, they demand such rights as:

• • Freedom to engage in agricultural pursuits
  • Employment as overseers and managers on plantations
  • Eligibility to be commissioned as officers in the island militia (in which they comprised a majority of the non-commissioned officers and privates)
  • Entitlement to serve as jurors
  • Right to receive parish relief andto pay poor rates

Newspapers

Findmypast have gone global this week with the arrival of six new Caribbean papers and their first from New Zealand. Brand new to the collection are:

• • Lyttelton Times covering 1851-1853, 1864-1865, 1871-1877, 1879-1894 and 1897
  • Barnsley Telephone covering 1920
  • Budget (Jamaica) covering 1877-1878, 1881-1883, 1886 and 1888
  • Morning Journal (Kingston) covering 1838-1840, 1858 and 1864-1875
  • St. Christopher Gazette covering 1771, 1837, 1839-1840, 1848, 1871-1888 and 1908-1909
  • St. Kitts Daily Express covering 1884 and 1886
  • Barbados Agricultural Reporter covering 1845 and 1870-1886
  • Saint Christopher Advertiser and Weekly Intelligencer covering 1839-1840, 1855, 1869-1888 and 1897-1909

While new pages have also been added to:

• • Cradley Heath & Stourbridge Observer from 1882-1888
  • Denton and Haughton Examiner from 1880, 1882-1885 and 1887-1889
  • Liverpool Daily Post from 1888, 1894, 1897, 1899-1900 and 1907-1909
  • Haslingden Gazette from 1901-1909, 1912 and 1914
  • Liverpool Weekly Courier from 1882
  • Lancaster Standard and County Advertiser from 1908-1909
  • Evening News (London) from 1893

The following announcement was written by TheGenealogist:

TheGenealogist has just released the records for another 98,618 individuals from Southwark to increase the number of records to over 800,000 individuals in its unique online Lloyd George Domesday Survey. These property records are a fantastic resource for researchers searching for where an ancestor lived in the period 1910-1915.

The Lloyd George Domesday Survey is a massive project being carried out by TheGenealogist to digitise a combination of large scale Ordnance Survey maps and residential data field books from The National Archives. Using the records from the former Valuation Office Survey (known as the Lloyd George Domesday Survey) enables family history researchers to precisely pinpoint where an ancestor’s house had been on exceptionally detailed hand annotated maps from the period. These have been made even more useful to researchers as they have been georeferenced and are displayed as a layer in TheGenealogist’s powerful Map Explorer™.

Nelson Dockyard Rotherhithe from Lloyd George Domesday Survey maps

Family historians can often have problems when looking for where their ancestors lived. Even when they have located an ancestor’s address in the census, over time road names may have changed and many streets have been renumbered or bombed out of existence in the Blitz. With redevelopment the area can change substantially, adopting new layouts that make searching for where an ancestor lived using modern maps a frustrating experience.
With the Lloyd George Domesday Survey records on TheGenealogist, however, researchers will be able to:

The linked Field Books will also provide researchers with information regarding the valuation of each property, including the valuation assessment number, map reference, owner, occupier, situation, description and extent.

This mammoth project is ongoing with over 94,500 Field Books, each having hundreds of pages to digitise with associated large scale IR121 annotated OS maps. This release from TheGenealogist takes the total released so far to over 800,000 individuals and is available to their Diamond subscribers.

This new release of records include properties situated in the following Southwark parishes: Bermondsey Central, Bermondsey East, Bermondsey South, Bermondsey West, Camberwell, Camden, Christchurch, Dulwich, Dulwich East, Peckham North, Peckham South & Nunhead, Rotherhithe, Rye Lane & St Georges, Saint Peter, St George the Martyr East, St George the Martyr North, St George the Martyr South, St Georges East, St John by Horsleydown, St Mary & St Paul, St Olave & St Thomas, St Saviour 1, St Saviour 2, and Trinity.

Read TheGenealogist’s article about how the Lloyd George Domesday Survey Property records from the 1910s show us the Southwark home of Michael Caine’s family https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/property-records-from-the-1910s-show-us-the-southwark-of-michael-caines-family-1376/

To find out more about these records, you can visit their informative record collection page at TheGenealogist.co.uk/1910Survey/

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!

This has to be one of the most "interesting" videos I have ever seen: Abraham Lincoln speaking to us directly.

OK, a bit of high-tech magic was used simply because high-tech digitized video did not exist during his lifetime. That is perhaps why this video is so impressive. Honest Abe speaks to us and everything appears to be as if it was recorded within a few minutes ago.

This brief video is actually an advertisement for MyHeritage that serves as an example of all the technology the company is developing. This technology may or may not become a part of MyHeritage's future offerings, depending upon user feedback.

You can watch the video and also read more about the making of this incredible project on the MyHeritage Blog at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2021/02/abraham-lincoln-as-youve-never-seen-him-before/.

This should become a VERY popular service! By using FamilySearch Memories, you can safeguard your most prized photographs for free!

"You read that right. If you have an account with FamilySearch (which is free to everyone and always will be), you have access to free cloud storage for your most cherished family photographs, historical records, and other heirloom family documents. This isn’t the place to keep ALL your photos (such as the ones your kids take when they steal your phone and get 53 pictures of their stuffed animals); we want you to store only your best and most impactful memories."

You can read all the details in the FamilySearch Blog at: https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/free-cloud-storage-familysearch-memories/.

Two new bills filed in the Florida state legislature may have a major impact to genealogists. The sponsor of the proposed bill states “Collection and testing of someone else’s genetic data without consent is a cutting-edge problem this bill will solve in the state of Florida.”

Will this include "collecting the DNA" of someone else's DNA from web sites, such as GEDmatch, Family Tree DNA, and others to be illegal? I am not an attorney nor have I seen the text of the proposed bill so I cannot answer that question but it does cause me to wonder.

According to an article by John Haughey published in The Center Square website:

Florida in 2020 became the nation’s first state to enact a “DNA privacy” law prohibiting life, disability and long-term care insurance companies from using genetic tests for coverage purposes.

Companion 2021 Senate-House bills would also establish a national first for Florida within the rapidly expanding realm of genetic privacy policy legislation and regulation: Felony criminal penalties for “stealing” or using someone’s DNA data, like any other personal property, without their consent.

Sen. Ray Rodrigues, R-Estero, filed Senate Bill 1140 and Rep. Josie Tomkow, R-Polk City, introduced House Bill 833 Monday. Both would prohibit collection or retention of DNA samples, and the analysis and disclosure of results, without authorization, with criminal penalties for specified violations.

“I’m proud to sponsor this legislation in the Senate that will help take DNA privacy protections a step further in our state,” Rodrigues said. “Collection and testing of someone else’s genetic data without consent is a cutting-edge problem this bill will solve in the state of Florida.”

“There will be serious criminal penalties in Florida for these actions,” Tomkow vowed. “It will not be tolerated.”

Both bills would make submitting another person’s DNA sample for analysis without their permission, or knowingly conducting an analysis of DNA without the person’s permission, a third degree felony.

Further details may be found at: http://bit.ly/2MWBC4T.

My thanks to newsletter reader Walter Wood for telling me about this article.

The following was extracted from an email message sent by Ancestry.com, the parent company of Newspapers.‌com:

Ancestry® is offering free access to Newspapers.‌com™ during the President's Day weekend in the United States. Newspapers.com is the largest online newspaper archive consisting of 636 million+ pages of historical newspapers from 20,200+ newspapers from around the United States and beyond.

- Thursday, February 11th through Monday, February 15th @11:59pm Mountain Time.

- Available only through https://nwspprs.com/ancestryinfluencer.

- Registration required.

More Details: Newspapers.com is the largest online newspaper archive consisting of 636 million+ pages of historical newspapers from 20,200+ newspapers from around the United States and beyond. Millions of additional pages added every month Newspapers provide a unique view of the past and can help us understand and connect with the people, events and attitudes of an earlier time Visit Newspapers.com Getting Started page for more information about using Newspapers.com, to learn more about subscription options, for help managing your account or to contact us Newspapers provide context to your family and can lead to amazing discoveries Newspapers.com powers the World’s Largest, Searchable Digital Archive of Newspaper Published Historical Wedding Announcements on Ancestry® There's always more to discover on Newspapers.com It's easy to save newspaper clippings to Ancestry®

According to an announcement from MyHeritage:

"The Theory of Family Relativity™ harnesses billions of family tree profiles and historical records on MyHeritage to suggest possible relationship paths between you and your DNA Matches, helping you to break down brick walls and potentially saving you dozens of hours of research.

"With this update, the total number of theories has increased from 33,373,070 to 39,845,078 — a 19% increase. The number of DNA Matches that include a theory has increased by 20%, from 22,618,962 to 27,130,989.

"As MyHeritage users add more names to their family trees and as we add new historical record collections, the opportunities to receive theories will continue to grow, offering new insights to help you further your genealogical research."

You can read a lot more details in the MyHeritage Blog at: https://blog.myheritage.com/2021/02/update-to-theory-of-family-relativity-4/.

The following announcement was written by the Board for Certification of Genealogists:

FREE BCG-SPONSORED WEBINAR
“A Family for Suzanne”
by Ruth Randall, CG
Tuesday, February 16, 2021, 8:00 p.m. EST

This webinar is based on the subject of the 2007 winner of the National Genealogical Society Family History Writing Contest, “A Family for Suzanne.” The speaker will use historical documents to identify significant events in the life of an enslaved woman who was purchased by a man in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, when she was three-and-a-half or four years old.

BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “A Family for Suzanne” by Ruth Randall, CG. This webinar airs Tuesday, February 16, 2021, at 8:00 p.m. eastern standard time (EST).

Ruth Randall, CG, began her pursuit of family history research in 1996. She is the 2007 winner of the National Genealogical Society Family History Writing Contest and the American Society of Genealogists 2008 Scholar Award. Ruth is a member of the editorial board of the NGS Quarterly. She is in her third decade serving as a volunteer at the Albuquerque Family History Center. Ruth is the author of six articles published in the NGS Quarterly. She is a three-time winner of The International Society of Family History Writers and Editors annual Excellence in Writing Contest.

When you register before February 16 on our partner Legacy Family Tree Webinars website (http://familytreewebinars.com/?aid=6084), you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar. Anyone with schedule conflicts may access the webinar at no charge for one week after the broadcast on the Legacy Family Tree Webinars website.

“We are pleased to present these high-quality educational webinars,” said President LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL. “The Board for Certification of Genealogists promotes public confidence in genealogy by supporting uniform standards of competence. We strive to provide educational opportunities to family historians of all levels of experience.”

Following the free period for this webinar, BCG receives a small commission if you view this or any BCG webinar by clicking our affiliate link: http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=2619. For access to all BCG webinars, see the BCG Library at Legacy Family Tree Webinars (http://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/?aid=2619).

To see the full list of BCG-sponsored webinars for 2021, visit the BCG blog SpringBoard at https://bcgcertification.org/bcg-2021-free-webinars. For additional resources for genealogical education, please visit the BCG Learning Center (https://bcgcertification.org/learning).

Pamela Boyer Sayre, CG, FUGA
BCG News Release Coordinator