The Genealogy Guys Podcast #424

Drew's guest is Brian Rhineheart, owner of CivilWarRecords.com, a service that retrieves military-related records from the National Archives in Washington, DC. In this episode, Drew and Brian discuss the various types of military-related records available either online or only in physical form, and how genealogists can learn more about their ancestors' military connections prior to requesting records.  Brian also offers listeners a code ("connection") valid from the original posting date of this episode for two weeks, good for a discount on his record retrieval service. 

For all who celebrate it, the Guys wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! News You Can Use and Share! MyHeritage has introduced LiveMemoryTM, a new facility to animate entire photographs. It runs from an app on your phone and is currently free. Ancestry announces its project to index and digitize Korean War-era military records housed at NARA. Vivid-Pix announces it will expand Alzheimer’s Research by donating 5% of sales through 3 December 2024. FamilySearch celebrates 130 years of family discovery! Listener Email Brian asks whether there is a genealogy podcast that shares people’s stories of family history research. Julie asks if there is a user guide/book discussing how to effectively research at MyHeritage. George has contacted Daniel Horowitz at MyHeritage for information. Stay tuned! Peggy expands on requesting U.S. military records from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri, and what is available there. Anne suggests seeking information about WWII military service information in newspapers published near the basic training camps and through local libraries’ scrapbooks and vertical files. With Donna Moughty retiring from leading Irish genealogy research trips, Judy asks whether other people might be conducting such trips. Kevin comments about natural disasters and how they impacted our ancestors. He cites his paternal great-grandfather who was born 3 days after the Johnstown Flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on 31 May 1889. Mike writes a follow-up about German immigration, discussed in Episode #429, and shares his research about his German ancestor. He also cites the sinking of the PS General Slocum on 15 June 1904 and its impact on the immigrant German community of Kleindeutchland in Manhattan, New York. Michael comments on annulments and the lack of divorce records, and about circumstances that might make such records non-existent. Book Review Drew reviews Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s newest book, The Hollywood Strangler, the third installment of the Venator Series. Drew also comments on how he has just submitted his final assignment to Nathan for the pilot genealogy mystery writing online course. Please let us hear from you at [email protected] with your questions and comments.

The Guys have been on a hiatus because of Hurricanes Helene and Milton and the damage in Florida. News You Can Use and Share! David Rencher, Chief Genealogy Officer at FamilySearch, received the Italian Heraldic Genealogical Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. MyHeritage has given its Inbox a fresh new look. MyHeritage added 56 million new records in September 2004. MyHeritage has updated its Theory of Family Relativity facility by 40%. Ancestry has launched its largest update to DNA matches. Findmypast has added large numbers of Cornwall baptisms, marriages, and burials. RootsTech 2025 registration Is now open and an early bird discount registration rate is available through 31 October 2024. Listener Email Kelly asks for suggestions to locate marriage annulment records. Kristina has located her grandfather’s WWII draft registration card and wants to know how to proceed to obtain his service records. Jean shares a website, “A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations” at the JewishGen website. Drew discusses the WikiTree Symposium online on 1-3 November 2024. He will be presenting a talk about Copyright and Plagiarism. Schedule. Please let us hear from you at [email protected] with your questions and comments.

News You Can Use and Share! MyHeritage has acquired MesAieux.com, Quebec’s most popular family history service with more than 15 million historical records. MyHeritage added more than 84 million new records across 16 collections in August 2024. MyHeritage has added 261 million obituary records to its OldNews facility. Listener Email Julie is searching for any Pennsylvania birth records from ca. 1810 and marriage records. The Guys share some suggestions. Drew talks about his recent participation in WikiTree.com’s WikiGames over two weekends. Drew is currently taking Nathan Dylan Goodwin’s online mystery writing class and learning how to develop a compelling genealogical mystery novel. The Guys discuss U.S. immigration and the naturalization process. They recommend Loretto Dennis Szucs’ book, They Became Americans, as a definitive guide to naturalizations. Thank you to all our Patreon supporting members for their support. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started. And don’t forget to order Drew’s book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, from Genealogical Publishing Company (https://genealogical.com/) or from Amazon.com. Please let us hear from you at [email protected] with your experiences with U.S. immigration and naturalizations, and with other questions you have about your genealogical research.

News You Can Use and Share! MyHeritage added 20 million historical records in June. MyHeritage and Family Tree DNA announced a new partnership to connect DNA tests to family trees. JewishGen announced a new partnership between its Romania Research Division and the Jewish Federation of Romania to photograph and document Jewish graves. Drew talks about 19.4 million historical records released by FamilySearch in May 2024. Book Review The Guys review the latest book by Nathan Dylan Goodwin, The Deserter’s Tale, a new Morton Farrier genealogical crime mystery. Listener Email Sam writes about the new RootsMagic 10 update and the book. Drew warns listeners about some fake book entries in Amazon. Stacy Cole responds to an earlier email about her strategies in researching the James James family in Georgia. The Guys discuss their experiences at the South Carolina Genealogical Society's summer workshop at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. George shares how Patrick McCawley, the Deputy Director of Archives and Records Management, spent time sharing with him a history of South Carolina’s geopolitical organization from colonial times to the present. From parishes to electoral districts to counties and boundary changes, George now has a deeper understanding of South Carolina for his research there. Thank you to all our Patreon supporting members for their support. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started. And don’t forget to order Drew’s new book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, from Genealogical Publishing Company (https://genealogical.com/) or Amazon.com. Please let us hear from you at [email protected].

News You Can Use and Share! MyHeritage added 123 million historical records in April and May. MyHeritage added millions of Nordic newspaper pages to OldNews.com. RootsMagic has released Version 10 of its award-winning software. Listener Email Jean-Daniel wrote to share an update about his research into Blaise Farny. Karin educates us about names for Austrian ‘sailors’. Lisa wrote to compliment Cathleen from New Hampshire’s research of her mother’s paternal grandfather, Georg Sokop. She was inspired to research a friend’s Jewish ancestry using DNA. Ray has been researching his third great-grandfather, James James, and located two people of that name in close proximity. The county courthouse burned, and he is asking for other records to distinguish between the two men. Drew discusses the upcoming South Carolina Genealogical Society’s upcoming conference at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History on 12-13 July 2024. He is presenting, and George will be there observing and conducting personal research in the archive. George shares how he is preparing for his genealogical research at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, at the Newberry County courthouse, and in the upstate South Carolina environs. Drew discusses new features of AncestryDNA tools. Thank you to all our Patreon supporting members for their support. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started. And don’t forget to order Drew’s new book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, from Genealogical Publishing Company (https://genealogical.com/) or Amazon.com. Please let us hear from you at [email protected].

News You Can Use and Share! MyHeritage added 71 million historical records in March, including French censuses! MyHeritage added three important New York City historical records collections, including indices and images. MyHeritage has added a multi-photo scanner to the MH mobile app. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in College Park, Maryland, has unveiled a new Mass Digitization Center. It will address digitizing records in various formats up to 10 times faster yearly. American Ancestors has announced the appointment of Ryan J. Woods as its new President and CEO. Ancestry announced its largest partnership with the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to date. As part of the project, Ancestry will invest over the next five years to digitize tens of millions of records that will be added to Ancestry.com. Ancestry has made a new record collection available to honor the 125,000 persons of Japanese descent who were unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. between December 1942 and January 1948. FindMyPast has added more recent new records to its collections of Scotland Deaths (1855-2024), England and Wales Deaths (2007-2024), and Northern Ireland Deaths (1980-2024). Listener Email Cathleen describes her research into her mother’s paternal grandfather, Georg Sokop, including traditional and DNA investigations. She is looking for advice to extend her research. Don writes about Swedish research, including Swedish churches and membership lists, and the resources at Ancestry and ArchivDigital. Jean-Daniel wrote to thank us for sharing an email about Blaise Farny. He now has a great to-do list. He has located an Ivoryette photo of Farny from 1892, and is investigating to locate the original among family members so that he can see if anything is written on the back. Tom wrote to follow up on slide scanning, and to suggest resources for scanning long panorama photos. He also discusses the Stories Behind the Stars Project, which seeks to preserve and expand the information about the more than 421,000 Americans who lost their lives in WWII. Check the STARS website at https://www.storiesbehindthestars.org/. Nick let us know about his efforts to organize thousands of notes in Evernote, doing several each day. Drew discusses attending his 50th high school reunion, what a wonderful time we had, and how important it was. Drew will be presenting at the South Carolina Genealogical Society Conference on 12-13 July at the South Carolina Department of Archives and History in Columbia. George will also be attending and conducting personal research. Thank you to all our Patreon supporting members for their support. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started. And don’t forget to order Drew’s new book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, from Genealogical Publishing Company (https://genealogical.com/) or Amazon.com. Please let us hear from you at [email protected].

News You Can Use and Share! MyHeritage added 168 million historical records in February. MyHeritage launched OldNews.com, a new website for exploring historical newspapers. MyHeritage introduced all-new profile pages with hints. Vivid-Pix announced the roll-out of Memory Stations, integrating scanning, its correction software, tagging, and more. Findmypast has begun digitizing, indexing, and publishing British Home Children records. The National Archives (TNA) announced that it will digitize the 1941 National Farm Survey records thanks to a generous grant from Lund Trust. DNA Segment with Diahan Southard In our DNA Segment, DNA expert Diahan Southard discusses Family Tree DNA and Y-DNA haplogroups with Drew Smith. Listener Email Laura writes about backup GEDCOM files and MyHeritage, and Daniel Horowitz responds. Jenna writes to respond to Sheila’s quest to digitize and tag a 30” long x 6” high-resolution photograph. She shares FamilySearch’s ability to tag people in a Memory at https://www.familysearch.org/en/help/helpcenter/article/tagging-people-in-a-memory. Anne writes in response to Jean Daniels' email about researching an ancestor. Anne cites Anabaptists in New York State. Kristen is seeking more advice for locating records for a missing family member, Arthur Tozer. Ashley wrote about changes that people make to FamilySearch records without sources. Thank you to all our Patreon supporting members for their support. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started. And don’t forget to order Drew’s new book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, from Genealogical Publishing Company (https://genealogical.com/) or Amazon.com. Please let us hear from you at [email protected].

David from Addison, Texas, is the winner of our drawing for a MyHeritage DNA kit. More drawings will be announced later this year. News You Can Use and Share! RootsTech, the world’s largest genealogy conference, takes place in Salt Lake City, Utah, and online next week, 29 February through 2 March 2024. FamilySearch International and American Ancestors announced a collaboration on the 10 Million Names Project. The project “seeks to recover the names and restore information to families of the estimated 10 million men, women, and children of African descent who were enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America, including the area that would become the United States.” DNA Segment In our DNA Segment, DNA expert Diahan Southard discusses Ancestry DNA with Drew Smith. Listener Email Douglas responds regarding our discussion of slide and negative scanners. He reminds people to check with their local library for the availability of a scanner for checkout. He was able to use a Wolverine slide and negative scanner. (It and the Kodak model discussed on the last podcast are available through Amazon.) Jeannie discusses FamilySearch’s computer indexing problems. Mike writes again to provide additional information about the Old Fulton Postcards website and the New York local government historians’ (LGH) roles. Ryan asks about two different marriage records dated the same date in adjoining states for the same couple. Laura writes in response to Dennis’ questions about writing a family history, and uses the “52 ancestors in 52 weeks” approach presented by Amy Johnson Crow. Matt is seeking a missing Pennsylvania death record from 1914. He has conducted extensive research and is looking for more suggestions. Kristen is seeking advice for locating records for a missing family member, Arthur Tozer. Thank you to all our Patreon supporting members for their support. Your Patreon support helps us improve our technology and provide even more podcast content to you! You can join us for as little as $1 a month or as much as you’d like to contribute. Visit https://www.patreon.com/genealogyguys to get started. Please also tell your friends and your genealogical society about our free podcasts, blog, and the Genealogy Guys Learn subscription education website. And don’t forget to order Drew’s book, Generation by Generation: A Modern Approach to the Basics of Genealogy, from Genealogical Publishing Company (genealogical.com/) or Amazon.com. Please let us hear from you at [email protected].

Drew's guest is Donna Moughty, who led the research trip to Dublin that Drew joined in October 2023. In this episode, Drew and Donna discuss her experiences over many years in leading research trips to Ireland, and how researchers need to prepare before going on a research trip (no matter where their ancestors were from). To learn of Donna's background, see GC episode #002.