Nov 8, 2019

The Genealogy Guys Learn educational subscription site launched on October 1^st and is a great success. New content has been added at the beginning of November and more is scheduled soon.

Drew reports on his trip to present at RootsTech London. He reminisces on his profound trip to the Cambridge American Cemetery, where he visited the grave of his father’s brother who was killed in 1943.

News You Can Use and Share

• The Australian government has provided $10M in funding to the National Archives of Australia to digitize 850,000 World War II records over the next four years.
• Ancestry has significantly updated its collection of U.S. obituaries.
• AncestryDNA has expanded its reference panel to deliver more precise DNA ethnicity results. This is being rolled out by year's end.
• Ancestry has introduced AncestryHealth® to provide health insights for testers and their families.
• Findmypast has released: Scotland, Will and Testament Index, 1481-1807; Scotland Monumental Inscriptions; Westmorland Baptisms, Marriages, & Burials; Philippines Births, Baptisms, Marriages, Deaths, and Burials from 1642-1974.
• DNA-Central.com has released a new newsletter and discusses updates to courses about 23andMe, ANC101, and YDNA101, and announced 6 new courses: Introduction to Autosomal DNA, Introduction to GEDmatch, GEDmatch Advanced, Introduction to DNA Painter, and Introduction to Shared Matches and Genetic Networks.
• Kevin Borland released a press release about Borland Genetics at https://www.borlandgenetics.com/, a toolkit that acts on raw DNA files of related individuals, enabling to reverse-engineer your ancestors.
• Drew discusses many new and expanded collections from FamilySearch.

Blaine T. Bettinger

This week’s discussion between Blaine and Drew focuses on the meaning and use of FIR and HIR.

Book Review

George reviews William Dollarhide’s brand-new book, The Census Book: Facts, Schedules & Worksheets for the U.S. Federal Censuses. George recommends the book highly, saying it should be on every U.S. researcher’s and library’s bookshelf.

Our Listeners Talk to Us

• Faye heard us mention Augsburg, Bavaria, records and asked where they were. George wrote back with a link from the FamilySearch News.
• Gail asked if Genealogy Guys Learn includes content from all learning levels. We firmly believe that so many of us started at different levels with disparate documents that everyone would benefit from starting over again. This approach allows everyone to build or rebuild the foundation for solid research. You can, of course, use portions of the written courses or videos for the topics for which you have an immediate need. However, we guarantee that you will find important new "Aha! moments" in each course or lesson.
• Nancy recalled that Drew is a member of the Guild of One-Name Studies and whose study focuses on Bodie, Boddie, and all other spelling variations. She sent information about a Stephen Body from Maryland. Drew is always interested in more of these links.
• Tom inquired about an individual whom he believes was a doctor who departed from Norfolk, Virginis, for Stamboul [Istanbul], Turkey at the end of September 1931. He wants to know if this person could have had some affiliation with the U.S. State Department.
• Ryan asked a fascinating question about what primary photograph to use to represent an ancestor in an online tree or in software. What age is preferable? We’d love to hear opinions from our listeners.
• Darren attended RootsTech London and asks about relationship software that might exist to link friends, associates, neighbors, witnesses, and others.

Thank you to our Patreon supporters! Please tell your friends or your society about our free podcasts.

Visit The Genealogy Guys Blog at http://blog.genealogyguys.com for more free news and interesting ideas for your genealogy.

Enroll in Genealogy Guys Learn at https://genealogyguyslearn.com for written courses, videos, and helpful resources. New content will be added every month!

And join The Genealogy Squad Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogysquad/ for the highest quality help from the administrators Blaine T. Bettinger, Cyndi Ingle, Drew Smith, and George Morgan, and from almost 25,000 members worldwide!