Findmypast Announces Weekend of Free Access to all British Census Records

Findmypast announces weekend of free access to all British census records

·         All British census records from 1841 to 1911 free to access from April 30^th to May 3^rd

·         Includes free access to census hints on family trees and Findmypast’s new address search

·         Explore the lives of your ancestors, the history of your home or grow your family tree

 

Leading family history website Findmypast have announced a weekend of free access to their collection of British census records.

 

From 10 am(BST) on Friday April 30^th to Monday May 3^rd, all British censuses from 1841 to 1911 will be completely free to search and explore.

 

Census records are the perfect way to tell the story of what your family looked like in times gone by. They not only reveal where your ancestors lived what they were doing, but can also provide valuable clues as to where they may be found in other family records.

 

By offering free access to these essential resources, Findmypast is providing all visitors to the site with the opportunity to discover a whole host a valuable family details, jump back through the generations and grow their family tree.

 

Those looking to explore the history of their home or local area can make use of Findmypast’s recently released address search feature. Unique to Findmypast, this new tool makes it easier to search for streets and locations across all UK censuses to trace the occupancy of a specific address, locate ancestors or discover their friends, relatives and neighbors.

 

Any user who creates or uploads a family tree for free on Findmypast can also take full advantage of any tree hints generated by census records.

 

All visitors are required to register an account before searching for free. Visit https://www.findmypast.com/page/free-access for more information.

MyHeritage Releases 10 "Special Animations" for Deep Nostalgia

We've released 10 additional "special" animations for Deep Nostalgia™ today, doubling the number of animations available and allowing you to see your ancestors express a wider spectrum of gestures and emotions, for example, dance, blow a kiss, smile wholeheartedly, nod approval, and more. The special animations are available to subscribers on the Complete plan.

Deep Nostalgia™ has taken social media by storm, and since its launch 5 weeks ago, 72 million animations have been created!

Please share this wonderful news with your audience and on all your social channels. You can find a complete overview of the special animations in the blog post.

Here are some examples of the special animations:

Dance 2:

Kiss:

When you animate a photo, the initial animation is selected by default so as to match the pose and angle of the person in your photo perfectly. That initial animation is always one of the first 10 general animations and is never one of the special animations. The special animations need to be selected manually.

Selecting a special animation is not available from the landing page, which is only meant for quick animation and sharing, and is only available from the "My Photos" section of the website and the "Photos" section of the MyHeritage mobile app, where in both locations more advanced functionality is at your disposal.

I hope you enjoy seeing your ancestors move with these new animations!

Enjoy! 

Daniel Horowitz

Genealogy Expert

The 1950 Census is coming in 2022!

 

Preparing for the 1950 Census

March 24, 2021 By Dferriero, Posted In Collaboration, Leadership, NARA Records, Special Events

The next Decennial (ten-year) Census of the United States will be available online next year. In 1978, Public Law 95-416, also known as the “72-Year Rule,” restricted access to decennial records to everyone except for the individual named on the record for 72 years. The National Archives will release the 1950 Census records in April 2022.

Untitled (14th Census, 12/18/1920), from the Berryman Political Cartoon Collection

The 1950 Census contains an estimated:

• 7,816,000 population schedule pages
• 9,634 enumeration district maps
• 60,000 “Indian Census” pages

The agency has been preparing for this launch for the last decade. Right after we launched the 1940 website in 2012, we developed a list of lessons learned, and began planning for the scanning of the 1950 Census.  It is a good thing we started early, too, because we have had limited access to our buildings during the pandemic. Fortunately, selected staff who have received special clearances to work on these records have scanned the majority of the pages and are also able to work remotely on indexing efforts. Our staff are busy ensuring that state, county, city and enumeration district metadata will be available at the time of launch. 

Population schedule page from the 13th Census of the United States: 1910, National Archives Identifier 53333251.

Our User Experience team has been working with a variety of NARA staff and public stakeholders to develop the website. Using agile and human-centered design methodologies, we have recently completed our first sprints working with wireframes to develop what will be the layout of the webpage. We are planning to use current cloud technologies to ensure that the website will be able to withstand the expected crush of users when we launch in April 2022 and beyond. We are also exploring ways to provide person names, which we know are the most common searches for family historians and researchers. 

In addition to the website, we are exploring possibilities for providing bulk downloads of the 1950 Census for those who would like to work with the data as a whole or in large chunks, for digital humanities and other purposes beyond the traditional genealogical value that the Census holds. 

WPA Workers Indexing 1920 Census Records, National Archives Identifier 175739355

We know that the Census data is important to so many of you. Supporting public access to these records is right at the heart of our mission–to make access happen. We have much to do, many constraints, and relatively little time left to accomplish our vision.  Stay tuned for upcoming developments as we work toward our April 2022 launch. 

For more information about Census records at the National Archives, see our Census Records web pages. See also the Census Bureau’s overview of the 1950 Census.