Thursday, October 8, 2009

Ancestry.com Posts FamilySearch Microfilm

I continue to see evidence of improved relations between Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. Last week, an intriguing title caught my eye in the list of new Ancestry.com databases:

Curious as to what an antique thesaurus of historic Italy might be, I clicked on the link and began to leaf through the pages. I was amazed to see this title board from a FamilySearch microfilm:

FamilySearch

(By the way, I recently saw a couple of pages from this book on sale at a rare map website. The area around Cremona is mapped on page 1673 (and a foldout). It’s not the original 300 year old paper and it’s not in a 25" by 22" antique frame. But it is pretty darn serviceable. And it didn’t cost hundreds of dollars. Well, not for me, anyways. Ancestry.com has been kind enough to extend my free employee’s subscription, even though I’m no longer an employee. But I digress…)

Other than the title board, it didn’t look like Ancestry.com had acknowledged FamilySearch in any way. I’m not standing on politeness; provenance is a key requirement in genealogy. Genealogy records aren’t just pretty bobbles to frame and hang on a wall; genealogical records are used as evidence. And while I’m not a CSI technician, I watch one on TV so I’m pretty familiar with the chain-of-evidence concept. All joking aside, digital record archives like Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Footnote.com, etc. need to provide provenance for all the records they post as a matter of course. Even published sources such as this one can have hand-written margin notes unique to that one copy. Just make it standard operating procedure. Enough said.

FamilySearch microfilms are in addition to the vital record collections I discovered on Ancestry.com back in May from the FamilySearch Western Europe Vital Records Index:

Database Language Size Published Updated
Denmark Births and Christenings, 1631-1900s  Danish 3,221,727 30 Dec 2008 30 Dec 2008
Denmark Marriages, 1631-1900s Danish 1,790,760 30 Dec 2008 30 Dec 2008
Norway Births and Christenings, 1600s-1800s  Norwegian 2,866,980 23 Apr 2009 23 Apr 2009
Norway Marriages, 1600s-1800s Norwegian 1,391,388 23 Apr 2009 23 Apr 2009
Netherlands Births and Christenings, 1608-1882 Dutch 771,039 30 Dec 2008 30 Dec 2008
Netherlands Marriages, 1637-1892 Dutch 402,402 30 Dec 2008 30 Dec 2008

Since then, I’ve found a couple more Ancestry.com databases from the Western Europe Vital Records Index:

Database Language Size Published Updated
Spain, Albacete Province, Births and Christenings, 1504-1905 Spanish 721,311 11 Dec 2008 11 Dec 2008
Spain, Albacete Province, Marriages, 1564-1899 (in Spanish) Spanish 226,404 11 Dec 2008 11 Dec 2008

 

Next time, we’ll take a deeper look into these indexes.

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