Have you used WorldCat to research your family tree? If not, you are missing one of the best online web sites for use in genealogy.

Quoting from https://www.worldcat.org/topics/genealogy:

WorldCat.org connects genealogical researchers to millions of pieces of unique content not found elsewhere.

Newspapers, family Bibles, cemetery and burial archives, microfilm, and digitized local records—it’s a treasure trove of family history waiting to be uncovered. Learn how to make the most of this powerful, global resource.

Connecting you to an incredible range of resources

Genealogists love libraries and archives because they are often the only source for unique, local information about births, deaths, marriages, businesses, and other family histories. WorldCat.org can connect you to a huge variety of sources of information in this topic area including:

Cemetery and burial records

United States Civil War and other military records

Family Bibles, church histories, and records

General genealogical resources, such as directories, handbooks, and magazines

Indexes of births, marriages, deaths, wills, and obituaries

Microfilmed genealogy and local history collections

Newspapers from many countries

Photographs

Slavery and antislavery materials, including slave records

Town histories and probate records

In addition to library resources, WorldCat.org also connects you to millions of records from FamilySearch, a nonprofit family history organization with the largest collection of genealogical and historic records in the world.

You can start at: https://www.worldcat.org/topics/genealogy.

Two Jersey heritage organisations have merged their collections to create an online catalogue of the island's history. Jersey Heritage and Société Jersiaise hope to make them more accessible to the public.

Heritage will provide its archive and museum collections, and Société Jersiaise have brought its photographic and library collections to the website at https://catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/.

Director of Archives and Collections at Jersey Heritage Linda Romeril said the website was the "culmination of a number of years of work" between the two organisations.

She said: "Researchers can now search across the collections of both heritage organisations, allowing them to see documents and photographs that were previously held in different places.

"Linking up the resources available makes them more accessible to the public, whether they are carrying out research about their family history or on a professional basis.”

The website has more than 800,000 descriptions of items.

Archivist at the Société Jersiaise Photographic Archive Patrick Cahill said: “The new shared online catalogue is great for users and demonstrates the benefits of taking a collaborative approach to cultural heritage in Jersey."

Scotland’s National Centre for excellence in bagpiping has launched a new, free to access digital resource and research hub. The Archives from The National Piping Centre will protect the heritage and legacy of piping in Scotland and make valuable pieces of piping history available for students, scholars and enthusiasts around the world.

The Archives from The National Piping Centre holds digitised copies of five influential piping periodicals dating back to 1948 - Piping Times, Piping Today, The International Piper, Piper and Dancer and Notes from the Piping Centre - as well as photograph galleries of piping through the years. 

It also incorporates The Centre’s Noting the Tradition oral history archive, which holds recorded interviews with people involved in piping at all levels and all over Scotland over the past 50 years.

Available to access at archives.thepipingcentre.co.uk , The Archives from The National Piping Centre keeps the legacy of these publications, information, conversations, images and other materials alive and makes them more easily accessible than ever before.

You can read a lot more at: https://bit.ly/3DdB7eG

Geneanet (based in France) has reached a major milestone: 5 million photos of graves are now online. Many of these photos are taken in Europe although a few might be from North America.

The Geneanet approach is comparable to, but different from Find-a-Grave and others. At Geneanet, there is always at least one actual photo of a grave or monument in the database, so no copied lists, funeral home announcement scrapings, or blank entries. No one "owns" a grave record at Geneanet; gravestones are available for indexing by everyone, not just the photographer (although as a photographer, you can index your own photos of course). The company discourages the photography of recent graves, out of respect for the deceased.

Here is the announcement from Geneanet:

NOTE: This article has nothing to do with genealogy. If you are looking for genealogy-related information, I suggest you skip this article. However, if you live in an area susceptible to wildfires, or if you have relatives who live in an area susceptible to wildfires, you may find the web site discussed in this article to be very important to you. I am publishing the article here to give it as much publicity as possible.

A new web service by a California-based mapping company shows detailed information on wildfires in real time. It shows information like nearby population size, climate and drought conditions to try to give people context on wildfires around them.

Esri is a Southern California-based company that works with geographic information systems (GIS) which collects, visualizes and analyzes data in digital maps.

Chris Ferner is a wildland fire specialist for the company. She said Esri developed Wildfire Aware to display information beyond basic containment and acreage numbers.

"We're using that authoritative data such as from the Forest Service or from Cal Fire and saying, 'Well, what else is important besides just the standard facts?' We also want to know how many people live right there," she said.

Ferner said Esri developed the map to help people get more information into wildfires around them. But she said they can also use it to check on friends or family threatened by wildfires anywhere in the country.

You can rad more at: https://bit.ly/3QtzwnJ.

The Esri web site may be found at: https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/wildfireware/

The following announcement was written by Unlock the Past:

A world-class family history conference with in-person and virtual options

Adelaide, South Australia, 8 September 2022

Unlock the Past is delighted to announce that Family History Down Under 2022 (FHDU 2022) is now just two months away. The 4-day in-person conference will be held 8-11 November 2022 at Castle Hill, near Sydney. Two virtual options bring FHDU 2022 within reach of anyone, wherever they are, who cannot join us at Castle Hill.

Overview

There will be four main themes or tracks – DNA; Researching Abroad; Australia & New Zealand; Methodology & General. Choose from 70+ presentations from 35 presenters from seven countries, plus 11 workshops and two conference dinners. The exhibition, which is both in-person and virtual, offers big savings from sponsors and exhibitors. And around AU$12,000 in prizes will be up for grabs. The FHDU 2022 Community (a private Facebook chat group) will be available for interaction between attendees, speakers and sponsors. All presentations, except workshops and conference dinner talks, will be available for all attendees (in-person and virtual) to view until 28 February 2023.

Venue

Castle Hill RSL Club is a fantastic venue. It is close to Sydney, Australia’s largest city, with access via Sydney Metro Northwest rail, onsite parking and plenty of accommodation nearby. It has multiple large capacity conference rooms and multiple lounges, bars and dining choices for these who would like to gather after each day’s program.

Unlock the Past / Family History Down Under

Unlock the Past is the event and publishing division of Gould Genealogy & History (established 1976). It is a collaborative venture involving an international team of expert speakers, writers, organisations and commercial partners to promote history and genealogy through innovative major events and publications. Recent events have been DNA Down Under and Family History Down Under 2021.

Family History Down Under 2022 — our final event

It is now time to call it a day! Since 2003 we have organised around 150 events — expos, conferences, roadshows, 17 genealogy cruises, Australia’s first significant battlefield tour, seminars and more. FHDU 2022 will be our final event.

I hope you will join us at Castle Hill, or virtually, for one last farewell event in November 2022. Find out more at www.fhdu22.com.

The following is a press release written by the Irish Genealogical Research Society:

Background

In anticipation that with the next update, in a day or two, of the main names index of this project having more than 500,000 records we are having an on-line event. This is the culmination of work of volunteers over fifteen years. While the number of names in the Registry of Deeds is in the millions, the project is making accessing these important records easier. Now, wherever you are in the world using the images available through familysearch.org

To celebrate a major milestone for our project we have arranged for four experts on the Registry of Deeds and its use for family and local history to give their experience of using the Registry.

About this event:

This event will consist of four short presentations 20 minutes each followed by a question and answer session. The presenters will be

• • Nick Reddan – project webmaster

  • Rosaind McCutcheon – the project's greatest contributor

  • David Rencher – Chief Genealogical Officer, FamilySearch

  • Steven C. Smyrl – Chairman Irish Genealogical Research Society

All are fellows of the Irish Genealogical Research Society.

This will be a great opportunity to learn about using the Registry of Deeds and ask question of some of the leading experts on the Registry of Deeds and family history.

To register for this event go to the following link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/registry-of-deeds-index-project-ireland-500k-tickets-413798270767

Note there are limited places.

Investigators have identified the killer of a Norton Shores, Michigan woman whose body was found on a Georgia interstate in 1988, marking the first time in the nation that both a victim and killer of a case were both identified using genealogy, they say.

In short, one DNA sample from the scene of the crime eventually identified BOTH the victim and her assailant.

You can learn more in a YouTube video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5hAdOG7lJo.

From an article by Lawrence Goodman published in the Brandeis.edu web site:

In 1827, in response to a czarist decree, kidnappers began abducting Jewish men from their homes for conscription into the Russian army.

Many were boys, some as young as 12, whisked away to military boarding homes, trained as soldiers and then forced to serve for as long as 25 years. It was one of the worst calamities that ever befell the Russian Jewish community, with approximately 75,000 Jews abducted until 1856, when reforms were finally implemented.

After completing their service, a small group of Jews settled in the Siberian town of Tomsk, where, in 1907, they built a wooden temple that became known as the Soldiers' Synagogue. With three domes, neo-Moorish flourishes and an exterior door shaped like a Torah scroll, it is a testament to the faith and perseverance of the Russian Jewish community in the face of trauma and oppression.

Michael Mail, MA'83, is working to save it from ruin. For decades, the Soldiers' Synagogue has languished in disrepair and was once even used as a homeless shelter. Many of its windows are now boarded up, and its floor is falling apart.

Mail's organization, the London-based Foundation for Jewish Heritage, exists to preserve Jewish architectural sites, monuments and places of cultural significance at risk worldwide.

"We have to save these buildings," he said. "They are often the last testimony to Jewish life in these places."

The Foundation, which started in 2015 with Mail as chief executive, has created an inventory of over 3,300 historic Jewish sites, many in urgent need of restoration. Among them are:

The list of historic Jewish sites maybe found at: https://bit.ly/3TIBnrP.