Thursday, September 23, 2021

Great News from FamilySearch

 


For many years I ordered microfilm from FamilySearch to view at my local Family History Center.  Now most of those records can be found online at FamilySearch.org.  Whether it's 2:00 pm or 2:00 am, I can now search through those digitized records in my own home. What a blessing this milestone is for all genealogists!  

The following is from FamilySearch:

Effort makes billions of historical genealogy records freely available online


It is a milestone 83 years in the making. Today FamilySearch International announced the completion of a massive project to digitize its collection of millions of rolls of microfilm containing billions of family history records from around the world. The archive containing information on more than 11.5 billion individuals is now freely available to the public on FamilySearch.org.

"We hope that all those who contributed to this milestone in the last 80 years feel a sense of humble accomplishment today," said Steve Rockwood, the CEO of FamilySearch International. “And we hope the millions of individuals who will discover, gather, and connect generation upon generation of their family members for years to come because of these efforts will have a deep sense of gratitude for the many unheralded contributors who made those discoveries possible."

“It's a game-changer for everybody in the world. So, instead of having to come to the library, people can start accessing these records from home,” said Becky Adamson, a research specialist at the FamilySearch Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Over 200 countries and principalities and more than 100 languages are represented in the digitized documents. Completion of the project makes it much easier for individuals to make more personal and family discoveries.

To explore FamilySearch’s free collections of indexed records and images, go to FamilySearch.org and search both “Records” and “Images”. The 
Images feature enables users to peruse digitized images from the microfilm collection and more. A free FamilySearch account will be required to access the service.


Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Grandma Johnson's 74th Birthday

 Okay, so this isn't a direct ancestor, but it was a great find!  I only wish I could find a newspaper article with this much information on a direct relative.  But, Annie Johnson is part of my family tree😊.  

Not only does this news article give information about Grandma Johnson (nee Annie McKinney), but also about her husband's Civil War days.  Annie Johnson's husband was John Alfonzo Johnson, referred to as "J A" Johnson.  He was the first cousin of my Great-Grandma Caldona Jane Box Leffel and that makes him my first cousin 3X removed.

The Hamblin Herald, Hamblin, Texas, 23 Nov 1923