Zoom Past

Fly around your family tree with a new interactive website

People can explore their detailed family tree and grow its branches by sharing information with relatives, thanks to new interactive website ZoomPast.

After researching their family histories, people are often left with sprawling family trees that are difficult to visualise and share. The new website, www.ZoomPast.org, solves this problem by allowing huge and complex genealogies to be explored using an innovative zooming interface, similar to an interactive map.

The family trees of famous and fictional people can also be explored on the site, from Queen Elizabeth II:

and George Washington to Harry Potter. Genealogies can be viewed from the perspective of any person in a given tree, and a built-in social and sharing platform allows trees to be shared and grown collaboratively or kept completely private.

Web: www.zoompast.org

A guide to Tracing your Family Tree

I've made a free online course on Tracing Your Family Tree.  The course can be done in any order, but if you’re new to genealogy I would start at Part One and work your way systematically through the course.

 http://billpearson.co.uk/Genealogy

Mobile Genealogy

It's amazing how smart phones can help genealogists do research these days.

You can use your phone to carry out research, scan documents, and share your findings.

Sandra Crowley gave a interesting talk at the RootsTech conference earlier this year, which you can watch on-line here:
http://rootstech.org/videos#video-player

There's even a web site:
www.mobilegenealogy.com
if you want to stay ahead in this rapidly changing area.

Forces War Records

Forces War Records provides searchable Military Records, Military War Articles & Military Genealogy History Data.

Web: www.forces-war-records.co.uk 

Deceased Online

Deceased Online is central database for UK burials and cremations.  You can search registers by Country, Region, County, Burial Authority or Crematorium free of charge.   If you register with Deceased Online, you can purchase credits online, which you can spend to access further information associated with any of the found records.


Depending on what has been provided by the originating authority, the further information might include:

• burial and cremation register entries
• digital scans of register pages
• scans of book of remembrance pages
• grave details and other interments in a grave 
• pictures of graves and memorials
• maps showing the exact locations of graves and memorials.

www.deceasedonline.com

Genealogical Directories and Military Family History

I've long been a fan of UKBMD, so when Ian and Sharon Hartas launched two new sites, I knew they would be good. 


UKGDL stands for UK Genealogical Directories and Lists.   There's links to over a thousand sites with maps, photographs, school lists, ships' lists, taxes and tithes, trade directories, voter lists and much more besides


UKMFH stands for UK Military Family History research. Again there's over a thousand links to sites that offer online information in a wide range of categories to help you with your Military Family History research. 


New links are added regularly, so it pays to keep coming back.


UKGDL: www.ukgdl.org.uk


UKMFH: www.ukmfh.org.uk

British Newspaper Archive & Genes Reunited

Platinum subscribers to Genes Reunited can now add the British Newspaper Archive to their annual subscription for an additional £39-95.

No announcement has yet been made by Find My Past about a similar offering for their subscribers.

Find My Past and Genes Reunited are both owned by Bright Solid, who in partnership with the British Library launched The British Newspaper Archive earlier this year.

Having subscribed to the British Newspaper Archive through Genes Reunited I've found the search facilities aren't as good as on the main British Newspaper Archive site which offers Advanced Search facilities like exact phrase and without these words.

This is irritating as I now do the search on: http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
but have to go to Genes Reunited to view the results.

http://www.genealogyblog.com/?p=16048