The National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth said the wills dated from the 14th Century until 1858, when civil probate was introduced, and 1,000 of them were written in Welsh.

There is a BBC report here about the 5 year project.

Search the complete 1901 census for England and Wales now

Although the 1901 census has been available for some time, they’re confident our new transcription is the most accurate online and will reveal many individuals whose names have been wrongly transcribed by other websites. And to make sure that they meet their commitment to providing you with the best quality images, all of the documents have been re-scanned.

If you’re unable to find your family on other versions of the 1901 census, then it’s well worth trying on findmypast.com.

The completion of the 1901 census brings findmypast.com a step closer to a full set of 1841-1901 England and Wales censuses. The 1851 census – the only remaining incomplete census – will be available in full within the next few months, and a full set of high-quality 1881 census images will be added to the transcriptions already available.

WorldVitalRecords.com Opens Site Allowing for Free Public Access to More Than One Billion Family History Records

With the addition of the largest number of records to be released in a single day since the site launched in 2006

PROVO, UT, August 11, 2009 - WorldVitalRecords.com, an online family history resource, today announced the addition of the largest number of records to be released in a single day since the site launched in 2006. To commemorate this milestone, for the first time WorldVitalRecords is offering free public access to its entire online collection of historical and genealogical records beginning August 11 and continuing through August 13, 2009. The public will have unlimited access to more than one billion records in over 11,000 databases from around the world including newspapers, census, birth, marriage, death, immigration and military records; family trees; stories and publications; and yearbooks.

“As a genealogy enthusiast, I’m thrilled that people can go to one place like WorldVitalRecords.com, try family history research for free and find their parents or grandparents, and see how simple it is to start tracing back and discovering stories that bring family history to life,” said Jim Ericson, Vice-President of Marketing for Family Link. “This is a rare opportunity to delve into the records and discover information about your family and ancestors you may have never known.”

Featured records in this release include:

Historical Newspapers
Through a partnership with Newspaper Archive, WorldVitalRecords is adding access to pages from a variety of newspapers from all over the United States, dating from 1759 through 1923. This collection features images of entire newspapers from the western frontier, the Midwest at the turn of the century, and the long-time standard of our nation’s news, “The New York Times” which includes over 7 million names. Newspaper Archive produces the largest historical newspaper database online, and the collection is fully searchable by keyword and date, and individual pages can be saved or printed.
According to Gena Philibert Ortega, Genealogy Community Director for FamilyLink, “Part of the fun of family history is uncovering details about our ancestors’ daily lives — the events of the day, the goods and the services they bought. Newspapers allow us to better understand our ancestors.”

Immigration Records
Living in a country of immigrants, ship passenger lists and other records documenting immigration can be an essential part in learning more about your family history. It is a thrilling experience to see their names transcribed on paper the day they entered this country through the Port of New York. Browsing and searching these passenger lists is a perfect way for someone to start researching their family history. This record collection provides documentation of over 150,000 passengers who arrived on nearly 8,000 ships at one of the busiest ports in the United States, New York, from 1820-1832.

Yearbooks
In partnership with the website E-Yearbook.com, WorldVitalRecords is doubling its collection of digitized yearbooks. This collection features university yearbooks from the late 1800 to mid 1950s. E-Yearbook.com houses the largest collection of old college yearbooks on the Internet. Universities featured this week include Duke University, University of Oklahoma, Iowa State and the College of William and Mary.

Vital Records, Military Records and Tax Lists
Other records being released on the site include birth, marriage, tax lists, military records, and death records from Maine, North Carolina, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Focused on helping users discover and share their family history, WorldVitalRecords adds new records to their online collection everyday.

About WorldVitalRecords.com
WorldVitalRecords.com is simplifying family history research by providing many easy-to-use tools and resources to discover and connect with others interested in family history. WorldVitalRecords provides access to more than one billion international and U.S. records WorldVitalRecords.com provides affordable access to genealogy databases and family history tools used by more than 258,000 monthly visitors. The site registers 3.6 million monthly pages views and serves tens of thousands of paying subscribers. With thousands of databases, including birth, death, military, census, and parish records, WorldVitalRecords.com makes it easy to fill in missing information in your family tree.

WorldVitalRecords is part of the FamilyLink.com, Inc. network of family-focused interactive properties including, GenealogyWise, WebTree, WorldHistory, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook.

Featuring over 500,000 names, the collection is a treasure trove of information for family historians. You can see information on charges, trial results, sentences or acquittals, dates of execution – and in some cases, personal details about individual prisoners.

Rough justice

Start searching the England and Wales, Criminal Registers, 1791-1892 and you’ll gain an amazing insight into a time when justice was swift – and harsh. Men, women and children were all sentenced; people were deported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) and condemned to lives of hard labour in appalling conditions.

The death penalty could be handed down for more than 200 separate offences – many simple ‘crimes of poverty’ or what are very minor offences by today’s standards. Examples include:

• stealing livestock
• cutting down trees
• pickpocketing goods worth more than one shilling
• being out at night with a blackened face
• stealing from a rabbit warren

The release of this collection marks the completion of the first UK chapter of the Ancestry World Archives Project – our commitment to help preserve the world’s historical archives and make them available online (you can read more about the Project here).

The England and Wales Criminal Registers, 1791-1892 is the first UK collection to be indexed by World Archives Project contributors. All 279 bound volumes of the collection were scanned at The National Archives by a dedicated team of Ancestry technicians – a task which took 616 man-hours to complete.

Then contributors from the Ancestry Community transcribed the images, so that the collection could be searched online. Those who worked on this and other Project collections got to enjoy a sneak preview of the records they indexed before they become public.

After many thousands more man-hours indexing, the complete collection is now available.

The census, available at 1911census.co.uk, provides a snapshot of life in the early 20th century, showing the name, age, place of birth, marital status and occupation of every resident in every home, as well as their relationship to the head of the household.

Oliver Morley, Director of Customer and Business Development at The National Archives, said: “The 1911 census has been hugely popular and we are excited to be able to help family historians across the country benefit from this fantastic resource.

“Digitising records allows a far greater audience to access them, and that is especially important with records like the census, which are extremely important for genealogists,’he added.

The seven institutions soon to launch free access to the census records are:

• Birmingham Archives & Heritage
• Devon Record Office (Exeter)
• The National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth)
• Manchester Archives and Local Studies and Greater Manchester County Record Office
• Norfolk Record Office
• Nottinghamshire Archives
• Tyne and Wear Archives

Before planning a trip, visitors are urged to contact the relevant institution to find out the when the service will be available.

In 1831 the Post Office created centralised employment records by copying the relevant minute numbers, brief details relating to appointment, transfer, dismissal, resignation, retirement or death. Prior to 1831 appointment records were not kept uniformly over the country.

The records will be fully name searchable and when available will be of real value to all those interested in researching their family history.

The guide, which lists the genealogy of every royal and aristocratic family in the Europe and the U.S., is to include illegitimate children for the first time.

As part of a major shake-up, the book will also list offspring in order of when they are born, rather than males first, which has been tradition.

Over the next few months the records of one million upper class families will be carefully updated to bring them in line with the modern format.

You can read more in the Daily Mail Online at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1196534/Illegitimate-place-Burkes-revolution-Bible-blue-blooded-takes-step-21st-century.html

Aster Software Releases FamViewer Version 2.0, Genealogy Software for iPhone and iPod Touch

LEXINGTON, KY, June 29, 2009 — Aster Software has announced the release of version 2.0 of its genealogy application, FamViewer. FamViewer allows genealogists to carry their genealogy databases with them on their iPhone and iPod Touch.

FamViewer imports standard GEDCOM files and displays them on the iPhone. GEDCOM files can be uploaded to FamViewer with a web browser on a desktop computer or downloaded to FamViewer from any web site or web server via WiFi. FamViewer will import the GEDCOM file and display its contents. Once a GEDCOM file is downloaded and imported you can view individuals, families, notes and sources. Navigate the family tree with a touch. You can carry your genealogy database with you wherever you bring your iPhone or iPod Touch.

New in version 2.0 is an ancestry chart that displays up to eight generations for anyone in the database. Tap on the name of anyone displayed in the chart and go to their family page.

An index by surname allows the user to find anyone in the database. A family view, resembling a family group sheet, displays three generations of a family: parents, children, and grandparents. Touch the parent’s names to view the details of their life events and personal attributes. Each event and attribute can have sources and notes, which are visible in another view.

All the FamViewer views work in portrait or landscape orientation so long names, places, dates or other data can be easily viewed.

FamViewer isn’t tied to any desktop genealogy software. Active genealogy researchers already own genealogy software that they run on their desktop, or laptop, computers. All modern genealogy software can export their genealogy databases in GEDCOM format. FamViewer will import GEDCOM files exported by today’s popular genealogy applications.

User comments about FamViewer from online reviews:

“A perfect solution. This genealogy app is exactly what I’ve been waiting for.”

“Great App!”

“Great iPhone App. This is a great portable application that I have long awaited for my iPhone. I use Family Tree Maker and have successfully imported 80,000+ names. The customer support and responsiveness is awesome!”

“Love it, and with the latest update, you can see the actual pedigree chart, it’s great.”

“Outstanding software. Outstanding value. It was great having my entire TMG database (all 2700 people and nearly 2000 sources) with me on the last two business trips to Washington DC (the Archives and the DAR Library) and all on the iphone.”

Version 2.0 improvements:

• Added family tree view that allows viewing eight generations of a family tree.
• Added support to display long notes.
• Added ability to connect to FamViewer using Bonjour.
• Improvements to the networking code should provide better reliability on certain networks.
• Implement choosing the home family.
• Added progress bar that shows progress of importing a GEDCOM file.
• Plays a sound when the GEDCOM import is complete.
• Changed placeholder text on the family page view from ‘Grandfather’/'Grandmother’ to ‘None’ due to user feedback.

FamViewer can be purchased at the Apple appstore and is priced at US$14.99. To find out more about FamViewer visit the appstore with iTunes. FamViewer is listed under Productivity Applications and Genealogy. More information is also available at http://www.astersoftware.biz. View an overview movie showing FamViewer’s main features at http://www.astersoftware.biz/screencasts.html.

About Aster Software.

Aster Software is a small company specializing in products for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Macintosh. The company website is http://www.astersoftware.biz.

They’ve also added records for around 135,000 soldiers based at 288 military establishments overseas, and around 36,000 naval personnel on 147 Royal Navy Ships overseas.

In 1911 the British Empire was nearing its peak and you can find soldiers and sailors located across the globe at remote outposts of the empire, as well as in other countries, such as Egypt, where Britain had a political and military presence but which were never formally part of the empire.

You will be able to search for army personnel who were stationed overseas, plus family members who went with them, as well as soldiers who were absent on the night of the census, and navy personnel who were onboard ship.

http://www.1911census.co.uk