US - Mexico Border Crossing Records On Line

From an Ancestry.com press release --

Ancestry.com Launches U.S. - Mexico Border Crossings Collection 1903 to 1957

More Than 3.5 Million Border Crossing Records From Mexico to the United States; Features 24 Land Ports of Entry From California to Texas

PROVO, Utah, May 1 /PRNewswire/ -- To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, Ancestry.com, the world's largest online resource for family history, today announced the release of the first and only online collection of border crossing records for individuals who crossed the U.S. - Mexico border between 1903 and 1957. This new collection, which includes more than 3.5 million names, is the latest addition to Ancestry.com's Immigration Records Collection, which also includes the largest online collection of U.S. ship passenger list records featuring more than 100 million names from 1820 to 1960.

These border crossing records primarily document early 20th-century Mexican immigration to the United States. During the first 30 years of the 1900s, more than 1 million Mexicans immigrated to the United States as a result of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, job opportunities during WWI and U.S. agricultural advances.

"There are unique and untold stories waiting to be discovered about the American southwest and Mexico," said Megan Smolenyak, Chief Family Historian for Ancestry.com. "This collection represents a significant opportunity for
Mexican-Americans to discover their family's footsteps to the United States and for everyone to celebrate Mexican contributions to American culture..."

These records contain insightful clues into a family's past, such as names and birthdates of travelers, names of friends or family in Mexico or the United States, as well as some signatures. This collection will be an especially useful tool for individuals whose ancestors arrived from Mexico between 1908 and 1957, as the most complete records were kept during this time period. Many of these border crossing records also include passport-type photos that were attached to the original documents. Ancestry.com transcribed the names in the collection from more than 3 million documents. The records were culled from 24 land ports of entry from California to Texas. Among the busiest ports of entry were Laredo, Brownsville and El Paso, Texas; Nogales, Arizona; and San Ysidro, California.

View the border crossing records at ancestry.com

Detroit Woman Leaves Life's Work to Canadian Genealogy Society

PICTOU — A county heritage group is the beneficiary of an American woman’s lifelong interest in Nova Scotia genealogy.

Hazel Arnold MacIvor bequeathed 30 volumes of information to the Pictou County Genealogy and Heritage Society, to be stored at the Hector Centre archives in Pictou.

Ms. MacIvor, a retired Detroit teacher who died in the mid-1990s, compiled the information after many trips to Scotland and Nova Scotia.

The genealogies include census records, wills, land grants, family records, Bible records, birth and death records and marriage certificates from Canada, the United States and Scotland. Ms. MacIvor’s work, which began as a hobby, spans the MacLean, Marshall, Fraser, Matheson, Ross, Stewart, Simpson and Nichol families, among others.

Read entire article from the Chronicle-Herald, Halifax, Nova Scotia

German Records Online

News Release from Ancestry.com

ANCESTRY.COM ADDS SIX MILLION NAMES FROM GERMAN CENSUS AND PORT RECORDS, LAUNCHES GERMAN-LANGUAGE SITE ANCESTRY.DE

New Collection Opens the Door for Largest Ethnic Group in the U.S. to Discover Their Family Stories Online; Fifteen Percent of Americans Claim German Descent

PROVO, UTAH – January 9, 2007 – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced the addition of more than six million names from German port and census records to its historical records collection, making Ancestry.com the central online source for German family history. The German records launched simultaneously on Ancestry.de, Ancestry.com’s first foreign-language, international sister-site.

With more than 42 million Americans claiming German heritage, the launch of German historical records and Ancestry.de creates an unprecedented networking opportunity for Germans and German-Americans to collaborate, upload and share family trees, photos, stories and other historical content from their personal accounts on both Ancestry.de and Ancestry.com.

“The addition of new German content to Ancestry.com along with the launch of Ancestry.de is a major leap forward for families, but only the beginning of our long-term strategy to acquire international content and facilitate family collaboration worldwide,” said Tim Sullivan, President and CEO of The Generations Network, parent company of Ancestry.com. “We are excited to offer this collection to German-Americans everywhere to allow them to trace their roots across continents at the simple click of a mouse. I’ve already found my German great-grandmother in our Hamburg Passenger List collection.”

The German historical records collection features records such as passenger lists, census and vital records, sailors’ registry, ships crew lists, and family and local histories. The Hamburg passenger lists, which are the highlight of the new collection, includes records of more than five million people who sailed from the German port of Hamburg between 1850 and 1934. These records tell the story of each passenger’s voyage through such details as names, birth dates and places, date of departure, port of arrival, ship type and name, even accommodations on board the ship.

According to Ancestry.com, the roots of five favorite American brewing companies – Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, Best and Yuengling – can be traced back to seven German immigrants. Thirteen-year-old Adolph Coors Jr., son of the Coors Brewing founder, and Frederick Pabst of Pabst Brewery, whose occupation is recorded as “Bierbrauer,” German for beer brewer, are listed in the Hamburg passenger list collection, both returning to America from trips to Germany.

Celebrities such as Donald Trump, David Letterman, George Lucas and Babe Ruth can also trace their ancestry to Germany.

Ancestry.de is The Generations Network’s fourth international site. Other international sites include Ancestry.co.uk in the United Kingdom, which features the only complete online collection of England and Wales census records, Ancestry.ca in Canada and Ancestry.com.au in Australia.

With more than 5 billion names and 23,000 searchable databases and titles, Ancestry.com is the No. 1 online source for family history information. Since its launch almost a decade ago, Ancestry.com has been the premier resource for family history, simplifying genealogical research for millions of people by providing them with many easy-to-use tools and resources to build their own unique family trees. Ancestry.com is part of The Generations Network, a leading network of sites whose mission is to connect families across distance and time. The Generations Network receives more than 9 million unique visitors worldwide and 450 million page views each month (© comScore Media Metrix, September 2006).

WorldVitalRecords.com Scans Everton Genealogical Library

Genealogy and Family History Data to Go Online

WorldVitalRecords.com has started to scan hundreds of thousands of pages of genealogy and family history data at the Everton Genealogical Library, one of the largest privately held genealogical libraries in the United States. WorldVitalRecords.com is now hosting all of Everton’s online content and has become Everton’s largest reseller of print subscriptions. The Everton Genealogical Library is an invaluable resource filled with 80,000+ books, manuscripts, records, newsletters, maps, pedigree charts, and much, much more.

Read full story

Minnesota Birth Certificate Index: A few more years..

Searching Minnesota Birth & Death Indexes

Minnesota Historical Society has added a few more years to the Minnesota Birth Certificates Index. What's been added? 1921-1924.

So, now 1900-1924 is searchable on line.

Search the Minnesota Death Certificates Index

And, if you're looking for death records, they're on line, too. The Death Certificates Index includes death cards from 1904-1907 and the death certificates from 1908 to 2001.

Search the Minnesota Death Certificates Index