If you haven’t bookmarked this website yet, you probably should. Genealogy in Time Magazine is an independent, free website that includes a page of “Newest Genealogy Resources” . The page identifies new records added to databases by different genealogy resources. It also provides a brief summary about where the information came from and how you can access it.
In December two information sources were mentioned that I found particularly interesting. The first is about German genealogy records which I’m in the process of learning about:
FamilySearch has added a massive new collection of Lutheran baptism, marriage and burial records. There are almost 80 million records in this new collection. The records span the years from 1500 to 1971.
The second was about England and I found it just plain interesting:
Findmypast has just released one of the oldest genealogy record sets that we have ever seen. It is a collection of marriage licenses from the Church of England (and prior to Henry VIII, the Catholic Church). The records go as far back as 1115.The 536,000 records in this collection come from fifteen different counties in England including London, Lancashire, Suffolk, Exeter, Lincoln and Yorkshire. In England, a marriage license was often used by wealthy people who were in a hurry and wanted to skip the bann period, which could last several weeks (sometimes they did not want to broadly advertise the marriage and sometimes they were in a hurry because the bride was already pregnant).In exchange for the payment of a fee, the bride and groom would fill out a sworn declaration that there were no legal impediments to the marriage (which was the functional reason for having a bann period).
When you have done a substantial amount of research about one area of the world it is very helpful to find a resource that identifies new records and databases as they are made available. Happy research!
