Hello fellow hobbyists,

I'm sharing some industry updates because this is where my focus has been and will continue to be for the next few months.

1950 US Census Update

Ancestry, FamilySearch, and MyHeritage combined efforts to produce a good index for the 1950 census. Ancestry donated handwriting recognition technology (referred to as an AI index-artificial intelligence index), FamilySearch provided the volunteers to then review the AI index, and MyHeritage donated other resources to support the cause.

We are nowhere close to a completed index which is surprising because when the 1940 US Census was released, the FamilySearch effort to create an index with volunteers went very quickly. Ten years ago, volunteers raced to download batches to index, were given "badges" for our completed work, and there was a great deal of community involvement.

See for yourself at FamilySearch.org/1950census

This time around, the human-verified (good) index for some smaller states and all the territories (states with diagonal, shaded lines) are entirely complete and will not be shown to volunteers. These were produced with transcription vendors.

The human-verified (good) index for the rest of the states (in color or white) is somewhere between finished (dark orange) and not started (white).

Again, you can visit FamilySearch.org/1950census to see how the process works. If you've indexed before, you'll see that the process is different and you might understand why volunteers are struggling with the new format.

In the meantime, Ancestry has released their AI index on their site, so you can see what an index looks like without human review. NARA still has their limited field, handwriting recognition index on the government site. And the volunteer/consortium effort to create a "good" index continues.

In other news:

NY Department of Records & Information Services (DORIS) has put 9 million birth, marriage, and death certificates online, free. This collection will grow to 13.3 million, and the records come from 1855-1949.

Ancestry is offering a World Explorer Student Plan for $4.99/month available to students enrolled at a US Title IV college or university. This plan gives students full access to Ancestry's global records.

The New York Castle Garden database is online, free of charge, with information on immigrants to New York between 1830 and 1892.

Australian War stories/memorials are now online. Descendants of WWI ANAZACs can search for their ancestor at Australian War Stories and receive (via text or email) a free online memorial for their ancestor detailing their ancestor's enlistment, training, and more.

Newspapers.com has a 7 day free trial running now. You need to give them a credit card to start the free trial and if you don't cancel at the end of the trial period you'll be billed.

Chronicling America is always free for US newspapers.

Google News is also free.

There are also many libraries that have digitized newspaper collections online and we're adding these to our listings, but priority is being given to other collections that are easier to search for family vital records. As far as newspaper research goes, I personally use the newspapers that are included with an Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, or FindMyPast subscription. So there are three more subscription options.

Best with your family history!