Happy New Year!

The big news of 2022 is the 1921 Census of England and Wales is now available at FindMyPast.com. It is not currently available from any other private vendor. FindMyPast worked with The National Archives to digitize this collection and these records are available online.

You can search for free, but record images and transcriptions are only available by purchase (you get a 10% discount on your purchase if you have a subscription at FindMyPast).

You'll need to login with a free or subscription FindMyPast account.

From FindMyPast.com:

How much does the census cost?

"It costs $3.50 US for every record transcript and $4.90 US for every original record image.

"This will cover the cost of digitizing and transcribing the 18,235,242 images created from the records supplied exclusively to us by The National Archives. It means these precious records are accessible, commitment-free, for everyone.

For all 12-month Ultimate subscribers there is a 10% discount on any 1921 Census purchases."

Why does the 1921 Census not include Scotland and Northern Ireland?

"In Scotland, National Records of Scotland takes responsibility for historical census data. NRS have stated they will be releasing their indexed images of 1921 Census returns for Scotland on www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk and in the ScotlandsPeople Centre in the latter half of 2022. 

"As with Scotland, Ireland and Northern Ireland conducted their own censuses separate from England and Wales. However, the 1921 Census was not taken in Ireland due to the Irish War of Independence. Censuses in Ireland and Northern Ireland were conducted in 1926." 

In other news, the OnGenealogy newsletter will be monthly in 2022, not weekly, to allow me more time to work on my own family history.

My focus this month is my digital files. Here's the 3-2-1 method I use for backing up my digital files but I need to do a better job renaming files in a systematic way that will be useful to others. I've focused on digitizing everything and keeping it safe, but making it easily accessible through consistent file-naming techniques is on my to-do list for 2022.

My very favorite Christmas gift was this external DVD drive which will read regular size DVDs and the older mini DVDs used in old digital cameras.

I'll eventually write a How To blog for this but if you have mini DVDs you want to transfer to digital files (.mp4 files) on your computer or external hard drive, THIS is the type of DVD drive you need to purchase. The drive needs to open (pop out) and allow you to place the mini DVD in the holder.

If you only have a DVD drive that sucks the DVD into it, you will probably jam the drive and it won't be able to read the mini DVD. See the image above for the type of drive you need to use.

The other must-have is a program to convert the files on the DVD or mini-DVD to .mp4 files. You can download a free program, Handbreak, available for Mac, Windows, or Linux, to convert the files. Again, watch the OnGenealogy blog for a How To walkthrough, but for now, those are the two main items you'll need if you want to tackle this project.

Alternatively, you can usually pay $15-20 per item (mini DVD, mini cassette, etc) to a private company and have them convert/digitize the medium for you. I used a local service to convert mini-cassette tapes to DVDs (years ago), but I recently wanted to get them onto my hard drive as .mp4 files and so I used this process (DVD reader and Handbreak software) for both my mini DVDs and regular DVDs.

It's a SLOW process. I would estimate one hour of transfer time for one hour of video footage. It might take less time but it certainly won't happen in a few minutes.

New and Updated listings

I've added preliminary listings for Birth, Marriage, and Death records for each state in the United States. These listings are broken down in this order, US level collections which include a particular state, State level records next, County or Independent City level collections third, and City level collections last.

I'll continue to update these with more collections. I'll also move on to other countries in the near future. The most recent states added include:

Tennessee Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

Texas Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

Utah Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

Virginia Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

Washington Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

West Virginia Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

Wisconsin Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

Wyoming Birth, Marriage, and Death Records online

Best with your family history!