I continue to see evidence of improved relations between Ancestry.com and FamilySearch. Last week, an intriguing title caught my eye in the list of new Ancestry.com databases:
Curious as to what an antique thesaurus of historic Italy might be, I clicked on the link and began to leaf through the pages. I was amazed to see this title board from a FamilySearch microfilm:
(By the way, I recently saw a couple of pages from this book on sale at a rare map website. The area around Cremona is mapped on page 1673 (and a foldout). It’s not the original 300 year old paper and it’s not in a 25" by 22" antique frame. But it is pretty darn serviceable. And it didn’t cost hundreds of dollars. Well, not for me, anyways. Ancestry.com has been kind enough to extend my free employee’s subscription, even though I’m no longer an employee. But I digress…)
Other than the title board, it didn’t look like Ancestry.com had acknowledged FamilySearch in any way. I’m not standing on politeness; provenance is a key requirement in genealogy. Genealogy records aren’t just pretty bobbles to frame and hang on a wall; genealogical records are used as evidence. And while I’m not a CSI technician, I watch one on TV so I’m pretty familiar with the chain-of-evidence concept. All joking aside, digital record archives like Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Footnote.com, etc. need to provide provenance for all the records they post as a matter of course. Even published sources such as this one can have hand-written margin notes unique to that one copy. Just make it standard operating procedure. Enough said.
FamilySearch microfilms are in addition to the vital record collections I discovered on Ancestry.com back in May from the FamilySearch Western Europe Vital Records Index:
Database | Language | Size | Published | Updated |
Denmark Births and Christenings, 1631-1900s | Danish | 3,221,727 | 30 Dec 2008 | 30 Dec 2008 |
Denmark Marriages, 1631-1900s | Danish | 1,790,760 | 30 Dec 2008 | 30 Dec 2008 |
Norway Births and Christenings, 1600s-1800s | Norwegian | 2,866,980 | 23 Apr 2009 | 23 Apr 2009 |
Norway Marriages, 1600s-1800s | Norwegian | 1,391,388 | 23 Apr 2009 | 23 Apr 2009 |
Netherlands Births and Christenings, 1608-1882 | Dutch | 771,039 | 30 Dec 2008 | 30 Dec 2008 |
Netherlands Marriages, 1637-1892 | Dutch | 402,402 | 30 Dec 2008 | 30 Dec 2008 |
Since then, I’ve found a couple more Ancestry.com databases from the Western Europe Vital Records Index:
Database | Language | Size | Published | Updated |
Spain, Albacete Province, Births and Christenings, 1504-1905 | Spanish | 721,311 | 11 Dec 2008 | 11 Dec 2008 |
Spain, Albacete Province, Marriages, 1564-1899 (in Spanish) | Spanish | 226,404 | 11 Dec 2008 | 11 Dec 2008 |
Next time, we’ll take a deeper look into these indexes.
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