New and Interesting this Week - 21 Sept 08

I'm amazed every day by the talent, knowledge and enthusiasm of my fellow genealogy bloggers, but it also takes a great deal of time each week to keep up with everything they have to say. So for all of you out there (including many of my newsletter readers) who have little time each week to fit in your genealogy reading, here are a few of the items in the world of online genealogy that I found new and/or interesting this week.

Misadventures in Indexing - The Ancestry Insider always does a great job of covering the genealogy community from the inside out, but in this moving post he (she?) will remind many of you of yourselves as he just can't resist being drawn into the lives of a group of long-dead strangers.

FamilyLink.com Responds to my Rant - Randy Seaver's rant last week about his frustrations with the FamilyLink.com social networking site for genealogists mirrors what many of us feel about what seems like constant direction changes from some "corporate" genealogy sites. To FamilyLink's credit, however, they sure responded quickly!

Louisiana Death Index Now Online - Joe Beine of the Genealogy Roots Blog, and the man behind the very useful and popular site DeathIndexes.com, highlights the new free online death index from the state of Louisiana covering the years 191-1956.

The Challenges of Researching Irish Ancestry - Never mind the difficulty of researching ancestors in Ireland. Just getting an ancestor back to Ireland can present its own frustrations, as Donna experiences in searching for the immigrant Irish ancestor in her LEE and MCGEEHAN families.

MyHeritage Acquires Family Social Network Kindo The family history social networking site MyHeritage is growing even larger, following their acquisition last year of the company behind GenCircles and Family Tree Legends. The new photo management and tagging features look interesting, and come with a video demonstration.

70 Years of Canadian Immigration Records Now Online - Subscription site Ancestry.ca has launched immigration records for all major Canadian ports for the years 1865-1935. An estimated 11.6 million Canadians, or 37 percent of its current population, have ancestors in this collection according to the press release. The new Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 collection is also available on Ancestry.com to World Deluxe members.

Insider Information on NFS [New FamilySearch] Development - It's been fairly quiet on the New FamilySearch development front lately, but the Shoebox Genealogist appears to have gotten a bit of a scoop.