News from the Vatican Library is the major project to digitise 82,000 valuable manuscripts from their collection is finally underway.
The project, finally up and running a year after its announcement, uses an armada of equipment to capture the vast range of pages amassed by the Vatican over five or six centuries into one of the world’s most valuable collection of books and manuscripts.
Vatican manuscripts to go online
They include the Vatican’s 8,900 incunabula (books printed before 1501): the Sifra, a Hebrew manuscript written a millennia ago, a 4th century manuscript of the Greek Bible and the De Europa of Pope Pius II, printed around 1491.
More information on the project is available here
Family History Social will be taking a weekly look at some of the popular books available for family historians which I hope are of interest to you.
This week we've taken a look at the 'Penguin Dictionary of British Surnames' by John Titford. The book describes itself as 'the definitive guide to surnames and their meanings' and is certainly very comprehensive. The author looks at the history of British surnames, regional variations and offers in one section, a humourous take on surnames from various parts of the British Isles.
The Penguin Dictionary of British Surnames
The book is very meticulous, analysing the history and thought-processes behind the use of surnames. There's also a section devoted to how genealogists can approach the whole surname issue and its significance in our research. The book also gives a comprehensive list of further sources of research (both offline and online) to discover more about surnames.
Finally, the majority of the book (as per the title) gives an A to Z of surnames and their origin and meaning. The book contains over 10,000 surnames and includes how names have developed and varied over the years. It's available from S&N Genealogy Supplies priced £14.99. There's more details on their website.
The National Archives at Kew has, according to their website, made a further 20,000 digitised Home Guard records for County Durham available online, which adds to the 40,000 records already available from the site as part of a pilot project.The records are a great way of finding details of a relative who may have been part of the defence organisation of the British Army consisting of 4.5 million volunteers in World War Two. There's more details at the TNA website here.
TheGenealogist has now completed transcribing birth, marriage and death records for England and Wales giving a third of a billion fully searchable records. These are also linked into their unique 'SmartSearch' facility taking you through a person’s life events.
This release marks the completion of a hugely successful project for TheGenealogist, now providing family historians with fully transcribed BMD records dating back to the start of civil registration in 1837.
What makes this unique is the linked in ‘SmartSearch’ feature, which makes life even easier for the family historian.
Mark Bayley, Head of Online Content, explains: "The transcriptions allow us to harness the full power of 'SmartSearch' and allow our users to swiftly jump from one record to the next. It's now possible to move through your ancestral line with unparalleled speed. No other site makes searching for your ancestors so straightforward."
There's more details on the completion of this project at www.TheGenealogist.co.uk
Family History Social has received news of a new online genealogy magazine now available in the UK. The magazine is 'Discover Your Ancestors', the quality genealogy publication previously only available in print as an annual magazine.
Now this valuable content can be enjoyed all year round by family historians.
'Discover Your Ancestors Periodical', online magazine now available
You can subscribe to the online magazine which will be monthly. It's well worth taking a look.
If you are interested in subscribing to 'Discover Your Ancestors Periodical', you will find details here
According to the Editor, Andrew Chapman, if you subscribe today you will also receive, for free, access to more than half a billion index records, the complete Titanic Passenger lists and a PDF copy of The History of Signboards. This is a fascinating account during times of limited education when signs were used instead of wording for identification. This book explores the meaning of these signs.
Each month new free data sets will be made available to subscribers of Discover Your Ancestors Periodical to help move your research on at pace.
The new monthly online magazine represents great value for money at just £1 a month for over 20 beautifully designed pages of high-quality research advice, social history, places in focus, book reviews and much more.
Browsing on You Tube this week, I notice S&N Genealogy Supplies have been active promoting their new Springback binders. Having purchased a couple the other week, I can testify how good they are but do take a look for yourself. The link is here with a full demonstration on how to use the binders.
This forthcoming Saturday (4th May 2013), sees Gloucestershire Family History Society holding their Fair and Open Day. It's at Gloucester Rugby Club, Kingsholm Stadium, Kingsholm Road Gloucester GL1 3AX. Entrance is free and car parking is free. There's a selection of speakers including Dr Nick Barratt and Martin Davies from Gloucester Rugby Heritage and a number of exhibitors including the SoG Census Detectives, Hidden Heritage and S&N Genealogy . There's more details here. It should be an event well worth attending. Are you going?
Gloucester Family History Society Fair and Open Day
The fire over the weekend on the roof of the National Library of Wales seems to have unfortunately damaged some of the new collections housed there. The fire broke out on the roof and the water used to put out the flames unfortunately soaked through and damaged some of the valuable collections stored there.
The library has millions of books plus manuscripts, archives, maps, pictures, photographs, films and music.
Some of the damaged items have been taken to Oxford by a team of salvage experts to hopefully restore. There's more at the BBC website.
Latest news from The National Archives is on the 30th April they will switch off their old catalogue, and 'Discovery' will become the only way to search TNA collections.
The Catalogue was a groundbreaking tool when first launched over a decade ago. However, the TNA reached the point where it was no longer practical or cost-effective to maintain or update it, and started work three years ago on building a new catalogue: Discovery.
Both catalogues were kept operational to allow users to get to grips with the new version. However, TNA has now said due to budget cuts it can no longer maintain two systems so the old catalogue is to be switched off on the 30th April and Discovery will be the only way to search the vast collections. There's more information here.
Which system do you prefer? A number of family historians have not been that impressed with the new Discovery catalogue system and preferred the old one!
