Anglo-Celtic Connections

Everyone has a different RootsTech experience. Online, in each of the 63 time slots on the three main days, there was a choice of 208 sessions to attend (or not to attend). Believe it or not, that’s 3.67 × 10³⁸ possible conference experiences.

Here are the sessions I attended:
– FamilySearch Global Tech Forum 2026, with Robby Parker, Ian James and
Michelle Barber
-Finding and Accessing French Archives Online, by Sean Daly
– What’s New at Ancestry®, by Crista Cowan
– Delving Deeper into your family history: What’s new at Findmypast? by Jen Baldwin
– Genealogy, Upgraded: AI and Smart Tools on MyHeritage, by Daniel Horowitz
– FamilySearch Full-Text Search – Your Golden Path to Ancestral Discovery, by David Ouimette
– AI & Family History: Foundations & First Steps: Mastering AI Basics for Genealogy, by Steve Little
– Victorians to Elizabethans: British research in the twentieth century, by
Janet Few
– The Future of AI in Genealogy, with Dave Vance, David Ouimette, Diana Elder, Mark Thompson, Steve Little.

There wasn’t a dud presentation among them.  New to me were Sean Daly, helpful for me in following a newly found French event, and David Ouimette with a plethora of Full-Text Search mini-case studies.

Ancestry and MyHeritage went heavy on AI.  Findmypast, while far from ignoring it, gave greater attention to new resources, especially newspapers.

In the past month, FamilySearch has significantly expanded its Full-Text searchable archives with a focus on three major regions. The records span centuries (from the 1500s to 2026).

• United States: This is the most dominant country in the list, with massive updates to state-specific records (New York, Oklahoma, New Jersey, and Michigan) and national collections. The largest single addition is the Military Service collection with over 31 million records, followed by New York Legal records (27 million).

• Cuba: There were numerous small but localized updates focusing on specific provinces like Havana, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, and Holguín. These records are largely religious (church records), employment-based, and vital records (marriages and deaths).

• Mexico: Substantial updates were made to records in Michoacan, Guanajuato, and Chihuahua. The Michoacan Marriages collection is particularly notable with over 1.1 million records added.

• British Colonial America: A niche addition of New Jersey property records from the mid-1700s.

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

Swedish BMDs
MyHeritage now has more than 33 million fully indexed records from the Lutheran Church books, complete with original images.

Search Sweden Births, 1850–1920
Search Sweden Marriages, 1850–1945
Search Sweden Deaths, 1850–1945

A Family History Of…
A new podcast from Findmypast has genealogist and research specialist Jen Baldwin is joined by guests to unravel remarkable family tales uncovered in the archives. Available on YouTube and elsewhere. The initial episode features celebrity guest historian Lucy Worsley recounting her ancestor’s experience in the Great War and during the Birmingham Blitz.

England & Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1384-1858
Ancestry has updated this collection to 1,012,964 records

The Anxiety of the Archive: The Heavy Burden of Digital Hoarding

YouTube: 20 Micro Habits Proven By Science to Change Your Life

 

In an excellent RootsTech presentation, FamilySearch Full-Text Search – Your Golden Path to Ancestral Discovery, David Ouimette mentioned that FamilySearch is prioritizing processing new records over those previously indexed manually.

He illustrated many cases in which witnesses and other terms, rather than the primary person in the record, were useful in surfacing relevant records through Full Text Search.  As shown in the table, the ratio of full-text search records to the total number of records (birthplace) indicates that UK records are being given lower priority. 

	Full Text (M)	Records (M)	Ratio
UK	22	454	0.048
Mexico	30	172	0.175
US	871	1,163	0.748
Canada	76	58	1.310

The ratio for Canada is likely deceptive owing to the large number of immigrants.

This week’s FMP additions offer a unique look at professional women in the interwar period and specialized religious records, alongside a diverse expansion of the newspaper archive.

Britain, Directory of Women Teachers, 1927

This collection offers a chance to bridge the genealogical gap between the 1921 Census and the 1939 Register with 13,484 new records.

Transcripts and images may reveal qualifications, specific subjects taught (e.g., Classics, Mathematics), previous experience, memberships, and both home and institutional addresses.

It emphasizes secondary schools, training colleges, and higher education, and includes other educational roles (inspectors, lecturers, administrators) as well as teachers. It does not include the more than 120,000 elementary school teachers.

London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, 1885–1889

Published in partnership with University College London, this niche collection has just 497 records. documents the activities of a society founded in 1809 to encourage Jewish conversion. It includes baptismal records and “declaration records” regarding school enrollment and child vaccinations.

It often lists the child’s birth and baptism dates, parents’ names, father’s occupation, and residence. Many records center around “Palestine Place” in Bethnal Green.

Newspapers

The BNA collection, available through FMP, has expanded with 198,162 new pages, three new titles and significant updates to regional and trade publications.

New Titles:

• Mining Journal: 48,202 pages (1857–1894). An essential resource for researching in the coal or metal mining industries.

• The Star: 34,842 pages (1893–1918).

• Antigua Times: 1,134 pages (1863–1876). A rare 19th-century Caribbean resource.

Notable Updates:

• Wexford Independent: 9,030 pages (1875–1906).

• Pawnbrokers’ Gazette: 11,240 pages (1839–1913).

• Jersey Times and British Press: 10,562 pages (1870–1910).

• Allen’s Indian Mail: 7,428 pages (1848–1886).

• Grantham Journal: 12,410 pages (1972–1988).

In US practice, the Genealogical Proof Standard replaced the older “Preponderance of Evidence” rule in the late 20th century to distance genealogy from a purely legal definition. However, the GPS is essentially “Preponderance of Evidence” in a more expensive suit. While the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) emphasizes that a “preponderance” (simply being 51% sure) is insufficient for formal proof, the GPS still relies on the researcher’s subjective assessment of “the weight of the evidence.” When you “resolve a conflict” between a death certificate and a family Bible, you are inherently deciding which piece of evidence is more reliable.

The GPS fails to escape the shadow of “preponderance” because “proof” in genealogy is never absolute; just a qualitative statement of probability based on a “reasonably exhaustive search.” By requiring a written conclusion that explains away contradictions, the GPS forces a researcher to build a narrative where one set of facts “outweighs” another. However, by claiming to be more rigorous than a “preponderance,” the GPS creates a false sense of security. If you follow the five steps, you have met the standard. What that means in reality is you have simply reached the most persuasive argument allowed by the surviving (and sometimes biased) documentation.

A better approach would be to require, and state in your conclusion, a quantitative probability estimate. I wrote about this approach, with a case study, a decade ago in the Spring 2016 issue of BIFHSGO’s Anglo-Celtic Roots in  Confidence and the Genealogical Proof Standard. 

Finding out what’s new and planned in tech at FamilySearch is a highlight of RootsTech. Here is an AI summary of comments posted by FamilySearch staff and attendees during the session, which should be available for replay.

– FamilySearch’s strategic shift — FamilySearch appears to be moving toward becoming an index/bridge to other online content rather than directly hosting data itself.
– Agentic AI integration — FamilySearch is incorporating agentic AI, meaning AI tools assigned to specific, designated tasks rather than generic question-answering.
– Full-text search — Full-text search is a popular new feature, with a “Simple Search” tool available in FamilySearch Labs for testing it.
– Guided merge limitations — The guided merge feature has a drawback: unlike the older merge process, you cannot remove parental links within it.
– Get Involved program — FamilySearch actively encourages volunteer participation via familysearch.org/getinvolved, which feeds into indexing and other contributions.
– FamilySearch Labs — Labs (familysearch.org/labs/) serves as a testing ground for new features before wider rollout.
– Records depth matters to users — Users expressed a desire for more localized, county-level catalogue browsing and specific state records (e.g., Wisconsin), reflecting demand for granular coverage.
– Diverse research breakthroughs — The full-text capability is enabling discoveries previously hard to find, such as post-slavery land purchase records.
– Tree import question — A user raised the practical question of importing a tree from Ancestry.com to FamilySearch, suggesting interoperability between platforms is a common user need.

I’ll say it again, Legacy Family Tree Webinars is the best deal in genealogy. Well, I’ll qualify that, the best deal in commercial genealogy, not counting non-commercial FamilySearch.

Get the same 50% discount as attendees at RootsTech. The offer is valid through Saturday, 7 March at 11:59pm for new memberships only. New membership means anyone without a currently active membership.

Subscribeto the discount offer here.

Ancestry’s recently updated database, UK, Wartime Records and Material, 1914-1918, 1939-1945, sourced from the Imperial War Museums (IWM), is primarily composed of 30,182 photographs, but also includes illustrations, letters, newspapers, leaflets, and posters.

The search interface allows for specific filtering by military year, catalogue number, and description. Some of the images include names in their original descriptions, so a keyword search should find them. Otherwise, the collection provides visual context for uniforms, equipment, and daily life in various theatres of war.

Search fields available are: military year (Range), keyword (e.g., “pilot” or specific unit names), description, catalogue number.

The browse feature is helpful for finding representative imagery of specific battles, home front activities, or military roles.

Researchers with Quebec interests need no introduction to the Drouin Collection or the Notarial Records, which were updated on Ancestry on 4 March.

Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968, with 41,012,598 records.
Quebec, Canada, Notarial Records, 1637-1935, with 16,529,462 records

With 6,852,775 records, this collection is a vital resource for tracking West Midlands  ancestors between decennial census counts.

The collection has two primary types of documents:
Poll Books (1676–1870): Early records of how individuals voted (before the secret ballot).
Electoral Registers (1832–1954): Annual lists of those eligible to vote.

Information typically includes: name, street address, city, ward, and parish of residence

These records are sourced from the Shropshire Archives in Shrewsbury.