Author: John Reid

This week, FMP’s burial and baptism collections receive a boost with over 250,000 new records, plus more than 200,000 fresh newspaper pages.

Nottinghamshire Monumental Inscriptions
Years covered: 1317–2022
Records added: 151,459

The content depends on the inscription. A few also have images of the monument. About half are from Nottingham.  From the work of the Nottinghamshire Family History Society.

Middlesex Baptisms, Harleian Society
Years covered: 1539–1837
Records added: 101,348

The total for all Middlesex Baptisms is now 656,651 records. About the Harleian Society.

Newspapers
FMP gets its newspapers from the sister site, the British Newspaper Archive. This week’s additions include four new titles. The earliest starts in 1826; most recent is 2004..

To keep the blog active while family history news mostly takes a break, enjoy Yuletide R&R posts . Expect humourous and seasonal items, including classic favourites from previous years.

For blog visitors, I’ve arranged a 30-day free trial to TheGenealogist. In addition to the resources you’d expect, it has unique resources, such as the Lloyd George Domesday Survey, that you won’t find on more high-profile sites.  It also provides enhanced capabilities. I recently used their occupation indexing on a census to better understand the community where an ancestral family lived. Why not give it a free trial?

TheGenealogist has just released 100,000 new  early marriage entries from seven counties and national ecclesiastical sources. For the 16th to 19th centuries, the update helps researchers trace couples and family connections in periods and places where parish registers can be incomplete, damaged, or missing.

Newly released record sets include:
● London & National – Marriage Licences at the Faculty Office (1543–1869)
● Durham Marriage Bonds (1664–1674)
● Lancaster Marriage Bonds (1734–1738)
● Leicestershire Marriage Licences (1570–1729)
● Somerset – Bishops of Bath and Wells Marriage Allegation Bonds (1670-1755)
● Surrey Marriage Licences (1673–1770)
● Sussex Marriage Licences, Deaneries of Chichester, Pagham and Terring (1582–1730)

A reminder for those with a Legacy Family Tree Webinars subscription of the end-of-year webinar, The Best Uses of AI for Genealogists, by Steve Little and Mark Thompson.  It’s on Friday at 2 pm ET.

Here are two items AI enthusiasts may also want to review.

The first, the video of the NGS event “Navigating the AI Frontier”, now freely available on the NGS YouTube page.

Also, the latest episode of the Family History AI Show.  Episode 39 examines fourteen key trends shaping the future of family history AI. Toward the end, they address AI Licensing Deals and How They Change Internet Access Patterns.

That set me wondering: will that extend to AI companies funding the digitization of the 95% of material in archives that isn’t digitized? When will robotics reach the stage of safely retrieving hard-copy materials, some of them fragile, digitizing them, and having AI evaluate them against criteria to ensure privacy embargoes are respected?

Here, unedited,  is Gemini’s response to my query.

The shift toward AI licensing deals is creating a “data rush” that is fundamentally changing how archives are viewed. Where physical records were once seen as a liability or a storage cost, they are now being revalued as high-quality, “clean” training sets for Large Language Models (LLMs).

Will AI Companies Fund Massive Digitization?

The short answer is yes, but selectively. While 95% of archival material remains undigitized, AI companies are primarily interested in “high-signal” data—records that are dense with human knowledge, historical context, or unique languages.

• Targeted Partnerships: We are already seeing “Generative AI Innovation Funds” (like AWS’s $1 million grant to digitize the Jane Goodall Institute’s archives) where tech giants foot the bill to turn handwritten notes and analog media into AI-ready data.¹

• The “Clean Data” Premium: As the internet becomes saturated with AI-generated content, “pristine” historical records (government records, census data, and old newspapers) become more valuable. Licensing deals, such as those being tracked by Ithaka S+R, suggest that archives can use these funds to cover the high costs of digitization.

• The 95% Challenge: The hurdle remains the sheer volume. Tech companies will likely fund collections with the broadest utility first (e.g., national archives or major genealogical databases) before moving into niche local histories.

The Rise of Archival Robotics

The technology to safely handle “cold” hardcopy is advancing through a combination of industrial automation and specialized suction-based systems.

AI Evaluation of Privacy Embargoes

Automated privacy adherence is arguably the most advanced part of the pipeline. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is already piloting AI systems to handle this specific bottleneck.

1. PII Detection and Redaction

AI models are now used to scan digitized text for Personally Identifiable Information (PII). Instead of a human reading every line, the AI flags names, addresses, and social security numbers, applying redactions automatically based on the age of the record (e.g., the “72-year rule” in the US).

2. Declassification and Embargo Logic

AI is being trained on “declassification guides”—complex sets of rules that determine if a document is still sensitive. This allows archives to move beyond “blanket” embargoes (where everything is hidden for 70 years) to a more surgical approach where safe parts of a collection can be released sooner.

3. Ethical AI Governance

A major trend in late 2025 is the “Human in the Loop” (HITL) model. AI performs the first 99% of the heavy lifting—transcription, entity extraction, and privacy flagging—while professional archivists act as “quality controllers” for the 1% of ambiguous cases.

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Ancestry’s just updated collection, Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1943
Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1826-1943 to 10,746,358 records. The Archives of Ontario (AO) has a continuing agreement with  Ancestry to make these records available online,

AO holds the original registration books of Ontario marriages until 1944. What about the 1944 records? It does take Ancestry a while to catch up.

If you search the Ancestry collection for 1944, it returns 10 entries, all of which transcriptions show a 1944 marriage. Examine the image, and you find discrepancies in the date. Most often, the year date of the Receiver General’s “Received” stamp predates the marriage. A Foster-Ridell marriage on 23 May 1944 is date-stamped 28 May 1942.  Did the last digit of the year on the stamp slip? It could easily happen. Then the document gets filed in the Receiver General’s office according to the date stamp, but Ancestry reads the real marriage date.

In case you’re wondering, one 1945 marriage, on 28 June, is date-stamped 2 July 1940. For a couple of other marriages that were erroneously indexed, corrections have already been noted in the Ancestry results.

Finally, Ancestry has “A full list of sources” as follows, but none for a gap between 1928 and 1933, nor for post-1939.

Ontario, Canada. Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1928. MS932, Reels 1-833, 850-880. Archives of Ontario, Toronto.
Ontario, Canada. Marriage License Books, 1907-1910. MS945, Reels 1-12. Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario.
Ontario, Canada. Delayed Registrations of Marriages, 1892-1919. MS948, Reels 1-5. Archives of Ontario, Toronto.
Ontario, Canada. County Marriage Registers, 1858-June 1869. FHL microfilm 1030055-1030068. Family History Library. Salt Lake City, Utah (Archives of Ontario, MS 248, reels 5-18).
Ontario, Canada. District Marriage Registers, 1801-1858. MS 248, Reels 1-4. Archives of Ontario, Toronto.
Ontario, Canada. Roman Catholic Marriage Registers, 1828-1870. MS 248, Reels 20-23. Archives of Ontario, Toronto.
Ontario, Canada. Ontario Marriages, 1933-1939. Textual Records. RG 80-05-0. Archives of Ontario, Toronto, Ontario.

What’s new?
Hampshire and Isle of Wight, England, Cemetery Registers, 1840-1923 includes 48,455 transcription and image records

Bournemouth East Cemetery  (1898-1916)
Carisbrooke Cemetery (IOW) (1858-1864)
Knowle Hospital Cemetery (1877-1954)
Newport Cemetery (IOW) (1858-1923)
Odiham Cemetery (1860-1958)
Ringwood Cemetery (1864-1869)
Ryde Cemetery (IOW) (1863-1874)
Ventnor Cemetery (IOW) (1870-1873)
West Hill Cemetery, Winchester (1840-1918)

What’s Updated?
Hampshire, England, Wills and Probates, 1398-1858, with 95,240 index entries and images of the original. The handwritten wills are not transcribed, which can be done, albeit imperfectly, by better AI services such as Gemini.

What’s new? Here is the rundown of Pen & Sword’s 2025 publications, including new releases and updated editions for family historians. If you’d like to know more, check out the listing at https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Family-History/c/58/order/release_date/desc

Regional Research Guides

• Tracing Your Welsh Ancestors by Beryl Evans
  Release: 11th December 2025
  Price: £13.59 (Save 20%)
  Focus: Navigating Welsh language, patronymics, and local archives.

  Tracing your Surrey Ancestors by Sarah Pettyfer
  Release: 14th July 2025
  Price: £12.79 (Save 20%)
  Focus: Archival resources for Surrey families.

• Tracing your Staffordshire Ancestors by Chloe O’Shea
  Release: 16th May 2025
  Price: £15.99
  Focus: Researching the Potteries, Black Country, and surrounding areas.

• Researching Ancestral Crisis in Ireland by Chris Paton
  Release: 28th March 2025
  Price: £15.99
  Focus: Tracing ancestors during famines and historical unrest.

  Methodology & Records

• DNA: A Guide for Family Historians by Graham S Holton
  Release: 6th November 2025
  Price: £13.59 (Save 20%)
  Focus: Understanding DNA testing and results for genealogy.

• Tracing Your Ancestors’ Parish Records by Stuart A. Raymond
  Release: 10th October 2025
  Price: £16.99
  Focus: Updated guide to baptisms, marriages, and burials.

• Using Gravestones to Trace Your Ancestors by Amanda Leedham
  Release: 28th March 2025
  Price: £14.99
  Focus: Interpreting inscriptions, symbols, and burial locations.

• Tracing your Ancestors using the UK Historical Timeline by Neil Bertram & Angela Smith
  Release: 2nd April 2025
  Price: £12.99
  Focus: Contextualizing family history within major UK events.

Specialist History

• Tracing Your Secret Service Ancestors by Phil Tomaselli
  Release: 9th September 2025
  Price: £14.99
  Focus: Locating intelligence and secret service records.

• The Children of Charles the Second (Fonthill Imprint)
  Release: 30th April 2025
  Price: £22.00 (Hardback)
  Focus: A history of the monarch’s fourteen illegitimate children.

Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—please check the links to avoid disappointment. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/

What does it take to hook the reader of a family history article? Is it the opening line, the opening paragraph, or the first page? What can we learn from others’ successes? 

Below are the opening paragraphs from the first-prize-winners in the last three BIFHSGO quinquennial writing competitions.

Who was Annabella Chatterton? by Carol Annett
“Who’s in these photos?” This question can uncover surprising stories about
ancestors if you ask the right person. That’s what happened when I posed
the question to my mother-in-law, Velma Annett, who preferred to be called
Vel. At least once a week, she would telephone my husband, Richard. If I
answered, Vel chatted with me briefly before asking, “Is he there?” which
was my cue to pass the phone to him.

The Travels and Trials of Adam Logan, Dairyman by Claire Callender
By the time she married in 1930 at the age of 24, my granny, Anna Logan, had lived in more than 24 places. Not neighbouring places in the same parish, or different streets in the same town, but places all over Britain from Caithness in the very north of Scotland to Essex in southeast England.

Adventures of a Library, by Adrienne Stevenson
How many of us can relate to our ancestors? Many of our values and desires differ from theirs—our world has changed greatly since their time. So, when something from the past strikes a chord, it’s worth pursuing. A common love of books led me to investigate the story of the celebrated library of Robert Addison, missionary to the Mohawks and minister at Niagara (now Niagara on-the-Lake) from 1792 to 1829 and my great-great-great-greatgrandfather. When I first studied the subject, in the late 1980s, hearings challenging the rightful ownership of these books went as far as the Supreme Court of Ontario, but the debate was far from resolved. Now that it has been settled,
the whole story can be told.

Based on those, ChatGPT produced the following.

Three Hints for Opening Paragraphs in Family History Writing

1. Start with a hook that invites curiosity — a question, contrast, or striking fact.

Each article opens with something that immediately makes the reader lean in:

• “Who’s in these photos?” — a simple question that signals a mystery.

• “By the time she married… she had lived in more than 24 places.” — a surprising statistic.

• “How many of us can relate to our ancestors?” — a reflective question about a universal experience.

Hint:
Use an intriguing question, unexpected number, contradiction, or vivid statement to make the reader want to know more about the ancestor.

2. Connect the ancestor’s story to the present through a personal gateway.

Award-winning articles don’t start with names and dates — they begin with you, the researcher, and how you encountered the story:

• A phone call from a mother-in-law.

• A granny’s unusual life pattern.

• A shared love of books that bridges generations.

Hint:
Ground the story in a moment from your own research or family experience. This creates emotional entry points and shows why this ancestor matters today.

3. Establish the stakes or scope early — hint at the journey ahead.

Each opening paragraph telegraphs what kind of story is coming:

• A mystery behind unidentified photos.

• A life lived across an entire country.

• A library contested up to the Supreme Court.

Hint:
Signal the scale, tension, or theme early on — migration, hardship, mystery, conflict, accomplishment — so the reader knows this is more than a list of facts; it’s a narrative with a trajectory.

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

An Irish town digs into its dark past at a former home for mothers and babies
A  Globe and Mail deep dive on the legacy of the St. Mary’s Mother and Baby Home, Tuam, Ireland, “run by the Catholic Church from the 1920s to 1990s, when Ireland was desperate to differentiate itself from its Protestant English colonizers.”

Grenville County Ontario Digital Newspaper Archive
35,000 scanned and OCR’d pages of newspapers, dating 1889 to 1965, from the Prescott area are now online, courtesy of a Grenville County Historical Society initiative. There are search and advanced search capabilities. Results are shown alongside a section of the original paper. Click through to see the full page with the search term highlighted. Achieved with the cooperation of OurDigitalWorld and a grant of $48,933 from Library and Archives Canada’s Documentary Heritage Communities Program. Well done.

Ireland Census 1926 digitisation project
How’s progress toward the release of the Irish Free State Census on 18 April 2026?

The Latest Bytown Pamphlet
#129 in the Historical Society of Ottawa pamphlet series explores challenges women have faced and the remarkable progress they have achieved over the past few decades. It’s based on the winning essay submitted by Amilia Matheson for the Society’s 2024 Colonel By Award in History.

Directory of Graveyards in the Dublin Area, and more
John Grenham has slowed posting on his Irish Roots blog, so I don’t scan it often. Fortunately, Gail Dever does and included his latest post in This week’s crème de la crème on her Genealogy à la carte blog. Explore — Gail and John both include more.

Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Teresa, and Unknown.

New this week:

London Metropolitan Police Leavers
Years covered: 1889-1947
Records added: 55,122

These records, which are transcripts sourced from TNA, show my relative Edwin Digby joined the force on 17 January 1881, and left on 5 March 1906 when his last posting was with T Division as a Sub Divisional Inspector.

London Metropolitan Police Attestation

Years covered: 1829-1972
Records added: 20,657

Some of the same data as above, note the earlier start year.

London Metropolitan Police Certificate of Service

Years covered: 1889-1909
Records added: 1,154

Edwin Digby is missing from this transcript database. The facts are duplicates of those in the two previous databases.

Merchant Seamen’s Campaign Medal Records

Years covered: 1939-1945
Records added: 107,387

The transcript information included in this substantial update is: First name, Last name, Date and year of birth, Event year, Discharge number, and Honours, as well as the TNA Archive Reference.

Newspapers
This week the Athlone Times (1889-1902), Gwalia (1881 – 1898), Transport Worker (1911- 1912) and Walton Gazette and Harwich and Dovercourt Advertiser (1881 – 1899)  have joined the newspaper archive. There are other updates, including the Ulster Gazette (1844, 1850-1871, 1875-1896, 1908-1909).