The FreeBMD Database was updated on Wednesday, 23 July 2025, to contain 293,630,377 unique records, up from 293,415,571 at the previous update.
Years with additions of more than 10,000 index entries are 1993-1996 for births, 1994-1996 for marriages, and 1995-1996 for deaths.

FreeBMD estimates, based on GRO figures, that the collection is reasonably complete to 1993, except for a gap in 1991 for deaths.

With this addition, there are now 718,563 records in the Aberdeenshire, Scotland, School Admission Registers, 1852-1928 in a collection sourced from the Aberdeenshire and Aberdeen City Archives

Registers, from more than 200 schools, may include: Name, Gender, Birth date and place, Admission date, Discharge date, Parents’ names, Mother’s maiden name, Residence place, and Year. Many of the transcriptions have linked register images.

Mark Thompson and Steve Little are back on track with their third episode this month. I’m only about halfway through listening and fascinated by their news on transcription.

The topics are: AI-Based Transcriptions Transform Genealogy, FamilySearch Interview with David Ouimette, Grok 4’s Anticipated Release, Apple Changes Its AI Strategy.

Find the episode here.

Since Tuesday, attempts to access the LAC website at https://library-archives.canada.ca/index.htm have been met with the message, “We are currently experiencing technical difficulties with our website.” This is the second time this year that I’m aware of a prolonged outage.

They don’t mention that underneath, the banner, ENGLISH, takes you to https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives.html, which may provide some of the functionality you need.

These days, websites are increasingly vulnerable. With the LAC website receiving roughly four million visits per year, or 10,950 per day, it’s unfortunate the outage message could not be more helpful.

Pen & Sword continues to expand their well-known and long-running British Tracing Your Ancestors series. Two new books published in the past three months are noteworthy if your family story touches on Surrey or Staffordshire

Tracing Your Surrey Ancestors
By Sarah Pettyfer
Published: 14 July 2025
Paperback, 184 pages, 30 mono illustrations
ISBN: 9781036110109 | £12.79 (was £15.99)

The county is of particular interest, as many communities once in Surrey, including Lambeth, Southwark, and Wandsworth, are now part of Greater London. This can trip up even experienced genealogists.
Author Sarah Pettyfer recently gave a Legacy Family Tree Webinars presentation on Surrey. It was pretty detailed. If you subscribe, be sure to check out the webinar and syllabus first.

Tracing Your Staffordshire Ancestors
By Chloe O’Shea
Published: 16 May 2025
Paperback, 216 pages, 40 mono illustrations
ISBN: 9781036108786 | £15.99 (eBook £9.99)

Chloe O’Shea’s new title, like most in the series, covers familiar parish and census records, as well as often-overlooked sources, such as manorial court rolls and tithe apportionments. It goes deeper, offering insight into special sources (such as pottery industry records) and integrating DNA and social media.

Looking ahead, a revised edition of Tracing Your Ancestors from 1066 to 1837 by Jonathan Oates, and a new book, A History of Adoption in England and Wales by Gill Rossini, are scheduled for release by Pen and Sword later this year.

Ancestry’s compilations of obituaries published in newspapers, collected from various online sources, have been updated as of 21 July 2025.

Ancestry has been compiling the Canadian, UK, and Ireland collections for nearly 20 years. The contents of the Canadian collection are primarily from the 21st century, with additions for the most recent years, making it a valuable resource for one-name studies.
Also updated is the U.S., Cemetery and Funeral Home Collection, 1847-Current, with 143,602,708 records.

Today, 21 July, is climatologically the hottest day in Ottawa, according to records from the Central Experimental Farm.
It’s midway between 16 and 27 July, which all have an average daily maximum of 26.7 °C. It’s also the day with the warmest daily minimum temperature of 15.7°C.

Here’s an analysis of the recently updated historical Canadian newspapers digitized at Newspapers.com.

British Columbia dominates with over 60 publications, mostly recent issues of many small-town or regional titles (e.g., Arrow Lakes News, Sooke News Mirror, Cowichan Valley Citizen).
Ontario has eight updates, including The Toronto Star and The Globe and Mail.
Alberta: the 14 updates of recent issues are a mix of rural (e.g., Sylvan Lake News, Castor Advance) and urban (Calgary Herald and Edmonton Journal.)
Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and the Atlantic provinces: Less comprehensive, while including key publications like The Gazette (Montreal) and Telegraph-Journal (Saint John).
Yukon has one entry (Yukon News).

Here’s the full list

At 11 am, the Parliament Hill webcam shows a mix of sun and cloud, and the weather radar indicates the rain having moved well off to the east, with nothing approaching from the west.

The sun is expected to start to break through around noon. I’ll be checking the weather radar at 11 am and will be at the cafe, all being well, at noon.