Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Social networking features added to Familyrelatives.com

The team behind Familyrelatives.com have added a bundle of new innovations to the site, with the aim of encouraging family historians to work together. These “social networking” features help users to communicate with other researchers to share findings, ask for assistance or discuss particular records.

They’re all available free of charge, whether you’re a subscriber to the site or not. “It has always been our aim to provide free features and content alongside the subscription” said spokesman Robert Woods. “For the very first time you can leave your mark on history and leave comments on official records for instance where they lived, their occupation, when and where they married, did they move and what were they like – this really begins to build a picture of the individuals you are researching for everyone to share”.

Anyone who visits http://www.familyrelatives.com/ can now choose to create a profile. As well as basic data like your name and age, this lets you specify detailed information including your areas of interest and whether you’re willing to do research or perform lookups for others - ideal if the records you need to research are far from home. If you choose to make your profile public, fellow researchers can read this information, and search for people researching similar areas, and then send you messages through the site.

Familyrelatives’ developers have also added the ability to attach comments to individual records, which other users can then read. This means that if you find a birth record, for example, that relates to your great-grandfather, you can note this fact. If someone is researching the same person, they’ll see your note, and they can choose to get in touch with you. The plan is that it could lead to people finding relatives they never knew they had.

Familyrelatives.com adds 200 million USA records

To tie in with the new features, Familyrelatives.com has added over 200 million US records to its site. These collections, which are available for free, include birth, marriage, death and divorce records covering some of the largest states in the USA and Irish immigration records. Alongside these are the Social Security Death Indexes, World War II enlistment and POW records and military records for the Korean War – see http://www.familyrelatives.com/ for more information.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Familyrelatives.com

Welcome to the Familyrelatives.com blog

Earlier this year we decided to make a number of changes to the website, we re-designed the site essentially as a result of our members views.

We wanted to make the site more intuitive with faster searching capabilities and easier to use. The datasets each have their own search screens which avoids the confusion of de-selecting multiple fields and searching. We changed our name from Familyrelatives.org to Familyrelatives.com, introduced a subscription service and simplified the cost of units.


Familyrelatives.com unveils re-designed website

Familyrelatives.com has made extensive changes to its website. The new look website was unveiled at the Who do you think you are? Show in London.

The first change to occur to the site has been a name change, the Familyrelatives website has changed its designation from .ORG to .COM and in future will be known as Familyrelatives.com.

The re-design has enabled us to make several improvements in response to member’s requests. The new website is easier and faster to use and more user friendly.

Introduction of a subscription service

In addition to the existing pay-per-view units a new subscription service has been introduced providing complete access to the site for 12 months.

The subscription has several benefits over the pay-per-view units allowing members to use the site and research at their convenience without the time constraints or having to purchase units on a regular basis. The subscription provides good value for money when searching both common and unusual surnames.

New databases now available online

Familyrelatives.com adds the 2005 General Register Office (GRO) Indexes for Births, Marriages and Deaths for England and Wales to the existing GRO database. These records are complete from 1837 to 2005.

Parish Records – over 1500 Parish records for England and Wales have been added to the new website and includes records from 26 counties, records date back to 1538. This is an ongoing project and records are added on a regular basis.

The National Roll of the Great War 1914 – 1918 now online

The National Roll of the Great War is a unique series of 14 volumes containing 110,000 names and records of British Forces who served during the Great War. The volumes were published by the National Publishing Company and are extremely rare. Each regional volume contains a biography of men and women who largely survived the Great War.

The volumes are a valuable resource in discovering individuals who served in the First World War and help to give a sense of who each individual was and their active service. The entries provide a brief description of service, rank, regiment, dates, demobilisation and address.

A typical entry in the Manchester Roll is shown below:

LEE W. S. Corporal (Signaller). R. E.

He volunteered in September 1914, and in the following March was sent to Egypt, where he took part in the fighting on the Suez Canal. Later he took part in the Landing at Gallipoli, the three Battles of Krithia and other engagements until invalided home suffering from dysentery. On his recovery he was transferred to Mesopotamia and during his service in this seat of war, was in engagements at Amara and the capture of Baghdad. He was demobilised in August 1919, and holds the 1914-1915 Star and the General Service and Victory Medals.

6, Nancy Street, Chester Road Manchester Z10669

Volume 11 Manchester

These records are unique and can be searched by name, rank or regiment.

Searching on a Second Forename is now available
We have now introduced a new facility to search on second forenames. Familyrelatives.com is one of the few websites that allows you to search with accuracy and confidence without the need to browse 40 quarters or more every 10 years and perhaps miss that vital name.
Familyrelatives.com is the only website to allow you to search over 75 years by Forename 2nd Forename, surname, mother’s maiden name, spouse’s name, age at death, district and much, much more.

The new website is more intuitive, easier to use, faster and importantly for all very reliable. Over the next few months we intend to make the site even more interactive and add a large amount of data.


More information may be found at
http://www.familyrelatives.com


About Familyrelatives.com

Familyrelatives.com provides more than 400 million records online including official General Register Office (GRO) Indexes for Births, Marriages and Deaths for England and Wales, parish registers and military records. Records are either fully searchable or browseable for easier and cost effective searching.

Familyrelatives.com is the only website that provides the facility to search an incredible 75 years of fully transcribed records (that’s more than 160 million names) for Births, Marriages and Deaths.

Records available online as part of the Special Subscription price of £37.50 include 400 million records:
Births, Marriages, Death GRO Indexes 1837-2005
World War I records - Officers and Other Rank Army & Navy
World War II records - Officers and Other Ranks Army & Navy & Royal Air Force
Parish Records 1538-1837
The National Roll
Overseas records
Census Records* 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1891
*(Beta testing - See website for details)