ACC Omnibus Edition: 6 June 2010: Beyond Google, and more

In this issue:

Search Engines for Genealogy: Going Beyond Google
Most Popular Genealogy Software
1901 Irish Census Now Online
Yet More Chelsea Pensioners Records
Lancashire Businesses Online
Ancestry Adds Dunfermline Journal, 1851-1931
Re-activate ScotlandsPeople credits
Abbreviations Used in Canadian Military Service Files

Search Engines for Genealogy: Going Beyond Google
A useful article from the new My Heritage blog covers search engines Wolfram Alpha, Blinkx, Boardreader, and Colleacta. They won't supplant Google, but do supplement it for some specialized searches.
http://blog.myheritage.com/2010/06/genealogy-search-engines-going-beyond-google/

Most Popular Genealogy Software
The Southern California Genealogical Society Jamboree gets underway on Friday and as a prelude the organizers collected a variety of information from registrants. Family Tree Maker remains the most popular genealogy software, mentioned by 21.5% of registrants responding. Next amongst the stand-alone dedicated genealogy programs is Legacy Family Tree (10%) and RootsMagic (7.4%). However, Ancestry Online Family Trees, word processing and spreadsheet software were each mentioned more than Legacy. See the full result at:
http://genealogyjamboree.blogspot.com/2010/06/jamboree-factoid-software-programs-used.html


1901 Irish Census Now Online
Long awaited, the complete name indexed 1901 census of Ireland is now available at: www.census.nationalarchives.ie
According to www.rte.ie/news/2010/0602/1901census.html since the 1911 Census was put on the internet three years ago, just under seven million visits have been recorded to the website.

Yet More Chelsea Pensioners Records
Almost 100,000 new Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records, for 1855-1872, are added to findmypast.co.uk. You can now search 96,434 records and 437,825 images for this period. This new batch of records brings the total amount of Chelsea Pensioners records and images on findmypast.co.uk to 506,870 records and 3,196,935 images.

Lancashire Businesses Online
The University of Manchester has placed the records of 3000 small businesses between 1760 and 1820 online- most relating to Manchester and Liverpool. You can search via name, business and document for your grocer or wheelwright ancestor and read documents related to them. www.northwestfamilybusiness.arts.manchester.ac.uk/Intro.aspx

Ancestry Adds Dunfermline Journal, 1851-1931
This is a page image database for the Dunfermline Journal, the main local newspaper of Dunfermline, Scotland, dating from 1851-1931. There is no full text search capability. The issues available are monthly from 1851 to 1862. 1863 to 1871 is missing, and the subsequent issues are weekly.

Re-activate ScotlandsPeople credits
ScotlandsPeople is offering all customers who have existing credits in their account the opportunity to re-activate and use the credits at no cost through the use of a voucher code. Use the free voucher code SCOTLANDSPEOPLE which will re-set the credit expiry to 90 days in their account. Customers may use this voucher any time until 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 17th June, 2010. The voucher may only be used once in each account. For information on how to use the voucher code go to www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/content/help/index.aspx?1359

Abbreviations Used in Canadian Military Service Files
Puzzled by a military abbreviation? If its in a Canadian Military Service file a new webpage developed by the Genealogy Services of Library and Archives Canada can likely help. See: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-909.011-e.html.