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Have you logged on to Ancestry.com today and done any record searching? Then you probably noticed that we made some changes overnight to the search results page. This is part of our continued effort to improve performance on the site and the load time required for key pages. This also allows us to work towards better scalability of results and visibility of key features. The new look for these pages uses more modern techniques for styling that require less things to be downloaded to your computer and should load the page faster. (More pages on the site will be using these techniques over the coming months.)

Here is a side by side comparison of the changes we made:

 

 

If you have specific feedback about the new design – what do you like, what don’t you like – please let us know by taking the survey available at the top of your search results page.

 

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AncestryDNA was honored as the winner of the Utah Innovation Awards under the consumer software and web services category. Eight other innovation winners were also recognized in various categories from biotechnology to mechanical systems manufacturing. Finalists in the consumer software and web services category include LumiBook by School Improvement Network and MyCurrent by Overstock – Olabs.

 

Why AncestryDNA?

What makes AncestryDNA so innovative is how it fuses DNA technology and family history in a way that’s never been done before. It works like this:

First, we look at over 700,000 genetic markers for each individual to create your unique personal genetic blend.

We analyze your DNA to find genetic signatures that connect you to the lands of your ancestors from hundreds, even thousands of years ago. The genetic signatures come from a set of well-established science as well as new DNA patterns that have been discovered by the AncestryDNA population geneticists.

Then, we compare your DNA to the over 120,000 other AncestryDNA customers to see who you might be related to. Here’s where things get even more interesting. When enough of your DNA matches someone else, that means you’re related. Systematically, your family tree is compared with your newfound relative’s family tree to surface shared ancestors, names and locations so you’ll not only know that you are related, but how you’re related.

All this innovative technology adds up to some pretty cool new ways to look back into your family’s story. And with more people taking the AncestryDNA test, new innovative features for discovering family history are made possible.

About the awards

The 11th annual Utah Innovation Awards program was presented by Stoel Rives LLP and the Utah Technology Council to recognize innovations and the Utah companies that created them.

A committee of approximately 60 professionals from private industry, government and higher education evaluated and voted on program finalists and winners. The more than 100 nominations were put through a rigorous evaluation process during which committee members evaluated each innovation against a wide range of criteria addressing elements such as novelty, market need, market disruption and potential/current economic impact.

 

Get an AncestryDNA test today for only $99.

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Just starting to build your family tree? Ready to take your research skills to the next level? Trying to break through some sticky brick walls? Then you won’t want to miss the

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2013 Southern California Genealogy Jamboree

Produced by the Southern California Genealogical Society

June 7-9, 2013

Los Angeles Marriott Burbank Airport, Burbank, California

Sponsored in part by Ancestry.com

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Take part in three days of family history classes, exhibitors, and other events designed to help you improve your family history skills.

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Conference Classes:

Register today to attend all three days of Jamboree, which include an array of nearly 100 classes to help every family historian – from those just beginning their search to those who’ve been working on genealogy for years.

Jamboree classes include the following taught by Ancestry.com experts:

• Getting the Most from Family Tree Maker
• Searching and Writing Your Family History as You Go on Ancestry.com
• Searching and Understanding California Content Collections on Ancestry.com
• Family Tree Maker for Mac

Learn more about all of the great Jamboree classes today.

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Exhibit Hall – Free all weekend!

Stop by the Ancestry.com booth to get hands-on answers to your Ancestry.com questions. Sit in on demonstrations covering Ancestry.com, AncestryDNA, Family Tree Maker and more.

The exhibit hall also features family history vendors from across the country. The exhibit hall is free and open to the public :

• Friday, June 7 – 12:00 pm to 6 pm
• Saturday, June 8 – 9 am to 6 pm
• Sunday, June 9 – 9 am to 3 pm

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Digitize Your Family Records

Ancestry.com is excited to provide registered Jamboree attendees the opportunity to have their family photos and documents scanned at the conference, for free, on our professional scanning equipment. It’s a unique opportunity to have your family history records digitized!

Will you be bringing items to scan? Please help us plan accordingly – let us know how much and you’ll be bringing (and what types of photos and documents) by clicking here.

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Register today to attend the

2013 Southern California Genealogy Jamboree.

We hope to see you in Southern California!

Pre-registration ends May 24, 2013. Walk-ins are welcome.

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Mother’s Day. It’s the perfect time to show the woman who made you who you are just how much you love her. And now, you can discover even more about who you are, who your mom is and about all the other moms in your family tree.

Did you know that AncestryDNA is our newest, most powerful DNA test that’s available to both men and women? So anyone can take the test. And it covers all lineages in the family tree going back for generations. Since you inherit half of your DNA from your mom, it covers her entire side of your family including your mother’s mom, her mom, your great-great aunt and even your great-grandma’s sister. You get the picture. Of course, the test covers her dad’s side of the family too, but this weekend, it’s all about Moms.

What you get when you take the AncestryDNA test

Your ethnicity going back 500-2,000 years. You’ll discover the ethnicities that make you who you are and explore them on an interactive map. These results include your mother’s side of the family.

Meet a 2nd cousin for the first time. You’ll receive a list of DNA matches—people who you are matched to that could be your 3rd, 4th or even 2nd cousin!

Break through brick walls. When you find a new relative (our AncestryDNA customers have found over 1 million already) it can plow through roadblocks in your family tree and help fill in those empty branches.

Continuous updates, included. Once you take the test, you’ll continually get updates and receive new matches. The discoveries don’t just happen the day you get your results. They’re ongoing.

 

Test Mom, too, and see how much more powerful your experience becomes

Find out just how much you’re really like your Mother. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of your ethnicity when you compare your results to your mom’s and hone in on the overlapping ethnicities. Since you don’t inherit exactly 50% of your mother’s ethnicity, you can see just how much of that fiery Irish free-spiritedness was passed down to you.

Expand on your mother’s side of the family tree. Compare your matches to your mom’s list and find the ones you share. Those new cousins are from your mother’s side of the family, now you have a focused place to research, so starting add them to your tree!

Go back even further with an older living ancestor. When your mom takes the DNA test, you can go back another generation and gather even more information about that side of the family. While you’re at it, why not test Grandma?

Easily view multiple results in your account. The AncestryDNA interface and easy-to-use site and tools allow you to manage and access more than one DNA test result in your profile to help power your search even more.

 

If you weren’t able to pull this off in time for Mother’s Day, why wait until next year? Sharing amazing discoveries like these with your mom really doesn’t require a special holiday. Take your mother on a journey you both won’t forget and try AncestryDNA for only $99. What better reason to order two? Order AncestryDNA now.

 

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• Next Tuesday, the Journey Through Hallowed
  Ground Partnership will hold a tree planting ceremony in Gettysburg, Pa., to kick
  off its Living
  Legacy program: a plan to plant or dedicate a tree for each of the 620,000 soldiers
  who died in the Civil War.

  Taking part will be 7th- and 8th-graders from Gettysburg and Hartford, Vt., who’ve
  been researching and writing about soldiers from their hometowns. Each group will
  plant a tree to honor one local soldier, and the soldiers’ stories will be available
  to smartphone users through QR codes on the trees. You
  can watch a video about the project here.

• The Federation of Genealogical Societies and the Preserve the Pensions project are
  holding a drawing
  for prizes, including a genealogy research road trip to either Salt Lake City
  (home to the Family
  History Library) or Fort Wayne, Ind. (home to the Genealogy
  Center).  All you have to do is enter your name. Drawings happen each day
  starting May 20; the research travel package will be given away May 24. Click
  here to learn more and enter.

• Ancestry.com has changed its search results page
  to highlight key features, load the page faster and require less “stuff” to be downloaded
  to your computer. The new design lets you filter categories with one click, gives
  you tabs (instead of a pulldown menu) to switch between the record view and category
  view of search results, and bolds database titles. See
  before and after screenshots on the Ancestry.com blog.

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Genealogy records site Findmypast.com will make
its collection of US and International military records in honor of Memorial
Day. The records will be available free of charge starting at midnight EDT on Thursday,
May 23, until midnight EDT on Memorial Day, Monday, May 27.

Us military records include include World War I Draft Registration Cards, Korean War
Records, Korean War Casualty Records, Korean War POWs, Vietnam War Records, Vietnam
War Deaths and Casualties, World War II POWs, World War II Army Enlistment Records,
and US Army Casualties, 1961-1981.

Click
here for an overview of records available for the United States, Britain, Ireland,
Australia and New Zealand.

During the free period, anyone can access the records by registering for free at findmypast.com.
The records are normally part of the site’s subscription and pay-per-view collection.

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You’ve found basic data on your Missouri ancestors from sources such
as birth and death records and censuses. Now you’re ready to dig
deeper into more-advanced, richer genealogy resources.

You’ll learn how in our May 23 webinar Secrets
to Beat Your Missouri Brick Walls.

Cheryl Lang, manager of the Midwest Genealogy
Center in Independence, Mo., will show you how to take your Missouri genealogy
search to the next level with

• Military records and rosters
• Court and tax records
• Manuscripts and state-specific collections
• State archives resources

She’ll also give you a quick refresher on Missouri vital records, and guidance for
using cluster and collateral techniques to break through brick walls.

Got a Missouri genealogy question? You can submit it to Cheryl before the event or
ask during the live Q&A session at the end of the presentation.

Webinar participants will get our newly revised Missouri State Research Guide and
our St. Louis City Guide, a 25-page handout of Cheryl’s presentation slides, and access
to view the webinar again as many times as you want.

Click
here for more details about the Secrets to Beat Your Missouri Brick Walls webinar
and to register.

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Last week MyHeritage added US censuses from 1790
to 1930, and before that was Record Matching to people in your MyHeritage.com or Geni.com
family tree.

Now comes another announcement from MyHeritage: Record Detective takes a record you’ve
discovered on MyHeritage and gives you a summary of additional records about the same
relative, and about other people related to that relative. You also can link to see
these people in other family trees on MyHeritage.

For example, you find someone in the US census, and Record Detective will show you
census entries for the person and other household members in earlier and later years,
plus a passenger list showing when the head of the household immigrated.

This video demonstrates how it works:

The announcement on MyHeritage compares this to friend suggestions on Facebook. It
reminds me of the “you also might like…” suggestions you get when shopping online.

“The Record Detective technology understands what record you’re looking at, and brings
you related records, and related people.” Of course, you’ll want to look at each Record
Detective match and make sure it really is your ancestor.

You don’t have to be a MyHeritage subscriber to get Record Detective matches, but
to view many of the matching records, you’ll need a subscription or pay-as-you-go
credits.

Surname Forum Activity
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We have a registration website now and a better developed itinerary.

This event is open to all interested parties. Please pass this on to anyone who may be interested in attending. You must register at the site below.

http://manleymunleyreunion.eventbrite.com/#

Manley Munley Munnelly Family Reunion
Hilton Hotel and Conference Center, Scranton, PA
Sister City of Ballina, County Mayo, Ireland

Manleys and Munleys whose ancestors migrated from County Mayo to Northeast Pennsylvania, and elsewhere, were originally Monnellys and Munnellys in Ireland. Last June, members of this family from around the US traveled to Mayo for a reunion with the local Munnellys, which is still the predominant spelling of our name over there. The reunion was such a success that we have decided to hold another one this year in the U. S.

We chose Scranton, PA as the location, because so many Manleys and Munleys still reside in that area and many who are now dispersed around the U. S. have ancestors who settled in Northeast PA for a generation or two. Scranton and the whole anthracite coal region surrounding it was a popular destination for many who emigrated from the northern half of County Mayo in the 19th century. So many of the Irish who settled in Scranton came from Ballina, and the area surrounding it, that they were declared sister cities.

Aside from its genealogical importance, Scranton is also a fun place to visit if you like architecture. The coal barons made lots of money and they spared no expense when it came to constructing public buildings.

The cost of the reunion is $45 for those who plan to attend the presentations and dinner. The cost is $20 for those attending the presentations only. You can pay by check or cash at the event, but you must use the Register feature above as soon as you know you will be attending. The hotel requires an accurate count in advance. No one can be admitted without having pre-registered. Registration will close at 11:59 PM on Tuesday, June 18.

Itinerary

The details and specific times are still being worked out, but we are leaning toward the following itinerary:

Friday, June 21

7:00-10:00 Meet and greet in the hotel bar.

Saturday, June 22

9:00 Check-in

9:30 Welcome

9:45 Presentation: Origins of the Manley/Munley/Munnelly Surname

10:45 Break

11:00 Presentation: 2012 County Mayo Reunion

12:00 Lunch On Your Own

1:30 Presentation: DNA Testing, The Future of Genealogy

2:30 Break

2:45-4:45 Small Group Discussions: Sharing Our Ancestries

6:00 Dinner

8:00 We plan to adjourn to Kildare’s Irish Pub so the group can get together with local Manleys and Munleys, who may not have attended the reunion.

Sunday, June 23

Out-of-towners can choose your own activities for Sunday.

If you want to do research, the Scranton Library is a treasure trove of local records and is open Sundays from 1 to 4.

The Genealogical Research Society of Northeastern Pennsylvania offers a range of services that can help you in researching ancestors who lived in this area.

The Steamtown National Historic Site Railroad Museum is a must-see for anyone interested in antique trains and American railroad history. It’s great fun for kids!

Many of our Manley/Munley ancestors in Pennsylvania were coal miners, so a visit to the Lackawanna Coal Mine Tour might be fun.

Hotel Reservations

If you are coming from out of town, there is a block of rooms reserved at the Hilton, which are discounted for reunion attendees. The Room Code is MMM3. They can only be held until May 24, after which rooms can be booked on an availability basis. The AAA and active military discount is better than the reunion discount. Spread the word to other Manley/Munleys you might know.

Marianne Manley Granoff
Albuquerque, NM
granoff@zianet.com

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