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• Ancestry.com updated
  its collection of U.S.
  Marine Corps Muster Rolls. This collection, which contains records from 1798 to
  1958, now contains more than 39 million records. They include muster rolls (regular
  lists of those present in a given unit), unit diaries and personnel rosters.

• The New England Historic Genealogical Society announced
  that its Newbury Street Press title The
  Descendants of Judge John Lowell of Newburyport, Massachusetts, by Scott
  C. Steward and Christopher C. Child, has won two awards. The National Genealogical
  Society presented Child with its 2012 Award for Excellence: Genealogy and Family History
  Book. The Connecticut Society of Genealogists honored both authors with its 2012 Literary
  Award, Grand Prize for Genealogy.

• The National Archives at San Francisco has officially opened to the public more than
  40,000 Alien
  Files or A-Files on immigrants to the United States. The case files were originally
  created at immigration offices in San Francisco; Honolulu; Reno, Nevada; Agana, Guam;
  American Samoa and other US territories. The records were transferred to the National
  Archives from US Citizenship and Immigration Services in 2009. Millions more A-files
  will eventually be opened to the public—the files are closed for 100 years after the
  birth date of the person named in the records.

A-Files
created at other immigration offices are kept at the National Archives facility
in Kansas City, where 300,000 cases were opened to the public in 2010. 

• A DNA study of Melungeons—a dark-skinned, mixed-heritage group historically residing
  in Appalachia—has found genetic evidence that these families
  descend from sub-Saharan African men and white women of northern or central European
  origin. Researchers think the population mixing could have happened among black and
  white indentured servants in mid-1600s Virginia.

According
to an Associated Press article, the finding has been controversial among Melungeons,
some of whom believe they have Portuguese or American Indian ancestry. Read
more about the findings (and how researchers thinks the claims
of Portuguese
heritage arose) in this news article.