The collection of Navy cruise books, available exclusively online at Ancestry.com, represents nearly 40 years of cruises following World War II (roughly 1950-1988) and chronicles an estimated 450,000 servicemen deployed at sea during that time. The Navy Department Library has on file an estimated 3,500 cruise books, which Ancestry.com plans to digitize and add to this collection over time.

Cruise books are modeled after yearbooks and typically include portraits of sailors, officers, and other personnel on board the ship. Other features of a cruise book may include candid photographs of crew members at work and play, details and history of the ship, and short biographies on officers. Below is a page taken from a Navy cruise book as an example.

A few famous personalities can also be found in the collection, including famed television host and comedian Johnny Carson. Carson is found in the 1946 edition of the U.S.S. Pennsylvania cruise book. Following World War II, Ens. Carson was assigned to the U.S.S. Pennsylvania, a battleship stationed in the Pacific. Former U.S. President George H.W. Bush is also found in the collection in the 1946 edition of the U.S.S. Jacinto cruise book.

Above: Ens. Carson (third row from the front, seventh from the left) on the U.S.S. Pennsylvania.

The Navy cruise books are part of the Ancestry.com U.S. Military Collection, which includes 100 million names and spans more than three centuries of American military service. Now through Nov. 13th, Ancestry.com has made its entire U.S. Military Collection searchable for free.

If you’re like me, you have family members who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. My own father spent 30 years in the Air Force. Why not take a moment this Veterans Day to see if you can learn a bit more about your military heritage and visit Ancestry.com’s U.S. Military Collection.

This tree service downtime will affect Ancestry Member Trees, OneWorldTree, some portions of My Canvas, the sections of the Home Page that are related to Member Trees, and the sections of MyFamily.com 2.0 that are related to Member Trees. Other than that, all other areas of the site will remain functional.

For the vast majority of our members living outside Mountain Daylight Time, 1:00 – 2:00 AM MDT is the same as…

Coordinated Universal Time: 07:00 – 08:00 AM
In London: 8:00 – 9:00 AM
In Melbourne: 5:00 – 6:00 PM
In San Francisco: midnight – 1:00 AM
In New York: 3:00 – 4:00 AM
In Moscow: 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
In Rome: 9:00 – 10:00 AM
In Tokyo: 4:00 – 5:00 PM

(Note: I got my dates wrong, it’s Tuesday, November 10th…so just a little more waiting.)
This change will happen on Monday, November 9th, sometime during the day.

The information you enter into your original search will appear at the top left of the search results page. Clicking “Edit search” will bring up your search query allowing you to edit your search criteria. (Note: You won’t be able to edit in the left hand panel any more; all editing will be done from a form.)

Also, the Narrow by Category panel is now higher on the page, providing easier access for narrowing your search results by types of records (e.g., census records, immigration records, military records, etc.).

These changes are designed to make searching for your family on Ancestry.com faster and more efficient, resulting in even more successful discoveries about your ancestors.

Here’s how it will work:

1. Do a search. Let’s say I’m searching for my ancestor, Zebedee Hash. You will see:
   
2. To help refine the search, I now click on “Edit Search”:
   
3. You’ll see a form pre-populated with the original query:
   
4. Add in the information:
   
5. Click on the search button either at the top or bottom of the form. (We put in two search buttons to make it handy to find wherever you are in the form. They do the exact same thing.)
   
   OR
   
6. You’ll now see the summary of your search query in the panel:
   
7. Now let’s say I want to make my Birth Year exact within a range. I click on “Edit search” again, and enter my new information:
   
8. Click on the search button, and see the new result set. You’ll notice in the query summary, that the birth year range is in double quotes, telling you that you’ve marked that field exact:
   

So look for change on Tuesday, try it out, and let us know what you think.

Happy Searching!

I want to thank everyone for your participation in the search strategies webinar. We had a wonderful turnout with thousands of comments and questions.  We answered as many questions as time allowed.  We have a list of the questions asked during the webinar and we’ll be posting answers to the most popular questions and topic areas.

There were many questions about the card catalog and about topics that can be researched using the card catalog. Most of them fell into a few themes which are summarized below.

Question: How do you find the card catalog?

Answer: The link for the card catalog is on the left side of the search homepage.  The search homepage can be found by clicking on the search button in the navigation bar at the top of Ancestry.com web pages.  You can also hold your mouse over the search link at the top of the page without clicking and you will see the card catalog at the bottom of the drop down.  Here is a direct link to the card catalog and a screenshot of where you can find the links.

(Where to find links to the card catalog)

Question: How can you specify a place and a year to narrow down the list of census data collections? How can you search for a state or county census record? How do you look up individual census documents?

Answer: You can narrow census records by date and location. First, go to the card catalog and select “Census & Voter Lists” from the left side of the page under “Filter by Collection.”  Then, under “Filter by Location,” choose a  country or region.  Finally, select the year you are interested from the left side of the page.  At the top of the page, you can change the sorting order of the census records. See the drop down menu that says “Sort by.” I like to sort by “Database Title.” 

(Changing sort order in the card catalog)

To see the records for a particular state or county, repeat the first two steps above, but don’t choose a time period yet. Continue to narrow your location down to a state or county using the links on the left side of the page. The  screenshot below shows the first few counties in California. 

(Narrowing census data collections to California counties)

Finally, choose a census collection title from the list of data collections located on the right side of the page to go directly to the page with the search form and browse links for a specific census.

Question:  Where can you find cemetery records?

Answer:  You can use the search function in the card catalog to search for data collections about cemeteries or many other similar topics such as “graveyard” or “burial.” Just type “cemetery” into the title field and click “search.” Then you can narrow the results by collection type, location, and year.  The screenshot below shows where the title field and where the “filter by collection” links are located.

(Searching for cemetery in the card catalog)

Questions: How do you find collections by country? How do you research records from Germany?  How do you find records for France or Paris?

Answer:  You can use the card catalog to see a list of data collections for Germany and France.  Use the “Filter by Location” links on the left side of the page. Choose “Europe”, and then “Germany.”  As you can see in the screenshot below, there are 1,338 data collections available today for Germany.   

(German records in the card catalog)

You can also narrow the choices further by selecting a collection type such as “military.”  

Another way to search for place is to search by keyword. For example, to search for data collections about Paris, go to the card catalog and use the keyword field to input “Paris” and then click search.  For more information, you can view our webinar that focuses on European research.

Questions: How do you find military records from France during WWII? How can you find Navy records or records from other service branches from WWII?

Answer:  Many countries do not release military records. Some military records will not be made public until the country in question decides that enough time has passed such that record privacy is no longer a concern.   You can learn all about our military collections by listening to the military records webinar. In addition, Ancestry magazine published an article about World War II in May.

To find our military data collections about France, you can either search or browse the card catalog.  You could start by filtering the card catalog by “Military”, then filtering by location to “France.”  

You can also search the card catalog by keyword.  Try searching for “World War II” and for “WWII.” You may also want to search for keywords associated with the World War II such as “holocaust”.   Finally, I recommend trying a title search for “World War II” in addition to the keyword search.  Shown below is a screenshot for a search with “WWII” in the keyword field.

(Card catalog search results for WWII)

Question: Where can you find the ships records on Ancestry.com?

Answer:  Go to the card catalog and look on the left side of the page.  Click “Immigration & Emigration.”   Then scan through the collection choices. We have hundreds of data collections from passenger lists and crew lists to passports and ship pictures.

(Records about immigration and emigration including ships records)

Specific questions about errors or technical problems will be answered more quickly if you email support@ancestry.com or call the customer support center.  Our phone number is available on the bottom of the homepage and on our Contact Ancestry.com Support page.

“I had my DNA tested for mitochondrial results, but I’d like to do the same for my father’s side. My problem is that I have no brothers, no uncles, and my father has passed away. Can my son take the test? Or would his results only give his father’s Y-chromosome information? Surely my son must have inherited some of my father’s DNA?”

Types of DNA
DNA provides our genetic blueprint which makes each of us unique and yet genetically similar to other family members and to a lesser extent to all humans in general.  There are 2 major types of DNA useful in tracing one’s family history through DNA genealogy:

• Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA)
• Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)

Y-DNA
Y-DNA passes from male to male in a family.  Location markers on the Y-chromosome are found in the Y-chromosome of males and are passed down from fathers to sons making it ideal for tracing paternal lineage.  In many cultures, the surname is also passed from father to son. This fortunate coincidence is what makes tracing your paternal lineage through genetic similarities so powerful for genealogy.   And because the Y-chromosome is passed largely unchanged from father to son, DNA results from a male participant today can be used to represent the paternal lineage dozens of generations into the past.

To test your paternal lineage you need someone on your male line to take the test.   If you are female, you can recruit a brother, father, or paternally related Uncle or Cousin to provide the DNA sample to use as if it were your own.  The key to remember in recruiting a “proxy relative” for the Y-DNA test is that the individual must be a direct line descedant of the ancestor of interest.  Thus, a woman’s son would NOT be a candidate for testing her great great grandfather as her son would have received his Y-DNA from his father NOT her father.

mtDNA
Mitochondrial DNA , or mtDNA , is a unique kind of DNA found outside the nucleus of the cell in the mitochondria.  Because mitochondria still replicate on their own, they need their own special DNA , which exists in a loop (unlike the strands of chromosomal DNA ).  A cell can have hundreds or thousands of mitochondria.  This unique factor and the rate at which the mtDNA changes make mtDNA a strong indicator of one’s ancient ancestral heritage.  Mitochondrial DNA testing is very valuable for unlocking clues about your ancient ancestors.  It can also be a powerful genealogical tool to eliminate possible relations through the maternal line.

Because a father’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is destroyed at fertilization, a child inherits only the mother’s mitochondrial DNA, thus preserving the maternal link to the ancient past. Due to this unique inheritance pattern, both males and females may directly contribute a DNA sample for testing the maternal lineage.

Should you have questions about a potential proxy or DNA test, please contact dna@ancestry.com.

I would have never predicted that four and a half years later, I’d be taking my kids to one. Just for fun.

We went for the history. Once a year, on the Sunday before Halloween, the old cemetery near my home brings its dead back to life. Actors portray the cemetery’s residents, telling stories about their lives and subsequent deaths. And seeing that the town was once an old mining camp high up in the mountains, those lives and deaths were rarely pretty.

Honestly I thought my kids would be bored or at least creeped out. That was anything but the case. My five-year-old daughter listened intently to the stories, while my eight-year-old son brushed leaves off tombstones to read inscriptions and calculate ages. They were fascinated. So was I.

Even if you can’t make it to a cemetery for a quick history lesson, you can wander through virtual ones in the public member photos section of Ancestry.com <http://www.ancestry.com/search/DB.aspx?dbid=1093>. Search for keywords including “tombstone,” “headstone,” or “gravestone” for photos of graves – I found a handful that dated back to the 17^th century and plenty of newer ones as well. Or read about how the tombstone of an unrelated, slain lawman sent author Ellen Notbohm on a search for the story behind his death in “A Tombstone Tells Its Story,” from Ancestry magazine <http://www.ancestrymagazine.com/2009/06/features/a-tombstone-tells-the-story>.

Lastly, if you’d like to share a little about the history you discovered in a cemetery, I’d love to hear it. Add your comments to the bottom of this post or drop me a line at jcroasmun@ancestry.com. And no, you don’t have to be related to the history you uncovered. In four years, I’ve learned a good story is just that. No matter who it’s about. Or where it’s found.

During this same time portions of Rootsweb.com, Genealogy.com, MyFamily.com and familytreemaker.com sites will also be unavailable.  Thank you for your patience as we improve our infrastructure.

Yesterday we made a number of additions to make it easier to get to the information you are most interested in on the Recent Member Connect Activity list.  If there has been activity from other members on Ancestry.com that is directly related to your own research activity, you’ll find this activity list on your homepage when you are logged in, as well as on the main page under the Collaborate tab.  Here’s what we’ve added to that list:

1. Recent Activity filter options

We’ve made a number of changes around how you can filter out activity from your Recent Activity list. 

First, if you have multiple family trees on Ancestry.com you can choose to filter out the activity for any of your trees.  For example, you might be invited as an editor to a tree, but not be interested in all of the activity related to that tree.  If that’s the case, you can simply un-check the box for that tree and we won’t show you that activity anymore.

Second, based on member feedback we’ve updated the types of activity your can filter out of your list.  We hope that the new categories make it easier to get to the activity you are most interested in, especially if you have a lot of activity on your list.

Third, we will now remember your filter settings for you.  So if you filter one of your trees out of the list, or a specific activity type you’re not interested in, we’ll keep that activity off of your list until you choose to re-check the boxes to add it back in.

Finally, we’ve made these filter options available from the Member Connect sections on the homepage and under the Collaborate tab, as well as on the full Recent Activity page.

 2. Top daily activity items

 Some members who have done a lot of research on Ancestry.com, or who have large family trees on the site, may have a lot of activity included on their Recent Activity list each day.  If this is the case for you, we’ve made an update that we hope will help.  If there are more than 10 activity items related to your family history research on a given day, we will initially just list the top ten items from that day on your list.  Hopefully this gets the most interesting items at the top for you.  Then if you would like to see more activity from that day you can simply expand the list for the day to see the rest of the activity items.

 3. Expanded activity display

Sometimes if a few similar things happen on the site, we may only list one item on your Recent Activity list.  For example, if another member researching your great-grandfather added three photos of him to their public family tree, you might get one activity item mentioning that three photos were added, but without giving details on each of them.  For activity items like this there will now be a new “show” link that will let you expand the activity item to see all of the details related to that item.

We’ve also made a number of other enhancements to Member Connect in the last couple months.  I just wanted to highlight a few of them for you here:

1. Links to your family tree from trees you have connected with

You can connect with another member who has common ancestors of yours in their family tree, either by saving information from their tree through an Ancestry.com Hint or through the Member Connect section of the profile page for the matching person in your tree.  If you’ve done this and later go to the matching person in the other member’s tree, we will confirm that you’ve already connected with them and will include a link for you back to the matching person in your tree.  This helps you keep track of who you’ve connected with, and also makes it easier to get back to your tree when you are checking family trees of members you’ve connected with.

 2. Explanations about information in your Recent Activity list

Some information included on your Recent Activity list may be related to research you did a while back rather than more recent research that is fresh in your mind.  If that is the case, you may not be sure why a specific item is on your list.  To learn more just put your cursor over the activity item and you will see a “?” icon on the right.  Simply click this to learn why the item was included in your list.  We’ll also often be able to provide a link for you to the related person in your family tree.

3. Information you’ve ignored from members you have connected with

Within your family tree, Member Connect lets you compare what information other members have about one of your family members with what you have.  If you’ve connected to the other member, after checking into their information and validating it you can also update your tree with the new information.  If the information doesn’t seem accurate or interesting, though, you can also select to ignore it.  Previously we didn’t label which items you have ignored from another member’s tree.  Now these items will have a simple “ignored” button, which will still let you update your tree with this information if you change your mind later.

These are just a few highlights of improvements we’ve made based, in large part on feedback from our members.  We’d love to continue to get your feedback about Member Connect so that we know how we can continue to improve it for you.  Please just email us at MemberConnectFeedback@ancestry.com with your thoughts.

The records give those of us curious about Amelia’s past a first-hand view of the investigation into the claim that she and her navigator Fred Noonan were taken prisoner and executed in Saipan, which at the time was governed by Japan. Through the years, this adaptation of Earhart’s death has become one of the many theories surrounding the 39-year-old’s mystery-riddled disappearance.

In the above letter, Congressman J. Arthur Younger requests an investigation be made into evidence from U.S. Army Sergeant Thomas Devine, who said he had seen Amelia Earhart’s grave while he was stationed in Saipan.

In the telegram below, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur II explains that Japan has identified eight people who may have knowledge about Amelia Earhart’s disappearance in Saipan.

The Earhart file is part of the Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad collection on Ancestry.com.

Explore more details of the investigation here, and decide for yourself what really happened to Amelia Earhart. And if you’re still curious, go check out the movie “Amelia” coming out tonight. After learning more about the life of this amazing aviatrix, that’s exactly what I plan to do.