Friday, September 4, 2026

Added and Updated FamilySearch Record Collections - Week of 29 August to 4 September 2026

 Each week, I try to keep track of the number of Full-Text Search collections (indexed, searchable) and the Images collections (browsable but not searchable) -- see Sections 1) and 2) below. In addition, I list the genealogy historical record collections (often name-indexed) that are added, removed, and/or updated on FamilySearch and listed on the Historical Record Collection list  --  See Section 3.

1)  As of 4 September 2026, there are now 6,730 searchable and full-text transcribed image collections on FamilySearch Full-Text Search this week, an increase of 0 from last week. There are over 2 BILLION "results" in the collections.  It is not possible to see which collections are new, although a clue would be the Last Updated column. 

 2)  As of 4 September 2026 there are now 26,055 browsable (some indexed, none transcribed) image collections on FamilySearch Images this week, an increase of 60 from last week. There are over 6.152 BILLION images in these collections.  There are 2,141 collections from the United States, 7,257 from Europe and 223 from Canada.  It is not possible to see which collections are new. Note that the listing now indicates the indexed percentage of some collections.


3)  As of 4 September 2026, there are 3,478 Historical Record Collections (many indexed, many browsable) on FamilySearch (an increase of 3 from last week):

The Deleted, Added and Updated Historical Record Collections this week include:

--- Collections Deleted ---

--- Collections Added ---

*  England, Hertfordshire, Parish Registers, 1538-1912 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2388825); 1,204,675 indexed records with 117,972 record images, ADDED 02-Sep-2026
*  Indiana, Franklin County, Marriage Records, 1853-1997 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000717); 15,138 indexed records with 25,292 record images, ADDED 28-Aug-2026
*  Philippines, Central Luzon, Church Records, 1682-1972 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000340); 1,817,769 indexed records with 215,480 record images, ADDED 12-Mar-2026

--- Collections Updated ---

Belgium, Births and Baptisms, 1560-1890 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520562); 358,328 indexed records with 1,302 record images (was 358,328 records with 358,328 images), UPDATED 29-Aug-2026
California, Births and Christenings, 1812-1988 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1674703); 195,340 indexed records with 2,536 record images (was 195,340 records with 201,240 images), UPDATED 29-Aug-2026
England and Wales, Census, 1921 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000564); 38,425,632 indexed records with 10,036,169 record images (was 31,698,408 records with 10,036,169 images), UPDATED 02-Sep-2026
Italy, Firenze, Census, 1808-1871 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000441); 748,485 indexed records with 49,117 record images (was 564,614 records with 40,668 images), UPDATED 28-Aug-2026
Michigan, Church Records, 1819-1991 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2787825); 47,038 indexed records with 2,670 record images (was 33,166 records with 2,670 images), UPDATED 28-Aug-2026

Philippines Civil Registration (National), 1945-1996 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1852584); 7,614,865 indexed records with 20,274,621 record images (was 7,605,536 records with 20,274,621 images), UPDATED 01-Sep-2026
Philippines, Bicol, Church Records, 1738-1989 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000336); 575,888 indexed records with 157,688 record images (was 575,888 records with 156,090 images), UPDATED 02-Sep-2026
Philippines, Central Visayas, Church Records, 1737-2005 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000324); 596,566 indexed records with 389,018 record images (was 341,782 records with 324,524 images), UPDATED 02-Sep-2026
Philippines, Western Visayas, Church Records, 1712-2006 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000338); 769,467 indexed records with 385,692 record images (was 681,180 records with 348,784 images), UPDATED 02-Sep-2026
United States, Cemetery Abstracts, 1949-1969 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2579610); 665,301 indexed records with 69,360 record images (was 469,181 records with 69,358 images), UPDATED 04-Sep-2026

--- Collections with new images ---

Argentina, Buenos Aires, Civil Registration, 1861-2018 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000041); 1 indexed records with 111,734 record images (was 1 records with 111,729 images), last updated 07-Jun-2024
Argentina, Military Records, 1911-1936 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000280); 2,929,239 indexed records with 2,932,105 record images (was 2,929,239 records with 2,932,102 images), last updated 03-Apr-2026
Brazil, Alagoas, Civil Registration, 1876-2023 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/4469403); 1 indexed records with 454,246 record images (was 1 records with 454,243 images), last updated 07-Jun-2024
Brazil, Deaths, 1750-1890 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1500710); 43,570 indexed records with 731 record images (was 43,570 records with 1 images), last updated 08-Jan-2026
Brazil, Maranhão, Civil Registration, 1827-2022 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/4469402); 1 indexed records with 906,268 record images (was 1 records with 906,267 images), last updated 07-Jun-2024

California, Deaths and Burials, 1776-2000 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/3518938); 585,672 indexed records with 67,691 record images (was 585,672 records with 60,746 images), last updated 15-Jun-2024
Find a Grave Index (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2221801); 274,118,435 indexed records with 283,815,886 record images (was 274,118,435 records with 282,687,673 images), last updated 13-Aug-2026

--- Collections with images removed ---

Alabama, Births and Christenings, 1881-1930 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1661470); 158,893 indexed records with 2,277 record images (was 158,893 records with 157,082 images), last updated 07-Apr-2026
Alabama, Deaths and Burials, 1881-1952 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1674670); 62,867 indexed records with 937 record images (was 62,867 records with 77,610 images), last updated 07-Apr-2026
Alabama, Marriages, 1816-1957 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1674672); 797,938 indexed records with 16,343 record images (was 797,938 records with 814,774 images), last updated 22-Jul-2021
Arkansas, Marriages, 1837-1944 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1674711); 873,559 indexed records with 12,909 record images (was 873,559 records with 873,559 images), last updated 03-Nov-2021
Australia, Births and Baptisms, 1792-1981 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1770729); 345,229 indexed records with 17,765 record images (was 411,266 records with 531,824 images), last updated 17-Jun-2026

Australia, Deaths and Burials, 1816-1980 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1770857); 85,767 indexed records with 2,757 record images (was 89,956 records with 108,863 images), last updated 17-Jun-2026
Australia, Marriages, 1810-1980 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1770858); 116,831 indexed records with 8,133 record images (was 129,689 records with 151,371 images), last updated 17-Jun-2026
Barbados, Baptisms, 1739-1891 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520591); 451,676 indexed records with 1,750 record images (was 451,676 records with 451,676 images), last updated 29-Jan-2020
Barbados, Marriages, 1854-1879 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520599); 64,288 indexed records with 951 record images (was 64,288 records with 64,288 images), last updated 19-Jun-2020
Belgium, Deaths and Burials, 1564-1900 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520580); 66,440 indexed records with 2 record images (was 66,440 records with 66,440 images), last updated 30-Jan-2020

Belgium, Marriages, 1563-1890 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520579); 56,180 indexed records with 156 record images (was 56,180 records with 56,180 images), last updated 11-Mar-2020
BillionGraves Index (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2026973); 31,122,746 indexed records with 31,137,963 record images (was 31,122,746 records with 32,364,772 images), last updated 02-Jun-2026
Bolivia, Baptisms, 1560-1938 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520550); 1,876,624 indexed records with 12,499 record images (was 1,876,624 records with 1,876,624 images), last updated 19-Jun-2020
Bolivia, Marriages, 1630-1940 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520564); 339,380 indexed records with 220 record images (was 339,380 records with 339,380 images), last updated 30-Jan-2020
Brazil, Baptisms, 1688-1935 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1500708); 2,389,736 indexed records with 35,308 record images (was 2,402,158 records with 2,553,222 images), last updated 08-Jan-2026

Brazil, Marriages, 1730-1955 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1500709); 318,295 indexed records with 8,182 record images (was 318,295 records with 340,902 images), last updated 08-Jan-2026
California, Marriages, 1850-1945 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1674735); 536,518 indexed records with 3,369 record images (was 536,518 records with 549,388 images), last updated 22-Sep-2025
Chile, Baptisms, 1585-1932 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520549); 1,539,058 indexed records with 73,408 record images (was 1,539,058 records with 1,562,005 images), last updated 22-Sep-2025
Chile, Deaths, 1700-1920 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520559); 294,541 indexed records with 11,587 record images (was 294,541 records with 294,548 images), last updated 22-Sep-2025
Chile, Marriages, 1579-1930 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1520558); 263,665 indexed records with 17,616 record images (was 263,665 records with 272,765 images), last updated 22-Sep-2025

England and Wales, Census, 1911 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1921547); 36,354,828 indexed records with 8,610,632 record images (was 36,354,828 records with 8,898,289 images), last updated 01-Aug-2019
England, Manchester, Miscellaneous Records, 1700-1916 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2075052); 10,592,399 indexed records with 15,918,119 record images (was 10,592,399 records with 15,918,581 images), last updated 26-Dec-2025

--- Collections with new records ---

Germany, Prussia, Westphalia, Minden, Miscellaneous Collections from the Municipal Archives, 1574-1912 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1646446); 127,916 indexed records with 7,654 record images (was 122,876 records with 7,654 images), last updated 17-Sep-2025
Philippines, Deaths and Burials, 1726-1998 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1500714); Index only (2,786,099 records), no images (was 8,603 records with 0 images), last updated 27-Jan-2026

--- Collections with records removed ---

California, Birth Index, 1905-1995 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2001879); Index only (24,589,371 records), no images (was 24,589,372 records with 0 images), last updated 01-Mar-2012
United States, GenealogyBank Obituaries, Births, and Marriages, 1980-2015 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2333694); 28,662,123 indexed records with 46,919,022 record images (was 28,662,124 records with 46,919,022 images), last updated 27-Aug-2026
United States, Residence Database, 1970-2024 (https://familysearch.org/search/collection/5000290); Index only (413,857,837 records), no images (was 413,857,842 records with 0 images), last updated 22-Jun-2024

===================================

My friend and SDGS colleague, Marshall, has come up with a way to determine which collections are ADDED, DELETED or UPDATED, and to alphabetize the entries in each category. Thanks to Marshall for helping me out here!

Marshall notes that there are:

  • 3,478 Historical Record Collection entries
  • 0 removed entries
  • 3 added entries 
  • 10 updated entries
  • 29 entries with more or fewer images 
  • 5 entries with more or fewer records
Marshall's list shows 3,478 Historical Record Collections this week, an increase of 3 collections. The image website image above shows 3,478 collections, so the website number is in sync with Marshall's list number.

==========================================

See previous FamilySearch-related blog posts in        https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/FamilySearch

The URL for this post is: 

Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not be posted immediately.

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Added and Updated Ancestry.com Record Collections - Week of 29 August to 4 September 2026

 The following genealogy record collections were added to the Ancestry.com Card Catalog page by "Date Updated" during the period from 29 August to 4 September 2026: 

The ADDED and Updated collections include:

=========================================

The complete Ancestry.com Card Catalog is at https://search.ancestry.com/search/CardCatalog.aspx.

By my count, there are 0 NEW record collections ADDED this past week, per the list above. There are now 33,987 collections available as of 4 September, an INCREASE of 0 from last week. 

==============================================

Disclosure: I pay for an All-Access subscription from Ancestry.com. In past years, Ancestry.com provided a complimentary All Access subscription, an autosomal DNA test, material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and hosted events and meals that I attended in Salt Lake City.

The URL for this post is:  

 Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post. Share it on Facebook, X, or Pinterest using the icons below. Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com. Please note that all Comments are moderated so they may not appear immediately.

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Abbey Smith’s Journey West To San Diego In 1889

After writing The Letter From Della (Smith) Carringer Arrives in Nebraska in August 1889, asking her mother to come help with her first baby, I asked Anthropic Claude to write the story of Abbey Smith's train trip from McCook, Nebraska to San Diego, California in 1889, based on Abbey's biography.  


(AI Google Notebook Infographic -- Abbey Smith's Journey West, August 1889)

Here is the story:

Abbey Smith’s Journey West

Late August 1889


The Letter Ahead

Before she left McCook, Abbey had sat down with pen and paper and written to Della with the particulars, the way any sensible traveler would, so that no one would be left standing on a platform not knowing which train to watch for.

Dear Della,

I have my tickets. I leave McCook Thursday next, changing at Denver, then Pueblo, then again at San Bernardino, and expect by the schedule to arrive at the San Diego depot on Tuesday evening, the twenty-seventh of August, near six o'clock, though you know as well as I do that trains keep their own notions of time and this may run later. Tell Austin not to trouble himself standing about in case I am delayed — I have crossed enough country in my life to manage myself if the connection is missed, and I would rather he not fret over it.

I will see you soon, my dear, and you are not to worry yourself sick before then. Sit still and rest and let this baby come in its own time.

Your loving mother

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Denver

The first leg was the easiest, though it did not feel easy at the time — a full day and night rattling south and west out of Nebraska into Colorado on the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, the flat wheat country giving way slowly to a paler, drier land, and then, toward evening of the second day, to the sight of mountains standing up blue and jagged on the horizon in a way Abbey had never seen in New York, Wisconsin or Iowa or any of the flat Kansas and Nebraska counties she'd called home. She had wired David from the Denver depot as promised, a short line — ARRIVED DENVER SAFE CHANGING CARS TONIGHT — and eaten a supper of cold chicken from the basket Matie had packed, sitting on a hard bench amid the noise and steam of the station while she waited for the connection south on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway.

Pueblo

Pueblo came the next morning, a rougher sort of town than Denver, thick with the smoke of the smelters, and here she changed again onto another Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe train that would carry her down through Trinidad and over Raton Pass into New Mexico Territory before swinging west. This was the part of the journey that tested her most — three full days of desert crossing, the country growing stranger and emptier the farther they went, red rock and sage and distances that made the Kansas prairie seem almost cozy by comparison. She shared a car for a stretch with a family bound for Los Angeles, and an elderly gentleman going out to San Bernardino for his health, who told her at some length about the citrus groves and the dry air and how a man's lungs did better out there than anywhere in the East. Abbey nodded along and thought of Della, alone and frightened and so many more miles yet to go.

San Bernardino

At San Bernardino she changed cars a last time to the California Southern Railroad, onto the line that ran down through the inland valleys toward San Diego, and here — for the first time since Nebraska — the window showed her green. Orange groves, she was fairly certain, rows of them marching off toward low hills, and beyond that a haze that the conductor told her, when she asked, was the ocean air coming in. She had never in her life seen the ocean, and found herself watching for it out the window for the better part of the last afternoon, though it did not properly come into view until the train had nearly reached its end.

Arrival in San Diego

The San Diego depot, when the train finally drew in that Tuesday evening — later than the schedule had promised, nearer to seven than six, exactly as she'd warned Della it might run — was smaller than she'd expected and busier, full of the noise and bustle of a town that seemed to be growing faster than it could quite build itself to hold.

She saw Austin before he saw her — a slim, mustachioed young man pacing the platform in his shirtsleeves with his hat pushed back, craning to look down the length of each car as it emptied, and when his eyes found her descending the steps with her carpetbag his whole face opened up with relief.

"Mrs. Smith!" He was at her side and had the carpetbag out of her hand almost before she'd got both feet on the platform. "I'd about decided the train had fallen off a trestle somewhere back in the desert."

"Trains do not fall off trestles, Austin, they simply run behind their own schedule out of pure contrariness. Where is Della? Surely you didn't let her come down here in her condition."

"No, ma'am, she's home — I wouldn't hear of her standing about a depot in this heat, not with her so close to her time. She'd have come anyway if I hadn't near locked the door on her." He grinned, hefting the trunk up onto his shoulder with the easy strength of a young man. "She's been asking after that train every hour since noon."

"Then let us not keep her waiting a minute longer."

National City

The road out to National City ran along the edge of the bay in the last light of evening, the water gone the color of pewter, and Abbey sat beside Austin in the buggy watching a country utterly unlike anything she had crossed to get there — low hills and canyons, some houses, dried streams, dark green groves, the air soft and salted in a way that Nebraska air never was.

Della was on the porch before the buggy had properly stopped, one hand braced on the rail and the other pressed to the great round weight of her belly, and Abbey was out of the buggy and up the steps almost before Austin had the brake set.

"Mother." Della said it the way a much younger girl might have, and put her face against Abbey's shoulder, and for a moment neither of them said anything else at all.

"Let me look at you." Abbey held her back at arm's length, studying her the way she'd studied each of her own children a hundred times over the years. "You're carrying well. Not so very long now, I'd think."

"The doctor says two weeks, maybe less." Della laughed, a little shakily. "I have been counting the days since I received your letter, wondering if you'd truly come."

"Of course I came. Did you think I'd sit in McCook shelling peas while you managed this alone?"

They went in together, Austin following with the trunk, and once Della was settled in the front room with her feet up on a stool — over her protests that she was not an invalid, only enormous — Abbey finally sat down herself and let out a long breath, feeling, for the first time in five days, the stillness of a chair that was not rocking with the motion of a railway car.

"Now," Della said, "you must tell me everything. What was it like, all that way? Austin, fetch her something to eat, she must be half starved."

"I ate well enough, don't fuss," Abbey said, though she didn't refuse the plate Austin brought all the same. "But I will tell you, it was a journey and a half. We went first up into Denver — and Della, the mountains there, I have never seen the like. Standing up blue against the sky like something out of a picture book, with snow still on the tops of some of them, and this in August."

"Snow in August!" Della shook her head. "Austin, did you hear that?"

"I heard it," Austin said, settling into the doorway with his own supper plate. "I spent 14 years in Boulder with my parents and brother, so I’ve seen those beautiful mountains, rivers and forests.”

"Then from Denver we went on to Pueblo, which I will say plainly was not so fine a town — all smoke and noise from the smelting works, though I didn't linger there above a few hours before the next connection came through. And then, Della, then came the desert." Abbey shook her head, remembering it. "Three days of it, near enough. Red rock and sage brush and cactus and not a green thing in sight, mile after mile, until I began to wonder if the whole rest of the country had simply dried up and blown away. There was an old gentleman on the car with me a good stretch of that — going out to San Bernardino for his lungs, he said, and talked my ear near off about the dry air and the orange groves, until I confess I was glad enough when he got off at his stop."

"And then San Bernardino," Austin prompted, smiling.

"And then San Bernardino, and I tell you, I have never in my life been so glad to see a green thing as I was those orange groves. Rows and rows of them, and the air different too — softer, somehow, with a smell to it I couldn't name until the conductor told me it was the ocean I was smelling, still miles off. I sat at that window the whole rest of the way watching for it, like a child."

"Did you see it? The ocean?"

"Not till we were nearly here — and then all at once there it was, gray and enormous, with crashing waves, bigger than anything I'd imagined from hearing tell of it. I don't mind saying it took the breath clean out of me." She looked over at Austin. "And then this one comes striding up and down that train station platform like a man who's misplaced something, looking fit to shake the conductor by the collar over a train running an hour behind."

"I was not striding," Austin said, with dignity.

"You were pacing a groove into those boards, and don't tell me different, because I watched you do it a full minute before you thought to look my way."

Della laughed — a real laugh, easier than the shaky one from the porch — and reached over to take her husband's hand. "That does sound like him."

"Well." Abbey set down her empty plate at last, and looked at her daughter's face in the lamplight — tired, and glad, and no longer quite so frightened as the letter had sounded. "I am here now, and I don't intend to go anywhere again until there's a grandchild in this house for me to spoil. So you may stop fretting, both of you, and let an old woman get some sleep after five days on the cars."

"You're not old, you’re forty-five!" Della said.

"I am tonight," Abbey said, and let Austin help her up from the chair, feeling the whole long distance of the journey settle into her bones at last, now that there was no more of it left to travel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author’s Note: This is a work of historical fiction based on documented family facts, names, and locations. The specific conversations and details of the journey are imagined, as no firsthand account survives.

================================

The AI Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this story is in (and on my YouTube channel):  

This is historical fiction based on known events in the lives of my ancestors -- it might have been this way. Devier J. and Abigail (Vaux) Smith are my 2nd great-grandparents through their daughter Della (Smith) Carringer (1862-1944), and I have significant information about this family from the available records, but I know nothing about their day-to-day lives.

As always, I am amazed at what life was like in any place over 130 years ago. This description of her train trip and reception in San Diego in 1889 is interesting and so different from our current daily activities.

After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit this Carringer family in 1889 San Diego and witness their daily lives.  I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.

==============================================

Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page.  Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.

Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately.

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Findmypast Friday: Explore New American Additions

I received this information from Findmypast today:

============================



There are church records, military awards and more to discover this week.


We've added a trio of Episcopal Church records from New York this week; these exciting new collections cover the 18th and 19th centuries. We've also added a new set of United States military gallantry awards from the First World War, and six newspaper titles.

New York, Trinity Episcopal Church Baptisms

This brand-new collection comprises 37,052 baptism records, spanning 1749 to 1885.

New York, Trinity Episcopal Church Marriages

We've also added a new set of New York marriage records, covering 1746 to 1886.

New York, Trinity Episcopal Church Burials

Rounding off our trio of New York Episcopal church records, we've also added 47,326 burial records from the 18th and 19th centuries.

United States Military, Gallantry Awards 1917-1919

We've also updated our existing collection of United States military records, with 6,239 new additions from the First World War.

New pages from Exeter to India

Six new titles joined our newspaper archive this week, with a total of 261,194 new pages added.

New titles:
  • Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, 1854, 1877–1879, 1889
  • Dartford Chronicle, 1877, 1879, 1889
  • Evening Post (Exeter), 1901–1902
  • Hindoo Patriot, 1903–1911, 1913–1920
  • Oldham Evening Chronicle, 1880–1882
  • Tipton & Great Bridge Times, 1889
Updated titles:
  • Aberdare Times, 1871
  • Anfield & Walton Star, 2000
  • Belfast Weekly News, 1884
  • Brighton Times, 1869, 1883, 1887, 1891–1892
  • Burton Evening Gazette, 1890–1892, 1894–1895, 1897
  • Carlow Post, 1874–1876, 1878
  • Catholic Times and Catholic Opinion, 1899
  • Colchester Gazette, 1911
  • County Express; Brierley Hill, Stourbridge, Kidderminster, and Dudley News, 1873
  • Coventry Evening Telegraph, 2002
  • Derby Daily Telegraph, 2003
  • East Anglian Daily Times, 1919
  • Enniskillen Chronicle and Erne Packet, 1883
  • Evening Star, 1890–1891, 1918–1919
  • Fairplay, 1918
  • Financial Reformer, 1859, 1870, 1874–1879, 1887
  • Garstang Courier, 2005
  • Ilford Recorder, 1919
  • Jersey Independent and Daily Telegraph, 1887
  • Linlithgow Advertiser, 1998, 2005
  • Ossett Observer, 1868, 1873, 1889, 1897, 1912
  • Roscommon Herald, 1907
  • Sandwell Evening Mail, 2000–2001, 2004
  • Saunders's News-Letter, 1798
  • Seren (Bala, Wales), 1889–1890, 1894–1907
  • Solihull News, 2000–2002
  • Solihull Times, 2000, 2002
  • Southall Gazette, 2001–2003
  • Sporting Chronicle, 1931, 1946
  • Suffolk Chronicle, 1898
  • Thame Gazette, 2005
  • The Record, 1891–1894, 1896–1897, 1899
  • West Sussex County Times, 2005
  • Whitby Gazette, 2005
  • Whitby Times, 1881, 1888–1889
  • Wolverhampton Express and Star, 2005
  • Yorkshireman, 1887
Rise, Power, Ruin: A Family History of the Industrial Revolution

For the first episode in this new series, Jen Baldwin is joined by historian Alice Loxton to explore how two brothers navigated the same industrial community in very different ways, raising the question: how much say did ordinary workers have in their own futures?

Watch this episode on YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Gj6FyrN5Q

=========================================

See all of my posts about Findmypast at   https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/FindMyPast

Disclosure: I have a complimentary subscription to Findmypast, and have accepted meals and services from Findmypast, as a Findmypast Ambassador. This has not affected my objectivity relative to Findmypast and its products.

The URL for this post is:  https://www.geneamusings.com/2026/09/findmypast-friday-explore-new-american.html

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Thursday, September 3, 2026

Added and Updated MyHeritage Record Collections - Week of 28 August to 3 September 2026

   The following Record Collections were ADDED or Updated in the MyHeritage Collections Catalog during the week of  28 August to 3 September 2026:

The number of collections at the top of the list shows 1,718 collections (an increase of 1 from last week) with 40,710,364,080 records (a decrease of over 3 million records from last week).  The list above shows two ADDED collections.

I collected the latest numbers for the Family Tree collections from the "Number of Records" list which has the Family Tree collections (and a total of 1,718 collections).
 The number of entries in the family tree collections were last updated last week.  

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See previous Genea-Musings posts about MyHeritage record collections and features in https://www.geneamusings.com/search/label/MyHeritage.com.

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Disclosure: I receive a complimentary PremiumPlus subscription to MyHeritage, and have received other material consideration in past years. I uploaded my autosomal DNA raw data to their DNA product. This does not affect my objective analysis of MyHeritage products. I am a paid subscriber to Family Tree Webinars and love it.

The URL for this post is: https://www.geneamusings.com/2026/09/added-and-updated-myheritage-record.html

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The Life of Jonathan Oatley (1790-1872) at Age 15 in South Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1805

  I wondered if the FREE AI tools could provide me with information about my 3rd great-grandfather Jonathan Oatley's life at age 15 in South Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1805.  The ABC Biography for Jonathan Oatley is ABC Biography of #46 Jonathan Oatley (1790-1872) of Rhode Island and Connecticut.

My Prompt for Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 Medium was:  "Please describe the life of 15-year-old Jonathan Oatley in South Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1805, based on the attached biography. Consider family, work, education, community activities, entertainment, fun?"

(AI NotebookLM infographic -- Jonathan Oatley's Life at Age 15 in 1805)

Here is the Anthropic Claude Sonnet 5 response:

Jonathan Oatley at Age 15: Life in South Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1805

Who Jonathan Was in 1805

Jonathan Oatley turned 15 on July 7, 1805. He was the first son — and fifth child — of Joseph and Mary (Hazard) Oatley, living on the family property in South Kingstown, Washington County, Rhode Island. He had four older sisters: Polly (who had died young in 1796), Hannah (22), Betsy (19), and Nancy (17). Below him came younger siblings who were still small children — Joseph (12), Stephen (9), Mary (7), Benedict (5), Susan (2), and little Rouse, who would be born in 1806.

As the eldest son in a family of modest farmers, Jonathan occupied a position of particular weight. In rural New England, the oldest son was not merely another child — he was the heir apparent to his father's labor, his land, and his way of life. By 15, he would have been working alongside his father as a near-equal, carrying responsibilities that a modern teenager would find extraordinary.

The family's land in South Kingstown was bounded by the property of the Hazard family — Jonathan's mother, Mary Hazard, connected them to one of the most prominent dynasties in all of Rhode Island. The Hazards were the largest landholders in colonial New England, having built an agricultural empire in South Kingstown across several generations. Jonathan grew up in their shadow, on land that had once been part of their vast holdings, and the Hazard name would weave through his life for decades to come.

The Family Home

The Oatley farmhouse would have been a typical South Kingstown rural dwelling of the Federal period — a two-and-a-half-story wood-frame structure built in a style common to coastal Rhode Island farmsteads of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Such homes featured a central chimney serving multiple fireplaces, small windows to conserve heat, and a practical layout: a kitchen with a large hearth for cooking and warmth, a parlor for guests and family prayers, sleeping chambers above, and a root cellar beneath.

Outside stood a barn, a woodshed, a well or spring, a kitchen garden, and whatever additional outbuildings a farming family required — perhaps a smokehouse for preserving meat, a corn crib, and animal pens. The family kept livestock: almost certainly a cow or two for milk, oxen or a horse for field work, pigs for meat, and chickens for eggs.

South Kingstown in 1805 was still recovering from the long decline that had followed the Revolution. Land holdings had been divided by successive generations, and the supply of labor was disrupted by antislavery legislation in the state. The great plantation era, when Hazard family estates had covered thousands of acres worked by enslaved people, was over. In its place, smaller family farms like the Oatleys' worked the same fertile land — some of the richest agricultural land in New England — with family labor and occasional hired help.

Jonathan's Work and Chores

At 15, Jonathan was not a boy doing boy's chores — he was a young man doing a man's work. Boys' tasks might include cutting, splitting, or carrying firewood for the stove or fireplace, tending to the farm animals, carrying water to the house, putting up or repairing fencing, working in the gardens, fields, or orchards, and hunting, trapping, or fishing to provide food for the family.

For Jonathan specifically, a typical year of labor would have looked something like this:

Spring: Plowing and planting were the urgent business of April and May. Oxen or a horse pulled the plow through Rhode Island's rocky soil, turning furrows for corn, rye, oats, potatoes, and kitchen vegetables. Jonathan, as the eldest son, would have been guiding the plow or driving the oxen along with his father — work that required physical strength and the practiced skill of knowing when to push harder and when to let the animals rest. Fences damaged by winter ice and snow needed mending. The kitchen garden had to be prepared and planted.

Summer: Haying was the most critical and exhausting work of the year. Farm laborers, male and female, had to work unceasingly to gather crops before cold or inclement weather ruined them. Jonathan and his father would have cut, raked, and hauled hay in the July heat, racing the weather, working from first light to last. Weeding, tending the crops, and caring for livestock filled the rest of the season.

Autumn: Harvest time brought its own furious labor — gathering corn, digging potatoes, cutting and storing vegetables, collecting apples for cider and sauce. Hogs were butchered in the cooling November weather, their meat salted and smoked for the winter. Firewood had to be cut, split, and stacked — cords of it — to see the family through a Rhode Island winter.

Winter: Winter, although it kept many Americans indoors much of the time, meant a respite from agricultural labor, conversation around the family hearth, and winter sports like skating and sleighing. For Jonathan, lighter work continued: repairing tools, mending harness, cutting timber, tending animals. But the brutal pace of summer and harvest eased considerably.

Jonathan's mother Mary and his older sisters managed the interior domestic economy with equal diligence. Women were responsible for making most of their family's clothes, food, candles, and soap. The Oatley household in 1805 was largely self-sufficient — what was not grown or made at home was obtained by barter or trade at the local store.

Education

Jonathan's schooling was shaped by the particular character of Rhode Island's educational system in the early 19th century — which was, frankly, not a strong one. Many Rhode Islanders had strong reservations about the idea of free schools, and when the 1800 law was repealed just three years later, most towns promptly returned to previous practices.

What existed in South Kingstown in 1805 was a system of local district schools — small, irregularly funded, and dependent on the seasons. School was taught for a term of three or six months, timed around an agricultural planting and harvesting schedule. Children of varying ages and abilities learned their lessons together in the same room, all taught by one male instructor. Sometimes the local minister would take on the additional job of schoolmaster.

Students had to bring their own books and supplies from home; many learned to read using the Bible, as even poor families usually owned a copy. For the Oatley family — with their Baptist faith and their connection to the South Kingstown church — the Bible would have been the central text of both schooling and home instruction.

The curriculum focused on reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and arithmetic, but students were also expected to learn proper behavior as well as moral, civic, and patriotic values.

By 15, Jonathan had likely reached the practical limits of what the local district school could teach him. His formal schooling was probably winding down — boys usually attended longer as it was considered more important for them to learn to read and write so they could manage the farm. But the farm itself was now his primary school, and his father his most important teacher.

One additional dimension shaped Jonathan's education profoundly: the Baptist church. His later ordination as a minister suggests that by his teenage years he was already deeply engaged with scripture, sermons, and the intellectual and theological life of the South Kingstown congregation. Exposure to a literate, morally serious Baptist community — where the Bible was read, debated, and preached — gave Jonathan an education that extended far beyond what any district schoolhouse could provide.

Community Life and Church

South Kingstown in 1805 was a close-knit rural community, and its social life revolved around two institutions above all others: the church and the town meeting.

The Oatley family's Baptist faith connected them to a lively network of congregations across Washington County. The South Kingstown Baptist Church was the heart of their religious community. Sunday services were the week's central social event: families traveled from surrounding farms, news was exchanged, friendships were maintained, and the community renewed its shared identity.

Beyond Sunday worship, the Baptist congregation organized prayer meetings, singing gatherings, and occasional church events that brought people together across the week. For a teenage boy like Jonathan, these gatherings offered one of the few supervised opportunities to mix with peers, including young women — an important consideration given that he would marry at 23.

The town meeting was another pillar of South Kingstown community life. Rhode Island's strong tradition of local self-governance meant that adult men — and the sons who observed them — engaged actively with civic affairs. Jonathan was too young to vote in 1805, but he would have absorbed the rhythms of democratic participation simply by living in a household where such matters were taken seriously.

Communal agricultural labor also provided important social occasions. Neighbors helped each other raise barns, butcher hogs, collect maple syrup, and shear sheep. These work gatherings were also social gatherings, and at the harvest's conclusion, farmers along with their families and hired help joined in a celebration featuring music, dancing, and abundant food and drink. For a Baptist family, the dancing might have been off-limits, but the food, fellowship, and music would have been welcome.

Entertainment and Fun

In the early nineteenth century most Americans believed that time was meant to be filled by work. For a farmer's son on a working farm, leisure was genuinely limited. But it existed, and for a 15-year-old boy in coastal Rhode Island in 1805, it took several distinctive forms.

Hunting and Fishing: These were not merely recreation — they were contributions to the family's food supply, and therefore entirely respectable. Men hunted, fished, and visited inns, hotels, and stores to drink, socialize, and talk politics with their peers. South Kingstown's ponds, streams, and coastal waters offered excellent fishing. The woods provided deer, turkey, and small game. For Jonathan, a day hunting with his father or a neighbor's son was simultaneously work, sport, and male bonding.

Skating and Sleighing: People enjoyed ice-skating and sleighing in the winter. South Kingstown's ponds froze reliably each winter, and skating was a universal pleasure of New England childhood that carried right into young adulthood.

Swimming: In summer, Rhode Island's ponds and coastal waters beckoned. Summer permitted picnics, outings into the countryside, swimming, and other warm-weather pursuits. For a teenage boy on a hot July afternoon, a swim in a local pond after a morning of haying was both practical and delightful.

Informal Competition: Once people came together, they engaged in competitive events. Contests involved such skills as hunting, fishing, target shooting, racing, log rolling, and wrestling. Young men tested themselves against each other in the physical contests that were part of rural masculine culture — wrestling at a barn raising, competing in a foot race after a church picnic, seeing who could split wood fastest.

Music and Singing: Hymn singing was central to Baptist life and entirely approved of by the church. The Oatley household almost certainly rang with song on Sunday evenings and at family prayer times. Community singing events — singing schools where young people gathered to learn psalm tunes — were a beloved feature of New England rural culture that provided both musical education and social opportunity.

Storytelling and Family Evenings: Winter brought conversation around the family hearth. Joseph Oatley would have had stories — of the Revolution (he was old enough to have served in the militia), of Rhode Island families and their histories, of the Hazard connections. These evenings around the fire, with the younger children already asleep and the older ones gathered with their parents, were the primary entertainment of a winter night.

Visiting: Calling on neighbors, relatives, and church members was both social custom and community obligation. The Oatley family's connections — through the father’s siblings, the mother’s Hazard name, through the Baptist congregation, through the farming network of South Kingstown — gave Jonathan a rich web of people to visit and be visited by.

Historical Context: The World Jonathan Inhabited

In 1805, Jonathan Oatley was growing up in the early years of the American republic — a world his parents had seen born during the Revolution. President Thomas Jefferson was in his second term. The Louisiana Purchase had just doubled the size of the nation. Lewis and Clark were somewhere in the American West. The world was changing at a pace that felt extraordinary to those living through it.

Closer to home, South Kingstown was at an economic crossroads. In 1802, Rowland Hazard had begun to invest in the textile industry, acquiring a half interest in a South Kingstown fulling mill, and in 1804 a carding machine in the same location — the beginning of the Narragansett Cotton Manufacturing Company. The industrial age was arriving in Jonathan's own backyard. The Peace Dale mills would transform the community he grew up in, drawing workers and creating a new economic order that would eventually pull young people away from family farms.

Jonathan, at 15, stood at the last generation of entirely pre-industrial rural life in Washington County. He would never work in a mill. His vocation would be the ancient combination of the field and the pulpit. But the world was shifting around him, and the South Kingstown he knew as a boy — quiet, agricultural, Baptist, deeply rooted in the land — would look considerably different by the time he left for Connecticut in 1834.

The Making of a Minister

Looking back from what we know of Jonathan's later life, 1805 was a year of formation. The faith that would eventually ordain him as a Baptist minister was being shaped around the family hearth and in the pews of the South Kingstown church. The physical endurance that would allow him to walk 50 miles at age 75 was being built through daily farm labor. The community connections that would make him effective as a pastor — his knowledge of people, his comfort with hard work, his rootedness in family and place — were all taking shape in South Kingstown in 1805.

He was 15, a farmer's oldest son, a Baptist's boy, a Rhode Islander through and through — working hard, worshipping faithfully, fishing when he could, skating when the pond froze, and beginning, perhaps without knowing it, to grow into the minister and stonecutter that history would remember.

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The Google NotebookLM Video Overview of this story is below and on my YouTube channel:  

As genealogists, we can occasionally find the 19th century town or church records for Rhode Island families, but we can usually find census, occupation, military, land and probate records. In addition, there are books and websites about the daily lives of people in those times.  The AI tools have been pre-trained on historical events, social history, geography, literature and other disciplines so they can provide information for questions like this one, and by 2025 they had the ability to search the Internet.  

After I read these types of social history summaries, I wish that I could be a time traveler for one day to visit the Oatley family in Rhode Island in 1805 and witness their daily lives.  I'm glad that the general lifestyles and occupations are known from historical records and witness accounts.

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Links to my blog posts about using Artificial Intelligence are on my Randy's AI and Genealogy page.  Links to AI information and articles about Artificial Intelligence in Genealogy by other genealogists are on my AI and Genealogy Compendium page.

Copyright (c) 2026, Randall J. Seaver


Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on X, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.  Note that all comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately.

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