Genealogy News Snippets

Lafayette’s descendant to auciton medal

Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:11:39 GMT

He is a French aristocrat who created a stir in America as a precocious teenager, and then returned decades later to the United States to be celebrated in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston. The Marquis de Lafayette? Yes, of course. But that was then. This time, it is his great-great-great grandson.

Civil War records to be digitized

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 02:08:29 GMT

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration and the Genealogical Society of Utah are partnering over a five-year period to digitize case files of approved pension applications of widows of Civil War Union soldiers from the National Archives.
Upon successful completion of the pilot, GSU, doing business as FamilySearch, in conjunction with Footnote.com, intends to digitize and index all 1,280,000 Civil War and later widows' files in the series.

Irish Coats of Arms may be worthless

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:03:10 GMT

The legality of all Irish coats of arms issued in the past 60+ years is now in doubt. In what has been described as the new 'arms crisis', the National Library has stopped the Office of the Chief Herald from making any further awards due to concerns that it had no legal powers to do so.

Ancestry.com bought for $300 million+

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:04:29 GMT

Spectrum Equity Investors has led a $300 million investment to acquire a majority interest in Provo Utah-based The Generations Network (the parent company of Ancestry.com, MyFamily.com and other sites) according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

All UK 'must be on DNA database'

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:27:14 GMT

The present database in England and Wales holds details of 4m people who are guilty or cleared of a crime.

Lord Justice Sedley said this was indefensible and biased against ethnic minorities, and it would be fairer to include everyone, guilty or innocent.

Ministers said DNA helped tackle crime, but there were no plans for a voluntary national or compulsory UK database.

DNA pioneer's talk halted

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 14:46:49 GMT

LONDON (AP) -- London's Science Museum canceled a Friday talk by Nobel Prize-winning geneticist James Watson after the co-discoverer of DNA's structure told a newspaper that Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence.