The historical records subscription site Footnote has branched into census territory by adding 1860 US census schedules to its collection.

Footnote took a different angle with this addition—not surprising, since census records are widely available on the Web.

The site, which divides its collections by historical era rather than record type, has grouped the 1860 census with its Civil War collection and made the database interactive. That means subscribers can attach stories, photos and comments to entries in the census.

You also can use Footnote’s records viewer to adjust the brightness and contrast of digitized records and invert images (so they appear as white print on a black background instead of the other way around).

The viewer actually is pretty cool: You hover over an entry and a pop-up window tells you the person’s name. You click for other information, and to see other users’ comments (or add yours). At the bottom of the viewer is a "film strip" you use to navigate to other pages. Here's a look:



The Civil War collection also includes a pension index, Confederate soldiers’ service records and Southern Claims Commission files. Footnote is working with FamilySearch and the National Archives on a pilot project to digitize Union widows’ pension applications.

Annual subscriptions to Footnote cost $59.95.

If you've participated in the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation’s (SMGF) DNA study, you may be able to get your genetic genealogy test results for just $19.50.

SMGF’s collaboration with the DNA-enabled social networking site Genetree has provided an avenue for SMGF to release the DNA profiles in what study director Scott Woodward calls a “compelling, confidential” way.

To be eligible for the offer, you must have ordered an SMGF participation kit prior to Oct. 23, 2007, and returned the properly completed kit to SMGF postmarked no later than Dec. 31, 2007.

If that’s you, you’ll be able to access your mitochondrial (mt) DNA profile (with genetic information passed from mothers to their children), along with the pedigree information you submitted to SMGF, online through Genetree.

You’ll need a free Genetree basic membership to view your profile. It’ll take about two weeks for your request to be filled—get instructions for obtaining your results on Genetree's "unlock" page.

The SMGF study started in 2000 at Brigham Young University’s Center for Molecular Genealogy, with researchers collecting blood samples and pedigree charts at genealogy conferences. The goal? Build a database of DNA and corresponding genealogical information.

Several years ago, the project outgrew the university and moved to SMGF, where the database now contains nearly 100,000 DNA samples and more than 6 million corresponding genealogical records from people in 170 countries.

You can search SMGF databases and contact potential relatives through the site, but until now, participants didn’t receive their test results.

On Genetree, which launched in beta last October, you can create profiles for yourself and deceased relatives, add DNA test results or order an mtDNA test ($99 or $149), search for relatives, share memories, build a family tree, and invite relatives and friends to participate.

Family Tree Magazine’s contributing editor and technology guru Rick Crume crashed the Brigham Young University Computerized Genealogy Conference  last weekend in Provo, Utah.

He reports more than 700 attendees absorbed nearly 100 presentations and explored a large exhibit area. Here's what Rick had to say about developments he uncovered there:

FamilySearch makeover update
The revamped Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Family History Library Web site, still in the testing stage, is gradually being rolled out to the church’s temple districts around the world. It’ll be open to the general public once data security issues are addressed.

“New” FamilySearch offers collaboration, multimedia and improved searching. It’ll attempt to consolidate all the family information located in several databases on “old” FamilySearch.

As a shared database open for users to collaborate on, the new FamilySearch is fundamentally different from the current site, which doesn’t let you alter data someone else submitted. You’ll be able to submit information to the new site in GEDCOM format, but you can’t download data as a GEDCOM.

Working with other service providers is the new site’s strong suit. Several genealogy programs, including Ancestral Quest, Legacy Family Tree and RootsMagic (but not Family Tree Maker or FamilySearch’s own Personal Ancestral File), will let you synchronize the family files on your computer with New FamilySearch. And you’ll be able to use these programs free at Family History Centers for three years.

Progeny’s Charting Companion utilities  will combine family information from the renewed site with photos from another site to create a photo family tree chart. And Generations Maps will let you order a chart made from names on the new FamilySearch.

Work is underway to digitize the Family History Library’s collection. FamilySearch Labs' Record Search already lets you search millions of indexed names.

How many searches was that?
Tim Sullivan, president and CEO of The Generations Network, rattled off a string of statistics on his company, whose divisions include Ancestry.com, RootsWeb, MyFamily.com and Genealogy.com.

Amazingly, Genealogy.com still ranks as the third most popular genealogy Web site, even though TGN virtually abandoned the site after acquiring it several years ago.

Sullivan noted Ancestry.com processes 20 million search requests a day. TGN has invested almost $69 million to digitize records over the past 10 years; $10 million a year now goes toward digitization. In the works: scanning some of the National Archives’ 9 billion undigitized documents.

Sullivan emphasized RootsWeb will remain free despite the change in its domain name to rootsweb.ancestry.com.

From the genealogy social networking front ...
Genealogy social networking sites are multiplying like crazy. Geni now has a million registered users. A new entrant in the field, Family Pursuit, lets you and your relatives use a Web-based genealogy program to collaborate on family history research.

Findmypast.com’s upgraded online family tree, PedigreeSoft, will debut in two or three months with a new URL, www.familytreeexplorer.com.

And some new products and services

• Family Photoloom, which should be available this month, lets you tag faces in photos and link them to genealogical data

• Heritage Collector lets you organize your digital photos, label people in them and create family history scrapbooks

• Biographywiki.com is a wiki that accepts biographies of anyone, famous or not, but the person must be deceased

• USFamilyTree.com, coming in April, aims to make tracking down your ancestors’ descendants more efficient.