• This week, the free FamilySearch.org added 2.8 million records for the United States, Canada, England, Hungary, Italy and Russia. Of note are the 900,000 records of Hungary Reformed Church Christenings. See the list of new records and link to each collection here.

• Actor Blair Underwood—star of this week’s “Who Do You Thnk You Are?” episode—will appear today in a commercial promoting Ancestry.com’s support of Big Brothers Big Sisters. If you join Ancestry.com through the link www.ancestry.com/donate between February 24 and 29, Ancestry.com will donate 20 percent of proceeds to the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program.

• Findmypast.co.uk today announced a project to digitize the 3.5 to 4 million historical records from the Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies in England. The records cover parish churches and bishops’ transcripts, spanning 1538 to 1990 (1910 for baptisms and 1928 for marriages).

Findmypast.co.uk also added 359,000 records of UK merchant seamen records covering the years 1835-1857. Its sister site findmypast.ie added Petty Sessions order books—court records from the lowest courts in Ireland—from 1850 through 1910.

• Military-focused historical records subscription site Fold3 has published the Index to Compiled Service Records of Union Soldiers for four states (Ohio, New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania), with more to come. This collection provides digital images of the cards you’ll find transcribed in the National Park Service’s free Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System database.