Posts

25 April 2026

Here’s your concise, Saturday‑morning style briefing for the week ending 24 April 2026, focused on what a working genealogist or family history blogger can actually use right now. familysearch +6 Big‑picture highlights (last 7 days-ish) Major sites continue to push record‑level growth rather than flashy tools this week, especially FamilySearch, Ancestry, MyHeritage, and Newspapers.com. ancestry +5 Newspapers remain a hot area: Newspapers.com and Advantage Archives are both singled out as leading contributors in April 2026 database growth reports. newspapers +1 Archive‑It and Advantage Archives updates this month are more about capacity, accessibility, and partner support than new user‑facing bells and whistles, but they directly affect where and how you’ll find born‑digital and historical newspapers. archive-it +3 FamilySearch.org FamilySearch has shifted to monthly reporting of new historical record collections; the latest April 2026 update notes more than one billion additional his...

18 April 2026

 Here’ your weekly briefing/ Big picture this week Across the “big seven” genealogy platforms, the past week has been more about incremental record releases and continuing AI roll‑outs than splashy new tools. For a working genealogist, the most immediately useful changes are (1) fresh April 2026 record sets on FamilySearch, Ancestry, and MyHeritage, and (2) ongoing expansion of digitized newspaper pages at Newspapers.com and Advantage Archives. familysearch +5 FamilySearch.org FamilySearch is now reporting record releases monthly, but the April 2026 update landed this week with over 1 billion new historical records, heavily focused on the USA, Ireland, and the UK. The April post is the key place to scan for collection‑level changes if you are tracking coverage in those regions. familysearch +1 Try this now (2–3 ideas): Run a targeted search in the newly expanded April 2026 US or UK collections mentioned in the FamilySearch April update, especially if you have “brick wall” ancesto...