National Archives UK

The National Archives is launching a new online catalogue at the end of January. Called Discovery, it will make it easier for people to search the online collections. Discovery will run in parallel with the old search catalogue until 31 March, at which time the old search methodology will be permanently disabled. There is a fee to access most of the extensive collections of the National Archives, which currently number over 11 million records.  Go to http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/

National Archives of Ireland

The website for the National Archives of Ireland has been redesigned to make it easier to navigate and more intuitive to understand. The new website also comes with expanded guides for people wanting to trace their Irish ancestors. Most of the records on the Irish National Archives website cover records from various Irish government departments from the twentieth century. Access is free.

Ancestral Atlas

Major plans for the UK-based genealogical mapping site include adding the ability for users to attach image, audio and video files to their events/locations ; adding new datasets to complement the user-contributed data ; and making the interface cleaner and more intuitive.  Explore the Ancestral Atlas at http://www.ancestralatlas.com/

National Archives UK

The National Archives Podcast Series
Listen to talks, lectures and other events presented by The National Archives of the United Kingdom.  The list is updated frequently as new podcasts are released.  Go to http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/rss/podcasts.xml

FamilySearch

FamilySearch Ushers in the New Year with 119 Million New, Free Records from 33 Countries FamilySearch was extra busy during the holidays. It added 119 million new, free records online (about 64 million indexed names and 55 million browsable images). This latest round of record updates makes 1008 historic record collections online boasting 2.58 billion searchable names and 466 million digital images of historic documents.

Trove

The National Library of Australia is pleased to announce that the following newspaper titles have been added to Digitised newspapers and more on Trove:
Victoria
Oakleigh Leader (North Brighton, Vic. : 1888 - 1902)
Oakleigh Leader and District Record (Brighton, Vic. : 1887 - 1888)
Sunbury News and Bulla and Melton Advertiser (Vic. : 1892 - 1900)
The Benalla Ensign and Farmer's and Squatter's Journal (Vic. : 1869 - 1872)
The Coburg Leader (Vic. : 1890 - 1913)
The Elsternwick Leader (Brighton, Vic. : 1888)
The Elsternwick Leader and Caulfield and Balaclava Guardian (Brighton, Vic. : 1887)
The Elsternwick Leader and District Record (Brighton, Vic. : 1887 - 1888)
Elsternwick Leader and East Brighton, South Brighton, Cheltenham, Mentone, Mordialloc, Oakleigh, Sandringham, Balaclava & Caulfield Record (Vic. : 1887)
The Kerang Times (Vic. : 1889 - 1890)
The Kyabram Union and Rodney Shire Advocate (Vic. : 1894)
Healesville Guardian and Yarra Glen Advocate (Vic. : 1898)
These titles have been funded by the State Library of Victoria
Tasmania
The Observer (Hobart, Tas : 1845-1846)
New South Wales
The Leader (Liverpool, NSW : 1946-1949)
This title has been funded by the Liverpool City Library

Royal Society Historic Scientific Papers

The Royal Society has put online their historical journal archive. The archive consists of some 60,000 historical scientific papers dating back as far as 1665. This is a fun collection to browse through even if you have no ancestors who were scientists. Included in this collection is Benjamin Franklin’s famous paper on his electrical experiments with kites, geological papers written by Charles Darwin plus Sir Isaac Newton’s first published scientific paper. The archive can be searched by author, title of the paper and time period. Access is free.