World Vital Records is one of the more recent entrants to the online genealogy records market, and has access to a lot of material from Archive CD Books and the Queensland Family History Society.

Their World Collection, which includes Australia, New Zealand and the UK, is normally double this price, and so this is great value. If you are already a subscriber the year will be added on the end. I am now a subscriber until March 2011!

This is a real bargain. It cost me $72.77 in Australian dollars this morning.

The free access announced on the 11th August has proved so popular that they are extending the deadline to the 18th August.

I already have an account with them which I use frequently. Government Gazettes, Police Gazettes, directories, and a lot of content from Queensland FHS make this worthwhile to have a good hard look around!

The ad seems to have miraculously changed, but the half-price offer for the World collection is a great deal, especially if you have, as I do, ancestors from the States as well as Australia and New Zealand.

Here is a blog post I read this morning that had a happy ending.

Lynn Walsh is a facilitator and coach with an interest in her family history. She found an account of the robbery of her great-great-grandfather in the NSW Police Gazette of 19 May 1897:

Thomas Gibbons was further charged in company with George Williams with breaking and entering the dwelling of William J Laws, Dock Road, Balmain, and stealing a watch, a scarf pin, two Alberts, four brooches,  a Gladstone bag, two coats, two vests and two pairs of trousers, value 20 pounds (part recovered).

She had no idea what an “Albert” was (and neither did I) but some kind soul who read her post has enlightened her, and she has posted a photo and description as a postscript.

To find out what an Albert is read the original post here.

I hope he got his Alberts back!

An announcement from World Vital Records:

World Vital Records is announcing the addition of the largest number of records to be released in a single day since the site launched in 2006.

To commemorate this milestone, for the first time World Vital Records is offering FREE PUBLIC ACCESS to its entire online collection beginning August 11 through August 13, 2009. This is a perfect opportunity to participate in this incredible promotion.

This is a great opportunity to have a look around at the Australian content in this site, mostly, but not only, provided by Archive CD Books Australia.

Just click on the link below!

The Irish Times is celebrating 150 years of publication by allowing free access to its digital archive until the 5th March 2009. The first edition of the Irish Times was first published on 29th March 1869, and you can see it and read it for yourself. The website allows browing by date or searching for specific words (or parts of words) within a range of dates or across the whole 150 years.

You can search the Irish Times Digital Archive for the next few days at http://www.irishtimes.com/150/.