Leading family history website findmypast.co.uk has just added 22,000 baptism, marriage and burial records to its Dorset parish record collection, bringing the total number of Dorset parish records available at findmypast.co.uk up to almost 450,000.

To say the UK censuses are important records for genealogists researching their English, Welsh or Scottish ancestors is truly an understatement. The information they provide is invaluable in finding members of the same family, their sex, address, occupations, marital status and where they were born.

If you are wanting to increase your genealogy knowledge, but don’t have the time or desire to book into local courses (that is assuming they are even on offer in your area), take an online genealogical course through the NIGS.

If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, or an iPad and want to take your family tree files with you wherever you go take a look at TelGen Limited’s ‘Families’, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.

The makers of RootsMagic have been hard at work with the latest version of RootsMagic 4, and this latest installment implements some requested new features, and well as fixing a number of pesky bugs.

Mary MacKillop’s canonisation will be featured on Foxtel’s History Channel. The station has commissioned a new documentary “Blessed Mary: A Saint for All Australians” to commemorate the historic canonisation of the revered nun in Rome on October 17. Hosted by Alan Jones, the hour long special will premier on Sunday October 10, at 7pm.

Continuing on in my update of news from primarily regional (but not exclusively) Australian genealogy, history and heritage groups. This covers news from any group, society, museum, archive office throughout Australia. Some of the following news articles have been submitted to us, while others have been found from websites, newspapers and other articles.

The winners of the AFFHO Nick Vine Hall Award 2010 have been announced. These are awarded to Groups or Societies to encourage them to promote family history through journals and newsletters …

For anyone who has ever ordered films from the LDS, either online or through your local Family History Centre, here is a spectacular look inside where these records are stored. Not only the mountain and vaults itself, but also in the workings of FamilySearch and their new digitisation project …

Social media seems to be the dominant theme through the latest news, with new new blogs, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages from groups. It is great to see them embracing the newer means of communications that people are wanting (and sometimes expecting).

The announcement has just been been made that Ancestry.com.au and Ancestry.co.uk have added Australian Birth, Death and Marriage Index Records (aka Vital Records to our US friends) to their websites. Featuring 15 million Australians, and dating back more than 200 years to when modern Australia was settled in 1788 …

There seems to be a lot of news about censuses (old and new ones) recently, the UK, Canada, the US and Australia too …

Need a genealogy program? Make sure you choose one that is right for YOU! They are all a little different, and one may well be better suited to you than another. Recommendations from others are great, but nothing beats being able to try a program out for yourself.