Published August 29, 2012 Let's get ready to go back to school - family history school! And I've got some exciting new to tell you about! Genealogy Gems Podcast Episode #139 brought to you by two times Grandma Lisa Louise Cooke.  Yes, indeed my second little Grandson was born on August 15, 2012 about 2 ½ weeks early, and he and his mommy my daughter Vienna are doing marvelously. His name is Joseph, and we’ll all be calling him Joey which I absolutely adore, and even better his middle name is Cooke. Life is good, and being a Sha Sha as Davy calls me is heaven on earth that’s for sure. Genealogy News: This month Ancestry announced that it has completed the records indexing process for the 1940 U.S. Federal Census, which you can find at www.ancestry.com/1940census. Since the initial release of the 1940 U.S. Census by the National Archives in April, Ancestry.com has progressively published information state by state.  But now, no longer will you have to look up enumeration districts.  Now all 134 million records are now searchable for free by name, date, place of birth and other key information recorded in the census. You’ll also be able to make corrections or update information that is incomplete, leading to a better overall database of information. Assisting you with navigating the 1940 U.S. Census is Ancestry.com’s Interactive Image Viewer, which enables users to browse document pages with simple graphical overlays. The viewer adds highlights, transcriptions and other functionality directly on the Census page. This enables users to access small census fields by scrolling over them and getting a pop up that magnifies the information that was recorded by census takers. In the 1940 census you find information on whether your ancestor’s owned or rented their home, the value of the residence and how many people lived there. For the first time, census takers in 1940 also asked questions specific to income and education. And you may be surprised what you will not find, like details on military service, whether they could read or write, and whether they spoke English which were all questions that were asked in prior censuses. You will find the 1940 census in its entirety at www.ancestry.com/1940census FamilySearch Volunteer Opportunity: US Immigration & Naturalization Genealogy Project FamilySearch also has indexed the 1940 Census with the help of more than 160,000 volunteers, and they are launching a new volunteer opportunity. Now they are turning their attention to the U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Community Project, an indexing effort to make passenger lists, naturalization records, and other immigration related records freely searchable online. Hundreds of thousands of North American volunteers are expected to contribute over the next 18-24 months, focusing initially on passenger lists from the major US ports. If you of your genealogy society wants to pitch in you can visit familysearch.org/immigration for all the details. Read more about it: Indexing Volunteers Invited by FamilySearch to Join new US Immigration and Naturalization Community Genealogy Project   Bids to Buy Ancestry Reported by Reuters to be Lower than Hoped   In my last Premium podcast, I mentioned that Chronicling America, the Library of Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov Congress’ historical newspaper website, sent out a newsletter on using Civil War maps printed in the New York Daily Tribune. I just have to share more on this with everyone!   Civil War Maps for Genealogy Available in Online Newspapers   And finally, here’s something fun from George Mason’s University’s History News Network website: If you have teens in your family then chances are you have heard the phrase OMG which stands for oh my God. But have you ever wondered who started it? You may have thought it was Alicia Silverstone in the 1995 movie Clueless, but actually you have to dig much further back in history to find its origins. All the way