I received emails from GenCircles about several of their databases they are making available for free on Family Tree Legends. The databases will remain free from now on for all those interested in searching it. They are going to start giving away more databases in the near future. I'll let you know what they are when they send notification.

The following databases are free:

1. California Death Index (1940-1997)
http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/caldeaths

2. Kentucky Deaths (1911-1992)
http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/kydeaths

3. Texas Birth Index (1926-1995)
http://www.familytreelegends.com/records/txbirths

The databases are very good. But I guess the Texas Birth Index kind of surprises me. You wouldn't think for privacy reasons you could list such recent births. Then again it isn't anything you wouldn't find in a newspaper. I look forward to seeing some New York databases made available.

FamilySearch.org has the following notice on their website, "Beginning 25 Oct 2005, the Share tab, Sign on, Registration, and Contact Us features will be unavailable for 48 hours due to site maintenance. Thank you for your patience!"

What does this mean for researchers? Well, starting on the 25th of October for the next 48 hours you will not be able to sign on. Not signing on will make you unable to view LDS temple ordinances. So if you're thinking of clearing names through temple ready for that last minute youth temple trip you better check your plans. You also will be unable to submit your gedcom to Pedigree Resource File during this time frame.

The LDS Church will be moving physical infrastructure associated with the FamilySearch Internet site to a new location. This will also affect those using PAF Insight, Legacy or RootsMagic's IGI Search Features. You will be unable to search the online IGI during this time.

If you are a PAF Insight user you might be interested in the following:

The LDS Church has asked Ohana Software (the makers of PAF Insight) to assist them in some testing in connection with this change.

Next Tuesday, October 25, they need help creating some PAF Insight traffic on the new servers. They need volunteers who are willing to load a special version of PAF Insight on their computers Tuesday morning before 10 am Mountain time. You would need to load your database into it and go into the IGI Search mode. The special version will check with the Ohana Software website every few minutes, waiting for "go" signal. Then it will begin performing IGI searches. It may start and stop a few times during the day. It will display a message when the test is completed. The test may be repeated several times during the day. During this time you could still use your computer, but we would ask you to leave PAF Insight running, or restart it if you need to reboot.

They need a large number of volunteers, so please help if you can. If you would like to volunteer, send an email to volunteer@ohanasoftware.com.

Now aren't we all curious as to what is going on in the background? Does this mean changes are quickly coming in preparing names for the temple? I guess we all just have to wait and see.