Samhain (a Gaelic word pronounced “sow-win”) is a pagan religious festival originating from an ancient Celtic spiritual tradition. It us usually celebrated from October 31 to November 1 to welcome in the harvest and usher in “the dark half of the year.” according to History.com. Celebrants believe that the barriers between the physical world and the spirit world break down  during Samhain, allowing more interaction between humans and denizens of the Otherworld. Ancient Samhain Ancient Celts marked Samhain as the most significant of the four quarterly fire festivals, taking place at the m ..read more

A team of scientists appears to have unearthed a previously unknown genetic trigger for Parkinson’s disease – one much more commonly seen in people with recent African ancestry, Gizmodo reported. They found that those who were born with one or two copies of this associated variant were noticeably more likely to develop Parkinson’s. The results highlight the value of conducting genetic research in diverse populations, the authors say. Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative condition that progressively worsens people’s motor function and often eventually leads to dementia. It currently affects up t ..read more

In September 2023, we published 43 million historical records from 43 historical record collections from Belgium, Canada, France, Lithuania, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. The records include birth, marriage, death, divorce, burial, obituary, incarcerations and naturalization. Many of the collections also include images. Search them to discover a family treasure! Here are more details about each of the collections: Belgium, Aalst Population Registers This collection contains records and images of population registers conducted in Aalst, Belgium between the years 1796 and 1881. Records typ ..read more

The Los Angeles Times reported that, for a strong majority of California voters, the question of whether the Golden State should offer cash payments to the descendants of enslaved African Americans has a clear answer: No. But despite that dark finding, from a new UC Berkeley poll co-sponsored by The Times, most California voters possess a more nuanced view on the lasting legacy of slavery and how the state should address those wrongs. They agreed that slavery still affects today’s Black residents, and more than half said the state is either not doing enough, or just enough, to ensure a fair s ..read more

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Harvard, the Broad Institute, the National Cancer Institute, and 23andMe have developed a method that significantly improves the performance of polygenic risk models for people of non-European ancestry. Improving Polygenic Risk Scores Over the last several years, these kinds of risk models, also known as polygenic risk scores, or PRS, have begun to offer up meaningful risk information on many diseases like breast cancer, type 2 diabetes, or heart disease. But the performance of these models – which rely on very large genome wide ..read more

Genealogy expert Michael J. Leclerc, CG, shares some of his hot tips for finding your LGBTQIA+ Ancestors. Have you ever been curious about whether there could be LGBTQIA+ ancestors in your family tree? People from past generations would not have identified themselves using terms like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer, as they are relatively recent terms. Even the word homosexual dats back to 1859 but wasn’t in common use until the start of the twentieth century. And they often weren’t as free to live their lives openly like LGBTQIA+ people can today. This means that sometimes you ..read more

In a recent study published in The Journal of Applied Laboratory Medicine, researchers evaluated the performance of a compact diagnostic assay that can accurately and rapidly diagnose lactose intolerance using capillary blood and buccal swab samples, News Medical Net, reported. A decrease or absence in the synthesis and activity of the lactase-phlorizin hydrolase enzyme (LHP), commonly known as lactase, results in lactose intolerance. Lactase, or LPH, is essential for breaking down lactose, and the expression of LPH is genetically programmed to be downregulated during adulthood. The ance ..read more

Smoking may not only harm the smoker and those who breathe in the secondhand fumes, but also their future children, UPI News  reported (via Microsoft Start). New research suggests that boys who smoke in their early teens risk passing on harmful genetic traits to future children. The study probed the genetic profiles of 875 people between 7 and 50 years of age and their father’s smoking behavior. People whose dads were early-teen smokers had gene markets associated with asthma, obesity, and low lung function. Biomarkers associated with this were different from those associated with matern ..read more

FamilySearch’s goal is to make genealogical resources more accessible, engaging, and easy to use. As FamilySearch centers  provide resources to patrons all over the world, volunteers and staff members at these centers need some fundamental resources to maintain each center and help patrons have great experiences when visiting. FamilySearch has a new learning page for FamilySearch center volunteers, staff, and directors. This web page provides comprehensive learning resources to help center workers serve guests with individualized attention when using FamilySearch.org. It gathers many of ..read more

What a way to finish the summer! In August 2023 we published 89 million historical records from 37 new historical record collections from Australia, U.K., and the U.S., as well as one collection from all over the world. The records include marriage, death, burial, obituary, as well as one tax collection from all over the world. Many of the collections also include images. Search them to discover a family treasure! Worldwide Jewish Burial Registry from JewishGen MyHeritage, BillionGraves, and the Museum of Jewish Heritage – a Living Memorial to the Holocaust partnered to make Jewish burial rec ..read more