17 August 2010

Mid-August Lost Cousins Newsletter

Peter Calver, founder of the Lost Cousins site, has put out another interesting newsletter at http://lostcousins.com/newsletters/lateaug10news.htm . The topics this issue are:

Census controversy continues
Does Canada have the solution?
Looking at other options…
Recording expats
Should you support Guy Etchells' 1921 campaign?
How much does the National Archives make from the census?
Local censuses from 1522-1930
Double baptisms
Will you live to be 100?
Finding graves pt2
Will indexes from 1861-1941 online
Do you have Suffolk ancestry?
New records at FamilySearch
Peter's tips

I particularly enjoyed Peter's comment on the UK government decision regarding the 2011 census.

"Even though we may not be able to persuade the Government to continue the census after 2011, that doesn't mean that family historians of the future have to be worse off - indeed, it's possible that we could end up with something that's a lot better than we have at the moment." 
These reflect exactly my views regarding the genealogical implications of the Canadian government's decision on the long-form census. The Canadian genealogical community has become quite muted on the census issue. Perhaps they're drowned out by the outcry from the many organizations that benefit from the sociological and economic statistics generated from the long-form census. I can understand that point of view as the present government's position provides for no transition pathway to another regime.

Perhaps there's also a greater recognition in the genealogical community that with the historical census regime we don't live in a Panglossian world. Can we find a better one?

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