CVFHRG Event - 25 September

British Columbia genealogists from Campbell River, Powell River, Port Alberni and Nanaimo and places in-between, and even one from Maple Ridge, converged on a wet and windy Courtenay last Saturday for an all-day seminar.

Activity got underway on Friday evening with an informal dinner at the White Spot restaurant where about half the 93 people who attended on Saturday listened to a friendly debate between myself and Lesley Anderson, an Ancestry employee, on whether given an extra $200 to spend on family history you should use it to buy an Ancestry subscription or a DNA test.  

Lesley gave presentations on "Census records online – A goldmine of information ",  "Directories – What are they and how to use them" and "Searching Effectively on Ancestry." I presented "Early 20th Century British Immigrants to Canada", "Your Family History in Newspapers Online" and "Some lesser-known websites for British family history."

There was a hiccup in the proceedings when the power went out. As one person commented, the presentations were so exciting we blew the power. It was restored in time for shortened versions of the final two presentations to be given.

Kudos to the CVFHRG organizers Norma O'Toole and Bob Scales for the fine organization and arranging the extra goodies participants took away, including some great prizes. 

Here is the personal selection of lesser-known websites for British genealogy which I did not get a chance to present but were given as a handout. Newspaper sites are not included.

www.timeanddate.com/	Calendar for any year, date of Easter, moon phase
http://people.albion.edu/imacinnes/calendar//Welcome.html/	UK religious holidays, Regnal years, old/new style dates
www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezins/	Institute for (Place) Name Studies
http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/WxHistory.htm/	Weather in history, summaries
www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/stationdata/	British Meteorological Office, monthly wx station data
www.publicprofiler.org/worldnames/	PublicProfiler, surname distribution
www.histpop.org/	Population reports for UK and Ireland from 1801- 1937
http://hharp.org/	Historical Hospital Admission Records Project (formerly Small and Special)
www.onlineparishclerks.org.uk/	Sources for some Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Somerset, Sussex,  Warwickshire parishes.
www.parishregister.com/	East End London, Thames Watermen & Lightermen ($)
www.victorianlondon.org/	Dictionary of Victorian London
http://cityark.medway.gov.uk/	Resouces for the Medway area of Kent
www.british-history.ac.uk/	British History Online
http://theoriginalrecord.com/	Huge collection od digitized documents ($)
www.llgc.org.uk/index.php?id=2/	The National Library of Wales
gravestonephotos.com/	International collection
www.deceasedonline.com/	A growing collection of cemetery burial records ($)
www.historicaldirectories.org/	Free digitized city directories
www.blacksheepindex.co.uk/	Black Sheep and others indexed ($)
www.britishmedals.us/kevin/intro.htm/	What’s that medal?
www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/home/	The Coalmining History Resource Centre
http://hiddenlives.org.uk/	C of E Children’s Society online archive
www.workhouses.org.uk/	Information on workhouses across Britain
www.oldbaileyonline.org/	Summaries of more than 100,000 trials
http://vcp.e2bn.org/	Victorian Crime and Punishment
http://leighrayment.com/	Leigh Rayment’s Peerage Page
www.one-name.org/	Guild of One Name Studies
www.sog,org.uk/	Society of Genealogists
www.ormond.t83.net/	Misc database links