TheGenealogist adds Lloyd George Domesday Survey for Greenwich

TheGenealogist has added another community, Greenwich, with over 57,700 individuals to its Lloyd George Domesday Survey Records on the Map Explorer™.

This release now brings the total coverage of Lloyd George Domesday Survey Records in the 1910-1915 period to over half a million individuals.

Read more about this release here.

British Newspaper Archives additions for February

The British Newspaper Archive now has a total of 36.198.942 pages online (35,750,853 last month). 32 papers (29 last month) had pages added in the past month. There were 17 (24) new titles. Dates ranged from 1790 to 1978.

The 11 newspapers with more than 10,000 pages added during the month are:

TITLE	DATE RANGE
Blyth News	1874, 1877-1897, 1905, 1907, 1910, 1913-1930, 1940
Kent & Sussex Courier	1951-1976, 1978
Kilkenny Moderator	1841, 1845, 1852-1880, 1882-1884, 1886-1899
Hamilton Daily Times	1873-1886, 1912-1916, 1919-1920
Toronto Daily Mail	1882-1883, 1885-1895
Friend of India and Statesman	1852-1883
Somerset Standard	1900-1931, 1971-1976
Toronto Saturday Night	1887-1910
Westminster Gazette	1893-1928
Dudley Chronicle	1910-1935
Burton Chronicle	1866-1869, 1871-1895, 1897, 1909, 1912-1914

Leap Day Babies

A friend of mine mentioned he has an old university friend who is turning 9 on the 29th.

I received this query from Gil Crooke: is the number of births on Feb. 29 significantly lower than on the 28th or March 1st? If there is a difference, did it change when C-sections became widely available?

Any opinions?

 

Do you think you're Irish?

According to this article, 12 percent of (US) Americans or over 36 million people claim to have an Irish ancestry. This is six times more than the current population of the Emerald Isle (there are 4.6 million people in the Republic of Ireland and another 1.8 million in Northern Ireland). This large number of Irish in America is far more than would be expected to occur.

How did 4.5 million Irish immigrants become 40 million Irish Americans? That's the title of an article by Michael Hout and Joshua Goldstein available from JSTOR.

Spoiler — their answer is an unexplained subjective "closeness" to Ireland choosing to associate with Ireland where they might have chosen another origin they's be equally as entitled to claim.

Ancestry announcements at RootsTech

New databases on Ancestry announced at RootsTech are:

"WWII Draft Cards: Today, we are excited to announce the completion of a multi-year project with the US National Archives & Records Administration to digitize all 36 million of the nation’s available WWII young men’s draft cards. A single card can be a very helpful starting point for new users beginning to build a family tree and can lead to more impactful discoveries due to the rich and unique details they often include, such as physical description, eye color, employer, next of kin, and even why someone was exempt from the draft.

New US and International Records: Additionally, coming in 2020, Ancestry will be releasing New York City Certificate Indexes for Birth, Marriage, and Death records (over 14 million records from 1862-1949). There are also nine state-wide digitization projects and we are unveiling new Naturalization records from six US states. On an international level, this year over 100 million new records will be added from national collections in Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Mexico, and Norway, including more than six million Mexico Catholic records and over 50 million France Census and Birth, Marriage and Death records."

Now available are:

New York, New York, Index to Death Certificates, 1862-1948 7,269,466 records
New York, New York, Index to Marriage Licenses, 1908-1910, 1938-1940    964,666 records
New York, New York, Index to Birth Certificates, 1866-1909     6,091,199 records

and

Rhône, France, Birth, Marriages and Death Registers, 1793-1917 (in French)    2,851,80records

Read the full announcement from the Ancestry blog.

Sadly we'll have to wait for news of any additions from the UK and Ireland or Canada.

Advance Notice: Starting Your Indigenous Genealogy

On Wednesday 18 March the Ottawa Public Library Main Branch is offering a hands-on workshop at 2-4 pm given by Library and Archives Canada staff. 

Space is limited, so registration is required. You can register on the OPL website: Starting Your Indigenous Genealogy . 

Just announced: RootsTech Returns to London in 2020,

Will I see you at RootsTech London 2020, 5–7 November at the ExCeL London Convention Centre?

RootsTech London 2019 was the best genealogy event I've ever attended.

Learn more and register at RootsTech.org/London.

Leap day Open Access to Commercial Genealogy Databases

It doesn't come around often. Take advantage of this rare opportunity!

The Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) and the Ottawa Public Library are hosting the Gene-O-Rama Research Room at the Nepean Centrepointe Library on 29 February.

OGS volunteers will be onsite to help you to get online and research your roots.

In addition to the library's access to genealogy resources such as Ancestry, Généalogie Québec, PRDH, access to other paid sites, including Fold3, Newspapers.com, MyHeritage, FindMyPast and more will be available.

No reservation is required. Drop-in anytime between 10:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. This is a free programme and open to all, but there are limited computers in the lab.

This is in lieu of research room access at the 35th Gene-O-Rama being held 3-4 April 2020 at the Confederation Education Centre, 1645 Woodroffe Avenue, Ottawa which can no longer accommodate the research facility.

RootsTech

A 10 year retrospective article, "RootsTech Then and Now" is just published on the RootsTech blog.

RootsTech 2020 Salt Lake starts today, Wednesday.  Free, live  broadcasts online of daily keynote speakers and select presentations throughout the day, all at RootsTech.org.

Alberta Legal History

The Legal Archives Society of Alberta is the central repository in Alberta for the study of law and society. LASA serves lawyers, judges, scholars, students, educators, genealogists, and the broader public by providing access to its collections. The Archive’s ability to preserve the memory of Alberta’s legal community relies on its collections, which include photographs, artifacts, films, archival documentation, books, and oral interviews of individuals who played a role in the development of the law in the province.

Under the Multimedia tab is a list of oral interviews, including those below available online.

Donald G. Bishop, Q.C.
Karen Gainer, Q.C.
The Hon. Mr. Justice Allan H. Wachowich
The Hon. John C. (Jack) Major, C.C., Q.C.
Virginia May, Q.C.
The Hon. Judge Sandra Hunt-McDonald
The Hon. Mr. Justice Moore
Edward S. Pipella, Q.C.
The Hon. Judge Brian C. Stevenson
The Hon. Mr. Justice Paul S. Chrumka
Edward M. Bredin, Q.C.
Robert L. D. Fenerty, Q.C.
(Dean) Wilbur F. Bowker, Q.C.
Edward M. Bredin, Q.C.
Robert L. D. Fenerty, Q.C.

Anonymous no more: combining genetics with genealogy to identify the dead in unmarked graves

This article from phys.org reports on interesting potential, but the actual results for six unidentified male skeletons didn't identify them. Probably too small a sample -- this method may offer more in the near future.

CWGC Beechwood Burials: Erl Clifton Anderson

Erl Anderson, Vox Lycei Spring 1917 

Erl Clifton Anderson, born in Ottawa on 27 November 1898, son of Robert and Mary Anderson, enlisted as a student from the Ottawa Collegiate Institute on 21 May 1917.
His service file, with the CFA, shows he was discharged as medically unfit for overseas service on 29 January 1918. No detail is given although a newspaper report is that it was due to "An illness contracted at Petawawa Camp."
He had a journalist friend and was mentioned even 30 years after his death as "a great athlete and had one sweet eye as a basketball player." In August 1919 he was recovered and mentioned as"a lightning-fast fielder and hard hitter."
He succumbed to influenza on 24 February 1920 and interred in the family plot in Section 29 at Beechwood Cemetery.

Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Canada's Forgotten Heroes
Bart Armstrong, who I met at VGS on Saturday, "has been researching the Canadian heroes who earned the American Medal of Honor for almost two decades.  His site is dedicated, by way of Sunday blogs, to bring to the public's attention to some of this rich culture and heritage that has been forgotten, or worse yet, in many cases never known to most Canadians, and indeed to our friends to the south."

The Material Culture of Remembrance and Identity: South Africa, India, Canada & Australia's Imperial War Graves Commission Sites on the First World War's Western Front
Ph. D. Thesis (University of Oxford) -
http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d851b171-566f-4cee-9005-a3f438ee8f6c/

A list of ten ways we are decadent and a (speculative) theory about why it might not matter

8 Things that Bing Does Better than Google
The bottom line ... in terms of conventional search engine results and accuracy, Bing and other search engines have a long way to go before they can deliver Google-level performance. This means Google does way better in terms of more search results, more relevant search results, and a better understanding of user intent.


Thanks to this week's contributors
Anonymous, Bryan, Geoff, Penny, Unknown

Findmypast Weekly Update; Surrey

Surrey Baptisms
Over 660,000 from across the county have been added. Each entry includes a transcript and a digitized copy of the original document, held by the Surrey County Council.
There are now 398 parishes with over 1.2 million records in total.

Surrey Marriages
Over 390,000 new Surrey marriage records have been released. As well as the betrothed couple's names, ages, and occupations, you can expect to find their fathers' names and occupations, and the names of any witnesses.
The total collection has 386 parishes with 1.19 million records.

Surrey Burials
Over 440,000 additions are made to these burial records. There are a total of 141 parishes with 506,899 records.

Find a complete list of the parishes in this collection with start and end years and the number of records for all three religious ceremonies. The parishes with records added are not specifically identified.

YouTube: Research your Irish Clan using DNA and Documentary Records

Maurice Gleeson explains how anyone can use DNA and online texts to research their own particular Irish Clan.

CWGC Beechwood Cemetery Burials: John Peel Irving

Private John Peel Irving was one of the first to enlist at the start of the war, in August 1914. According to his attestation paper, he was born in Liverpool, England, 16 February 1886 and worked as a painter in Saskatoon having emigrated to Canada in 1911.

He served with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry in France, was wounded at Ypres on 8 May 1915 with shrapnel and gunshot wounds in the right forearm and muscle damage. Returned to Canada he was discharged as medically unfit in October 1915.

He married Arvilla Kelsall in Ottawa in July 1916.

Death occurred on 21 February 1920 from pernicious anemia and pneumonia. He was interred in a family plot in Section 29, Lot 78 SW.

His wife published a memorial on the first anniversary of his death. She remarried in August 1929.

FamilySearch making great progress on England, Yorkshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1613-1887

I'm impressed by the progress being made by FamilySearch Indexers on the collection England, Yorkshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1613-1887.

Nearly 11,000 records were added between the 14th and the 19th.  The information transcribed is:

Name:
Event Type:
Event Date:
Event Place:
Event Place (Original):
Age:
Birth Year (Estimated):
Spouse's Name:
Spouse's Age:
Spouse's Birth Year (Estimated):

You do have to go to a FHC to see the original.

42346 2/14/2020 1
England, Yorkshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1613-1887 44471 2/15/2020 181
England, Yorkshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1613-1887 45836 2/16/2020 187
England, Yorkshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1613-1887 53043 2/19/2020 192
England, Yorkshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1613-1887 53043 2/19/2020 193

Ottawa Branch OGS 22 February Meeting

The Genealogy Lunch Bunch Session at 11:30 am is an Introduction to The Ontario Name Index (TONI) — an OGS project to index personal names from Ontario’s genealogical and historical records.

The 1:30 pm main presentation has Michael McBane speaking on Irish-born John Egan, one of the foremost men in the timber trade along the Ottawa River.

Michael McBane is a fifth-generation descendant of Irish peasants who settled in the Pontiac. You may be interested in an article he authored more than 20 years ago: "Irish Famine Stories in the Ottawa Valley" available in a collection through the Internet Archive.

All welcome at the City of Ottawa Archives.

LAC CoLab Update for February

Here's the monthly update on Co-Lab challenges projects as of 17 February.

PROGRESS

Correspondence regarding First Nations veterans returning after the First World War is 34% complete (26% last month)

Legendary Train Robber and Prison Escapee Bill Miner is 99% complete (98% last month)

Japanese-Canadians: Second World War is 64% complete (61% last month)

Rosemary Gilliat (Eaton)’s Arctic diary and photographs is 43% complete (40% last month)

NO CHANGE OR REVISED

George Mully: moments in Indigenous communities 0%.

The Call to Duty: Canada's Nursing Sisters is 88% complete (89% last month)

War Diaries of the First World War: 1st Canadian Division is 94% complete.

Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 is 61% complete.

New France and First Nations Relations is 33% complete.

Letters from Wilfrid Laurier to Zoé Lafontaine/Laurier is 98% complete.


COMPLETED

The Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918–1919.

Correspondence between Sir Robert Borden and Sir Sam Hughes.


COMMENT

One of the indicators for the LAC Three-year plan 2019-2022 is the number of records enhanced by user contributions in the Co-Lab crowdsourcing tool. The indicator is to be released quarterly as is the indicator number of images digitized via DigiLab.

Advance Notice: QFHS Discover Your British Isles Roots Conference

The Quebec Family History Society invites you to Discover Your British Isles Roots on Saturday, 28 March.

From the QFHS Heritage Centre, 153 St. Anne Street (Simon Fraser House) Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, the programme is:

9:00: Introduction to the Conference
9:15 - 10:15: How Do I Find Birth, Marriage and Death Records in Ireland? by Kelly O'Rourke
10:30 - 11:30: How Do I Find Birth, Marriage and Death Records in England? by Gary Schroder

11:30 - 12:45: Lunch

13:00 - 14:00:  How Do I Find Birth, Marriage and Death Records in Scotland? by Deborah Waddell
14:45 - 15:15: How Do I Find Probate Records in England? by Gary Schroder

The fee is $40.00 for both QFHS Members and Non-Members.

Find out more and register here. As space is limited registration in advance is recommended.

Heads Up!  QFHS is holding an Ancestry Day on 9 May.

PDHS February Meeting

On 20 February the Perth & District Historical Society welcomes John McKenty with a continuation of his earlier talk on 'Joe Perkins' Life & Times' - a subject that has received a lot of attention recently. This will carry forward the popular, sometimes controversial, story of Joe Perkins, formidable Perth businessman from South Sherbrooke, and one of the genuine characters of this area's history.

As a reminder, John is a retired educator, author of several local history books documenting our area's people and businesses, dedicated volunteer at Stewart Park Festival and Perth Regional Heritage Fair, and recipient of the Perth Community Medal for 2018

The meeting is at 7:30 pm, at the Perth Canadian Legion Hall, 26 Beckwith Street East. A voluntary “Toonie Fee” (donation) is suggested for each meeting.

FreeBMD February Update

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Thursday 13 February 2020 to contain 273,498,540 unique records (273,156,074 at previous update).

Years with major additions, greater than 5,000 records are: for births 1964, 1984-88; for marriages 1964, 1969, 1984-87; for deaths 1984-86 and 1988.

www.freebmd.org.uk/

Were your female ancestors less social?

These are results of a poll conducted by OGS (Ontario Ancestors), published in the latest eWeekly Update, It asked whether any of your ancestors belonged to fraternal or sororal organizations (for example The Orange Order, the Knights of Columbus, the Daughters of Rebekah, the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire).

Interestingly the ratio of Yes to No is 7:1 for males and 2:1 for females.

Are these ratios reflective of membership or what we know about membership?

I know my paternal grandfather was an organization member only because a medallion has been passed down. Were such artifacts also used in sororal organizations? Could that be the reason behind the much greater number of don't know responses for females than males?

I suspect the results would be different if organizations with less grandiose titles, like the Women's Institute, and church auxiliaries had been included?

If you don't think you've done justice to your female ancestry be aware that "Finding female ancestors" is a theme for next September's BIFHSGO conference. The program committee met on Sunday and had lots of proposals on the topic to choose from. Stay tuned.

As mentioned, this post referred to an item in the latest OGS (Ontario Ancestors) eWeekly Update. It continues to get better and better. Access recent issues and subscribe at no charge here.

Heritage Day 2020

Snow, cold, rain or shine, the annual Heritage Day celebration will take place on Tuesday 18 February at Ottawa City Hall, 11:30 a.m. - 2 p.m. The theme this year is “2020 Vision:  Bringing the Past Into the Future”

BIFHSGO and Ottawa Branch OGS will be among about 40 heritage groups taking part.

The event is organized by the Capital Heritage Connexion, formerly CHOO/COPO, which empowers Ottawa’s heritage sector with expertise, tools and resources; connects its heritage networks and represents it to the broader community.

Heritage Day is part of Heritage Week, a nation-wide celebration that encourages all Canadians to explore their local heritage, to get involved with stewardship and advocacy groups, and to visit museums, archives, and places of significance.  Heritage Day is a time to reflect on the achievements of past generations and to accept responsibility for protecting our heritage.

Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

A Colourful Week
You've likely heard about and tried the photo colourizing now available at MyHeritage. Seeing the transformation is startling, reminding of the film when Dorothy leaves monochrome Kansas and arrives in technicolour Oz.

Just as impressive was a post A Walk Through Time In Spitalfields by the Gentle Author. It blends pictures taken over a century ago with modern colour photos so that people of today co-exist in the same space with people of the past. Perhaps you've felt this kind of melding with history on a visit to a place where an ancestor lived.

Turns out the Irish have more Viking in them than Previously Thought

Don’t "just Google it"
An article from The Conversation based on a study of Australian students. The three suggestions for improved searching are applicable to us all:
1. Search for more than just isolated facts
2. Slow down
3. You’re in charge of the search, not Google.

Rise Doggerland!
Giant dams enclosing North Sea could protect millions from rising waters

This article reports on a proposal for dams between Scotland, Norway, France and England ‘a possible solution’ to the climate change-induced sea-level increase problem.
Is it a belated attempt to tie the UK to Europe? Could it be a covert Dutch plan to further extend the country's land area by reclaiming even more of the land flooded about 7,500 years ago?

Newspaper Workshop
Next Saturday I'll be in Victoria hoping to see some budding trees, and budding family historians when I give a workshop "Find Your Family History in Newspapers" for the Victoria Genealogical Society. I see it's fully subscribed and there's a waitlist.
While I'm away there may be some interruption to the regular flow of posts.

Black History Month — know this!



How I Create Multiple Backup Copies of Critical Information Stored in my Computers
Advice from Dick Eastman.

Past the Snow Peak😁
Climatologically we're past date with maximum snow depth on the ground in Ottawa. That occurs on 14 February with a depth of 31cm. The days are getting longer; the sun is getting higher in the sky. By the end of the month, as a long-term average, a third of the snowpack will have gone

Warming Stripes
On Monday I added this graphic to the left-hand side of the blog. It shows, intuitively, global warming trends, the annual average temperatures for Canada from 1901-2018 — https://showyourstripes.info/


Thanks to this week's contributors
Ann Burns, Anonymous, Barbara, Bryan Douglas Cook, BT, Celia Lewis, Dick Eastman, Jane Down, John McConkey, Mike Stapleton, Sophronia, S4Ottawa, Unknown.

FOPLA Mammoth Book Sale

A last-minute reminder that the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Association monthly Mammoth Book Sale at 100 Tallwood, the City of Ottawa Archives building, starts at 10 am today, 15 February.

Findmypast Weekly Update

Yorkshire Baptisms
Exclusive to Findmypast, an additional 39,000 records making a total of 5,932,549 records for this title. The additions are from the Huddersfield & District Family History Society covering 11 churches in Huddersfield and the surrounding area dating from 1630-1917. Parishes included are:

Holmfirth, Congregational
Holmfirth, Holy Trinity
Holmfirth, Wesleyan Chapel
Honley, Southgate Primitive Wesleyan
Honley, St Mary
Honley, Wesleyan Chapel
Huddersfield, High Street Methodist
Huddersfield, St Andrew
Huddersfield, St Mark
Huddersfield, St Thomas
Kirkheaton, Houses Hill Methodist

Scotland, Stirlingshire & Perthshire Burials 1755-2019
Updated with 38,000 new registers from the burgh of Perth, 1794-1855, this title now has a total of 121,022 records. Somewhat unusually for such records, for the total collection, the coverage is best for the 20th century.

Also this week

United States Marriages
Just under 18 million new records have joined this collection of over 200 million US wedding records. The latest updates cover marriages in Texas between 1837 and 2010.

Global Christian Leaders Index
Stretching from 1051 to 2016, these 357,204 records tell you where they served and their religion. Of their number 245,937 are for the United States, 97,893 for England, 4,327 for Wales, 2.787 for Ireland, 2,726 for Scotland, and 626 for Canada.

Deceased Online adds Macclesfield Cemetery and Crematorium Records

Macclesfield, just west of the Peak District National ParkRecords, now has cemetery and crematorium records added to Deceased Online.

For Macclesfield Cemetery there are 59,000 records from 1866 to 1997; the Crematorium has an additional 40,000 records from 1960 to 1997. The records comprise digital scans of all grave registers or cremation indexes and grave details for each of the graves and their occupants.

Administratively the area is part of Cheshire East Borough Council which already has the following records on Deceased Online:

Congleton Cemetery, 500 records from 2004 to 2015
Coppenhall Cemetery, 10,400 records from 1861 to 2015
Crewe Cemetery, 51,750 records from 1872 to 2016
Nantwich Cemetery, 11,150 records from 1870 to 2015 *
Sandbach Cemetery, 3,950 records from 1935 to 2015
Weston Cemetery, 1,150 records from 1908 to 2015
Crewe Crematorium, 52,100 records from 1954 to 2009

Other area records coming soon to Deceased Online are:

Alderley Edge Cemetery, 3,000 records from 1907 to 1997
Knutsford Cemetery, 6,500 records from 1902 to 1997
Wilmslow Cemetery, 5,800 records from 1907 to 1997

Valentine’s Day offers

MyHeritage is offering FREE access to 446 million marriage records for a limited time, from February 14–18! Search now at myheritage.com/marriage-records.

Findmypast has a 40% off offer for all new and returning customers which expires at midnight UK time on Sunday, 23 February 2020.

If you don't see the discount price, which is in US dollars, enter the promo code FMPLOVE40  to claim your discount

If you have a subscription to another site, like Ancestry, covering Britain, you'll likely not want the Essential subscription. The Ultimate package covers everything Findmypast has to offer.

A mysterious Norfolk Valentine's tradition

Jack Valentine playing tricks on local children.
 Illustration: Annette Hudson
Yarmouth Mercury 13 Feb 2020

From the (Great) Yarmouth Mercury.

"It's a historic Valentine's tradition which began in Norfolk - and while it might be a mystery to some, plenty of families are keeping it alive and kicking. The Jack Valentine ritual would see the character - otherwise known as Old Father Valentine or Old Mother Valentine - disappear into thin air after knocking at the door and dropping off gifts."

I seem to recall this as a child, as did 80% of those who responded to the Mercury's poll.

Does anyone else have any recollection of this tradition in Norfolk or elsewhere?

Canadian soldier of the Second World War identified

A press release from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces announces the identification of Lieutenant John Gordon Kavanagh, a Canadian soldier of the Second World War who was buried as an unknown soldier in 1947 in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s section of the Steenderen General Cemetery in the Netherlands.

The identification was made possible through the work of external researchers who were able to make the case to the satisfaction of DND using an accumulation of documentary evidence in November 2019.

Of Irish ancestry, Lt Kavanagh  served with the Queen's Own Rifles,  see https://qormuseum.org/soldiers-of-the-queens-own/kavanagh-john-gordon/

Canadian Newspapers on the British Newspaper Archives

Surprise!

This week the British Newspaper Archive is adding Canadian content.

Presently available:

Toronto Daily Mail, 5870 pages, 1888, 1890, 1895
Toronto Saturday Night, 3202 pages, 1887, 1901-1902, 1907-1908

More pages are being added to these daily; plus coming soon:

Hamilton Daily Times, 14802 pages, 1875, 1879, 1882, 1884, 1886, 1912-1914

Find these elsewhere.
Google Newspapers has 3052 issues of the Toronto Daily Mail between 1881 and 1895.
Canadiana Online has 592 issues of the Hamilton Times between 1892 and 1909.

Book Review: Roots Quest: Inside America's Genealogy Boom

"The ancestors are ornaments decorating our family trees, making our own identities shine all the brighter. And we select our ornaments quite deliberately."

Likely you don't spend much time pondering why you research your family history. The research, and everything else there is to do in a day, are enough.

Jackie Hogan is an exception. As well as being a genealogist she's a professor of sociology at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. Exploring why we do genealogy is an aspect of her profession.

As laid out in the introduction, the book gives particular attention to the character of our current genealogical era and the factors that shape it, principally the following:

• the increasing importance of digital and genetic technologies;
• the secularization of society and a trend toward viewing knowledge and morality in relative terms;
• The increasing saturation of the mass media on the proliferation of virtual forms of social interaction;
• the hypermobility of populations (particularly in wealthy Western nations), and the new ways we are experiencing space and time;
• the commodification of identities — that is, or increasing tendency to assemble unique identities in a large part through our consumption practices.

‬A chapter I particularly appreciated is "Who Do You Think You Are? Televised Roots Quests." Starting out by dissecting the structure of a typical WDYTYA TV episode, it likens the program to a morality tale reinforcing the message of the virtues that Americans supposedly hold dear. It points out how "hero" ancestors are selectively chosen — you've wondered why it's the hero on the mother's, mother's, father's mother's line that's explored rather than the mother, father's, father's mother's line!

And when a black hat ancestor crops up their behaviour is often justified as circumstance.

It also debunks myths of American (US) exceptionalism promoted in the programs: social mobility, a land where anyone can succeed — in reality not so much as other wealthy nations, and: generosity — on a per capita basis the US lags well behind those same nations in terms of the percent of GDP contributed to foreign aid.

Another chapter with content you probably haven't thought much about is "Imagined Homes: Roots Tourism and the Quest for Self." Genealogy tourism is a substantial business. Overseas tourism, much of it of those looking to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors, generated over 4% of Irish GDP in 2016. US visitors to the National Library of Ireland routinely outnumber visitors from any other nation, including Ireland.

Hogan points out the distinction between the experience at a historic site favoured by US tourists compared to residents of the home country. She points out that locations on the tourist route, such as the Dunbrody Famine ship, use positive spin — those who survived the famine and the journey across the Atlantic eventually became successful (those who aren't can't afford to visit anyway!) Locations off the Irish tourist path that cater mainly to local visitors tend to emphasize the terrible conditions of the famine. In Ghana, here's a similarly positive spin for African American visitors to the ports from which slaves were shipped across the Atlantic. They receive a different tour from that given to locals — sometimes leading to conflict.

As indicated by the sub-title, the book is written from a US perspective. While many do some of the factors contributing to genealogy's popularity in the US do not extend to other countries.

Anyone interested in the motivations behind why we, or our aunt, spend time and money exploring our roots will find this well-researched and written book worth reading.

The Ottawa Public Library has several copies in its collection.

Roots Quest: Inside America's Genealogy Boom 
by Jackie Hogan
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (January 15, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1442274565
ISBN-13: 978-1442274563

OGS Kingston and Quinte Branch 15 February Meetings

The next Kingston Branch meeting is the occasion for the Branch AGM after which members of the Board will talk about Maximizing your OGS Membership.

The 9:30 am educational session will be given by Ron Mann on “Understanding basic DNA information.”

Visitors are welcome to join the event in the Sir John A. Macdonald Room at the Seniors Centre East, 56 Francis Street, Kingston ON.

It's a bit over 100 km on the 402 to Trenton, time enough to drive there following the Kingston meeting for the 1 pm start of the Quinte Branch meeting.

Nick Post will be explaining The Ins and Outs of FamilySearch —  how FamilySearch came about and the benefits of using it. He will take the group through signing in to the program and discuss the different areas within the site; providing examples from his own Family Tree. Nick will also outline partnerships with other Family History sites, indexing and additional programs. Finally, he will discuss updates and future changes coming to FamilySearch. He is a “Temple and Family History Consultant” at the Oshawa Stake Family History Library.

The venue is Quinte West Public Library, 7 Creswell Drive, Trenton ON.

New Irish Resources

The first newsletter for 2020 of www.rootsireland.ie and the Irish Family History Foundation lists records added since the last issue:

• 30,000 new Kilkenny records;
• 75,000 new Clare records.

Records uploaded in 2019 were:

• 18,000 records of various types (census substitutes and baptisms) for Counties
Laois and Offaly;
• East Galway records including Cappatagle & Kilreekil RC baptisms, 1766-1915;
Woodford RC baptisms, 1909-1917; Civil records updated and extended; Roman
Catholic marriages extended to 1917;
• 18,500 civil marriage records for County Waterford, 1864-1912;
• 38,000 Church of Ireland Waterford baptisms;
• 9000 Armagh confirmations;
• 3200 RC baptisms and marriages for Adamstown, Co. Wexford;
• 1295 Cork marriage records – Donerail, Killavullen, Cloyne & Kilshannig Civil
records;
• 1398 RC baptismal, marriage and deaths records for Camolin, Co. Wexford. 

There's lots of other news about Irish events too.

On the Special Collections Blog at Queen's University Belfast is a post Newly Digitised: Maps of the Escheated Counties of Ireland, 1609.

What's Escheated you ask?  I did. It doesn't sound pleasant! 

Definition of Escheat: Reversion of property to the state in the absence of legal heirs or claimants.

The counties are Armagh, Cavan, Coleraine (renamed Londonderry), Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone. 

The map images in the blog post very nice but not the first. Google finds several other previous sources.

The Amateur Family History Podcast

It's billed as "A series of podcasts about the basics of UK family history." Emphasis is England and Wales.

Early episodes are a 'how-to' guide covering the basics — getting started, 1939 Register, census, birth, marriage, death, parish records, newspapers, cemeteries. Later episodes cover somewhat more advanced techniques and in-depth topics — FreeBMD behind the scenes, DNA, places, wills and probate, 1910-1915 valuation survey.

The 30-minute episodes are well-produced, the presentation fairly casual.

https://amateurfamilyhistory.com/

CWGC Beechwood Cemetery Burials: William A. E. Watson

William Amadus Edwin Watson was the son of  Edmund Alexander and Rosa Madelina (Surflen or Swiften) Watson. The family emigrated to Ottawa in 1891.

Attestation was with the 130th Battalion on 26 February 1916, occupation as a musician and address 70 (later 150) Turner Street (renamed Cambridge Street) in Ottawa. He gave his birth date as 2 February 1890. A second attestation paper, in December, gave the birth year as 1884 and occupation builder. The civil birth registration is in the first quarter of 1883 in Shoreditch.

In June 1917 he was discharged from the Signal Training Depot in Kingston as medically unfit due to a cataract in his right eye.

He died of influenza on 13 February 1920 after a short illness and is buried in Plot 29, Lot 14, Grave 26 at Beechwood Cemetery.

His mother, Rosa, died on 11 February 1920 and was also buried at Beechwood Cemetery.

WDYTYA Magazine; March 2020

The latest issue of "Britain's Best Selling Family History Magazine" is now posted online through Press Reader. There's lots of good reading. Here are a few of my top picks.

The Roaring Twenties
We explain how you can make the most of the century-old records that reveal your ancestors’ lives in the 1920s

Child Welfare
Denise Bates explores how attitudes towards children changed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Best Websites
Online leads for Gypsy, Romany and Traveller ancestors

Record Masterclass
Simon Fowler explains how the notices in the Gentleman's Magazine can be vital for researchers.

Ancestors At Work
Did your relative work as a jeweller?

Focus On
Chris Paton explains how to order Scottish birth, marriage and death certificates online and grow your family tree.

Reader Story
Siblings Ann Bianchi and Ian Elliott introduce three brothers who left the Shetland Islands to go to sea

My Family Album
Tim Waterhouse from Buckinghamshire celebrates his relations, including a preacher and a teacher

Eureka Moment
An Indian journal led me back to the Middle Ages!" says Tim Burrell, who shares an amazing coincidence

Family Hero
How Ann Simcock’s ancestor lost his life in an accident that ripped the heart out of a coal-mining community.

The magazine is available free through the Press Reader subscription of the Ottawa Public Library, and other subscribing libraries. If you don't have a library card sign up today.

Webinar:The Scots in Montreal and Quebec

A shoutout for BIFHSGO member Dr. Gillian Leitch who will present a free webinar for the Québec Genealogical eSociety on Thursday, 13 February at 7 pm ET.

The Scots have played an important role in the development and history of Quebec since the advent of British control of the region after 1759. This presentation will provide an overview of the settlement of the Scots in the province (with an emphasis on Montreal), the development of their own cultural institutions such as the Presbyterian Church, voluntary associations such as St. Andrew’s Societies, the Sons of Scotland, and sports clubs organizing curling, golf and shinty. There are a number of resources available to the family researcher, looking for information on their Scottish-Quebec ancestors. These will be discussed, including the use of private or associational archives such as the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal.

Register here.

You may also be interested in her article on Saint Andrew's Societies in Canada.

First Public Meeting of Ottawa Branch OGS

The following was published in the Ottawa Journal on Friday 13 February 1970

Group Formed To Research Family Trees
Genealogy, the researching of family trees, may become one of Ontario’s more widespread hobbies.
This was the general feeling at the first meeting of the Ottawa branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society held Thursday night at First Baptist Church, 4th Avenue and Bank Street.
The Ontario Society, begun in Waterloo in 1961, has grown in membership from 11 to 700. The 32 people who joined the Ottawa branch at the organizational meeting Thursday night chose Wilfred Kearns as the branch’s president.
In addition to researching their family trees, members of the Genealogical Society attempt to discover the character and life styles of their ancestors. They are also interested in heraldry or the study of family coat’s of arms.

MyHeritage In Color™

At 9:14 am I received an email from Daniel Horowitz labelled confidential and under embargo about "MyHeritage In Color™ — that automatically colorizes your black and white photos in seconds and produces incredible results."

Things move quickly at MyHeritage.

At 2:17 pm there was another email from Daniel — "we just couldn’t wait and now MyHeritage In Color™  has gone live! "

I tried it on a photo of my father from 1939. The process was simplicity itself. What do you think of the result?

Read all about it on the MyHeritage blog.

Sorry about the u missing in color!

Canadian Copyright Term and Public Domain (PD) Flowchart

When faced with the issue of whether something is in copyright do you throw up your hands and think "I'd rather apologize".

If you're not that cavalier take a look at this flowchart produced by the University of Alberta Library in January with a Creative Commons licence —Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

Webinar: Best Practices for Success in Facebook Groups for Genealogy

On Wednesday at 8 pm ET Legacy Family Tree Webinars will host popular speaker Cyndi Ingle for a free intermediate-level presentation on Facebook.

With well over 12,000 Facebook groups for genealogy, it's easy to get lost in the masses. We will discuss tips and tricks and help you develop successful strategies for getting the most out of these valuable sources for research help, education, and so much more.

Register here.

If you're interested in this you'll want to be using Gail Dever's list Facebook for Canadian Genealogy 

BIFHSGO War Bride Project

BIFHSGO is considering a new research project focusing on War Brides.  That's timely given their numbers are dwindling, survivors are in their 90s with some over 100.

The notice about the project in the February society newsletter defines a war brides as "women who married a Canadian servicemen in Britain during the Second World War and then were brought to Canada with their children under a Government program."

That's a narrow definition. Some didn't have children. Some came from countries other than Britain. I knew a French woman who met a Canadian serviceman in Paris, married in Canada and remained for the rest of her long life. Would she be a war bride?

There were war brides from the First World War. I even found a woman on the Prairies who married there before her new husband went to war with the CEF referred to in the newspaper as a war bride.

The scope of and activities in the project are to be defined.

BIFHSGO members who know of war brides, particularly in their family, please contact the society Research Director, John McConkey, at research@bifhsgo.ca. If you're interested, but not a BIFHSGO member, it's easy to join — www.bifhsgo.ca/.

Treasures in Canadiana Online Newspapers

Information you won't find elsewhere online. Newspapers you won't find elsewhere online.

Canadiana Online is a free resource largely composed of monographs, serials and government publications published prior to 1921. There are currently over 19 million pages in the collection.

Information from Beth Stover, Canadiana's Manager, Digitization and Heritage Collections is that over the past year 109 newspaper titles, composed of over 17,000 issues (125,000 pages) have been added to the collection.

This is a free resource. If you're used to subscription sites like newspaper.com or britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk you'll find using this Canadiana collection a bit clunky. There's a learning curve. As with most things in life — pay more and you get more.

Beth provided a list of 2019/20 newspaper additions copied below — never available before AFAIK. Look through it — there could be a place and time of interest. There are also lists of Canadiana Online newspapers at the fabulous The Ancestor Hunt site (scroll down to the Canada section, click on the province and scroll down to Canadiana Online.) It may not include all these recent additions.

Beth tells me Canadiana will continue to add newspapers.

Alberta
Calgary
The Morning Albertan. [1906-1924] N_00214
The Nor'-wester. [1884-1885] N_00714
Edmonton
Edmonton Bulletin. [1881-1923] N_00199

British Columbia
Rossland
The Rossland miner. [1895-1896] N_00196
Victoria
The Semi-weekly British colonist. [1869] N_00328
The Weekly British colonist. [1859-1866] N_00326
The Weekly British colonist. [1869-1886] N_00329
The weekly British colonist and Victoria chronicle. [1866-1869] N_00327

New Brunswick
Chatham
The Star. [1880-1881?] N_00170
Star. 1880-1881?] SEE N_00170
Fredericton
The Agriculturist. [1878-1879] N_00167
The Herald. [1889-1909?] N_00185
The Morning star. [1878-1879] N_00168
The Star. [1879-1880] N_00169
The Weekly herald. [1881-1889?] N_00184
Gagetown
Queen's County gazette. [1897-1907?] N_00166
Harvey
The Weekly Observer. [1885-1889?] N_00160
Newcastle
The Union advocate. [1911-1952] N_00178
Newcastle [i.e. Miramichi]
The Newcastle union advocate. [1909-1911] N_00177
Saint John
The Morning Freeman. [1851-1878] N_00183

Newfoundland and Labrador
Carbonear
The Carbonear herald and outport telephone. [1879-1882] N_00179
The Carbonear herald and railroad journal. [1882]- N_00180
Harbour Grace
The Conception-Bay man. [1856-1859] N_00174
The Star and Conception Bay semi-weekly advertiser. [1872-1873] N_00175
The Star And Conception Bay Weekly Reporter. [1873?-1875] N_00176
St. John's
Evening telegram. 1879-1881] SEE N_00208
The Evening Telegram. [1879-1998] N_00208

Nova Scotia
Baddeck
Baddeck telephone. [1898-1908?] N_00660
The Victoria news. 1909-1929?] N_00661
Bridgetown
Weekly monitor. [1873-1907] N_00693
The Weekly monitor. [1908] N_00698
The Weekly Monitor. [1915-1946] N_00696
The Weekly Monitor and Western Annapolis Sentinel. [1907-1908] N_00697
The Weekly Monitor and Western Annapolis Sentinel. [1908-1915] N_00700
Western Annapolis Sentinel. [1908] N_00699
Middleton
The Echo. [1894] N_00694
The People. [1907] N_00701
Port Hastings
News of the week and Strait of Canso Shipping Gazette. [1873-18--] N_00658
Port Hawkesbury
The Hawkesbury Bulletin, And Strait of Canso Shipping Gazette. [1890?-19--] N_00655
Inverness County bulletin and Port Hood greetings. [1926 or 1927-1928] N_00657
Journal-Bulletin. [1910-1925?] N_00656
St. Peters
Bras d'Or gazette. [1896-1903] N_00659
Sydney
An Solus iuil. 1925-1927?] N_00647
The Spirit of the times. 184--1846] N_00652
The Sydney express. [1880-18--] N_00649
Sydney Mines Star. [1904?-1907?] N_00654
Sydney morning news. [1907-19--] N_00650
The Sydney post. [1912?-1933] N_00651
The Trumpet. [1869-1870] N_00653
Truro
The Victoria-Inverness Bulletin. 1928-1969] N_00705
The Weekly Times. 1893-1895?] N_00171

Ontario
Blenheim
The Rond Eau News. [187---188-?] N_00485
Chatham
The Chatham Banner-News. [1900?-1902?] N_00669
Duart
The Musical visitor. [1880?-1881?] N_00680
Embro
Embro courier. [1881?-1934] N_00710
Goderich
Huron signal. [1848-1890] N_00197
Guelph
Guelph Evening Mercury. [1867-1875 or 1876] N_00211
The Guelph Weekly Herald. [188--1923] N_00182
Hamilton
Hamilton Times. [1892-1912] N_00138
London
London Advertiser. [1894] N_00255
London herald. [1855-1859?] N_00709
The Odd Fellow. [1852?-1853] N_00707
Ottawa
La Justice. [1912-1914] N_00146
Le Progrès. [1858] N_00190
Le Temps. [1894-1916] N_00159
Penetanguishene
The Herald. [1881-18--?] N_00141
Princeton
The Princeton Transcript and Blenheim and Burford Advocate. [1867?-1---] N_00711
St. Catharines
The Evening journal. [1859-1920] N_00181
St. Thomas
Canada labor courier. [1886-1887?] N_00691
Rough notes. [1863-1865?] N_00688
St. Thomas reporter. [1880] N_00690
The Times. [187--188-?] N_00201
Toronto
The Toronto weekly mail. [1880-1895] N_00173
The Tribune. [1905-1906] N_00564
The Weekly Mail. [1872-1880] N_00172
Vienna
The Phœnix and Elgin County Conservative. [1853?-18-?] N_00706
Vienna gazette. [1853?-1854?] N_00692
Wallaceburg
The Valley record. [1883-1886?] N_00679
Watford
Watford Guide-Advocate. [1906]- N_00478

Prince Edward Island
Charlottetown
The Charlottetown herald. [1875-1923] N_00193
The Gazette. [1851] N_00163
Haszard's Gazette. [1851-1852] N_00161
Haszard's gazette, farmers' journal and commercial advertiser. [1853-1857] N_00162
The Herald. [1864-1874] N_00140
The Protector and Christian witness. [1857-1859?] N_00164
The Protestant and evangelical witness. [1859-1865] N_00165

Québec
Fraserville
Le Progrès de Fraserville. [1888] N_00191
Hull
L'Interprovincial. [1910-1912?] N_00143
Lévis
L'Hebdomadaire. [1882-1937?] N_00139
Journal de Lévis. [1865-1866] N_00144
Longueuil
L'Impartial. [1885-1891?] N_00142
La Malbaie
L'Echo des Laurentides. [1884-1887?] N_00198
Montréal
La Libre parole. [1893] N_00148
The Montreal Daily Star. [1877-19--] N_00713
The Morning Courier for the country. [1835-1847 or 1848] N_00150
Le Peuple travailleur. [1850-1858] N_00186
Le Phoenix. [1841] N_00187
La Presse. [1863-1864] N_00189
Le Soir. [1883] N_00157
The Sunday Morning. [1892] N_00158
Québec
The Emigrant. [1848-1849] N_00200
Le Piou-piou. [1918] N_00188
The Quebec argus. [1841-1842] N_00194
Quebec colonist. [1853-1866?] N_00149
Le Québecquois. [1880] N_00195
Rimouski
Le Journal de Rimouski. [1899] N_00145
Le Progrès du Golfe. [1904-1970] N_00192
Sainte-Scholastique [i.e. Mirabel]
La Liberté. [1892-1895] N_00147
Sherbrooke
[She]rbrooke Examiner. [1888-1907?] N_00156

HSO Presentation: Councillor Rawlson King: City Hall - My Journey

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/
rawlson-king-byelection-win-1.5092982

In 2019 the people of Ottawa had the rare opportunity to witness history first-hand as we saw Rawlson King elected as the national capital's first-ever black City Councillor. Why did it take so long?

Mr. King provides an inside look at his path to City Hall... and his continued journey during his first year in office.

The Historical Society of Ottawa presentation is at 7 pm on Wednesday 12 February at the Ottawa Public Library (Main).

Birds in Your Family Tree?

A group of long-time members had lunch together after Saturday's BIFHSGO meeting. Somehow our topic of conversation got around to unusual names, not that surprising considering those present.

I mentioned my tree has Chicken, Martin, Peacock and Woodcock.

Here's an alphabetical list for birds, one for each letter with the number of hits in the FreeBMD birth index.

A few are missing.

Genealogist-birders  — don't hesitate to help fill in bird names used for surnames starting with the missing letters.

A?
Bird (97039)
Chicken (1720)
Duck (6120)
Eagle (7359)
Finch (44961)
Goose (2219)
Heron (9087)
Ibis (1)
Jay (10178)
Kite (6655)
Loon (110)
Martin (279010)
Nightingale (22161)
Owl (6)
Partridge (31818)
Quail (1109)
Raven (10196)
Sparrow (14502)
Turkey (2)
U ?
V ?
Woodcock (35189)
X?
Y?
Z?

Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Up the Gatineau! Selected Articles
Almost 400 articles have been published in the Gatineau Valley Historical Society publication Up the Gatineau!. All articles from Volumes 1 to 10 (to 1984) are available online along with selected articles from other volumes — www.gvhs.ca/publications/utg-articles.html. Check out other GVHS digital resources.

To kill a king: 350 years of regicide
The execution of King Charles I in 1649 is an event unique in English history – or is it? Helen Carr explores how, centuries prior to the death of Charles I, kings and queens were executed publicly, or disposed of surreptitiously, leaving a legacy of intrigue and speculation...  from History Extra.

The Atlas of Digitised Newspapers and Metadata: Reports from Oceanic Exchanges
Comparing mass digitization initiatives (newspapers) in Finland, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Canada is notable by its absence owing to the long-term lack of leadership.

Ctrl-F: Helping make networks more resilient against misinformation can be as simple as two fingers

How Accurate Are Punxsutawney Phil's Groundhog Day Forecasts?
According to this article from 1969 on, Punxsutawney Phil's overall accuracy rate is about 36 percent. Flipping a coin would give 50% accuracy and the US Weather Bureau gets it's equivalent science-based forecast right 60% of the time.

MozART - How to impress a woman


... and something completely different ...



Thanks to this week's contributors
Anonymous, Barbara, Barbara T, BT, Caroline Lumsden, Chuck Buckley, Helen Billing, Jean, Persephone, Rick Roberts, Sylvia, Unknown.

Ontario Genealogy Cooperation

Announced in the bumper issue of this week's Ontario Genealogical Society Saturday morning newsletter — the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists (OCAPG) and OGS (Ontario Ancestors) have reached agreement on website hosting. The OCAPG website has been seamlessly transferred to the Ontario Ancestors’ hosting platform, in a move which will save OCAPG yearly hosting fees.

Findmypast adds PEI Directories, and more

There's a new initiative from Findmypast of Canadian interest — Directories & Almanacs. Launching with records from the province of Prince Edward Island, more are promised from across Canada over the coming months.

FMP describes it as "an eclectic mix of five directories covering the late 19th century from 1880 to 1899."

The titles are:

Frederick’s Prince Edward Island Directory (1889, 788 images)
McMillian's Agricultural and Nautical Almanac (1881 to 1889, about 200 images each year)
McMillan’s Almanac (1896 to 1899, over 200 images per year)
Teare’s Directory & Hand Book Of The Province of Prince Edward Island (1880, 520 images)
The Prince Edward Island Almanac (1899, 111 images)

If you want more Chappelle's Prince Edward Island almanac and guide book, from 1877 to 1893, is free at Canadiana.ca.

These publications typically contain calendar, astronomical and similar information as well as pages of ads and listings of government, ecclesiastical and organization officials.

Other additions to Findmypast this week are:

PERiodical Source Index (PERSI)
Over 7,000 images have been added covering a variety of PERSI publications, perfect for fleshing out family stories. The new periodical titles that have been added are:

Vermont Quarterly Gazetteer: A Historical Magazine / Bound With New Title: Vermont Historical Gazetteer
Recherches Historiques
Cambridge Historical Society Publications/proceedings
Archivium Hibernicum / Irish Historical Records
Queen City Heritage / Ohio Valley History
Connecticut Historical Society Collections

British In India
Over 7,000 new and exclusive records added. Brought online in partnership with the Society of Genealogists, the latest additions include both a transcript with vital details and image of original records. These additions cover surnames beginning with the letters J and K. This collection includes entries of births, marriages, divorces, and deaths in the British Raj between 1664 and 1961.

Yorkshire Memorial Inscriptions
Over 10,000 additional memorial inscriptions from Calderdale Family History Society and covering following parishes: Barkisland, Halifax; Booth, Halifax; Clifton, Brighouse; Cragg Vale; Rastrick, Brighouse; Southowram, Halifax.

Book Notice: Finding Your Scottish Ancestors

Another book on Scottish genealogy was officially published on Wednesday.

Finding Your Scottish Ancestry - Techniques for solving genealogy problems is by Edinburgh-based genealogist Kirsty Wilkinson 

Here's the publisher's blurb:

Tracing family history has become increasingly popular over the last few decades and the availability of many records online means that those fortunate enough to have Scottish ancestors can easily access many of the sources they need to build their family tree. However, as research progresses, most family historians will eventually hit the dreaded 'brick wall' and find themselves unable to proceed further. Finding Your Scottish Ancestors provides a wealth of information, advice and techniques to help solve these genealogy problems and gives family historians the tools they need to track down even the most elusive forebears. Contents include

• Sources for Scottish family history research, both traditional archives and online resources

• Techniques for searching and interpreting genealogical records

• Planning and recording research

• Common genealogy problems and their solutions

More information here.

I've not read the book so I can't comment.

If you don't know of Kirsty check out this recent interview about her work as a young professional genealogist: