45 papers (55 last month) had pages added in the past month. There were 24 (26) new titles. Dates ranged from 1792 to 1995. Again this month, The Daily Mirror with 193,544 pages is the major addition.
The 10 additions of more than 10,000 pages during the month:
| TITLE | PAGES | YEARS |
|---|---|---|
| Fleetwood Chronicle | 13218 | 1877, 1902, 1906-1921 |
| Bradford Observer | 30420 | 1936-1952 |
| Glamorgan Gazette | 14326 | 1894, 1911-1950 |
| Carmarthen Journal | 13748 | 1821-1822, 1832, 1835, 1842-1843, 1845-1846, 1848, 1850-1868, 1871, 1876-1880, 1889, 1892-1896, 1906, 1911 |
| Waterford News Letter | 16966 | 1838-1848, 1870-1889, 1891-1893, 1895-1916 |
| Manchester Daily Examiner & Times | 12654 | 1856-1857, 1875-1877, 1889, 1893-1894 |
| Star of Gwent | 23824 | 1853-1895, 1899-1903 |
| Pontypridd Observer | 18220 | 1897-1950, 1912 |
| Daily Mirror | 193544 | 1921, 1935-1937, 1981-1993, 1995 |
| Staffordshire Sentinel | 15324 | 1989 |
Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
Over 900,000 additions to Welsh records, new and enhanced.
Wales Probate Records 1544-1858
Now, search by names, years, locations and others — over 700,000 probate records.
Caernarvonshire Parish Registers
Baptisms, marriages and burials from Llanbeblig parish have been added to this collection: baptisms (50,793); marriages (13,985); burials (25,711).
Denbighshire Burials
Over 37,000 records from Wrexham Cemetery added to this collection. As well as transcripts with the most important information, many of the records feature digitised copies of the original burial records. There is a free index with search returning transcripts of surname, forename, year, age, place of death, burial number, burial date and grave number at https://www.wrexham.gov.uk/service/wrexham-cemetery-burial-records-search-facility
There are 154 Commonwealth War Graves Commission burials including 9 Canadians, 7 from the WW2 RCAF and 2 from WW1.
Montgomeryshire Monumental Inscriptions
Over 17,000 new entries to this collection from 17 different locations.
| Place | Year from | Year to | Record Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| Llanllugan | 1784 | 2012 | 396 |
| Llanllwchaiarn | 1743 | 2005 | 2,866 |
| Llanmerewig | 1724 | 1998 | 410 |
| Llanrhaiadr ym Mochnant | 1604 | 2009 | 1,291 |
| Llansantffraid ym Mechain | 1556 | 2006 | 2,221 |
| Llanwddyn | 1677 | 2013 | 1,435 |
| Llanwnog | 1716 | 2015 | 3,819 |
| Llanwrin | 1701 | 2006 | 785 |
| Llanwyddelan | 1776 | 2007 | 1,140 |
| Llanymynech | 1692 | 2006 | 2,256 |
| Llwydiarth | 1857 | 2012 | 468 |
| Lydham | 1737 | 2005 | 545 |
| Machynlleth | 1088 | 2018 | 8,539 |
| Mainstone | 1719 | 2004 | 518 |
| Mallwyd | 1914 | 2016 | 394 |
| Manafon | 1357 | 1998 | 715 |
| Meifod | 1824 | 1978 | 283 |
Each has an image of the monumental inscription with more information. Some even include detailed local histories and Welsh language translations.
After a COVID hiatus Global Genealogy is back with 11 new books in both printed and digital formats — memorial stone transcriptions from 40 different Renfrew County, Ontario cemeteries. Here's the list, all with browsesable online indexes:
FamilySearch issued a press release on 28 August announcing a new book scanning partnership. FamilySearch will provide specialized book scanning services and support volunteers in exchange for access to Ontario Ancestors’ extensive library of historical and genealogical books. Digitized documents will be publicly available on both websites. Digitization is scheduled to begin by the end of 2020, depending on pandemic restrictions.
You may not be aware of other McGill resources available online.
Canadian Architect and Builder was the only professional architectural journal published in Canada before World War I. With both advertisements and articles appearing in the text files, CAB provides a wealth of information on the state of architecture and building in Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
McGill Library Electronic Thesis and Dissertation collection (1881–2018) a large collection, some digitized, many with only metadata. Find out what a family member might have investigated while at McGill.
The Fur Trade in Canada and the North West Company, 38 manuscripts collectively known as the Masson Papers comprising letters, diaries, travel narratives, and other textual documents relating to the North West Company and the colonial-era fur trade more generally. The papers represent a settler perspective of North American places and peoples.
Chapbook Collection contains over nine hundred British and American chapbooks published in the 18th and 19th centuries. The contents are organized by subject categories: Books of Instruction (40), Crimes and Criminals (2), Dramatic (1), Geographical Description, Local History and Natural History (43), Historical, Political and Biographical (19), Jest Books, Humorous Fiction, Riddles (13), Legendary Romances, Fairy Stories and Folk Tales in Prose (63), Metrical Tales and Other Verse (122), Nursery Rhymes (60), Occult (5), Odd Characters and Strange Events (1), Prose Fiction (15), Religious and Moral (439), Song Books (29), Travel and Adventure (23).
See a more complete description here.
via a mention in the always informative Documentary Heritage News.
Gord Taylor was recognized for his leadership in the Society through his service as a Director, President, Past President and his research and writing about genealogical subjects. He was a forward looking researcher having taken an interest in genetic genealogy at an early stage.Gordon authored “The Printed Page” column in Anglo-Celtic Roots for five years; his last column appeared in the Fall 2010 issue.
The FreeBMD Database was last updated on Wednesday 26 August 2020 to contain 276,451,384 unique records (276,053,272 at previous update).
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Ask a Canadian about the Irish in Canada and you'll hear tales about immigration of impoverished farm families in coffin ships escaping the potato famine.
As Lucille Campey documents in her latest book, the final one in her Irish series, that’s just a small part of the story of Canada's Irish settlement, and while there was a lot of hardship the horrendous death rates associated with immigration mostly occurred in 1847. There's much more to the story.
Following the first overview chapter, Essential but Undervalued, the book's chapters move from east to west starting with early settlement in Newfoundland. The early chapters rehearse material covered in more depth in earlier books in the series Atlantic Canada's Irish Immigrants: A Fish and Timber Story published in 2016 and Ontario and Quebec's Irish Pioneers: farmers, labourers and lumberjacks published in 2018.
As settlement occurred further west the story moves to the later years. Many of the Irish who had originally settled in eastern Canada joined the movement which saw a western population explosion. There are chapters for Manitoba to the west coast. In Alberta, I was surprised to learn of an influx of prosperous, well-educated and entrepreneurially-inclined Irishmen to Calgary in the 1870s, and settlement as ranchers in the Macleod District of former members of the North West Mounted Police, which was modelled on the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
While Lucille Campey's previous books were published by Dundurn Press Canada's Irish Pioneers: Their Story is self-published on Amazon where the 391-page paperback edition is available for $25. There's a Kindle edition for an amazing $8 — within the budget and a feast for all but the most impoverished Irish immigrant descendant.
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| www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php? image=297831&picture=wind-and-weather-instrument |
Did anyone notice that while government offices and businesses closed down during the pandemic one government service kept going. Despite infection in an office in Quebec weather reports, forecasts and warnings continued. When did you ever hear on radio or TV that there was no forecast available?
It is possible the forecasts might not have been as accurate as the reduced number of automated reports from aircraft which were not flying are now an important data source for weather prediction models.
Kudos to my former colleagues with the Meteorological Service of Canada.
Here's a complete list of the Canadian and British titles updated this week at FamilySearch.
| TITLE | NEW RECORDS | TOTAL RECORDS |
|---|---|---|
| Canada, New Brunswick, County Register of Births, 1801-1920 | 12,894 | 183,767 |
| Canada, Nova Scotia Delayed Births, 1837-1904 | 12,512 | 116,986 |
| England, Essex Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1971 | 1,118 | 41,364 |
| England, Herefordshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1583-1898 | 2,490 | 1,092,567 |
| England, Manchester, Miscellaneous Records, 1700-1916 | 690 | 853,933 |
| England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988 | 89,997 | 913,535 |
Choose from online events in the next four days. All times are ET.
Tuesday 25 August, 11 am: Brick Wall Busting in North America, with Thomas MacEntee and host Jen Baldwin of FindmyPast: www.facebook.com/findmypast
This isn't quite what he asked for, but is pertinent. Why renew membership is a question I muse over each year. Last year was an exception when I picked up OGS membership as a door prize at the BIFHSGO conference. For a couple of years preceding I took advantage of the half-price membership when you pair with a non-member. Who doesn't get tempted to buy when there's a sale?
I joined OGS as I thought of it as a society for people in the province interested in genealogy. In recent years the rebranding has seen an orientation to being a society for people with Ontario ancestry. That isn't me.
I'm an immigrant like 29.1% of Ontario's population according to the latest census. I came from England, unusual for today's immigrants, and have lived in Ottawa for 35 years. Having two people in my whole family tree before me who lived in the province, and those only briefly, my genealogical links here are tenuous.
My own family history interests are well catered for by the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa. Having an interest in local and family history I belong to local Ottawa societies - The Historical Society of Ottawa, the Gloucester Historical Society and the Pinhey's Point Foundation.
Similarly, I'm a member of the Ottawa Branch of OGS. To be a member of volunteer-run Ottawa Branch I'm required to be an OGS member.
Another organization in which I have a membership is the UK Society of Genealogists. I do so mainly to support that organization as an advocate for UK genealogical interests.
Advocacy is one of the three aims of OGS. For me, that's where OGS provincially has fallen down in recent years by conflating outreach with advocacy. They are not the same thing.
The exception, where OGS advocacy has paid off, is one initiative with Library and Archives Canada, — digitization of their Ontario Vernon directory collection by FamilySearch.
Provincially, what can OGS point to as resources that have become available from the Archives of Ontario as a result of advocacy?
Or stepping back, as not all advocacy is successful, in the past year what advocacy initiatives have OGS undertaken provincially? Land record offices are being closed in early October; aside from expressing concern has OGS lobbied for timely alternative access?
Where's the list of AO records OGS would like to see digitized and online and what has been done to lobby for this to happen?
Are there other initiatives or changes to service OGS has identified for AO? The pandemic has exacerbated access issues, particularly for those of us who live away from the Toronto area. Free and timely digitization on-demand would be a big help? With reasonable limitations, Australia did it years ago. Why not in Ontario?
As I was finishing this post I glanced at a Japan Camera envelope still holding old photos I'm sorting. Boldly printed was "We guarantee that you will be 100% satisfied with our products and services, or your money back." Lifting the flap I read "We've got to be good. It's your life we're developing."
As I muse on sending in my membership renewal — should OGS aspire to that standard in fulfilling its advocacy mandate?
In an article for Your Genealogy Guide earlier this month Jayne Elkins, a genetic genealogy veteran predicts that:
clients can expect to see products that link them to relations near and far in the form of trees based on the inheritance of segments of autosomal DNA throughout human history.
Some of this genetic tree information may complement traditional written genealogical sources, while some researchers may find the two at odds in places.
This is based on articles published last year in Nature by two groups at Oxford University
Inferring whole-genome histories in large population datasets by Kelleher et al
A method for genome-wide genealogy estimation for thousands of samples, by Speidel et al.
I struggle to understand much of the original articles so could be completely off base, but it appears the techniques will be mainly useful for investigating deep ancestry rather than relationships within the genealogical timeframe.
Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
TheGenealogist has added records from 1747 to 1930 to its poll book collection. These cover 36 different registers of people who were entitled to vote in constituencies situated in Bath, Devon, Hampshire, Hertford, Kent, Lincolnshire, London, Monmouthshire, Northumberland, Rutland, Scotland, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk and Surrey.
They join the millions of electoral resources in TheGenealogist collection which include electoral registers, voters lists and absentee voters.
For more detail read TheGenealogist’s article at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2020/poll-books-and-electoral-rolls-used-to-locate-ancestors-address-1296/.
Explore over 250,000 birth, baptism, marriage, death, and burial records, mostly the latter, in three new collections from North East Scotland.
Scotland, Banffshire & Moray Births & Baptisms
Transcriptions for dates from 1520 to 1998, 22945 in total. Over 70% predate civil registration in 1855.
Scotland, Banffshire & Moray Marriages
Transcriptions of 34,680 marriages from 1474 (a few earlier ones look like transcription errors) to 2012. Most (61%) occurred between 1875 and 1925.
Scotland, Banffshire & Moray Deaths & Burials
Transcriptions of 195,979 events from possibly as early as 1020 up to 2019. The late 19th and early 20th centuries are the focus.
Scotland, Burgess & Guild Brethren Index
Over 60,000 additions to this collection of occupation records dating from the 1200s to the 1970s. Includes exclusive portrait photos. Myko Clelland spent most of the Friday's Live session explaining these and related employment records as well as answering questions. He also mentioned FMP has records coming for Scottish physicians.
Newspapers
This week has also seen 11 new newspapers and six newspapers with expanded coverage added.
Gradually Ancestry is releasing additional information about our DNA matches. While there still isn't a chromosome browser the longest segment in common with matches is now listed along with the total DNA and number of segments matched.
Why is this important?
"This is particularly important for people who are descended from endogamous populations. Knowing the length of the longest segment you and a DNA match have in common can help determine if you’re actually related. The longer the segment, the more likely you’re related. Segment length is also the easiest way to evaluate the difference between multiple matches that all show the same estimated relationship."
"Knowing the length of the longest segment shared with a match will be enormously beneficial to test-takers with endogamous ancestry. It will allow them to identify, to a degree, matches that share only small pieces of DNA (and thus much older common ancestry) and matches that share at least one large piece of DNA (and thus more recent common ancestry)."
In an earlier post Blaine has tables with longest segment statistics for different relationships and separate stats for endogamous and non-endogamous relationships. Caution. It's unclear to me, along with many other things, how applicable these stats from 2015 are to results from Ancestry and the way they manipulate the data today.
An article in Le Devoir reports that "Archivists, curators, technicians, persons in charge of the maintenance of real estate: what remained of the specialized personnel to ensure the conservation of the rich archives and the patrimonial assets of the priests of Saint-Sulpice, the former all-powerful lords of the island of Montreal, were dismissed en bloc. The Sulpicians, these former lords of the island of Montreal, have accumulated cultural treasures since 1657, but have just dismissed all the professionals supposed to watch over their rich collections which touch on the origins of Quebec and Canada."
The paper was unable to find out the reason.
• North Mayo: Over 79,540 Roman Catholic, Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist burial registers, gravestone inscriptions and tithes;
• Wicklow: Over 34,000 burial records from County Wicklow – mostly Church of Ireland but also some Roman Catholic;
• Armagh: over 41,000 baptismal, marriage, death and headstone inscription records of various religious denominations in County Armagh;
• Westmeath: Over 13,000 Roman Catholic and church of Ireland parish records and gravestone inscriptions.
• South Dublin: over 200 men from South Dublin who died in WW I.
Here's a complete list of the Canadian and British titles updated this week at FamilySearch showing the total records for each, not the number added.
| TITLE | RECORDS |
|---|---|
| Canada, New Brunswick, County Register of Births, 1801-1920 | 175813 |
| England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988 | 861913 |
| England, Essex Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1971 | 38878 |
| England, Herefordshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1583-1898 | 1089255 |
| England, Cambridgeshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1538-1983 | 36480 |
| England, Yorkshire Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1613-1887 | 322876 |
| England, Lancashire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1647-1996 | 264217 |
With reopening things are different. Procedures and facilities we're accustomed to will have changed.
Here are a couple of videos, from PRONI and the Ottawa Public Library via CTV which help clients so they're more prepared when they visit. While the videos won't win any awards they don't take a lot of preparation, même si elles doivent être faites dans les deux langues officielles. They do help us who understand more from audiovisual information than text.
LAC please copy.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
These are the top five best books published during the 1900's decade (1900 - 1909) according to Goodreads Listopia. There's a good chance your ancestor of the era purchased, received or borrowed and read one of those.
Even if only an occasional reader, your literate ancestor likely read, and maybe savoured one of those books. In writing their biography speculating on what your ancestor read can help bring them to life. By the way, present stats are that the typical person reads four books a year, the average number of books read per year (12) is biased by a minority of voracious readers,
Here are two other internet sources for popular books through history.
In 2018 Literary Hub published a year-by-year list of the Biggest Fiction Bestsellers of the Last 100 Years (And What Everyone Read Instead).
Wikipedia has a list of best-selling books. Below is the list sorted by publication date.
| Book | Author(s) | Original language | First published | Sales (million) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Becoming | Michelle Obama | English | 2018 | 11.5 |
| The Girl on the Train | Paula Hawkins | English | 2015 | 20 |
| The Fault in Our Stars | John Green | English | 2012 | 23 |
| Gone Girl | Gillian Flynn | English | 2012 | 20 |
| Me Before You | Jojo Moyes | English | 2012 | 12 |
| Fifty Shades Darker | E. L. James | English | 2012 | 10.4 |
| Fifty Shades of Grey | E. L. James | English | 2011 | 15.2 |
| Mockingjay | Suzanne Collins | English | 2010 | 20 |
| The Lost Symbol | Dan Brown | English | 2009 | 30 |
| Catching Fire | Suzanne Collins | English | 2009 | 21 |
| The Help | Kathryn Stockett | English | 2009 | 10 |
| The Hunger Games | Suzanne Collins | English | 2008 | 29 |
| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows | J. K. Rowling | English | 2007 | 65 |
| The Shack | William P. Young | English | 2007 | 22 |
| The Secret | Rhonda Byrne | English | 2006 | 20 |
| Confucius from the Heart (于丹《论语》心得) | Yu Dan | Chinese | 2006 | 10 |
| Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | J. K. Rowling | English | 2005 | 65 |
| The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Män som hatar kvinnor) | Stieg Larsson | Swedish | 2005 | 30 |
| The Book Thief | Markus Zusak | English | 2005 | 16 |
| Wolf Totem (狼图腾) | Jiang Rong | Chinese | 2004 | 20 |
| The Da Vinci Code | Dan Brown | English | 2003 | 80 |
| Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | J. K. Rowling | English | 2003 | 65 |
| The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini | English | 2003 | 31.5 |
| The Purpose Driven Life | Rick Warren | English | 2002 | 33 |
| The Lovely Bones | Alice Sebold | English | 2002 | 10 |
| The Shadow of the Wind (La sombra del viento) | Carlos Ruiz Zafón | Spanish | 2001 | 15 |
| Life of Pi | Yann Martel | English | 2001 | 10 |
| Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | J. K. Rowling | English | 2000 | 65 |
| Angels & Demons | Dan Brown | English | 2000 | 39 |
| Interpreter of Maladies | Jhumpa Lahiri | English | 2000 | 15 |
| The Dukan Diet | Pierre Dukan | French | 2000 | 10 |
| Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban | J. K. Rowling | English | 1999 | 65 |
| The Gruffalo | Julia Donaldson | English | 1999 | 10.5 |
| Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets | J. K. Rowling | English | 1998 | 77 |
| Who Moved My Cheese? | Spencer Johnson | English | 1998 | 26 |
| Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | J. K. Rowling | English | 1997 | 120 |
| Tuesdays with Morrie | Mitch Albom | English | 1997 | 14 |
| Angela's Ashes | Frank McCourt | English | 1996 | 10 |
| The Horse Whisperer | Nicholas Evans | English | 1995 | 16 |
| Santa Evita | Tomás Eloy Martínez | Spanish | 1995 | 10 |
| Guess How Much I Love You | Sam McBratney | English | 1994 | 15 |
| Follow Your Heart (Va' dove ti porta il cuore) | Susanna Tamaro | Italian | 1994 | 14 |
| Long Walk to Freedom | Nelson Mandela | English | 1994 | 14 |
| The Celestine Prophecy | James Redfield | English | 1993 | 23 |
| The Giver | Lois Lowry | English | 1993 | 10 |
| The Bridges of Madison County | Robert James Waller | English | 1992 | 60 |
| Diana: Her True Story | Andrew Morton | English | 1992 | 10 |
| Wild Swans | Jung Chang | English | 1992 | 10 |
| Sophie's World (Sofies verden) | Jostein Gaarder | Norwegian | 1991 | 40 |
| The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People | Stephen R. Covey | English | 1989 | 25 |
| The Pillars of the Earth | Ken Follett | English | 1989 | 15 |
| The Alchemist (O Alquimista) | Paulo Coelho | Portuguese | 1988 | 65 |
| A Brief History of Time | Stephen Hawking | English | 1988 | 25 |
| Kitchen | Banana Yoshimoto | Japanese | 1988 | 20 |
| Matilda | Roald Dahl | English | 1988 | 17 |
| Norwegian Wood (ノルウェイの森) | Haruki Murakami | Japanese | 1987 | 12 |
| Love You Forever | Robert Munsch | English | 1986 | 20 |
| Perfume (Das Parfum) | Patrick Süskind | German | 1985 | 15 |
| Knowledge-value Revolution (知価革命) | Taichi Sakaiya | Japanese | 1985 | 10 |
| You Can Heal Your Life | Louise Hay | English | 1984 | 50 |
| What to Expect When You're Expecting | Arlene Eisenberg and Heidi Murkoff | English | 1984 | 20 |
| The Goal | Eliyahu M. Goldratt | English | 1984 | 10 |
| The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ | Sue Townsend | English | 1982 | 20 |
| Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window (窓ぎわのトットちゃん) | Tetsuko Kuroyanagi | Japanese | 1981 | 18 |
| Ronia, the Robber's Daughter | Astrid Lindgren | Swedish | 1981 | 10 |
| The Name of the Rose (Il Nome della Rosa) | Umberto Eco | Italian | 1980 | 50 |
| Cosmos | Carl Sagan | English | 1980 | 40 |
| Flowers in the Attic | V. C. Andrews | English | 1979 | 40 |
| Kane and Abel | Jeffrey Archer | English | 1979 | 37 |
| The Neverending Story (Die unendliche Geschichte) | Michael Ende | German | 1979 | 16 |
| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy | Douglas Adams | English | 1979 | 14 |
| Problems in China's Socialist Economy (中国社会主义经济问题研究) | Xue Muqiao | Chinese | 1979 | 10 |
| Eye of the Needle | Ken Follett | English | 1978 | 10 |
| The Thorn Birds | Colleen McCullough | English | 1977 | 33 |
| The Women's Room | Marilyn French | English | 1977 | 20 |
| The Hite Report | Shere Hite | English | 1976 | 50 |
| Your Erroneous Zones | Wayne Dyer | English | 1976 | 35 |
| The Eagle Has Landed | Jack Higgins | English | 1975 | 50 |
| Shōgun | James Clavell | English | 1975 | 15 |
| Life After Life | Raymond Moody | English | 1975 | 13 |
| The Bermuda Triangle | Charles Berlitz | English | 1974 | 20 |
| Jaws | Peter Benchley | English | 1974 | 20 |
| The Total Woman | Marabel Morgan | English | 1974 | 10 |
| The Front Runner | Patricia Nell Warren | English | 1974 | 10 |
| Fear of Flying | Erica Jong | English | 1973 | 20 |
| Watership Down | Richard Adams | English | 1972 | 50 |
| The Joy of Sex | Alex Comfort | English | 1972 | 10 |
| The Happy Hooker: My Own Story | Xaviera Hollander | English | 1971 | 20 |
| The Exorcist | William Peter Blatty | English | 1971 | 11 |
| Jonathan Livingston Seagull | Richard Bach | English | 1970 | 44 |
| Love Story | Erich Segal | English | 1970 | 21 |
| What Color Is Your Parachute? | Richard Nelson Bolles | English | 1970 | 10 |
| The Very Hungry Caterpillar | Eric Carle | English | 1969 | 43 |
| The Godfather | Mario Puzo | English | 1969 | 21 |
| The Naked Ape | Desmond Morris | English | 1968 | 20 |
| One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) | Gabriel García Márquez | Spanish | 1967 | 50 |
| The Outsiders | S. E. Hinton | English | 1967 | 15 |
| Valley of the Dolls | Jacqueline Susann | English | 1966 | 31 |
| Dune | Frank Herbert | English | 1965 | 20 |
| The Gospel According to Peanuts | Robert L. Short | English | 1965 | 10 |
| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory | Roald Dahl | English | 1964 | 20 |
| Where the Wild Things Are | Maurice Sendak | English | 1963 | 20 |
| A Wrinkle in Time | Madeleine L'Engle | English | 1962 | 14 |
| Catch-22 | Joseph Heller | English | 1961 | 10 |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee | English | 1960 | 40 |
| Things Fall Apart | Chinua Achebe | English | 1958 | 20 |
| Night (Un di Velt Hot Geshvign) | Elie Wiesel | Yiddish | 1958 | 10 |
| Andromeda Nebula | Ivan Yefremov | Russian | 1957 | 20 |
| The Cat in the Hat | Dr. Seuss | English | 1957 | 10.5 |
| Peyton Place | Grace Metalious | English | 1956 | 12.1 |
| Lolita | Vladimir Nabokov | English | 1955 | 50 |
| The Ginger Man | J. P. Donleavy | English | 1955 | 50 |
| Fahrenheit 451 | Ray Bradbury | English | 1953 | 10 |
| Charlotte's Web | E.B. White; illustrated by Garth Williams | English | 1952 | 50 |
| The Power of Positive Thinking | Norman Vincent Peale | English | 1952 | 20 |
| The Old Man and the Sea | Ernest Hemingway | English | 1952 | 13 |
| The Catcher in the Rye | J. D. Salinger | English | 1951 | 65 |
| The Revolt of Mamie Stover | William Bradford Huie | English | 1951 | 30 |
| The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | C. S. Lewis | English | 1950 | 85 |
| Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft (Kon-Tiki ekspedisjonen) | Thor Heyerdahl | Norwegian | 1950 | 20 |
| Nineteen Eighty-Four | George Orwell | English | 1949 | 30 |
| No Longer Human (人間失格) | Osamu Dazai | Japanese | 1948 | 12 |
| The Diary of Anne Frank (Het Achterhuis) | Anne Frank | Dutch | 1947 | 35 |
| Goodnight Moon | Margaret Wise Brown | English | 1947 | 16 |
| The Plague (La Peste) | Albert Camus | French | 1947 | 12 |
| The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care | Dr. Benjamin Spock | English | 1946 | 50 |
| Autobiography of a Yogi | Paramahansa Yogananda | Hindi | 1946 | 20 |
| Man's Search for Meaning (Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager) | Viktor Frankl | German | 1946 | 12 |
| The Young Guard (Молодая гвардия) | Alexander Alexandrovich Fadeyev | Russian | 1945 | 26 |
| Animal Farm | George Orwell | English | 1945 | 20 |
| The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | French | 1943 | 150 |
| The Poky Little Puppy | Janette Sebring Lowrey | English | 1942 | 15 |
| The Stranger (L'Étranger) | Albert Camus | French | 1942 | 10 |
| And Then There Were None | Agatha Christie | English | 1939 | 100 |
| The Grapes of Wrath | John Steinbeck | English | 1939 | 15 |
| Rebecca | Daphne du Maurier | English | 1938 | 30 |
| The Hobbit | J. R. R. Tolkien | English | 1937 | 100+ |
| Gone with the Wind | Margaret Mitchell | English | 1936 | 30 |
| Uncle Styopa (Дядя Степа) | Sergey Mikhalkov | Russian | 1936 | 21 |
| How to Win Friends and Influence People | Dale Carnegie | English | 1936 | 15 |
| Virgin Soil Upturned (Поднятая целина) | Mikhail Sholokhov | Russian | 1935 | 24 |
| Lust for Life | Irving Stone | English | 1934 | 25 |
| God's Little Acre | Erskine Caldwell | English | 1933 | 14 |
| How the Steel Was Tempered (Как закалялась сталь) | Nikolai Ostrovsky | Russian | 1932 | 36.4 |
| All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) | Erich Maria Remarque | German | 1929 | 20 |
| The Story of My Experiments with Truth (સત્યના પ્રયોગો અથવા આત્મકથા) | Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi | Gujarati | 1925-1929 | 10 |
| The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | English | 1925 | 30 |
| The Good Soldier Švejk (Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka za světové války) | Jaroslav Hašek | Czech | 1923 | 20 |
| The Prophet | Kahlil Gibran | English | 1923 | 11 |
| Anne of Green Gables | Lucy Maud Montgomery | English | 1908 | 50 |
| The Wind in the Willows | Kenneth Grahame | English | 1908 | 25 |
| The Tale of Peter Rabbit | Beatrix Potter | English | 1902 | 45 |
| A Message to Garcia | Elbert Hubbard | English | 1899 | 40 |
| She: A History of Adventure | H. Rider Haggard | English | 1887 | 83 |
| Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Mark Twain | English | 1885 | 20 |
| The Adventures of Pinocchio (Le avventure di Pinocchio) | Carlo Collodi | Italian | 1881 | >80 |
| Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ | Lew Wallace | English | 1880 | 50 |
| Heidi | Johanna Spyri | Swiss German | 1880 | 50 |
| Black Beauty | Anna Sewell | English | 1877 | 50 |
| War and Peace (Война и мир) | Leo Tolstoy | Russian | 1869 | 36 |
| A Tale of Two Cities | Charles Dickens | English | 1859 | 200 |
| Pride and Prejudice | Jane Austen | English | 1813 | 20 |
| Dream of the Red Chamber (紅樓夢) | Cao Xueqin | Chinese | 1791 | 100 |
| Paul et Virginie | Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre | French | 1788 | 25 |
| The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia) | Dante Alighieri | Italian | 1304 | 11-12 |
Choose from online events in the next four days. All times are ET.
As the crowdsourcing transcription, tagging, translation and description of the digitized records from LAC's collection have presumably remained active, like other online facilities during the pandemic closure of the physical facility, I'm optimistic a tsunami of progress will be reported soon.
You learn so much when you listen. This past week I learned about a couple of Ontario newspaper resources.
On Tuesday afternoon during the OGS Ottawa Branch Virtual Genealogy Drop-In Chuck Buckley mentioned a thesis by John Michael Bolton from Wilfrid Laurier University Scholar's Commons: Spread and Growth of Newspapers in Ontario, 1781-1977. Use it as a source to find what newspapers were available at the time and in the area where an ancestor lived. I was surprised it's NOT AVAILABLE through Library and Archives Canada's Theses Canada.
Bayfield Breeze 2009-2018; The Bayfield Bulletin, 1964-1968; The Bayfield Post, 1981-1982; The Blyth Standard, 1893-1982; The Brussels Post, 1885-1929; The Citizen (Blyth/Brussels) 2016-2018; The Citizen, 2015-2018; The Clinton New Era, 1874-1921; Clinton News Record, 1912-1945; Dungannon News, 1915; East Huron Gazette (Gorrie), 1892-1893; The Exeter Advocate, 1888-1924; The Exeter Times, 1873-1924; The Exeter Times Advocate, 1924-1926; 2002-2008; The Fordwich Record, 1901, 1935; The Gazette (Mildmay), 1894; The Goderich Illustrated Signal-Star, 1889; The Goderich Star, 1868-1933; Goderich Reporter, 1880, Greater Goderich, 1918; The Huron Expositor (Seaforth), 11869-1980; 2013-2016; The Huron Loyalist, 1850, 1853; Huron Gazette (Goderich), 1848-1849; The Huron Record, 1881; The Huron News-Record, 1888-1897; Huron Signal (Goderich),1848-1936; The Lucknow Sentinel, 1875-1940; 2013-2016; The Seaforth News, 1917-1962; The Seaforth Sun, 1901; Wingham Times, 1882, 1885-1916; The Wingham Advance, 1889, 1893, 1902-1921; Wingham Advance-Times, 1922-1935; The Wroxeter Planet, 1909; The Wroxeter Star, 1900; 1902-1904; Zurich Herald, 1900-1957; Zurich Citizen’s News, 1958-1978.
More are being added.
Hits are highlighted on the original page image — nice!
• Ontario Land Records• Comparison of Genealogy Websites• Organization/Storage of Records• Immigration• Research in the Country of Origin (i.e. England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, France etc.)• Advanced DNA• Research Methodology/Procedures.
Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
Updated on 14 August 2020. Major or minor? Ancestry isn't telling!
Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915; 2,763,034 records
Norfolk, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1940; 1,925,088 records
Norfolk, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1990; 689,390 records
Norfolk, England, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1535-1812; 6,005,703 records
You can now search and view the UK official Gazettes for London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin from Findmypast. If you haven't searched them chances are there's something of interest for your UK family history.
London Gazette 1665-2018
35 million pages charting 350 years of Government notices from the oldest continuously published newspaper in the UK.
Scotland, Edinburgh Gazette 1797-2018
Scotland’s newspaper of record for notices on insolvency, estates, deaths, companies, legal affairs, matters of state and more.
Ireland, Belfast Gazette 1922-2018
Nearly century of Belfast newspaper stories, including business notices and the Queen’s annual honours lists.
Ireland, Dublin Gazette 1750-1800
Step back into 18th-century Ireland with records covering 50 years of news from the British government at Dublin Castle.
Gazettes have been available free online for years. Search those here. Now you can search them directly from Findmypast. Note that the searches lead to an image of the printed page but the search term isn't highlighted.
For those with New Brunswick interest, I know of at least one reader, a reminder of the six titles that have been added online by the Provincial Archives this year.
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| RS141 Vital Statistics | We have added 6,168 digitized images of original marriage records for 1969. |
| County Council Marriage Records, 1789 - 1887 | For more than the first 50 years of colonial settlement, Charlotte County was the second most populated county in New Brunswick. Explore these early families and their connections by searching over 8,000 names from the 1789-1839 Charlotte County marriage register.[RS148 J4 a1] Please note, parents are not named in these records. |
| RS9 Executive Council: Cabinet Meeting Records, 1840 - 1862 | Want access to the Executive Council Records? Who wouldn't!! Over 6,000 records 1840-1862, from RS9 to research for the period leading up to Confederation. Search or browse. |
| RS141 Vital Statistics | We have added 4,922 digitized images of Death Certificates for 1969. |
| RS141 Vital Statistics | 497 records digitized images added for 1924 Late Registration of Births (RS141A1b). |
| RS141 Vital Statistics | 11,017 Birth records for 1924 were added. (RS141A5) |
Also, a reminder that there was a major addition of Saint John area records last year in RS427
Saint John Municipal Records: Maps and plans 1824-1968, Agreements 1806-1992, Tax Rolls 1881-1980, Expropriations 1968-1971, Common Council Agendas and Supporting Documents 1976-1993, Common Council Minute Books 1785-2007, Records of Returned Soldiers Given Certificates 1921, Parish of Portland Council Minutes 1871-1881 & 1886-1889, Parish of Simmonds Council Minutes 1947-1952 & 1959-1966, City of Lancaster Council Minutes 1946-1966, City of Lancaster Bylaws 1954-1966, City of Lancaster Agreements 1932-1966. Other materials including photographs and A/V material. (72.7m)
The dataset Vital statistics in the UK: births, deaths and marriages at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables shows surprising trends for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from 1887 to 2018.
For deaths, the chart below shows annual deviation from the long-term mean as a percentage.
All three show a decrease in deaths until about 1930. This perhaps reflects an improvement in sanitation, medical services and general quality of life. It's more marked for Northern Ireland than Scotland and for Scotland more than England and Wales.
There a period of relative stability from 1930 to 1950.
From 1950 until 2010 all three show a hump-back pattern peaking around 1975. This perhaps reflects the evolution of population age.
For all three the number of deaths has been increasing in the most recent years.
The year-to-year variation is larger before 1950 than afterwards. Could that be the result of the National Health Sevice?
The peak of the 1918 influenza pandemic deaths stands out. Peaks of deaths in 1940 (air attack, the Blitz) and 1951 (influenza, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3294686/ ) are the next most prominent.
All else being equal you'd expect deaths to increase with population. Over the 20th century, England and Wales saw an 80% population increase; Scotland and Northern Ireland about 25%.
Perhaps finding yourself in a city far away you turned to the phone book wondering whether you'd discover any of the unusual surnames in your family tree. I did that while visiting my old home town in England, found a cousin, phoned up and visited him and his wife at their home later that day. The news I got was that the information I wanted was probably in old documents being fed to the fire as witnessed by the newly married bride. She said she'd been horrified, a feeling I much belatedly shared.
Published annually, telephone directories date back well over100 years. Nothing was more name intensive than the white pages, so it's surprising those old volumes aren't more available online for genealogy to help fill in the gaps between censuses. Civil death records may be embargoed but disappearance from white pages is a clue to death. Or it could be they moved, that's part of a person's history too.
Ancestry does have the Canadian Phone and Address Directories, 1995-2002 collection. There are no Canadian telephone directories on Findmypast or MyHeritage.
It's not online but the catalogue for Library and Archives Canada lists the promising:
Microfilmed directories : Bell Canada telephone historical collection = Annuaires sur microfilm : collection historique du téléphone de Bell Canada.
The physical description is: 488 microfilm reels : negative ; 16 mm + 2 reel indexes (37 cm)
It's dated 1981. With that number of reels, it must cover more than the publication year, but there's no indication which years.
The FamilySearch wiki https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Canada_Directories includes the information:
The Family History Library and some large public and academic libraries have Phonefiche (microfiche copies of recent telephone directories of metropolitan areas) for Quebec and Ontario. The Family History Library also has:
Canada Phone Book: The National Telephone Directory on CD-ROM. Ed. 4.5 for year 1997. Danvers, Mass.: Pro CD, c. 1992–96. (Family History Library compact disc no. 20.)
Major Canadian libraries have copies of telephone directories (Bell Canada) from 1878 to 1979, but these are not at the Family History Library.
These maps often are annotated with the names of particular companies or institutions at the location.
Find maps for Campbeltown, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow (many), Greenock, Leith, and Paisley. Sadly, none for Aberdeen.It was previously announced that 12 August 2020 would be the day when a limited number of staff would begin to return to LAC worksites. In this first stage of gradual reopening, LAC was to remain closed to the public. Copy services (online orders only) would resume with enhanced remote reference services with staff on-site having greater access to items from the collection.
I phoned to confirm, particularly whether copy services were restarted while also placing an order in case there's a rush.
I got two judicious replies very promptly.
Clients should also expect delays beyond our usual service standards; we are applying significant safety measures and new protocols, including physical distancing and mandatory isolation of collection items.
Please be assured that we will process your request as quickly as possible.
We thank you for your co-operation and apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause you.
The dataset Vital statistics in the UK: births, deaths and marriages at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/populationestimates/datasets/vitalstatisticspopulationandhealthreferencetables shows interesting trends for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from 1887 to 2017. There are no marriage statistics for England and Wales for 2018 and later.
For opposite-sex marriages, the chart below shows annual deviation from the long-term mean as a percentage.
The trends in all three jurisdictions are similar.
There's an increase to about 1970, likely reflecting the increase in population. After marriage becomes less popular.
There's a minor increase in marriages at the start of the First World War and a much larger increase after the war.
For the Second World War, the opposite is the case.
The peak in marriages around 1970 is due to the marriage of baby boomers. In 1971 in England and Wales the most frequent age for marriage was 20 - 24 years. By 1994 it had shifted to 25-29 years and by 2015 30 - 34 years.
Religious marriage ceremonies reached a peak in popularity in 1919 in England and Wales. By 1992 the number of couples choosing civil marriage ceremonies overtook those opting for religious ones. The number of civil ceremony marriages has remained reasonably stable since the 1970s while the decline in marriages has been in religious ceremonies. Church marriage records are to be less likely a useful source for genealogists researching this period.
In a News Release dated 11 August 2020 FamilySearch list the following new free UK historical records for the week of 10 August.
England, Derbyshire, Church of England Parish Registers, 1537-1918 65 records
England England, Essex Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1971, 386 records
England England, Herefordshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1583-1898, 5,462 records
England England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988, 68,761 records
England England, Shropshire Parish Registers, 1538-1918, 12,193 records
England and Wales, Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills, 1640-1660, 28,868 records
Great Britain, War Office Registers, 1772-1935, 5,808 records.
These releases are not always as advertised.
Although the focus is photos the enhancer may help clarify those difficult-to-read documents too.
