Monday's celebrations of Colonel By Day on the site of the Bytown Museum saw genealogical and local historical societies clustered in two tents near the lower part of the flight of locks.
BIFHSGO President Glenn Wright and Past President Mary Ann Sharpe represented the Society.
OGS Ottawa Branch Chair catches up on some reading. Norine Wolfe is just out of camera range.
03 August 2010
Col By Day 2010
02 August 2010
TNA Podcast: Thomas Cook Archives
This presentation, recorded on 25 March 2010 at TNA, has Paul Smith, company archivist of Thomas Cook UK & Ireland, giving a general account of the holdings of the Thomas Cook Archives in Peterborough
The presentation starts with a brief company history, from its first excursion on 5 July 1841 from Leicester to Loughborough, a temperance outing, to the present day.
You get a clear idea of the archive holdings. Seemingly, there is very little chance of finding the name of a client, and only a good chance of finding the name of an employee if they were senior, such as a branch manager.
The holdings of interest to the family historian are travel brochures, timetables and information on costs which would be helpful in filling in the picture if you know an ancestor took a particular trip.
Listen the the podcast at: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/tourists-and-booking-clerks.htm
The presentation starts with a brief company history, from its first excursion on 5 July 1841 from Leicester to Loughborough, a temperance outing, to the present day.
You get a clear idea of the archive holdings. Seemingly, there is very little chance of finding the name of a client, and only a good chance of finding the name of an employee if they were senior, such as a branch manager.
The holdings of interest to the family historian are travel brochures, timetables and information on costs which would be helpful in filling in the picture if you know an ancestor took a particular trip.
Listen the the podcast at: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/tourists-and-booking-clerks.htm
01 August 2010
London Lives 1690-1800
"London Lives makes available, in a fully digitised and searchable form, a wide range of primary sources about eighteenth-century London, with a particular focus on plebeian Londoners. This resource includes over 240,000 manuscript and printed pages from eight London archives and is supplemented by fifteen datasets created by other projects. It provides access to historical records containing over 3.35 million name instances."
Information drawn from documents of the criminal justice system includes:
- Ordinary's Accounts (OA): biographies of executed criminals written by the chaplain of Newgate Prison.
- Sessions Papers (PS): manuscript documents which provide additional evidence about the crimes tried at the Old Bailey and other courts, as well as documents concerning poor relief.
- Criminal Registers (CR): lists of prisoners held in Newgate Prison.
- Coroners's Inquests (IC): documents relating to deaths thought to be suspicious, but which did not result in a formal prosecution.
- St Botolph Aldgate (straddling the eastern boundary between the City of London and Middlesex)
- St Clement Danes (Westminster)
- St Dionis Backchurch (City of London)
For Medical care the database includes St Thomas's Hospital with its detailed admissions and discharge registers.
There's much more. Run your London names.
31 July 2010
FindMyPast.co.uk adds Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records 1760-1854
The following is a press release from FindMyPast. My comments are appended.
180,000 NEW CHELSEA PENSIONERS SERVICE RECORDS GO ONLINE FOR THE FIRST TIME AT FINDMYPAST.CO.UK
• Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records 1760-1854 now available to search online
• In-depth and colourful insight into the lives of ordinary ranking soldiers
• Records include servicemen born in the UK and throughout the world, including India and Jamaica
Leading family history website findmypast.co.uk has added a further 180,000 records to the Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records collection currently available online. The new additions comprise the service records of men pensioned out of the British Army between 1760 and 1854. The update means the collection now totals over four million full colour images of the service records of almost 700,000 soldiers pensioned out of the British Army between 1760 and 1900. Findmypast.co.uk has been working in association with The National Archives and in partnership with FamilySearch for nearly two years to scan, transcribe and publish online these records.
Many of the soldiers listed will have served in some of Britain’s most significant wars, including the Battle of Waterloo (1815), the Crimean (1853 – 1856) and both Boer Wars (1899 – 1902). Each individual soldier’s record consists of a bundle of a minimum of four pages, full of fascinating personal details, and could even be up to 20 pages long.
The details that can be found in these records are invaluable to family and military historians, providing a rich and colourful story of our ancestors’ lives, with a level of detail that is hard to find in any other historical records. Among the information included in these documents are the soldier’s date and place of birth, name and address of next of kin, height, hair and eye colour, distinguishing features such as tattoos, rank and regiment, occupation before joining the army, medical history and countries where, and dates when, the soldier served.
The records not only relate to servicemen born in the UK, but also throughout the world, with many soldiers born in India and even the Caribbean. These records are also invaluable to Irish, Scottish and Commonwealth researchers, as many men joined the British Army from these countries throughout the centuries.
The records list only those soldiers who either completed their full service in the army or who were wounded and pensioned out of the army. The records do not include those killed in action or army deserters or officers. The connection with 'Chelsea Pensioners' is that the pensions were administered through The Royal Hospital at Chelsea. The great majority of pensioned soldiers were out-pensioners and did not reside at the Hospital itself.
Debra Chatfield of findmypast.co.uk said: “The Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records are a rich resource for family historians. For each soldier you’ll find a minimum of four pages of information, including a physical description and even details of other family members, such as their dates of baptism and marriage. These fascinating records enable you to find out so much about your soldier ancestors, including what they looked like, long before the invention of photography.”
Comment:
TNA information is that WO 97 has been the second most requested series at Kew. With this release FMP is getting toward the end of the WO 97 records. Promised in August are records for another 303,000 soldiers with date range 1901 and 1913.
The search page has space for name, country, county and year of birth. There is an ability to specify the location more closely but many entries don't have that information. Regiment and year served from can also be specified as can soldier number. Although suggested FMP have opted not to index date of discharge.
In the cases I looked at none named parents or next of kin. Intended place of discharge was frequently specified. Details of service are included, often squeezed into an area too small resulting in an interpretation challenge and information written sideways. Image quality is usually good. Having the ability to manipulate the original image on your computer, and to do so without the time pressure of being at TNA, will help you get the most out of the records.
We have to be patient another year for 500,000 records, date range 1806-1915, in WO 96, War Office: Militia Attestation Papers, which have been TNA 14th most requested series. Note that neither series includes members of the Royal Marines (sea soldiers). Their attestation papers are in ADM 157.
30 July 2010
LAC rules for copying newspapers
Copied below is a response to a query I posed recently to Library and Archives Canada's Alison Bullock, Director General responsible for Services. My query resulted from the experience of a few colleagues which appeared to reflect a change in the rules.
"Library and Archives Canada's procedures concerning the copying of microfilmed newspapers have not changed. Clients can photograph microfilm displayed on a reader screen, or can make photocopies from microfilm of any newspaper, regardless of date, for personal use.
If the newspaper is more than 100 years old, users can scan pages from microfilm and download these images to a USB key or CD-ROM.
To avoid manual transcription of newspaper information, LAC recommends that clients use one of the other options available to them.
More information on photocopying and reproduction appears on the LAC website at:
http://www.collectionscanada.
It undoubtedly takes someone with a far superior knowledge of the law than this lowly scribe to understand the fine distinction between a photograph of the screen and a USB or CD-ROM copy. I frequently use a digital camera for making research copies in any event so to have this clarified is helpful.
UK Database Updates
On Ancestry, British Army WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914-1920 now contains 5,280,584 records, an update from 4.8 million.
Also on Ancestry, U.K., City and County Directories, 1600s-1900s is updated from 382,967 to 404,728 records. For Norfolk in whole or part there are now 17 directories from 1822 to 1933. 13 other directories cover Suffolk from 1830 to 1925-26.
The FreeBMD Database was updated on 16 July 2010 and currently contains 187,893,359 distinct records (239,556,610 total records).
29 July 2010
ACOM (Ancestry) reports positive second quarter
The following is from Ancestry.com on it's second quarter results, released as the market closed on 29 July.
- Ancestry.com Subscriber Growth of 32% Year-Over-Year
- Total Revenue Up 36% Year-Over-Year
- Raises FY 2010 Outlook
PROVO, Utah, July 29, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq:ACOM - News), the world's largest online family history resource, today reported financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2010.
"Greater than anticipated subscriber additions drove impressive performance in the quarter and boosted our revenue and EBITDA expectations for the full year," said Tim Sullivan, Chief Executive Officer of Ancestry.com. "It's particularly noteworthy that retention rates and customer behavior trends are remaining consistent despite the rapid subscriber growth in the first half of 2010. As we move forward, we will continue our focus on building awareness of the family history category, improving the customer experience and adding important content collections to Ancestry.com."
Ancestry.com Web Sites Highlights
- Subscribers totaled 1,311,000 as of June 30, 2010, a 32% increase over the end of Q2 2009 and an 8% increase over the end of Q1 2010.
- Gross Subscriber additions were 291,000 in Q2 2010, an 81% increase over Q2 2009 and a 4% increase over Q1 2010, driven by the continued success of marketing programs and the airing of Who Do You Think You Are? early in the quarter.
- Monthly Subscriber Churn1 increased to 4.3% in Q2 2010, compared to 3.8% in Q2 2009 and 3.3% in Q1 2010, as expected, reflecting the large number of new monthly subscribers added in the first half of 2010.
- Subscriber acquisition cost2 in Q2 2010 was $74.04, compared to $73.27 in Q2 2009 and $69.57 in Q1 2010.
- Average Monthly Revenue per Subscriber3 in Q2 2010 was $18.02, compared to $16.42 in Q2 2009 and $16.70 in Q1 2010.
Second Quarter 2010 Financial Highlights
- Total revenue for the second quarter of 2010 was $74.5 million, an increase of 36.4% over $54.6 million in the prior year period, driven by growth in our core Ancestry.com Web sites of 41.9%.
- Operating income for the second quarter of 2010 was $15.8 million, compared to $8.7 million in the prior year period.
- Adjusted EBITDA4 for the second quarter of 2010 was $25.3 million, compared to $18.4 million in the second quarter of 2009. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the second quarter of 2010 was 33.9%, compared to 33.8% in the second quarter of 2009.
- Net income was $8.5 million, or $0.18 per fully diluted share, for the second quarter of 2010 compared to $4.7 million, or $0.12 per fully diluted share, in the second quarter of 2009.
- Free cash flow5 totaled $14.4 million in the second quarter of 2010 compared to $6.7 million in the prior year period.
- Balance sheet As of June 30, 2010, cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments were $134.0 million and total debt was $76.2 million.
Recent Business Highlights
- The Company closed the acquisition of Genline.se, the leading Swedish family history Web site. At closing, Genline had more than 17,000 paying members with access to 26 million pages of digitized Swedish church records spanning more than 400 years from the 17th to the 20th century.
- NBC announced its renewal of Who Do You Think You Are? for a second season, which is currently expected to air in the first quarter of 2011.
- Season 1 of Who Do You Think You Are? is currently expected to air in re-runs starting on August 13, 2010.
- The Company added several new important content collections, including U.S. Land Ownership Atlases from 1860-1920 and the UK Waterloo Medal Roll from 1815.
Business Outlook
The Company's financial and operating expectations for the third quarter and full year 2010 are as follows:
Third Quarter 2010
- Revenue in the range of $75.0 to $77.0 million
- Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $24.0 to $26.0 million
- Ending subscribers of approximately 1,345,000
Full Year 2010
- Revenue in the range of $290 to $295 million (increased from the previously expected range of $275 to $280 million)
- Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $93 to $97 million (increased from the previously expected range of $90 to $95 million)
- Ending subscribers in the range of 1,360,000 to 1,370,000 (increased from the previously expected range of 1,280,000 to 1,300,000)
As is often the case, ACOM closed down from the previous day close on the good news!
Clement, the Census, and the Canadian Multicultural Newspapers Digitized
Tony Clement, presently embroiled in the census issue, makes no secret of his own ancestry. Born in Manchester, England his father was of Greek Cypriot origin, his mother Canadian of Russian Ashkenazi Jewish descent.
It strikes me as paradoxial that none of that type information, save the name, often available in historic censuses and usually available now for elites like people in Who's Who, is something Clement finds so sensitive it should not be available 92 years hence for all ordinary Canadians through the short-form census.
Researching Clement's Russian side led me to Multicultural Canada, a site which exists to provide free and greater access to collections of archives and libraries in Canada which preserve the historical record of the experiences of ethnic and multi-ethnic communities. It aims to make available documentary resources seldom available beyond the walls of the institution.
The list of resources, mostly newspapers, is:
28 July 2010
History House (Essex)
If you have ancestry in the English county of Essex you will find interesting material in the History House website www.historyhouse.co.uk
Look to it for an alphabetical list of Essex towns and villages and their histories which includes transcriptions of directories;
A blog called History News.
An extensive list of feature articles, many with specific Essex content, including:
Family History Forums - your Essex ancestors.
How to break down that brick wall which is stopping you from researching your Essex family history.
Parish Registers at the Essex Record Office.
Digital images of some Parish Registers are now available on online at the Essex Record Office.
The Condition of Essex.
A glimpse into the life and times of the straw plaiters, spinners, oyster fishermen and labouring men of Victorian Essex.
The Brightlingsea Tiles.
All Saints Church, Brightlingsea, contains unique memorials to parishioners who have lost their lives at sea - 213 memorial tiles, to be exact.
Essex History Trivia
The history of Essex contains some interesting and surprising facts, here are some examples.
The Bankrupt Directory
Essex bankrupts from December 1820 to April 1843.
The Jurist
Essex bankrupts covering most of the years 1843 to 1862.
Captain Oates
From the Essex countryside to the icy wastes of Antarctica.
The Scotch Colony
Scottish farmers who by hard work and ruthless economy brought a new look to the Essex countryside.
Tinker? Tailor? Soldier? Sailor? Who lived in your house?
Researching the history of your house.
Chelmsford Prison (Springfield)
A description of Chelmsford Prison in 1842 and 1848.
Essex on the map
Using maps to discover the history of Essex and its people.
Martello Towers of the Essex shore
From defending the Essex coast to a Digital Art centre.
The perils of ballooning
Story of Joseph Simmons, a Victorian pioneering balloonist who challenged danger but ultimately crashed and died at Ulting near Maldon.
The earthquake of 1884
How Essex was hit by the strongest earthquake in England's history.
Arson in the Essex parishes
A look at a time when the farmers of Ardleigh and nearby parishes were faced with spate of arson attacks on their property.
The life and confessions of a burglar
Enter the Essex underworld: an account of an Victorian burglar and robber.
Body snatching
A gruesome story of body snatching at Little Leighs.
Dreadful railway accident at Brentwood
Fog descends on Brentwood causing a tragic accident in which nine railway workers die.
Toot Hill windmill struck by lightning
A miller’s brush with death.
Two Zeppelins on bombing missions brought down in Essex villages
How inhabitants of two sleepy villages were suddenly thrust into the front line of the First World War when Zeppelins crashed in their fields.
Agriculture of the County of Essex - 1794
Contemporary report on the state of agriculture in Essex.
27 July 2010
Jenkins Sparks a Genealogist Challenge
One of the good things about Mondays, perhaps one of the only good things, is the weekly column by Phil Jenkins in the Ottawa Citizen. A local writer and musician his columns often have historical themes.
This Monday, under the title "The story of a great walking race endures" he wrote of a challenge issued in June 1873 and taken up by Robert Sparks, a land surveyor and member of the Ottawa founding family after which Sparks Street gets its name. Sparks triumphed over Fred Pace, a recent English immigrant. Read the story at
www.ottawacitizen.com/story+great+walking+race+endures/3322411/story.html
Jenkins mentions that Pace left for Alberta and he's not sure what happened to Robert Sparks. He asks "is there a genealogist in the house?"
Yes.
The last name and occupation rang a bell. A few years ago I had an interest in weather related disasters. I read about two Sparks brothers, surveyors, drowned in the sinking of the Asia, 14 September 1882, near Byng Inlet, Georgian Bay. The Asia, with nearly 100 casualties, was one of the wrecks during a major storm.
I sent an answer by 8 AM. A follow-up is promised in next Monday's column.
26 July 2010
WDYTYA UK: Rupert Everett
The second episode in the current UK Who Do You Think You Are serious featured actor Rupert Everett. As outlined in the BBC's teaser/summary below the journey documented was a bit of a roller coaster ride.
It appears that Ancestry are not current WDYTYA sponsors. Searches using the databases were prominently featured but I noticed the word Ancestry, and the ancestry logo, were not shown. Obviously they didn't pay their product placement fee.
There were incidences of Everett jumping to conclusions, for example in failing to find his grandmother in a search in which he specified the exact birth-year and location. However, the lesson of treating the information you find as evidence, not fact, was made in that his initial conclusion that the father was deceased, as indicated on a marriage certificate, turned out to be incorrect when he found a later death certificate.
Here's the BBC summary:
Rupert Everett’s varied acting career has involved starring in Hollywood films as diverse as My Best Friend’s Wedding, Shrek 2 and The Importance of Being Earnest. Rupert has a rigidly conservative background, and feels that much of his own life has been a reaction against it. Following the recent death of his father six months ago, he wants to investigate the paternal side of his family.
Rupert visits his mother Sara to find out more about his father Tony’s early life. He discovers that Tony’s father Cyril worked in Nigeria for the Colonial Service. Sara has a photograph of Cyril as a two-year-old; she tells Rupert that the family believe that he was brought up by two aunts in Hammersmith. Rupert wants to find out more about Cyril’s life, and what he was doing in Nigeria.
Rupert tracks down records which chart Cyril’s career in the Service, and discovers just how important a role he held in Nigeria… But what about Cyril’s childhood? Rupert decides to search the online census records and unearths some very unexpected information. This is the start of a rollercoaster investigation into fathers and sons which Rupert describes as like an Ealing Comedy, with its twists, turns and surprise relatives popping up.
Rupert reflects on the ripple effects of broken relationships across the generations. On social mobility, both up and down; broken rules; abandonment; rebellion; convention; and secrecy.
Britain at War: 70 years later
Many of us are too young to remember, but 70 years ago the Battle of Britain was underway. The Daily Telegraph has a collection of reader's memories of the times at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/britainatwarreadersmemories/
It includes one that throws a less than favourable light on Canadian forces training in Oxfordshire, and suggests the incident was hushed up: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/britainatwar/britainatwarreadersmemories/3419320/Britain-at-War-Unsavoury-wartime-allied-help.html
25 July 2010
Perth, Scotland, on Ancestry
There are two databases newly available on Ancestry.
Perth, Scotland, Register of Deeds, 1566-1811 contains registers of bonds, acts, obligations, and other documents stemming from legal transactions in the Royal Burgh of Perth (Scotland) that go back more than four centuries. Transactions were often documented in case disputes arose later, and these records include items such as bonds, sales contracts, receipts, charter, protests, and dispositions. There are 22,365 records.
Perth, Scotland, Survey of Inhabitants, 1766, 1773 contains two 18th-century surveys taken in the burgh of Perth, Scotland, most likely for tax purposes. The 1766 survey provides names for heads of families only, but also lists occupation and includes data on age and gender of children, servants, lodgers, and religious affiliation. It contains 8,894 records.
Not so new, but with 184,618 records, is Perth, Scotland Newspaper Index Cards, 1809-1990 database containing a collection of index cards referencing articles and announcements found in several Perth area newspapers. The coverage is from 1809-1990 with a gap from 1890-1920. Most of the cards reference births, deaths, retrials, golden and diamond wedding anniversaries, personal achievements, or personal tragedies.
Perth, Scotland, Register of Deeds, 1566-1811 contains registers of bonds, acts, obligations, and other documents stemming from legal transactions in the Royal Burgh of Perth (Scotland) that go back more than four centuries. Transactions were often documented in case disputes arose later, and these records include items such as bonds, sales contracts, receipts, charter, protests, and dispositions. There are 22,365 records.
Perth, Scotland, Survey of Inhabitants, 1766, 1773 contains two 18th-century surveys taken in the burgh of Perth, Scotland, most likely for tax purposes. The 1766 survey provides names for heads of families only, but also lists occupation and includes data on age and gender of children, servants, lodgers, and religious affiliation. It contains 8,894 records.
Not so new, but with 184,618 records, is Perth, Scotland Newspaper Index Cards, 1809-1990 database containing a collection of index cards referencing articles and announcements found in several Perth area newspapers. The coverage is from 1809-1990 with a gap from 1890-1920. Most of the cards reference births, deaths, retrials, golden and diamond wedding anniversaries, personal achievements, or personal tragedies.
24 July 2010
Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae
New on Ancestry, this reference provides details on more than 2,000 Scottish ministers (and often their families) in synods from Aberdeen to Zetland for the years 1560–1866. The records can include information such dates and places of service, ordination, and study; names of father and other family members; marriages and children; and notable details from their lives, such as writings, achievements, or even proceedings brought against them.
The Irishman in Canada
Browsing in the Irish emigrant history section at the library of the University of Ottawa the other day I was surprised to come across "The Irishman in Canada" by Nicholas Flood Davin (1843-1901). I didn't know the book. The author has been featured in a couple of Beechwood Cemetery tours. The story is that, depressed over his declining fortunes, he committed suicide during a visit to Winnipeg (a city not often quite that depressing.) The impressive memorial at Beechwood was paid for by admirers.
I didn't have time to look at the book while at the University but thought I might find it in the Internet Archive. It's at www.archive.org/details/cihm_02593
It wasn't much help in my search for information on settlement in the western parts of Carleton County. Bruce Elliott's "Irish Migrants in the Canada's: a new approach" was much more useful for that. Davin was known as raconteur. It's a talent well demonstrated in the book.
23 July 2010
TNA Annual Report 2009-10
The UK National Archives have published Annual Report and Resource Accounts 2009-10 on their website at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/475.htm
A few items that caught my eye:
- We welcomed over 90,000 visitors to our reading rooms, who studied more than 590,000 original documents from our collection.
- Demand for our web services also continued, and we received over 20 million online visits during the course of the year. (Ratio of documents downloaded to documents produced
on site at Kew 221:1). - In the section How we Work, putting customers first, responsible guardians, information set free, delivering what we promise, everyone working together.
- Our commercial revenue for the year was £8.1 million, which was a 30% increase on the previous year.
- Partnership with findmypast.com and the digitisation and online publication of the 1911
Census. In 2009-10, there were 4.9 million downloads from this service. - Service records of more than two million British Army soldiers from 1914 to 1920 available online, working in partnership with ancestry.co.uk. The final tranche of content was launched in November, and there were 3.3 million downloads from the service in
that month alone. - We received 2,516 Freedom of Information (FoI) requests in 2009-10, and responded to 96% of these within the regulatory timescales.
- We ran teaching sessions for 14,371 school pupils on site at Kew and online through videoconferencing and our ‘virtual classroom’.
- We have reduced our carbon footprint by 10% compared with 2008-09 by cutting our overall energy consumption
- The National Archives carried out a cost savings programme designed to save around 10% of our total budget. We know that the way we worked with academics and researchers when consulting on these changes could have been improved and have since taken action to significantly improve how we engage with these key groups.
- We met six of our eight key performance indicators in a year in which a significant cost savings programme was delivered (a detailed list is in the report).
22 July 2010
The Census Long Form Mess
The resignation of the head of Statistics Canada over political misrepresentation of advice given is a serious matter. Chief Statistician Munir Sheikh is to be congratulated for taking a principled stand.
I've not blogged about this issue lately as the controversy has been about the gathering of information for statistical purposes for short-term policy considerations -- nothing to do with genealogy.
I've previously mentioned I find the long-form census overly intrusive. With a couple of exceptions as long as the long form information is used only for statistical aggregation I don't have much objection. Statistics Canada certainly has my confidence in their ability to keep that information confidential.
It would be oh so simple for everyone to fill out the short form, and for those who receive the long form on extra pages to have the initial short form pages detached and released after 92 [or some such] years while the remainder of the long form is never released.
What we have in Canada is a case of the government acting too fast and without due consultation. By contrast, in the UK where a decision has been made not to conduct a census after 2011, there is a whole decade for the statisticians and other stakeholders to figure out alternate means for achieving the same benefits. Presumably if after say five years no better alternative can be found the census can be reinstituted. More likely the study will find a better method.
21 July 2010
Granite Mountain Records Vault Videos Online
Via YouTube, an impressive two part video on the operation and digitizing activities at the FamilySearch Granite Mountain vault.
Can your family history save your life?
An article in the Globe and Mail, also the Winnipeg Free Press, Know your pedigree: Family medical history holds key to your health, trumpets the health benefits of your doctor knowing about your ancestral health.
However, as explained in the article, many people don't know or confuse their ancestor's diseases. The article quotes Rochelle Demsky, a genetic counsellor at Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital,"If you think your grandmother had cervical cancer, but it really was ovarian (cancer), it makes a huge difference."
Another issue, not explained in the article, is whether or not you actually inherited the gene or genes responsible for the disease. You only inherit half of the DNA of each of your parents. That means you may not have inherited the DNA segment or segments that make you vulnerable. Or you may be a carrier but not have personal susceptibility.
There are cases of people who have had radical preventive surgery only to later find out through DNA testing that they had no enhanced susceptibility. There are also documented cases of people who worried about their susceptibility to a genetically-based disease only to find out through genetic testing that they did not inherit the susceptibility.
Such tests are becoming more available and accepted. A US study, the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health found that 53 percent of parents were very or somewhat interested in home genetic testing for their children. We no longer have to accept a poorly remembered family history as a surrogate for a genetic test.
The Women in our Past
The following was written by the Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society.
The Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society and the Canadiana Department of the North York Central Library have joined together to sponsor "The Women in our Past: Strategies and Resources for Researching Female Ancestors", an all-day workshop that will explore new and varied approaches to researching those often elusive women in our families.
With expert speakers from across Ontario, this event will offer participants a deeper understanding of the circumstances that governed and shaped the lives of our female ancestors – from family relationships, domestic service and the justice system to the fur trade, migration and world war.
Find out how and where to search for relevant records and learn about the latest developments in maternal-line DNA analysis.
The workshop will be held on Saturday, 6 November 2010 in the Auditorium of the North York Central Library, 5120 Yonge Street, at the North York Centre subway station.
Early registration rates are available until 30 September 2010. Visit www.torontofamilyhistory.org/women.html for program and registration details. To check availability, call 416-733-2608 (voice mail) or e-mail info@torontofamilyhistory.org.
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