The 100th edition of Jasia's Carnival of Genealogy is posted with more than 100 stories on the theme "There's One in Every Family." Find the complete list, posted in four sections, at
http://creativegene.blogspot.com/2010/12/carnival-of-genealogy-100th-edition_6808.html
08 December 2010
More than 100 new genealogy stories
07 December 2010
LAC fails on consultation
On November 30 Librarian and Archivist of Canada Daniel J Caron testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Official Languages. The text of his opening remarks was posted at the LAC website here.
His statement points out that "LAC received perfect scores for the provision of its services in both official languages in person or by phone. Concerning the active offer of service by telephone, LAC was one of only three institutions to receive this perfect score."
LAC seems unlikely to post anything about the question period that followed. You can watch an archived video of the session here. A transcript should be posted soon.
Mauril Bélanger, MP for Ottawa-Vanier, noted that the Commissioner of Official Languages gave LAC a grade of D overall for its official languages performance. Caron explained this on the basis that the Commissioner placed a great emphasis on consultation with communities, which has not been an LAC strength. He later added that it was also the result of a misunderstanding that LAC regional facilities do not provide direct service to the public.
Asked by Bélanger whether LAC plans to hold consultations with the community, not just the provinces, Caron appeared not to understand the question. The fact is, and its far more pervasive than just for official languages, that when it comes to consultation LAC management simply appears not to get it.
Asked by Bélanger whether LAC would be considering digitization of the Ottawa newspaper Le Droit as it comes up to its 100th anniversary, Caron responded "we're not into digitization." When pressed he clarified that "if it's the will of the community it could become a project."
LAC's Services Advisory Board, which has not been officially active for a year now, repeatedly during its existence rated newspaper digitization as a high priority. LAC chose not to listen to the will of that community.
Not everything about the session was negative. Richard Nadeau, MP for Gatineau, was quite complimentary about the service he has received from front-line staff while visiting LAC.
Access to Archives of Ontario
Coming out of a meeting between Toronto researchers Katharine Orr, Michael Ball, and Jane MacNamara, and Angela Forest, Acting Provincial Archivist, an announcement on extended hours at the Archives of Ontario is expected on January 14, 2011.
Tentatively, and subject to change, the Archives reading room will open until 8:00 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on Saturday. There will be an archivist on duty during the extended hours, and original (un-microfilmed) material will be available during the extended hours, if ordered and received in advance.
06 December 2010
JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry updated at Ancestry
The JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) is a database of names and other identifying information from cemeteries and burial records worldwide, from the earliest records to the present. The database on Ancestry has now been updated with a free index.
It has two linked components: burial records, and information about each particular cemetery.
I was delighted to see that the London burial record for my great-great grandfather, which has been missing the name of the cemetery, is now available.
Dave Obee reviews "How the Scots Invented Canada"
From his seat at the Victoria Times Colonist prominent West Coast genealogist Dave Obee reviewed Ken McGoogan's new book "How the Scots Invented Canada." Worth a look at www.timescolonist.com/Scots+vital+role+Canadian+history/3930626/story.html
On Their Own: Britain's Child Migrants
We are nearing the end of the Year of the British Home Child in Canada, and the launch of BIFHSGO's book "BRITISH HOME CHILDREN: THEIR STORIES" on 18 December.
A new website, covers all British child migrant destinations, contains videos, interviews with some of the migrant children, and images of very illustrative mementos. See it at http://www.britainschildmigrants.com/
via: The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies newsletter
Cheshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire parish records at FamilySearch
FamilySearch.org continues to add new material to its beta site at https://beta.familysearch.org.
For England the latest addition is 157,240 images of births/christenings, deaths/burials, marriages and mixed church records. while there is no name indexing the original record images are presented as groups of years divided more finely than on a typical microfilm.
Lancashire, with 92 parishes available, constitutes the bulk of this release. There are three parishes for Cheshire and five for Yorkshire, mostly for parishes bordering Lancashire.
TNA Podcast: Cabinet Papers 1915-1979
While the chances that your ancestor had nothing to do with the British Cabinet, and you're British interests predate the 20th century, you may still find this presentation of interest.
Mark Dunton, The National Archives’ contemporary records specialist, explains how anyone with an interest in modern history can get the best out of the Cabinet Papers online resource. This provides access to historical records of the key episodes in 20th century British and international history. Mark also discusses the historical development of the Cabinet, how it works, and the main record series.
Don't be put off by the rather shaky and dull introduction; Dunton soon warms to his topic.
05 December 2010
Looking ahead to Gene-O-Rama 2011
Gene-O-Rama, OGS Ottawa Branch's annual conference, stimulates thoughts of spring for Ottawa genealogists. We look forward to warmer days, more daylight and gathering to renew acquaintances, listen, learn, and be entertained. Before that there will be the fury of winter storms to endure, but with the topic and speakers for the Gene-O-Rama program now announced we can anticipate pleasures four months hence, on April 1-2, 2011.
The topic is "Ancestors on the Move"
For the Pat Horan Lecture the presenter will be perennial favourite Fawne Stratford-Devai. The banquet is speaker Lesley Anderson. Both will be making other presentaions, along with Doug Hoddinott, Gillian Magnan, Shirley-Ann Pyefinch, Sylvie Tremblay, Kyla Ubbink, and Glenn Wright.
Major London cemetery now online
The following is an announcement from Deceasedonline.com
Over ½m burial and cremation records for north and central London
Burial and cremation records dating from 1854 for the boroughs of Islington and Camden in central north London are now on Deceased Online. Two conjoined cemeteries, St Pancras and Islington, form the largest single cemetery in London and, in burial numbers, the largest in the UK.
Of the 800,000 burial records, approximately 70% of these are available immediately with the remainder to be uploaded within the next 3 to 4 months. The 575,000 records currently available comprise nearly 362,000 for the Islington section between 1854 and 1945 and the remaining 213,000 for the St Pancras section are for 1854 to 1898, and 1905 to 1911. Also available now are 46,500 records from Islington Crematorium which date back to 1937. The 8,500 most recent cremation records will be added in the next few months, together with the remaining cemetery records.
The cemeteries and crematorium serve a large catchment area across Central and North London and will therefore be a major research resource. The burial records are in the form of scans of registers; grave details indicating all occupants are available immediately for St Pancras Cemetery, and for Islington Cemetery will follow in the near future. The cremation records include scans of registers.
Notable burials include Henry Croft, the original Pearly King; violinist and conductor Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens, John Hickey (survivor of the charge of the Light Brigade complete with a memorial erected by, among others, Jerome K Jerome); MP and industrialist Alfred Mond, interred in a stunning mausoleum; recipients of the Victoria Cross and hundreds of other war graves; Ford Maddox Brown, the Pre-Raphaelite painter; and Cora Crippen (aka Belle Elmore), alleged victim of Dr Harvey Crippen.
Over the next few months, maps of areas in the cemetery indicating grave locations will be uploaded together with photographs of many notable memorials and headstones.
The Deceased Online database for London is now over 1.1 million including the Borough areas of Islington, Camden, Havering and Merton. Many more records for other areas in London will be added in the near future.
Comment: This is a major addition to the deceasedonline website, and delivered as promised months ago (although the cemtery was kept confidential). St Pancras and Islington cemeteries are prominent in the workhouse and infirmary records for the area.
04 December 2010
Let's flush it out, please
I like to think of myself as not overly fussy about pronunciation, spelling, grammar and terminology. Moving from one country to another you are challenged to adapt to all kinds of variations.
When I first came to Canada I recall being amazed when hearing someone refer with affection to their ant Ethel. How could an insect merit such devotion? It took me a while to figure out they meant aunt not ant.
In the over three years I lived in the US I adapted more, even saying zee rather than zed. Now I happily use store for shop, and truck for lorry, much to the chagrin of my UK relatives.
But there's one thing, as Churchill said "up with which I will not put."
Family historians speak of "putting flesh on the bones" of our genealogy to develop a picture of an ancestor as a person rather than a collection of statistics.
We put flesh on the bones by "fleshing it out."
We get rid of something by "flushing it out."
But how many times have I heard people say the one when they mean the other?
A Google search for < genealogy "flush it out" - flesh > yielded 1,910 results, whereas
A Google search will also find several posts by people just as aggravated by this misuse as I am.
You don't have to use either. There are plenty of other hackneyed, phrases such as "Paint a picture", "bring them to life", "breathe life into them", "make them come alive." Perhaps you could even be creative.
Createyourlifestory.com
Anglo-Celtic Connections is a magnet. Every day I have to deal with a certain amount of spam, despite the efficient filtering from Google. The compensation is the happy serendipity, an e-mail that draws my attention to a family history resource of which I was unaware.
Recently I received one such from Australian Ian Kath who, amongst other things, runs a website at http://createyourlifestory.
It shows people how to record, edit and publish a Life Story of either themselves or someone they know before it's too late. He offers a 26 episode (so far) podcast series and free 26 page e-Book, all full of good advice and motivation to get you going.
He mentions that he came to this project via his experience with a podcast, Your Story started in 2007 to "capture and share the lives of some of the wonderful people that I meet."
Ian has a real talent in drawing out people's stories and personality through conversation. The latest podcast in that series is with Australian author John Birmingham, and I have to say it, despite distracting whistled sibilants.
If createyourlifestory.com can teach and motivate us to be half as good as Ian in bringing personal and family stories to life, half because we don't all have his chatty (his word) personality, we'll be leaving an amazing audio legacy.
FreeBMD December Update
The FreeBMD Database was updated on Fri 3 Dec 2010 and currently contains 194,153,764 distinct records (247,268,145 total records). Major additions this update are from 1937 to 1951.
With very minor gaps births are complete to the end of 1932, and for 1934, 1936, 1941 and 1947. The most recent entries are from 1952.
Marriages are virtually complete from 1837 to 1919, 1921-1937, 1939, 1942-1947. There are scattered entries as late as 1952.
There are minor gaps in death records (less than 5%) up to 1936. 1938-1941 are complete as is 1944. There is a smattering of entries into the 1960s.
03 December 2010
LAC: ordering documents for online delivery
Last month Library and Archives Canada (LAC) was "pleased to announce that it is modernizing its textual reprography services in order to meet growing client demand for digital copies. Therefore, as of November 15, 2010, LAC will now offer copies of various textual records in digital format."
Living in Ottawa with convenient access to LAC I don't need to order a copy of most archival documents. I can go online to order the document to be produced, jump on a bus when it's available, and view the original at 395 Wellington. If I take my digital camera I can make copies at no cost.
As I wanted to look again at my great uncle's CEF service file it was an opportunity to try the new service, especially as "LAC will add digitized images generated by client requests to its website, whenever permissible, thereby making a broader range of LAC holdings available to Canadians." If I pay to make my great uncle`s file available online it should be is accessible to everyone for evermore.
After finding the archival reference in the LAC's Soldiers of the First World War - CEF database, I selected the Copies and Reproductions link from near the top of the LAC homepage. The next page has a link to Online Order Form for Photocopies and Reproductions, and also a link to Price List and Service Standards from which I found that as a Senior I`d be charged 30c per page rather than 40c for standard service, order processed within 30 (calendar or working?) days of receipt.
On the order form I had to respond to three bureaucratic items, then moved on to specify the material I wanted copied.
Asked to specify the reproduction format desired I found out through a phone call you don't ask for`a |"digital copy" which would seem to be the obvious choice, but a "photo copy or PDF." Then, on the following page where you enter the archival reference for the material needed, you specify "PDF - URL (an URL address will be provided to you once the order is completed)." There appears to be no specification of the resolution (dpi) of the pdf images supplied.
Under "prices and service standards/special instructions," I noted I qualified for the Seniors price, and confirmed that was the way to do it in a phone call. Apparently I will be asked to provide an image of a drivers license or other suitable document showing my age in order to qualify, something I should only have to do once.
The next step was to enter credit card information, which I noticed was on the secure (https://) website. I was slightly hesitant to do this as there is no indication of how much it will cost. The helpful person on the phone inform me that the typical WW1 service file is 40 - 75 pages, so upward of $13.50, plus tax at the Senior rate.
I received a prompt automated confirmation of receipt of the order on December 2nd. I'll be interested to see whether the holiday period helps clarify whether it's 30 calendar or working days.
With the exception of the items noted above the ordering process went smoothly. Although the cost is higher than I would pay if I went to LAC taking into account the time it would take just for travel, at minimum wage, means I'm coming out ahead - as long as the need is not time critical.
For those outside Ottawa the benefit is clearly greater. The service is tangible progress toward the LAC goal of making their service more equitably available across Canada. I hope others use it, and provide feedback to LAC.
LAC management should evaluate the cost of this service after they have some experience with it. The per page cost of digital copying is perhaps a couple of cents. There is no toner or paper cost as with hard copy. Retrieving the material, and the administrative overhead, don't depend on the number of pages copied so it would seem fairer to charge a set-up fee plus a low per image fee.
LAC launches Canadian Families database
The following is an announcement from Library and Archives Canada.
Ottawa, December 2, 2010 - Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the launch of a new online database, Canadian Families.
Through this online database, researchers can access references to baptisms, marriages and burials inscribed in church records held at Library and Archives Canada. This database will expand slowly over the next few years as more references are added.
The database is available at: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/families/index-e.html
----------------
A quick review of search results indicates that the database is populated with information from three sources:
The Kipling collection comprising 19th century baptisms, marriages and burials from St.John's Anglican Church, Winnipeg, Manitoba, St.Andrew's Anglican Church, Lockport, Manitoba, and a few from St.Boniface Roman Catholic Church, St.Boniface, Manitoba.
The W J (Bill) Miller collection from Leeds County, Ontario
The St. Andrew's Church, Williamstown. Ontario, records from the first two decades of the 19th century.
02 December 2010
Upper Canada Land Board (1765-1804)
The following is an announcement from Library and Archives Canada.
| Ottawa, December 2, 2010 - Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the launch of a new online database, "Upper Canada Land Board (1765-1804)." Through this online database, researchers can access more than 16,000 references to documents of the Upper Canada Land Board between 1765 and 1804. The Land Boards were created in 1789 to oversee land matters and facilitate settlement in the districts of Hesse, Luneburg, Mecklenburg and Nassau. This territory is now part of the province of Ontario. The database can be accessed at the following address: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/uclandboard/index-e.html ----------------  Here is a sample of the information in the database. |
What every genealogist doesn't need this Christmas
You're accustomed to seeing lists of gift suggestions at this time of year. Technology and books are always high on my list (hint). Turning things around, here's a warning about something you don't want, and how to avoid being a victim, courtesy of an email from Pierce Reid in Toronto.
"A couple of days ago, a local volunteer's email was compromised.
An email was sent out apparently from her user id saying she was overseas, had got into some sort of difficulty, and needed money to get back home. Recipients of the email were asked reply to her to get further information. NOTE: The "Reply to:" address was at live.com, not her regular ISP.
This was a variation of a standard scam, but it got some of her friends concerned for her 'situation'. I think it would be useful remind your readers not to send money or financial or other private information based simply on an email, even if the email pointed them to an apparently legitimate web site.
Another point to note, for users to protect their own ID: take care when using shared computers, or even their own laptops (which could fall into the wrong hands). When using a browser to access email, be sure that you don't ask the computer to remember you on that computer, and remember to fully sign out of your email (not just close the browser) before leaving the computer. (I only access my email from my laptop using a browser interface, and not a mail client like Outlook/Windows Mail or Thunderbird. If I lose my laptop, the finder can't get access to my email.)"
Along the same lines, Dick Eastman has a helping of always timely advice" ... all hard drives WILL crash someday. The only question is "when?" Make your backups today."
Ancestry month end database additions
Ancestry often add a slew of new databases, in this cases a mixed assortment, to their collection at the end of the month. Here is their list of additions for England, and a couple of others, posted on November 30th
01 December 2010
New Ottawa City Archives Update: 29 November 2010
The access road from Tallwoods behind the new building has now been installed and street lamps are in place. Some of the exterior finish is yet to be installed.
There is good progress since my last visit on the entrance plaza with the walkway up to the main entrance from the east now installed. Again, work is still underway on the exterior finish of the building
Looking from the south-west there does not appear to have been much progress on windows and the exterior finish in the past two weeks.
Given likely unfavourable weather and vacation time in December will the building will be ready for the archives to move in at the start of January 2011 as planned? I'm no expert. It looks doubtful. The lease for the present archives location at 111 Sussex Drive expires at the end of December. How will material required to be kept in archival storage be housed in the interim?
23andMe extends holiday sale
DNA testing company 23andMe is moving aggressively in the face of competition to maintain leadership. The price reduction in place for the Black Friday weekend is extended, as announced on their blog at
http://spittoon.23andme.com/2010/11/30/holiday-sale-extended-through-christmas/
A 23andMe press release, here, explains a new chip with enhanced capabilities including testing more than one million SNPs. I was delighted to find that the sample I just returned will be processed with the new chip but will not require the monthly fee they have introduced - the best of both worlds. Sometimes procrastination pays.
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