Incest and Folk-Dancing: now online

The lecture at Gresham College by Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Genetics at University College London, on Incest and Folk-Dancing: Two things to be avoided, is now available as a video at http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/incest-and-folk-dancing-two-things-to-be-avoided.

From the lecture overview:

Professor Jones discusses patterns of relatedness in ancient and modern populations and how they can be measured from the records, from surnames, and - more and more - from the DNA. The pedigree hidden in every genome reveals some quite unexpected patterns of kinship and suggests that some may be very relevant to the chances of disease. However, the evidence that close kinship is breaking down is, in this modern and mobile world, very persuasive and it may be that the most important event in human evolution, and even in human health, was the invention of the bicycle.

Worth watching if your perspective on genealogy takes you beyond the world of the genealogical proof standard.

OGS Ottawa Branch organizes A Day at the Archives on Saturday

You're invited to come to the Ottawa City Archives building, 100 Tallwood Drive, from 1:30pm on Saturday to discover the resources there and benefit from advice from local experts. I shall be there all day, there's a DNA group meeting in the morning starting at 9:30, and then be a "resource" on the UK and Ireland plus newspapers in the afternoon.

The building won't quite look like the picture, just add snow.

For more information check out the Ottawa Branch blog post at: http://www.ogsottawa.blogspot.ca/2013/01/a-day-at-city-of-ottawa-archives_27.html

Niagara OGS and CanadianHeadstones.com affiliation

The following is a press release from the Niagara Peninsula Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society.

Jan 31 2013

 

The Niagara Peninsula Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society and CanadianHeadstones.com have created an affiliation for the old counties of Lincoln/Welland.

Due to the overwhelming demand for genealogical information online, these two groups will work together to ensure the cemeteries of Old Lincoln and Welland Counties will be accessible via the internet.

The Niagara Peninsula Branch has decided to become a leader in this opportunity with CanadianHeadStones.com to better serve the genealogical community.

CanadianHeadstones.com has a great site with multiple search functions to allow those to search with a broader range of parameters. Niagara Peninsula Branch has approximately 10, 000 photos from the region in stock we wish to place on CanadianHeadstones.com and hope to continue doing so in the future.

The Niagara Peninsula Branch will continue to provide research assistance to the genealogy community – See our website for further details – www.ogs.on.ca/niagara

We encourage those who wish to assist with this great project to contact the Branch at: niagara@ogs.on.ca

 

Book Review: Marriage Law for Genealogists

Title: Marriage Law for Genealogists
Author: Rebecca Probert
Paperback: 162 pages
Publisher: Takeaway (Publishing) (Sep 4 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0956384714
Cover Price: US$14.99

Open the cover of this slim volume and you'll read that Rebecca Probert is widely recognized as the leading authority on the history of marriage laws in England and Wales. That's an easy sentence for a PR agent to write. In this case the book is adequate witness to the author's billing.

Early on we read that many long-standing myths, repeated in various volumes, have been overturned by more recent research. "The simple but very clear findings are that the overwhelming majority of couples married in the Church of England, cohabitation was vanishingly rare, and informal marriage practices non-existent."
No matter how entertaining the mental image no marriage by jumping over a broomstick.
That's an example of one of the common mistakes at which the book takes aim about the law of marriage, repeated in well known books such as Who Do You Think You Are? The Encyclopedia of Genealogy and Ancestral Trails, .
The major chapter headings are:

Whether and Why, the likelihood a couple went through a valid marriage ceremony;
Who could marry;
How, the formalities of a valid marriage;
When, marriage partners ages and dates/hours for marriage;
Where, the location of marriages - near or far.

If there's a simple take home message it's that from 1600 until very recently most people followed the rules when it came to marriage and establishing a family.

That point may be made a bit too strongly. Even if most people did conform among the perhaps 4,000 partnerships in your ancestry back to 1600 some of them were likely to have been less conventional.

UPDATE: Rick Roberts from Global Genealogy informs me they have just received a shipment of this book.

Navy Records Online

If you have British navy connections you may find Navy Records Online of interest. It's an expanding online archive of miscellaneous British naval records and the internet publishing arm of the Navy Records Society (est. 1893).

For £20 a year members receive access to the latest discoveries and are able to browse the online archive of charts, portraits, cartoons, logs, letters, diaries, battle plans, sketchbooks, photograph albums and videos. The society preserves significant naval records of every type.

A catalogue of the Society publications is available from the Society website. Members have access to three digital volumes as part of their annual fee.

Name Indexed 1916 Census of the Prairie Provinces now Free at Library and Archives Canada

For the Prairie provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta the 1916 census is the most recent available. Now it's in name indexed form on the LAC website thanks to "the contribution of Ancestry.ca, without which this project would not have been possible." That's from the credit line at the very bottom of the help file.

Search is available by: Keywords, Surname, Given Name(s), Age and Province. In addition there's an advanced search to permit search by: District Name, District Number, Sub-District Number, Sub-District Description, Division Number and, Page Number.

Search from http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1916/Pages/1916.aspx

This LAC version contains 1,686,666 records whereas Ancestry's has 1,690,163. I wonder why the difference?

FreeBMD 2nd January update

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Sunday 27 January 2013 to contain 225,305,278 distinct records.

Major updates, more than 5,000 in the year, since 4 January are: for births 1943, 1945, 1955, 1958-66; for marriages 1952, 1956, 1960-67; for deaths 1964-68.

CLA seeks advice on LAC issues

A blog post from Library Boy provides an update on the situation at Library and Archives Canada revealing that the Canadian Library Association (CLA) is seeking input on two issues:

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) User Roundtable which includes a link to three background documents on the ILL program.

ILL Facts and Figures (Adobe PDF File) which shows that in ending the ILL program it is abandoning 34,000 clients.
Frequently Used Databases and Catalogs (Adobe PDF File)
Access to Unique Materials (Adobe PDF File)

Pan-Canadian Documentary Heritage Network User Round Table on the National Union Catalogue where LAC is asking the CLA community how to best maintain and improve this service in order to meet the challenges of the digital age.

On copying family history information

The BIFHSGO member who blogs as Persephone went on a bit of a genealogical rant on Friday in an item Someone is WRONG on the internet. If you've posted information, and sometimes just sent information to someone, only to have it misused, you'll find thoughts expressed by a kindred spirit in the post.

Scottish Property Records for 1905 Go Online

The following is a press release from ScotlandsPeople.

From tenements to palaces - these records offer a fascinating snapshot of Scotland during the Edwardian era and are a major new genealogy resource
Over 2 million names of Scots included in the property records for 1905 are being released today online for the first time via ScotlandsPeople, the official government family history website. The new records, known as the Valuation Rolls and comprising over 2.4 million indexed names and over 74,000 digital images, cover every kind of building, structure or property in Scotland which were assessed as having a rateable value.
The Rolls also reveal much about the changing social fabric of Scotland at this time – such as the growth in women owning property and running businesses, the rise in sports and recreation clubs, the development of music halls and theatres, and the expansion of railway hotels. As the Rolls include details about rents and the value of property, they will also help researchers to learn more about the cost of living during this period.
Fully-searchable by name and address, the records list the names of owners, tenants and occupiers of each property - so genealogists, historians and other researchers can now discover fresh insights into their ancestors’ lives through viewing these new records. As the 1905 Rolls appear between census years, they will be invaluable for genealogists who are trying to fill in gaps about their ancestors.
People from all social classes are included in the 1905 Valuation Rolls - from well-known land and property owners, to the tenants of Scotland’s tenements. Some of the famous Scots whose property situation appears in the records are AJ Balfour, Keir Hardie, Sir Hugh Munro, Lady Gordon Cathcart, Lord Armitstead and Donald Stewart (head gamekeeper to Queen Victoria).
Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop, said:
“ScotlandsPeople is a wonderful gateway to Scotland’s wealth of archives that tell the story of our nation and its people. I welcome this latest addition to their digital resources, which can be enjoyed by the people of Scotland, and people of Scottish descent everywhere.”
Audrey Robertson, Acting Registrar General and Keeper of the Records of Scotland, said:
"The latest release of details about property owners and tenants in 1905 will be very useful for people researching the history of their family, or of their house or local area. The rolls can be searched alongside other records in ScotlandsPeople, and may help locate people who cannot be found in other sources.”
Chris van der Kuyl, the CEO of brightsolid, the company that enables ScotlandsPeople for the National Records of Scotland, said:
“The publication of the 1905 Valuation Rolls on ScotlandsPeople is another important piece of the jigsaw for helping people to trace their Scottish ancestry. As well as appealing to people’s fascination with property, these new records will complement the 1911 Census records that were published on ScotlandsPeople in 2011.”
The Valuation Rolls will be available on the ScotlandsPeople website (www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk), and at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh. These new online records will be interesting both to people in Scotland and to the Scottish diaspora across the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the rest of the world.

John Grenham on Irish Civil Registration

It's a joy to read John Grenham on The Weird and Wacky World of Civil Registration in the Irish Times Irish Roots blog. How many other organizations we could name are run by the "Ostrich School of Public Administration: if you don’t admit it exists, it can’t be a problem, can it?"
http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/irishroots/2013/01/27/the-weird-and-wacky-world-of-civil-registration/

Suffolk FHS CDs

Recent additions to the data CDs available from the Suffolk Family History Society are:

- Baptisms 1754-1812 for Samford and Colneis Deaneries

- Baptisms 1813-1900 for Samford and Colneis Deaneries

These cover 41 parishes south of Ipswich from Hintlesham to Felixstowe,

and

- Marriage Index 1754-1812 for Clare and Fordham Deaneries

 

See which parishes are on these CDs, and the contents of other SFHS CDs at http://www.suffolkfhs.co.uk/docs/parish_listing_by_deanery.pdf

Devon Wills

One of the lasting legacies of WW2 is the loss of original wills when the Probate Office was bombed in the Exeter Blitz of April-May 1942. To fill the gaps the Devon Wills Project is compiling an index of Devon wills, administrations, etc. - see http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/DevonWillsProject/

A post by Brian Randell on the Society of Genealogists mailing list tells of coming across "two venerable US genealogical journals, well represented in the Internet Archive, namely The New England Historical and Genealogical Register and The Essex Institute Historical Collections, which each contain a series of articles providing collections of English will abstracts - from which we've obtained very useful details of a number of Devon wills"

The post continues asking for suggestions of "any other "venerable US genealogical journals" which contain such articles, or better, sets of articles? I stress "venerable" since our particular interest is information obtained, possibly a century or more ago, from the Exeter Probate Office. (Cyndi's List provides a listing of scholarly genealogical journals at http://www.cyndislist.com/magazines/scholarly-journals/, but help in identifying likely relevant, and accessible, ones would be much appreciated.)"

It occurs to me there must be stray copies of pre-1858 Devon wills scattered in archives, publications and personal collections in Canada. The benefits of scouring "foreign" archives for British material is a point made toward the end of the latest TNA podcast on Rawdon Brown and the Brown Collection at The National Archives, which while I found it interesting I can't recommend for genealogical content.

If you have of know of any old Devon will, or wills, you can contact Brian Randall at the School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK, EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk   PHONE = +44 191 222 7923, FAX = +44 191 222 8232  URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell

QFHS Connections Winter/Spring 2013

The new issue of the Quebec Family History Society journal Connections arrived earlier this week. In addition to regular content about the Society and its activities, and shorter news items, there are some longer articles - none of them overly long.

The Mintram Family: Barnardo's and the Titanic Connection tells the story of orphaned children who came to Canada under the auspices of the Barnardo organization and who served with Canadian forces during the Great War. It is followed by a page on home children.

Streetcars Named Tragedies recounts the involvement of writer Sandra Belliveau's family in two Montreal streetcar accidents.

Victoria Bridge and the Irish of Montreal retells the history of the Black Rock or Irish Commemorative Stone placed to mark the resting place of 6,000 Irish famine immigrants buried near the Victoria bridge.

Frequent contributor Robert Wilkins writes on Disorderly Houses in Edwardian Montreal and the conflict between moral and pragmatic approaches to dealing with them.

In Looking for Obituaries Sandra Belliveau gives an overview of seeking these useful sources.

Connections is a membership benefit of the Quebec Family History Society which has a website at www.qfhs.ca and is also active on Facebook.

Canada Census Mortality Schedules, 1871 indexed on FamilySearch

Now on FamilySearch, indexes of the census mortality schedules for the 1871 census of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario.

This schedule is supposed to contain information on all those deceased in the year prior to census day which was 2 April. There are 45,371 entries.

Information in the schedule includes:

1. Names of Deceased
2. Sex
3. Age
4. Born within last twelve months
5. Religion
6. Country or Province of Birth
7. Profession, Occupation or Trade
8. Married or Widowed
9. Married during last twelve months
10. Month of Death
11. Disease or other cause of Death
12. Remarks

Information on religion, cause of death, marital status, profession and remarks in the originals is not available in this index. It appears the original images will eventually be linked.
Digital microfilm images of the originals are available at the Library and Archives Canada website. If you find an entry of interest through FamilySearch consult the Excel format spreadsheet at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/microform-digitization/092/006003-130-0008-e.xls

to find the corresponding microfilm number. Then search the collection for that 1871 census digital microfilm starting at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/microform-digitization/006003-110.02-e.php?&q2=26&interval=30&sk=0&&PHPSESSID=f0v3thhcgqvau3vslaruumn2a7

Elizabeth Kipp guest blogs for Ancestry.co.uk

One of Ottawa's most active genealogists now has a guest blog posted with Ancestry with information on the Blake One Name Study she is undertaking with so much energy.

Guest Blog: What’s in a name? BLAKE

Seasonal films from the British Film Institute

How the British handle winter.

Snow (1963)


Arctic London (1929)


Snowdrift at Bleath Gill (1955)

Internet Genealogy magazine: Feb/March 2013

As Lisa Alzo writes in her front page profiled article 10 Time Management Tools for Genealogists in the Feb/March issue of Internet Genealogy magazine, the ten tools listed don't even begin to scratch the surface of all the applications available. The article is a useful start.
Time is the most precious of natural resources and time management "the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity" something we all endeavour to do.
Of the ten tools listed I'd heard of two before, various Google apps including Google calendar, and Remember the Milk but only because of the catchy title. All but one, FHNotebook, are generic - as useful for the non-genealogist as the genealogist. Lisa writes its similar to Evernote, the topic of a second article she authors in this issue.
Tony Bandy, another regular contributor, authors three articles, The Historic New Orleans Collection, Heading for Freedom and, Pan Am: More Than Just a Flight.
There's Australian content with NLA Newspapers: An Invaluable Australian Resource by Tasmania-based Gabrielle Morgan and British content in Are Your British Deceased Online? by your's truly.
For Canadian content there's a back page column by Dave Obee carefully astride the fence on attending conferences in person or via remote feeds.
Find the full table of contents, when posted, at http://internet-genealogy.com/

Bermudian memorial culture presentation

Professor Bruce S. Elliott, Department of History at Carleton University will be speaking on “Family, Collectivities and the State in Bermuda Memorial Culture” on Friday 25 January 2013 at 12:30 - 2:30pm in room 433, Patterson Hall.

"In the status-conscious Georgian era public monuments in the British colonies commemorated military commanders or imperial administrators; there was no thought of marking the contributions or resting places of Jack Tar or Tommy Atkins. Through the 19th century, however, gravestones erected by the surrogate family of fellow soldiers or shipmates came to represent a transitional form between family memorials and state commemoration. The First World War brought demands for state acknowledgement of general sacrifice, but only since the 1990s has Bermudian memorial culture shifted from colonial and imperial narratives to more racially inclusive public commemoration. This presentation explores the continuum between private memorials and public monuments and the politics of commemoration in a British overseas territory."

All welcome. Further information at: www2.carleton.ca/history/cu-events/departmental-colloquium-with-bruce-s-elliott

Indexed Upper Canada 1842 census on FamilySearch

It isn't on Ancestry, nor online at Library and Archives Canada (mentioned as coming soon!). This would seem to be the first appearance of the indexed 1842 census of Upper Canada (Ontario) online, except for some local transcripts.
FamilySearch has indexed 20,851 records linked to original images.

Those 1,169 images can also be browsed by county/district. They are: Carleton, Bathurst; Durham, Newcastle; Gore; Grenville, Johnstown; Haldimand, Niagara; Lincoln, Niagara; London; Northumberland, Newcastle; Russell, Ottawa; Simcoe, Home; Toronto (City); Unidentified locality; York, Home.

Unfortunately not all area's records survive, and some that have published transcriptions are not in this collection.

The format is quite different from that familiar on later censuses. Only the head of household is identified by name along with quite a lot of other information about the person, his (usually) family and land. The number of family members in various age ranges are given by gender.The images, often challenging to decipher, are in a wide format spread across more than one image. Being so early they merit close study.

Start your search at http://goo.gl/TezNq