Many Families, Issue No. 2

My only purchase at the recent BIFHSGO conference was a copy of Tad and Terry Findley's annual family history magazine Many Families.
Why buy a magazine for someone else's family? Especially when in this case the surnames investigated are Llanos and Cuenca - hardly Anglo-Celtic!

The articles are a model of research and writing;
The thrill of discovery is shared;
The layout is superb, an inspiration;
The content is more than just about the families.

One of the longer articles "From Oilfield to Battlefield" recounting the experiences of Clarence Llanos (1894 - 1970) during the First World War contains information on his experiences which were far from unique. That FWW story is supplemented with shorter articles "What's a Royal Field Artillery Driver?", "The Royal Field Artillery in the First World War: A Primer", "What's a Royal Field Artillery Fitter", "Great Discovery: Military Service Record", "Gas!", "What's Shrapnel?", "The Burnt Documents".

By chance I even found background information to add to the story of a first cousin once removed who worked as a teacher for Texaco in Trinidad.
If you need more information, or to order a copy, email manyfamilies (at) rogers.com

Documentary Heritage Communities Program: Call Letter

A call letter for the third round of applications for project funding for Library and Archives Canada's Documentary Heritage Communities Program was issued on 3 October.
Detailed guidelines for applicants are found at www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services/documentary-heritage-communities-program/Pages/guidelines.aspx
Note that the deadline for submitting proposals for the 2017–2018 funding cycle is 27 January, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time).

Although there was no funding granted to directly genealogy-related projects in the second round, the first round made grants to two genealogical projects. Genealogical organizations/societies are specifically mentioned as eligible for this third round.

OGS Conference 2017 detailed program

The Ontario Genealogical Society has posted the detailed schedule of events and presentations, with titles, speaker and abstract, on the website at https://conference2017.ogs.ca/program/saturday-sessions/#c17b4/.
Check it out, plan you attendance, 16-18 June 2017 at Algonquin College, Ottawa, ON Canada and consider how you might want to participate in other events happening in the National Capital during the celebrations of the the 150th anniversary of Canada.
I'm told conference registration will open on 1 December 2016.

Will you find a cousin using a DNA test?

Yes; likely many.

That's unless all your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents and further back were their parent's only child in which case there are no corresponding cousins of that degree.

An article Cryptic Distant Relatives Are Common in Both Isolated and Cosmopolitan Genetic Samples includes a table reproduced at the ISOGG website under the heading How Many Cousins Do We have? The simplified version here shows that, despite the dramatic reduction in chances of detecting more distant cousins, results typically show more matches to more distant cousins. Simply, there are more of them.

The many more distant cousins connect on the many more lines down from shared ancestral couples, and in times when families were typically larger than today.

Just because cousins are detectable does not mean they'll be a DNA detected. To do so they have to also have taken a DNA test with results in the same database as your's.

The second table shows the probability of detecting at least one cousin for two different database sizes, 250 thousand and 2.5 million people tested. The calculation is based on the assumption the cousins will be found in a total population of 500 million encompassing the population of those who have likely tested, a subset of the 7.4 billion world population. If your near term ancestry links to the larger world population these probabilities will be less.
Size matters. The chances of detecting a fourth cousin in the larger database are more than four times those in the smaller.

Most genetic genealogists have the experience of having cousins as DNA matches but not being able to find the connecting recent common ancestors. We usually look for surnames in common in both family trees. But our genealogical brick walls mean we know a smaller fraction of surnames in the more distant generations.

The third table extends the second by including two additional columns. Column five shows the estimated probability of recognising the common ancestral surname of a cousin of specified degree. That depends on both you and the matching person identifying the surname in their respective ancestral trees. The final column combines the probabilities in the previous two columns to estimate the probability of both detecting and recognising the common ancestral surname of a cousin of specified degree, based on 2,500,000 person database.

There's a sweet spot around third and fourth cousin where you're likely to have the greatest chance of making a connection.

Additional factors not taken into account are identification of geographic locations in common and work on detailed segment analysis such as used by those searching for adoptee ancestry.

If looking for cousins the message from these estimates is to ensure your DNA result is in as large a database and as many databases as possible, and to include a family tree or ancestral surnames as far back as possible.

Good news for Canada

Did you see the Statistics Canada report Annual Demographic Estimates: Canada, Provinces and Territories 2016 (pdf)

• On July 1, 2016, Canada’s population was estimated at 36,286,425, up 437,815 (+1.2%) in the past year (2015/2016).
• In absolute numbers, Canada’s population growth in the past year was the largest since 1988/1989 (+485,034).
• Population growth in Canada remained the strongest among G7 countries.
• In 2015/2016, net international migration was responsible for 71.7% of the population growth in Canada.
• Canada has never registered such high net international migration as in the past year (+313,925) since the beginning of the period covered by the current demographic accounting system (July 1971).
• Canada received 320,932 immigrants in the past year. The country had not received as many immigrants in a single annual period since the early 1910s, during the settlement of Western Canada.

That's good news as the population is getting older.

October backup time

Time for the monthly backup nag. If you didn't do so on the 1st it's now past time to make a backup of your hard drive.
As those at Saturday's Ottawa DNA group meeting were told by speaker Marc Snelling, the start of the month is also a good time to revisit GEDmatch and other sites to check for new matches.

Ancestry adds over four million Oxfordshire parish records

Oxfordshire Church of England parish records are new on Ancestry. The datasets are:

Oxfordshire, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1965, 318,434 records
Oxfordshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1930, 599,320 records
Oxfordshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1915, 1,250,642 records
Oxfordshire, England, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1538-1812, 1,932,157 records.

Taking all four databases together there are 278 parishes: Adderbury, Adwell, Albury, Alkerton,,, Alvescot, Ambrosden, Ardley, Ascott under Wychwood, Asthall, Asthalleigh, Aston North, Aston, Rowant, Baldon Marsh, Baldon Toot, Balscote, Bampton, Bampton Aston, Bampton Lew, Banbury South, Christchurch, Banbury, St Leonard (Grimsbury), Banbury, St Mar Banbury, St Paul (Neithrop), Barford, St John, Barford, St Michael, Beckley, Begbroke, Benson, Berrick Salome, Bicester, Binsey, Bix, Black Bourton, Bladon, Bletchingdon, Bloxham, Bodicote, Bourton Great, Brightwell Baldwin, Britwell Prior (Icknield), Britwell Salome, Brize Norton, Broadwell, Broughton, Broughton Poggs, Bucknell, Burford, Cassington, Caversfield, Chadlington, Chalgrove, Charlbury,
Charlton on Otmoor, Chastleton, Checkendon, Chesterton, Chinnor, Chipping Norton with Over Norton, Churchill, Clanfield, Claydon, Clifton Hampden, Cogges, Combe, Compton Little, Cornwell, Cottisford, Cowley, St James, Cowley, St Mary and St John, Crawley, Cropredy, Crowell, Cuddesdon, Culham, Curbridge, Cuxham, Daylesford, Deddington, Dorchester, Drayton, St Leonard, Drayton, St Peter, Ducklington with Hardwick, Duns Tew, Dunsden, Easington, Elsfield, Emmington (Chinnor), Enstone, Epwell, Ewelme, Eynsham, Faringdon, Little, Fewcott, Fifield, Filkins, Finmere, Finstock and Fawler, Forest Hill, Freeland, Fringford, Fritwell, Fulbrook, Garsington, Glympton, Godington, Goring, Goring Heath, Hailey with Crawley, Hampton Gay, Hampton Poyle, Hanborough, Hanborough Long, Hanwell, Harpsden, Harwick cum Tusmore, Haseley Great, Headington Quarry, Holy Trinity, Headington, St Andrew, Henley on Thames, St Mary, Henley, Holy Trinity, Hethe, Heyford Lower, Heyford Upper, Heythrop, Holton, Holwell, Hook Norton, Horley, Hornton, Horspath, Idbury, Iffley, Ipsden, Islip, Kelmscott, Kencot, Kiddington, Kidlington, Kidmore End, Kingham, Kirtlington, Langford, Launton, Leafield, Lewknor, Littlemore, Mapledurham, Marston, Merton, Middleton Stoney, Milcombe, Milton Great, Milton Little, Milton under Wychwood, Minster Lovell, Mixbury, Mollington, Mongewell (Langtree), Nettlebed, New Hinksey,
Newington, Newington South, Newton Purcell, Noke, North Hinksey, Northleigh, Northmoor, Nuffield, Nuneham Courtenay, Oddington, Oxford, All Saints, Oxford, Christ Church, Oxford, Holy Trinity, Oxford, St Alban (Cowley, St John), Oxford, St Aldate, Oxford, St Andrew, Oxford, St Barnabas, Oxford, St Clement, Oxford, St Cross (Holywell), Oxford, St Ebbe, Oxford, St Frideswide
Oxford, St Giles, Oxford, St John the Baptist (Merton College), Oxford, St Luke, Oxford, St Margaret, Oxford, St Martin, Oxford, St Mary Magdalen, Oxford, St Mary the Virgin, Oxford, St Matthew, Oxford, St Michael, Oxford, St Paul, Oxford, St Peter in the East, Oxford, St Peter le Bailey, Oxford, St Philip and St James, Oxford, St Thomas, Piddington, Pishill, Pyrton, Ramsden, Rollright Great, Rollright Little, Rotherfield Greys, Rotherfield Peppard, Rousham, Salford, Sandford on Thames, Sandford, St Martin, Sarsden, Shenington, Shifford, Shilton, Shiplake, Shipton on Cherwell, Shipton under Wychwood, Shirburn, Shorthampton, Shutford, Sibford, Somerton, Souldern
South (and New) Hinksey, South Leigh, SpelsburyStadhampton (with Chislehampton), Sandlake, Stanton Harcourt, Stanton, St John, Steeple Aston, Steeple Barton, Stoke Lyne, Stoke North, Stoke Row, Stoke South, Stoke Talmage, Stonesfield, Stratton Audley, Summertown, Swalcliffe, Swerford
Swinbrook, Swyncombe, Sydenham, Tackley, Tadmarton, Taynton, Tetsworth, Tew Great, Tew Little, Thame, Towersey, Warborough, Wardington, Water Eaton Chapel, Waterperry, Waterstock, Watlington, Wendlebury, Westcote Barton, Weston on Green, Weston South, Westwell, Wheatfield, Wheatley, Whitchurch, Widford, Wigginton, Wilcote, Witney, Holy Trinity, Witney, St Mary, Wolvercote, Wood Eaton, Woodcote, Woodstock, Wootton (Oxon), Worton Nether, Worton Over, Wroxton, Wytham, Yarnton.

The future of the census in Canada

Join the fight to preserve the census is an item posted on CanGenealogy.com from Dave Obee. Here's the top part of that post.

Read the complete article at www.cangenealogy.com/optin2.html and consider writing to your Member of Parliament as suggested.

Beyond 2021 there may well be larger concerns for genealogists, as reported by Global News in StatsCan looking to go digital and ditch short-form census. The proposal is for a digital register of every Canadian that could be updated every five years, if not annually. Would that be accessible as is the census? Or would advocates insist that privacy of those long dead be forever protected?

Genealogy Websites Benchmark Update for September

What happened? There's a surprise in this month's regular look at how your favourite genealogy sites did according to Alexa.
Is it possible that genealogy websites suddenly are attracting a lot less attention? When only two of the sites regularly followed here gained in popularity, including major sites like familysearch and ancestry, something is happening.
More likely is a change in the algorithm used. There's nothing announced about that.

Here, for the record, are the results, remembering that a positive trend in the table indicates an improvement in popularity.

Site	30-Sep	31-Aug	Trend (%)
familysearch.org	2,829	2,426	-14.2
ancestry.com	534	455	-14.8
ancestry.co.uk	8,178	6,701	-18.1
ancestry.ca	17,911	16,407	-8.4
myHeritage.com	4,514	3,975	-11.9
thegenealogist.co.uk	407,139	303,421	-25.5
findmypast.co.uk	28,082	22,450	-20.1
findmypast.com	42,736	24,573	-42.5
canadiana.ca	915,384	879,001	-4.0
familytreedna.com	17,251	14,887	-13.7
23andMe.com	7,913	6,525	-17.5
isogg.org	177,216	157,067	-11.4
genealogyintime.com	356,651	342,585	-3.9
eogn.com	165,182	145,729	-11.8
lostcousins.com	816,820	636,248	-22.1
britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk	119,049	116,166	-2.4
newspapers.com	8,012	7,065	-11.8
cyndislist.com	122,283	113,168	-7.5
freebmd.org.uk	107,838	93,799	-13.0
canadianheadstones.com	686,049	662,296	-3.5
deceasedonline.com	743,565	620,792	-16.5
bifhsgo.ca	2,199,358	1,843,432	-16.2
ogs.on.ca	662,016	677,778	2.4
qfhs.ca	4,350,755	5,926,625	36.2
torontofamilyhistory.org	6,244,517	6,143,132	-1.6
ngsgenealogy.org	413,533	380,568	-8.0
americanancestors.org	134,653	106,052	-21.2
scgsgenealogy.com	1,615,827	1,464,166	-9.4
sog.org.uk	907,003	854,669	-5.8
anglo-celtic-connections	1,588,832	1,258,834	-20.8

Also for the record, there's also been a bit of a shake up in the lower half of the overall top ten sites:

1. Google.com (1)
2. Youtube.com (2)
3. Facebook.com (3)
4. Baidu.com (4)
5. Yahoo.com (5)
6. Wikipedia.org (7)
7. Google.co.in (9)
8. Amazon.com (6)
9. Twitter.com (10)
10. Qq.com (8)

More on the Living DNA genetic ancestry test and plans

Following on last Tuesday's blog post I had the opportunity for a Skype conversation with Living DNA's David Nicholson and Hannah Morden to clarify some points. David Nicholson's experience in the field goes back to 2004/5 as an agent for the now defunct DNAPrint Genomics. His company DNA Legal, has been in business a number of years, operates ISO accredited labs and has won awards.
I'll not repeat the summary in the previous post, the detailed post by Debbie Kennett, or material on the company website at livingdna.com/.

It is worth pointing out that the test's British geographic origin breakdown separates out what was a large red eastern England blob in the People of the British Isles (POBI) results (right hand side map). That area, which covered much of England, is separated into Norfolk and Suffolk, the London area with Kent and Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset as well as distinct regions of Devon and Cornwall (left hand map). I was told that while the POBI database may well be available to other companies the specific analysis technique used by the company, which permitted the more detailed resolution, is exclusive.

The company has a long development to-do list including acquiring Irish data as a top priority, acquiring data from other populations worldwide and on ingestion of results transferred from other company analysis. Likely, results from such transfers will not be as detailed as from the new custom DNA chip Living DNA is using. For instance, AncestryDNA provides no results for Y or mitochondrial DNA. Nicholson believes the new chip will be adopted by other companies although each is likely to have several tens of thousands of custom SNPs depending on the application.

In closing David made the point that one of the company aims is educational, to show that we're all connected to everyone else. The company has looked at the size of the DNA segments shared to show how connections have evolved through the ages and to "get rid of the outdated notion of race." It's why, although there is appeal to the near term British emphasis, the product is designed to be suitable for anyone around the world and the results will be updated as knowledge develops.

The company will be exhibiting at the Back To Our Past event in Dublin in October, Rootstech next February and WDYTYA? Live.

Apparently business has been brisk for the company, "an incredible demand for the product", for the past few days. One Ottawa-based genealogist experienced difficulties completing the online transaction.Will that be sorted out by the time the company is ready to ship swabs for DNA collection, expected in mid-October?

Ancestry updates Surrey Electoral Register collection

If you searched Ancestry's collection Surrey, England, Electoral Registers when it first appeared in December 2013 it was for the period 1918-1945. There were somewhat more than 10 million records.
The update just mounted online extends the date range to 1832-1962 and the number of records to 36,618,574. It could be time to search again.
The Surrey History Centre provided the records, Ancestry created the index using text recognition software. Expect to still find oddities like the person named Telegraph Lane Croxton - a text recognition anomaly pointed out here when the database first appeared.

Scotlands People website relaunched

After a bit of delay the revamped version of the ScotlandsPeople website providing commercial access to government custody records is now online.

The good news is that searching the indexes relating to the Birth, Death and Marriage Register, Old Parish Register or Open Census records is free. You can search without logging on to find the number of hits in each category for the name and year range specified. You do need to be a registered user, and may need to update your password, to see the index search results. For example, for births, the free results returned are Surname, Forename, Gender, Year, Ref, and RD Name. A search on surname and registration district may yield siblings birth registrations, useful if the name isn't too common. A fee applies to view the original record image.

Credits are carried over from the previous site. The not so good news is there is a cost increase from £7 to £7.50 for 30 credits. Six credits purchase a a single image view.

For more detailed, and informed comment, see Chris Paton's blog at http://britishgenes.blogspot.ca/2016/09/new-scotlandspeople-website-is-launched.html

British Newspaper Archives additions for September

The British Newspaper Archive now has 15,647,563 pages (15,345,343 last month) from 685 (666) titles online. The full list of additions this month, notably more than 40 year runs from the Hendon and Finchley Times, the Norwich Mercury and the Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser is:

• Alloa Advertiser 1850 - 1856, 1872 - 1891, 1900 - 1908, 1910 - 1911
• Barnsley Chronicle, etc. 1872, 1877, 1879, 1895 - 1896, 1898 - 1909
• Belfast Telegraph 1902
• Birmingham Chronicle. 1819 - 1822, 1824 - 1827
• Brighton Guardian 1877
• Brighton Herald 1833, 1873, 1877, 1881, 1889
• Buxton Herald 1951
• Cork Constitution 1875, 1878
• Coventry Evening Telegraph 1939
• Dartmouth & South Hams chronicle 1869, 1871 - 1874, 1894 - 1896, 1899 - 1909
• Dudley and District News 1880 - 1885
• Dudley Guardian, Tipton, Oldbury & West Bromwich Journal and District Advertiser 1874 - 1875
• Dudley Mercury, Stourbridge, Brierley Hill, and County Express 1888 - 1890
• Dundee Advertiser 1895, 1897, 1899
• East & South Devon Advertiser. 1895 - 1896, 1898 - 1899, 1901 - 1904
• Globe 1804 - 1805, 1811 - 1812, 1815, 1818 - 1821
• Hendon & Finchley Times 1878 - 1922, 1929, 1935 - 1940
• Illustrated Police Budget 1899
• Irish Times 1866, 1868 - 1869, 1874, 1876 - 1877, 1881
• Leeds Mercury 1922 - 1927
• Norwich Mercury 1727, 1823 - 1826, 1828 - 1835, 1837 - 1844, 1846 - 1888, 1890 - 1896, 1899 - 1905
• Preston Herald 1863 - 1876, 1882 - 1896, 1899 - 1909, 1911 - 1918
• Tyne Mercury; Northumberland and Durham and Cumberland Gazette 1802 - 1808, 1815 - 1822, 1825 - 1828
• Warwick and Warwickshire Advertiser 1823 - 1827, 1829 - 1834, 1836 - 1845, 1866 - 1871, 1875, 1878 - 1891, 1897 - 1956
• Waterford Mirror and Tramore Visitor. 1893 - 1895, 1897 - 1910
• Waterford Standard 1897, 1899, 1901 - 1911, 1928 - 1950
• Weekly Freeman's Journal 1911 - 1916
• Weekly Irish Times 1876 - 1878, 1880 - 1882, 1893
• West Surrey Times 1855, 1859 - 1860, 1862 - 1864, 1870 - 1872
• Western Morning News 1860, 1865, 1867, 1869, 1873, 1892, 1896 - 1899, 1901, 1914 - 1918

 

FreeBMD September update

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Thursday 29 September 2016 to contain 256,972,888 (256,426,687) distinct records.
Years with major updates (more than 5,000 entries) are for births:1964, 1966, 1976-78; for marriages: 1966, 1969, 1971, 1976-79; for deaths 1841, 1974, 1976-79.

Free publicity for the genealogy community

The following is an announcement sent by Rick Roberts of a free publicity opportunity for genealogy events.

In an effort to improve Global Genealogy’s  Upcoming Events page (http://globalgenealogy.com/admin/events.htm  ), we’ve added an automated tool that allows groups to post their own events.  We will still moderate the event postings to avoid the problem of the nefarious hijacking the site with spam.  That means that when you add an event, we receive an automatic email notification that the event  has been added but not made public yet…  we bring up the event and approve it going public.  That process will create a small delay in posting but will usually go public the same day.

In the interest of easy navigation we ask event posters to keep their listings brief and provide links or contact information where those who are interested can get more information.

This automated system is only a few hours old, so when users add meeting info, I would appreciate their opinion about what works well and what could be improved in the process.  That feedback can be addressed to rick (at) globalgenealogy.com  

Michaelmas Day

Today, 29 September is Michaelmas Day, one of the four traditional quarter days in the year. They are Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas (25th December). As these were the days when rent was due perhaps they were days your ancestors saw approach with dread.
Starting a few days later were the Michaelmas term, the beginning of the legal and academic years.
Michaelmas was traditionally marked by feasting on a goose. Read about that and more, something for each day of the year, in Chamber's Book of Days (1869 version).

Ottawa DNA Special Interest Group: Saturday 1 October.

Featured this meeting is Marc Snelling with a presentation on utilities for DNA analysis including GEDMATCH and Genome Mate Pro.

Marc is an APG member, co-founder of Grandma’s Genes, specializing in Indigenous research and DNA triangulation. His ancestry includes Quaker and Blackfoot roots. He has twenty years experience as a Microsoft Windows and UNIX based computer network professional.

The meeting takes place this coming Saturday at 100 Tallwood Drive at 09:30 am in Room 115 (main floor).

Ancestry adds Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Electoral Registers, 1741-1974

Find your Geordie ancestors in this collection of electoral registers from the Tyne and Wear Archives via Ancestry.
The registers list names and residences of people in Newcastle upon Tyne, who were eligible to vote. They are year-by-year, with gaps. No registers were produced during the war years 1916, 1917 and 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1943. The years 1960-1964 are missing.
The indexing was performed by text recognition on the printed registers.

Right to Know Day: LAC highights (almost) 100 projects

Today "40 countries celebrate Right to Know Day, which aims to raise awareness of an individual’s right to access government information, while promoting freedom of information as essential to both democracy and good governance." Who knew?

Library and Archives Canada is part of the celebration with the launch of launch a new web page dedicated to the proactive opening of government records under the Block Review Initiative. It links to a "listing of the first 100 projects for which records are now open and more easily available to researchers."

What's there?

When I looked there were 94 projects listed, not 100. What happened to the other six? The total pages in the 94 items is 7,535,135 which is the number claimed to be in the 100.

The two largest items, accounting for more than 1,000,000 pages each, are two Central Registry Files for the Department of Trade and Commerce.

Two items more likely to be of genealogical interest.

- 130,000 Veterans Affairs Canada, Death Cards (1921-1963). They have been online for a few years, not indexed but arranged in alphabetical order, and can be accessed at www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/mass-digitized-archives/veterans-death-cards-ww1/Pages/veterans-death-cards.aspx/.

- 50,500 Department of Veteran's Affairs, War Service Records Division, RG 38, Ban. No. 2009-00126-5, Boxes 1-101. MIKAN 3912956, There's a finding aid, lacking in much detail,  at https://goo.gl/bLNJoR. Many of the boxes hold statistical information, but not all. For example:

9. Nominal Roll and Documents for the Royal Canadian Machine Gun Corps. 1939/03/15. File.
RG38-D-10. Volume/box number: 432.
and
30. Alphabetical Nominal Rolls - Faber - Hyvonen. N.D. File.  RG38-D-10. Volume/box number: 427. 

Thanks to Glenn Wright for advice on these military files.

Historical Society of Ottawa: September meeting

The hot topic this Friday, 30 September 2016 for the Historical Society of Ottawa is The Fire of 3 February 1916 that Burned Down out original Centre Block, to be presented by Don Nixon.

"The Centre Block we have today is not the original one, There used to be another one in the same spot, but it burned down in a horrible fire the night of February 3, 1916. In this presentation, Don Nixon will provide an overview of the fire, focussing in particular on its early stages, and on possible causes. Was it careless smoking as Prime Minister Borden maintained, an electrical fire, or spontaneous combustion? With World War I raging, many believed it deliberately set by a German saboteur. We will never know for sure. But, with the evidence presented, you can decide; spoiler alert: Don believes the fire was deliberate."

Don Nixon retired in 2006 after a long career in Public Works and Government Services Canada. For the last 19 years before retirement, he was a project manager on Parliament Hill. There, he worked on a wide range of interesting projects including the stabilization of chimneys, towers, turrets and rooftop masonry, the conservation of the Peace Tower and the front of the Centre Block, the statues on Parliament Hill, the conservation of the War Memorial, the making of the Queen Elizabeth stature on the Hill, and the installation of the "Evolution of Life" series of stone carvings in the House of Commons chamber. After retirement, he wrote an off-beat history of Parliament Hill titled "The Other Side of the Hill"

The meeting strats at 1 pm at the Routhier Community Centre, 172 Guigues Street in Ottawa.