FTDNA special for DNA day

This is a very limited time special.

Because this is such a short run sale, please contact Family Tree DNA customer service right away with any problems.

Phone: 1-713-868-1438

E-mail: info@familytreedna.com
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=166119860113271

Coupon Code: DNADAY2011

Time
Today at 12:00pm - Saturday at 12:00am
Location
http://www.familytreedna.com
Created By
Family Tree DNA
More Info
DNA Day is April 15th! Starting at 12:00 PM on April 14th, join the celebration!

New customers:
Y-DNA12…… $59
Y-DNA37…… $129
mtDNA……… $59
Family Finder… $199
Family Finder + Y-DNA12… $258
Family Finder + mtDNA…… $258
Family Finder + mtFullSequence + Y-DNA67 … $657

Upgrades:
Y-DNA12 add-on … $59
Y-DNA12 to 37…… $69
Y-DNA37 to 67…… $79
Y-DNA12 to 67…… $148
mtDNA add-on …… $59
mtFull Sequence upgrade … $199
Family Finder add-on … $199

To take advantage of these promotional prices use the coupon code: DNADAY2011

The coupon code will expire on Friday at midnight (CST).

Please note, the Y-DNA67 to 111 upgrade will remain at the introductory rate of $101 (no coupon necessary) until the end of this promotion. The price will be $129 going forward.



Payment must be received at the time of the order. Valid only on products listed. No substitutions. This promotion was announced in advance, therefore no adjustments will be made on previous purchases. Offer valid from 12:00 PM CST on Thursday, April 14, until 11:59 PM CST on April 15, 2011.

This promotion is not valid in combination with any other promotions. Family Tree DNA reserves the right to cancel any order due to unauthorized or ineligible use of discounts and to modify or cancel these promotional discounts due to system error or unforeseen problems. Subject to change without notice.

Chinese family history online

We don't read much about family history in non-English-speaking  cultures, so I was interested to see this article, Rooting out one's family history online, from the China Daily. It mentions mobile genealogy apps and two websites, http://ourroots.nlc.gov.cn, a genealogy portal co-established by the National Library of China, and Jiapu.com which it characterizes as arguably the largest online resource for Chinese family histories.

Genealogy traffic rank

Using the services of alexa.com, what are the most popular genealogy/family history websites?

Ancestry`s various sites are top ranked in the US. UK and Canada.

I was surprised at the relative popularity of the social network sites myheritage and geni (both well behind facebook).

Library and Archives Canada could not be ranked as Alexa only ranks the top level site gc.ca.

In software related sites familyreemaker ranks above legacyfamilytree and rootsmagic.

Americanancestors, site of the NEHGS, is the top society site.

The high ranking of genealogyintime, Ottawa based, surprised me.

Included is jiapu.com, the largest online resource for Chinese family histories

And the low rank of bifhsgo.ca was also a surprise, substantially down from previous rankings, likely the result of it having been recently offline. There are quite a few lower ranking genealogy sites which are omitted.

ancestry.com 984
myheritage.com 3,886
geni.com 8,086
familysearch.org 9,120
genealogy.com 12,190
ancestry.co.uk 17,243
archives.gov 18,209
nationalarchives.gov.uk 18,550
23andme.com 41,700
ancestry.ca 42,325genesreunited.co.uk 46,279
familytreedna.com 80,397
findmypast.co.uk 81,411
cyndislist.com 86,990
eogn.com 150,226
familytreemaker.com 161,170
jiapu.com 168,666
worldvitalrecords.com 175,547
genuki.org.uk 193,436
familytreemagazine.com 201,288
freebmd.org.uk 212,655
legacyfamilytree.com 273,131
americanancestors.org 276,418
automatedgenealogy.com 296,376
rootsmagic.com 372,173
geneabloggers.com 438,407
genealogywise.com 525,834
cwgc.org 527,236
sog.org.uk 708,746
ngsgenealogy.org 770,719
genealogyintime.com 784,440
globalgenealogy.com 830,338
whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com 994,049
genealogicalstudies.com 1,093,695
ffhs.org.uk 1,267,779
ogs.on.ca 1,289,655
rootsuk.com 1,340,610
bcgcertification.org 1,601,646
deceasedonline.com 1,648,569
family-tree.co.uk 1,836,425
familychronicle.com 1,881,611
arcalife.com 2,356,437
anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com 2,418,382
lostcousins.com 2,677,921
internet-genealogy.com 3,234,636
bcgs.ca 3,313,414
archivecdbooks.ca 6,533,165
qfhs.ca 6,654,860
bifhsgo.ca 7,145,992

Genealogy on CTV

Canada AM had a segment on morning of 13 April called "A woman finds a royal connection using Ancestry.ca"
It had a woman speaking about her Plantagenet ancestors and then Lesley Anderson doing a promo on Ancestry. Unfortunately a video version was only briefly available on the CTV website.


Thanks to Linda Reid for the tip.

Crisp's London Marriage Licence Index at Ancestry.co.uk, plus

According to the Institute for Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, which Ancestry cites as their source, this is an index to more than 10,000 original marriage licenses of over a dozen major London parishes. These include "St Martin in the Fields 1765-1837; St Mary Putney 1822-1837; Holy Trinity Chelsea 1832-1837; St Leonard Shoreditch 1774-1837; St Dunstan in the West 1731-1837; St Paul Deptford 1779-1833; Christ Church Spitalfields 1757-1780; St John Hackney 1779-1837; St Paul Covent Garden 1734-1837; Kensington, Deptford, Whitechapel (some) etc. 1707-1837." 

The collection is name indexed. There is also a browse file by year. Missing years are 1716, 1717, 1753, 1755. The last year is 1892 after which there is a collection of 105 poor quality pages, many torn, categorized as "Not Stated." From 1713 to 1733 the entries are handwritten in Latin with the early years difficult to read. Thereafter the language is English with a printed form used from 1759.

Perhaps like me you're curious about Crisp whose name is in the collection title.

Genealogy Hub has a list of publications of Frederick Arthur Crisp, 1851-1922, with surname lists of contents and links to several of his texts in the Internet Archive. Crisp became wealthy in the patent medicine business in London. When he died his estate was nearly 164 thousand pounds.

An interesting coincidence is that Butler and Crisp, wholesale medicine company, had offices at Charterhouse Buildings which now houses the Society of Genealogists.

Findmypast.co.uk adds transcribed Cambridgeshire parish records

Findmypast.co.uk has added a total of 1,100,105 new parish record transcriptions provided by the Cambridgeshire Family History Society in association with the Federation of Family History Societies.

Type of  records	Number of  records	Date  range	Parishes covered
Baptisms	418,635	1538-1950	Click to see list (PDF)
Marriages	242,732	1538-1950	Click to see list (PDF)
Banns	103,552	1653-1950	Click to see list (PDF)
Burials	335,186	1538-1950	Click to see list (PDF)

Not much here for me, but those researching regional names like Thurgood should finds something to chew over.

Archives of Ontario customer satisfaction survey, and LAC

Browse over to the the Archives of Ontario homepage and you have the option of taking a 15 minute survey about your use, or lack of use, of the facility. Perhaps, like me, you find the AO is putting insufficient effort into placing resources online for the benefit of those across the province, and around the world, for whom a trip to North York is a significant expense. If so its your chance to tell them, they aren't mind readers!

Kudos to AO for doing the survey.

The other day I was asked by a manager at Library and Archives Canada about how they should go about determining their client views. LAC at present gives little evidence of wanting to learn client views, That leads to the type of unsolicited feedback they received in an editorial by Penni Stewart in the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) Bulletin which is grist for the mill as Canadians contemplate a trip to the polling station in early May.

Ignatyev and Ignatieff

I'm not one who believes the sins, or triumphs, of our ancestors should reflect on later generations. It's one reason I'm not very keen on the likes of lineage societies, or "Australian royalty."

Reading East End 1888, by William J Fishman, I was brought up short by a sentence in the middle of page 142:

"On 10 August (1888) the Jewish Chronicle, quoting from correspondence from St. Petersburg, confirmed that mass expulsions from Southern Russia ('the outcome of Count Ignatieff's aim to make life in Russia impossible for the Jews'), affected 100,000 - 200,000 of the miserable victims."   

It stuck in my mind, and came back to me when Andrew Hunter, blog reader, sent a reference to a Wikipedia article on Nikolay Pavlovich Ignatyev which notes that his great-grandson Michael Ignatieff is the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Quoting from that item:

"Shortly after the accession of Alexander III in 1881, he was appointed Minister of the Interior on the understanding that he would carry out a nationalist, reactionary policy. After a period of intense, violent, destructive antisemitic rioting, known as pogroms, which some accused Ignatyev of fomenting, he issued the infamous "May Laws" in May 1882. Other sources suggest he in fact followed a government policy (not always enforced by local authorities) of strict suppression of rioters and protection of the Jewish population:

Nikolai Ignatiev, installed as Minister of the Interior in May 1881, decided on a policy of firm repression, although it was made difficult by the unforeseeable character of the outbreaks and his limited forces. Nevertheless, he ordered his men to fire upon rioters. In the towns of Borisov and Nezhin this resulted in fatalities. In Kiev, 1400 arrests were made. Many in the government felt this was still inadequate. The police chief of Kiev wrote apologetically to the Tsar that the local military tribunals had been too lenient with the rioters; Alexander III wrote in the margin: “This is inexcusable!”^[1]

He retired from office in June 1882 .... after that time he exercised no important influence in public affairs."

There's a gap between 1882, when Nikolai Ignatiev was in office and the 1888 Jewish Chronicle items. Can anyone enlighten me?

I've previously blogged about Michael Ignatieff's ancestry.

Guess the relative

The following is a press release, via Dick Eastman's blog

Dragonfly Film and TV in the UK is making an exciting new game show featuring families and long-lost relatives. And we're searching for people from all over the world, who think they might have British ancestry who they've never made contact with.

Whether your Great Great Grandfather was born in England or your Great Aunt lived in Scotland... If you think you, or anyone you know, may have British relatives you've never yet met, we want to hear about it!

More at http://apply.shinegroup.tv/GuessTheRelative/index.apply

Royal Navy Officers Medal Roll 1914-1920 on FindMyPast

The following is compiled from an announcement by findmypast.co.uk

Royal Navy Officers Medal Roll 1914-1920 records comprise a transcript of the complete WWI Campaign Medal Rolls to 53,000 officers of all branches of the Royal Navy taken from The National Archives document classes ADM/171/89 to ADM/171/93 (inclusive) and ADM/171/139

Added to the transcript are service details for a large number of officers, particularly those killed in action or died of wounds during WWI. In many cases, post-war deaths and WWII deaths are noted.

The medals that the rolls cover are: The 1914 Star, the Clasp to the 1914 Star, the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Pre-DNA Day special from 23andMe

The Your Genetic Genealogist blog is reporting, and now confirmed at the company site, that direct to consumer genetic testing company 23andMe has a special offer starting at midnight Pacific Time, Monday 11 April. It's only for 24 hours, or until sold out. It's a real deal at $108 for 12 months service and no other upfront cost, presumably aside from shipping.

Check it out at www.23andme.com The service includes both health and ancestry service and the ability to download raw results in case you don't want to continue the service, and monthly fee, after 12 months.

British history online: ConnectedHistories

Connected Histories, enables users to search for British names, places and dates, as well as save, connect and share resources within a personal workspace across 11 major digital resources for the period 1500-1900, including British History Online, British Museum Images and Old Bailey Online.

Some of the resources are free to view, some require a subscription unless you are within a British higher education facility.

There is a short video guide to introduce you to the key features

You can limit your search in several way, including by source, time period, and the nature of the search term (person, place). However, I found a person search missed many occurrences. 

The site is a university cooperative project funded by JISC which is a consortium of funding agencies, the likes of which Canada lacks, pity.

Use Connected Histories at www.connectedhistories.org.

Ottawa city and area directories

I've mentioned Ottawa city directories online before, but noticed several additions of late 19th and early 20th century Ottawa city directories to The Internet Archive collection this past week, check at http://goo.gl/JwSzd. It's a good source from the mid 1890s, and for the 1910s, plus editions for 1901,  1909 and a 1923 directory.

There's good coverage for directories from the early 1880s to 1900, with a few earlier editions, at Library and Archives Canada's site where you can search at http://goo.gl/KMig8.

British newspaper archives free online for U.S. National Library Week

Starting on Sunday April 10 we should be able to join the celebration of U.S. National Library Week, actually to April 24, with free access to online resources from Gale.

The highlight for the family historian is access to Gale NewsVault, "the definitive cross-searching experience for exploring Gale’s historical newspaper and periodical collections — with access to more than 10 million digitized pages."

Collections available through Gale NewsVault include:

17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers
19th Century British Library Newspapers, Parts I and II
19th Century UK Periodicals, Series I: New Readerships
19th Century UK Periodicals, Series II: Empire
19th Century U.S. Newspapers
Financial Times Historical Archive 1888-2006
Illustrated London News Historical Archive 1842-2003
Times Digital Archive 1785-1985
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive 1902-2005

You will need to register at: http://www.gale.cengage.com/NLW/

More Norfolk records from FamilySearch

It keeps getting better for Norfolk researchers thanks to FamilySearch. Two datasets, images only, were added on April 8

England, Norfolk Bishop's Transcripts, 1685-1941 of baptisms, marriages and burials from the Archdeaconaries of Norwich and Norfolk are arranged in yearly bundles, with some multi-year bundles. Within a year they are arranged by church, and divided alphabetically by parish range, A-D, E-H, etc. Be aware that you may find some anomoilies, such as East Dereham filed under Dereham. There are 210,155 images in total. This is a dataset that cries out for better indexing, so that you can find a parish of interest more easily and would make a good online volunteer project if the experts at FamilySearch could figure out how to implement it.

England, Norfolk Poor Law Union Records, 1796-1900 is another big dataset, 138,680 images. There's a helpful file at http://goo.gl/gsMDo which describes the dataset more fully. The data is divided by Poor Law Union, if you don't know which Union contains your parish of interest check the map at http://maps.familysearch.org/. For Rockland All Saints Workhouse in the Wayland Union there is a birth register and Board of Guardians minutes. Much of the information in the latter records financial transactions such as funds for clothing to a named person.

Thanks to Sandra Adams for the tip on this resource.

... 12, 25, 37, 67 ...

What is the significance of the sequence  .. 12, 25, 37, 67 ... ? What number comes next?

If your answer to the first question was the number of Y-chromosome STR markers Family Tree DNA have, or have had, tests for count yourself a DNA savvy genealogist.

If you answered 111 to the second question count yourself as really up to date.

Family Tree DNA are now offering an upgrade from 67 to a 111 Y-chromosome marker test "intended for those who wish to refine the time to most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) calculation with a close or exact match and who wish to improve the confidence in a match."

In the FAQ section of the company website FTDNA give advice on the desirability of upgrades, including this table copied from FTDNA with permission with information on Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA).

With my best match 65 out of 67 markers, there's a 95% probability that the common ancestor is within 14 generations. Upgrading to 111 markers, and if there were a perfect match for all the new markers, that 95% confidence would be reduced to 9 generations. That's still three generations shy of my earliest documented ancestor.

The new markers seem to be of less interest to genealogists than surname study researchers looking for genetic clusters which will help refine segmentation into groups.

Considering an upgrade? I suggest reading the FTDNA FAQ at http://goo.gl/BTo2p and keep in mind their advice "Test only what you need, and upgrade only when necessary"

By the way, early versions of the Family Tree DNA website refer to an 11 marker Y-DNA test, which was soon changed to 12 markers, and the table above shows values for 10 markers, which is why I hedged bets a bit with the sequence by starting with ....

Finding Ontario Ancestors

The Toronto Branch of OGS have put out a call for proposals for presentations at a Finding Ontario Ancestors workshop to be held on the 6th of August 2011. The deadline for proposals is Sunday the 1st of May. There's more information at http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/Finding_Ontario_Ancestors_2011.html

Walking through history on Wellington

Last Monday`s Ottawa Citizen column by Phil Jenkins http://goo.gl/yRTu0 sees him walking along Wellington Street, not the part that passes the Parliament building and Library and Archives Canada, but the westward extension.

Along the way he encounters the plaque on the former St George`s home where many Catholic home children temporarily laid their heads after arriving in Canada before being distributed to their destinations as child labourers. The article includes a welcome mention to the BIFHSGO book British Home Children: Their Stories available from Global Genealogy, http://goo.gl/datmj

Phil will be the Don Whiteside lecturer on September 16 at the start of the 17th annual BIFHSGO conference.

Ottawa City Archives progress

Delays in the completion of the building housing the new Ottawa City Archives have pushed back the timeframe for the facility opening to the public. The original schedule had the bulding ready for occupancy at the start of 2011. As can be seen from this photo, taken from Tallwood on 5 April 2011 there is work still to do, but progress is evident since my last visit four weeks ago.

The second photo, taken from the south side, where the parking lot was full to overflowing, shows that less work appears to need completion. The green covered orange scaffold at the lower right (east end) of the building is in front of a temporary entrance for people working inside who, from their apparel, did not appear to be construction trades.

The Archives partner libraries remain closed and inaccessible. Some delay in opening to the public after the original move-in at the start of the year had been anticipated. It was always my view that the original schedule to reopen was overly optimistic. It is worth the extra wait to allow staff to get things in order.

According to a city briefing note about the 92,000-square-foot building, "the materials used feature high recycled content and rapidly renewable resources. These include highly durable fibre cement panels on the building's exterior, bamboo flooring, wall panels and doors, cork and linoleum flooring on its interior. In high traffic areas such as the lobby and washrooms, floor tiles from Italy were selected for their quality, durability and price. Other materials include stone stair treads from Owen Sound and brick from the Northern United States."

Archival materials remained at the former archives site through March. The construction schedule maintains the site development work, such as landscaping and public art, being completed by the end of May 2011. The official opening is scheduled for June. 

BIFHSGO April Meeting - Irish Ancestors: Not Just Names and Dates

Sharon Callaghan, a history and research enthusiast who has completed two books pertaining to Irish Montreal, is the guest speaker next Saturday, 9 April, at 10 am. She has given presentations to genealogy societies, talked to university writing classes, and will be a presenter at the Quebec Family History Society Roots 2011 conference in June.

Her talk on Saturday will deal with research Sharon undertook in compiling her historical non-fiction book, Paths of Opportunity, which relates to the Irish Montreal experience of her great-great-grandparents' family. She collected a lot of genealogical data over many years of research, but it wasn't enough for her. Knowing they were living people and more than statistics, she set out in search of other sources to better portray what their lives had been like and what had been going on around them.

Come for 9am to hear experienced member Hugh Reekie give a 30 minute "Before BIFHSGO" presentation on "Online Older Books: Where to Find Them and How I Use Them."

There will also be a survey conducted to help assign rooms for the annual BIFHSGO conference, September 16-18 at Library and Archives Canada.

Visit www.bifhsgo.ca for more details.

Probus Presentation

I'd like to express my appreciate for the warm welcome I received from the Probus Club of Ottawa - Rideau Valley Manotick yesterday morning. I spoke to what seemed like a pretty full room, extra chairs had to be added, on "Climbing Your Family Tree - 2011 Style".

Judging by the show of hands a goodly number of those in attendance had already made great strides in their family history studies, including by some BIFHSGO members. There was a wealth of expertise in the room in related fields too, including Janet Christie-Seely from the Satir Learning Centre of Ottawa who I`d heard give a memorable presentation at OGS Ottawa Branch.

Thanks to Club President Bill Blaiklock for his hospitality after the meeting, Mike King for the smooth operation of the audiovisual systems, and Spruce Riordon for the original invitation.

US military cemetery and related records linked at Ancestry.com

I don't normally cover US records, except when a large collection come online. This is an exception as Ancestry have added major military databases. I took a quick look,

There is a collection of images of headstones at major US Military Cemeteries. It's interesting to be able to find them, although the ones I looked at were not especially informative.

There is also a collection of records related to the US Civil War. Some linked to original records; others, like the database of U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865, linked to  images at footnote.com, a company now owned by Ancestry.com. but which aside from a free trial period requires an additional subscription.

Here is the list of new additions.

Alexandria, Virginia, Alexandria National Cemetery, 1862-2010	4/5/2011
Annapolis, Maryland, Annapolis National Cemetery, 1862-2009	4/5/2011
Sharpsburg, Maryland, Antietam National Cemetery, 1866-2005	4/5/2011
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Gettysburg National Cemetery, 1863-2009	4/5/2011
Grafton, West Virginia, Grafton National Cemetery, 1867-2010	4/5/2011
Baltimore, Maryland, Loudon Park National Cemetery, 1862-2010	4/5/2011
Florence, South Carolina, Florence National Cemetery, 1865-2010	4/5/2011
Jefferson City, Missouri, Jefferson City National Cemetery, 1861-2010	4/5/2011
Leesburg, Virginia, Balls Bluff National Cemetery, 1861	4/5/2011
Washington, District of Columbia, Battleground National Cemetery, 1864-1936	4/5/2011
Chalmette, Louisiana, Chalmette National Cemetery, 1864-2003	4/5/2011
Hopewell, Virginia, City Point National Cemetery, 1866-2010	4/5/2011
Corinth, Mississippi, Corinth National Cemetery, 1866-2010	4/5/2011
Indianapolis, Indiana, Crown Hill National Cemetery, 1866-1999	4/5/2011
Danville, Kentucky, Danville National Cemetery, 1862-2003	4/5/2011
Danville, Virginia, Danville National Cemetery, 1866-2010	4/5/2011
Fort Harrison, Virginia, Fort Harrison National Cemetery, 1866-2008	4/5/2011
Fort Scott, Kansas, Fort Scott National Cemetery, 1862-2010	4/5/2011
Fort Smith, Arkansas, Fort Smith National Cemetery, 1867-2010	4/5/2011
Richmond, Virginia, Glendale National Cemetery, 1866-2009	4/5/2011
Lexington, Kentucky, Lexington National Cemetery, 1868-2010	4/5/2011
Little Rock, Arkansas, Little Rock National Cemetery, 1868-2010	4/5/2011
Marietta, Georgia, Marietta National Cemetery, 1866-2010	4/5/2011
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia National Cemetery, 1862-2010	4/5/2011
Petersburg, Virginia, Poplar Grove National Cemetery, 1866-1973	4/5/2011
Richmond, Virginia, Richmond National Cemetery, 1867-2010	4/5/2011
Salisbury, North Carolina, Salisbury National Cemetery, 1863-2010	4/5/2011
Sandston, Virginia, Seven Pines National Cemetery, 1866-2009	4/5/2011
Shiloh, Tennessee, Shiloh National Cemetery, 1866-2010	4/5/2011
Staunton, Virginia, Staunton National Cemetery, 1868-2010	4/5/2011
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Stones River National Cemetery, 1864-2010	4/5/2011
Vicksburg, Mississippi, Vicksburg National Cemetery, 1866-2010	4/5/2011
Winchester, Virginia, Winchester National Cemetery, 1862-2010	4/5/2011
Mechanicsville, Virginia, Cold Harbor National Cemetery, 1866-2008	4/5/2011
U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865 - Free Index	4/5/2011
U.S., Union Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865	4/5/2011
New York, Town Clerks' Registers of Men Who Served in the Civil War, ca 1861-1865	4/5/2011
Arkansas, Confederate Pension Records, 1891-1935	4/5/2011
Alabama, Census of Confederate Soldiers, 1907, 1921	4/5/2011
New York, Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts, 1861-1900	4/5/2011
U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865	4/5/2011
U.S., Confederate Pensions, 1884-1958	4/5/2011
Kansas, Civil War Enlistment Papers, 1862, 1863, 1868	4/5/2011
Alabama, Confederate Pension and Service Records, 1862-1947	4/5/2011

Alberta Homestead Records microfilm images

Eleven reels of microfilm from the Alberta Homestead Records 1870-1930 series are now on the Internet Archive. That's less than 2% of the 686 microfilm reels in the series, but you may be lucky.

According to the Alberta Genealogical Society, Homestead files normally contain:

• An application for homestead, containing the applicant's name, age, birthplace, last residence, prior occupation, number of adults and children in household.
• An application for patent, containing name, age, occupation, post office, nationality, residency information, wife/children (no names), breaking/cropping, livestock, buildings, fencing.
• A notice that patent (title) has been issued.

The AGS have an index to the files freely available to search by name at http://abgensoc.ca/homestead/search.php

All reels are in the series 70.313; those on the Internet Archive are #: 2083, 2084, and 2087-2095.

Wales has London's problem, 160 years later

According to the BBC, the Church in Wales believes two-thirds of its 1,000 burial grounds will be full in 10 years. That's the same problem, with the addition of unsanitary overcrowding, that led to the passage of the Metropolitan Burial Act in 1852.

The Act was another step in the long process of relieving the Established Church of the burden of providing local administration and services, along with the right to levy taxes (tithes). Interesting to see the process still going on.

Read the BBC item at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12969729

St. John’s Norway Cemetery, Toronto

After the seminar I attended last Saturday I took the subway and streetcar to visit a friend who lives in Toronto's Beaches area. Not quite sure where to get off I was following progress on my iPhone and noticed St. John’s Norway Cemetery on the map, the green area in the centre of this map just north of Kingston Road and west of Woodbine. The name seemed to ring a bell.

St. John’s Norway Cemetery and Crematorium is a new CD from the Toronto Branch of the OGS. According to the blurb on the Society website the cemetery, at 256 Kingston Road, was established in 1856 as Anglican and became inter-denominational.

The transcription of this 35acre cemetery was a massive project that took two decades to complete and involved dozens of dedicated volunteers.

The CD, priced at $30, contains 3454 pdf pages with a 55,000 name index.

Order through the Branch website at http://goo.gl/dxd1B

The map is © OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA

Nineteenth Century Canadian Civil Service Lists

Annual editions of The Civil Service List of Canada from the mid 1880s to 1900 are now available free on the Internet Archive here.

As noted several years ago,  these lists have been available on Early Canadian Online, and later on Ancestry.ca, by subscription.

Gene-O-Rama 2011

Library and Archives Canada was the venue last Friday and Saturday for The OGS Ottawa Branch annual conference, Gene-O-Rama. I was in Toronto, but received reports on the meeting.

The pre-conference beginner's course, given by Lesley Anderson and Glenn Wright, sometimes actually presenting together, was over-subscribed at 53. While the room was crowded and warm, and not everything planned could be said, several very positive comments were received.

Friday evening saw the Houston Lecture given by Fawne Stratford-Devai. I've never known Fawne to disappoint. According to Elizabeth Kipp this was no exception. Elizabeth commented on her blog that she "enjoys Fawne's talks mostly because they set my mind thinking about circuitous ways of looking at my ancestors. Not just looking right at them but noticing what is around them in terms of structure and in terms of other people not just relatives."

By all accounts Saturday's presentations and the marketplace went well with 196 people registered, plus people who didn't register coming just for the marketplace which is open to the public. The event ended with a banquet at Algonquin College with a relaxed Lesley Anderson extolling the benefits and virtues of Ancestry.ca.

With Ottawa Branch involved in organizing the OGS annual conference in Kingston in 2012 there will be no Gene-O-Rama. However, Ottawa Branch will be hosting the OGS Region VIII AGM in 2012 which is usually around the same time of year.

Scottish census of 1911 online today

5 April 2011 is the scheduled release date for the full 1911 census of Scotland at www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk.  It is scheduled to go online at 6am EDT.

Unlike the release for England and Wales, the original household schedules have not survived so it is the enumerators' returns, similar to those for previous censuses, that will be available. The images are in colour, and each record is across two pages to accommodate increased information, on years of marriage, number of children born and number surviving.

The cost of credits at Scotland's People is increased just in time for this release. It now costs £7 for 30 credits, and costs one credit to search, five credits for a census image. However, the period of validity has been increased.

Learning Advanced Genealogical Skills from Elizabeth Shown Mills

On Saturday, April 2, 2011 I attended a seminar on Advanced Genealogical Skills in Toronto. If you want to feel like you're drinking from the proverbial fire hydrant, genealogically speaking, four hours of expertly presented lectures and a question period by Elizabeth Shown Mills is likely as close as it gets.


Genealogical Problem Solving: Professional Techniques for Everyday Success focused on twelve success techniques to apply every day that you do research. Some are:
- no problem is hopeless, there's always another source left to explore. The expectation of success and failure are both self fulfilling;
- research is not a matter of looking up the answer, but tracking down the answer;
- search your ancestor's FAN Club, friends, associates, neighbours;
- never ignore a potentially relevant record;
- use maps and charts;
- don't skim over material relevant to a place just because the person you're searching isn't mentioned;
- be a skeptic, test the validity of everything (in a later session she had everyone swear to do this!)

Sources & Citations Simplified: From Memorabilia to Digital Data to DNA emphasized learning a few basic rules which will allow you to produce a serviceable citation when no exact model is available without sweating the placement of commas and semicolons. The presentation did not mention DNA!

Finding Females: Wives, Mothers, Daughters, Sisters & Paramours! did not mention paramours! Researching the males with whom these women were associated was the key recommendation.

Dissecting Your Research Problem and Planning a Solution presented a practical process for analyzing the toughest problem and developing new avenues to explore which involves intensive analysis aided by a series of charts.

A previous blog posting mentioned two questions I wanted to pose at the session.

If there's always another potentially relevant source to explore, how do you decide you've found the solution and that the exhaustive search has been reasonable enough? Elizabeth could not be pinned down, there are occasional circumstances when a record from out of the blue may overturn what seemed like a solid conclusion. The closest she came was a mention a couple of times that direct ancestors warrant more effort than those of co-lateral lines.

I, and others, also asked about DNA. Elizabeth has experience with DNA in her own and her husband's lines. She said that DNA is a "very valuable tool to help you resolve genealogical problems." Asked about the level of DNA knowledge that should be expected of a professional genealogist she did not believe all professionals should be DNA experts, but did agree that all should know enough about the topic to advise when that might be an appropriate line of investigation to pursue with a professional expert in the field.

Criticisms? I had very few. Not being accustomed to her southern accent and expressions, and her pace of delivery which veers on occasion to the fast side, I did miss a phrase now and again. There were a couple of mistakes in the material which had been not quite correctly adapted to the Canadian situation.

Comment. This session was billed as advanced, but just as you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, you don't need the advanced skills of a professional genealogist to solve many questions in genealogy. Advanced in the session title implied tackling the knotty problems where information from all common sources does not align and there are inconsistencies to be resolved. Even when such sources do align there are occasional cases where the conclusion may be wrong, such as where paper records don't record the truth about paternity.

An opportunity to listen to Elizabeth is an opportunity not to be missed. Also her slides are exceptionally good, a model for other presenters even if you're not so interested in the topic.

Elizabeth recommended that those who want to upgrade their skills subscribe to and follow the discussion on the Transitional Genealogists Forum of Rootsweb, the archives is at http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/TRANSITIONAL-GENEALOGISTS-FORUM

The event was organized by members of the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists, and co-sponsored by the Toronto Public Library

Pathé News archive

The most recent Lost Cousins newsletter, at http://lostcousins.com/newsletters/apr11news.htm mentions the Pathé News 70 year archive I've mentioned before. It can be viewed free online.

As a result of the Lost Cousins mention BIFHSGO member Christine Jackson found coverage of an item from the late 1940s in which a relative was involved. I've uncovered film of scenes of the herring fishery at Great Yarmouth which I remember well, but which collapsed in the late 1950s.

What might you find by searching a location in your family past?

OGS British Home Child SIG

There is a posting on the Ontario Genealogical Society blog by Phil Ellis about the proposed OGS British Home Child Special Interest Group. It starts:

The OGS has been working on setting up a new Special Interest Group (SIG) on the topic of British Home Children. There has been considerable interest but we don’t quite have enough potential members yet to proceed. This BLOG post is intended to get your input on what you would like to get out of such a group. A few early discussions have produced the following tentative goals

To bring together genealogy researchers who have like interests in British Home Children (BHC) to share their research experiences.
To encourage possible descendants of BHC to investigate their ancestry.
To raise awareness of the history and contribution of the BHC in Canada.
To identify resources for research on individual BHC.
To identify resources for research into the social conditions in the UK and Canada which influenced the lives of the BHC.

You can read the full blog post here.

Comment: There are already effective mechanisms that are achieving the goals listed, such as the BRITISHHOMECHILDREN Rootsweb mailing list, active for more than a decade and pan-Canadian, appropriate as Home Children were not just in Ontario. There is also a sentiment that this initiative, with its mention of not just Ontario but Canada in the goals listed, is OGS' attempting to poach people and resources from other organizations.

TNA publishes positive business plan for 2011-2015

One hallmark of a well managed organization is a having a business plan. The (UK) National Archives have now released their plan for the next five years.

As government documents go it's remarkably readable, and just 17 pages.

The bottom line for TNA is continuing cuts to government funding. However, the statement is made that " we hold fast to the view that the cut in funding does not have to mean a cut in service quality."  Whether is means a further cut in quantity in some areas remains to be seen.
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While much of the content of the plan deals with internal process for the organization and government there are items of client interest, especially items in the section on Business priorities 2011–12.

In order to widen the funding base TNA will improve online commercial systems  (DocumentsOnline), including a new Image Library with a due date of 31 March 2012.

By the same date TNA plans to digitise non-commercial, but heavily used, record series and catalogues and, where appropriate, remove the paper indexes and finding aids from the reading rooms; pilot and put in place new public services approaches, including web chat for more remote advice and self-service book scanning.

Also in a year's time TNA will have digitised key components of First World War regimental diaries. By the end of this calendar year it will have digitised a test sample of Home Guards records, and developed a clear transfer policy for large personal data record sets.

To be accountable TNA will develop indicators which will be made transparently available. For some of these publication is supposed to be already started, although I was unable to find them on the organization website,

You can read the plan, available as a pdf, here.

Findmypast.co.uk, good and bad news

Findmypast.co.uk has added 14,803 more records, these from the 17th century for baptisms at St Dunstan, Stepney. Just over 10,000 are for 1629-1641, and nearly 4,800 for 1652-1656.

The first period is during the reign of Charles I up to near the start of the Civil War. The second is during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. These predate the Great Plague (1665) and Great Fire (1666).

Checking out a sample of the records I found that in addition to the child's name, the father's first name and occupation, the mother's first name, location of residence and age (usually a few days old) is given.

That's the good news.

The bad is that having promised to have a fully digitized individual name searchable database of England and Wales civil registration death records by the end of 2010, April 2011 has arrived and there is still no sign of the company delivering on the commitment. It's a black mark on the company record.

Gary Schroder at the BIFHSGO conference

Gary Schroder, President of the Quebec Family History Society since 1995, will be returning to September's BIFHSGO conference to give two presentation.

Gary is well known in the Montreal family history community for his expertize on Canada, England, Ireland, and military resources for family historians, and his appearances on radio and TV. His presentations in Ottawa have always been well appreciated. 

The conference program accommodates Gary being able to travel with the QFHS "road show" team coming to the marketplace. He will give two presentations, before and after lunch on Saturday.

"How to Find Your Ancestors in Quebec" will explore genealogical sources available for those with Quebec ancestors and relatives and discuss the new developments and new resources for genealogical research for both Catholics and non-Catholics.

The lecture will examine how to find church records in Quebec, where are they located and

which years are open to the public. There will also be a discussion of how to find Wills in

Quebec, the importance of Notaries in Quebec, and what 20th Century records are open to the

genealogist in Quebec including the Statistical Returns of Death and Marriage 1926-1997. Land

Records are often overlooked or misunderstood in genealogical research in Quebec. This lecture

will attempt to demystify Land Records in Quebec and to explain the exciting new developments

in the world of genealogy in Quebec regarding the new Quebec Online Land Registry.

"How to Find Your Ancestors in the British Army 1760–1945" will explore the new genealogical

resources for the British Army that are available on the Internet. These will include the Army

Pension Records WO 97 which are available on Find My Past, the numerous databases available

on Ancestry including the Medal Rolls for various campaigns and the World War One Personnel

records for Enlisted Men, the Records of National Archives at Kew and a select group of

Military Websites like The Napoleon Series which contain a wealth of genealogical material and

are relatively unknown to genealogists interested in military records. Pension Records, Muster

and Pay Rolls, Service Files, Description Books, Army Lists of Officers, Chaplain's Records,

Regimental Records, Medal Rolls, and Casualty Records will all be discussed. There will be

numerous example of all types of military records for the British Army from the 18th century

until the 20th century.

1926 Irish census update

The Irish Times is reporting that the Irish government intends to press ahead with the publication of the 1926 census although it would be in breach of the 100-year rule which governs all such information, Minister for Heritage Jimmy Deenihan has said.

He said publishing the census would need a change of legislation but he had received "widespread approval" for this.

The full Irish Times article is here.

Toronto Elizabeth S Mills seminar expectations and questions

Today I travel to Toronto for a one day seminar on Saturday for an event I've been anticipating for over a year. The Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists, the event sponsors along with the Toronto Public Library, describe Elizabeth S Mills as "one of the foremost genealogical educators of our day" and promise "a full day of stimulation for your personal or professional genealogical pursuits."

I'm expecting to learn from her experience and find out her views on a couple of specific items:

1, Can any more specification be given to what is a "reasonably diligent search." In particular, and from a practical point of view, if you already have several good quality sources for a fact all of which are consistent, locating and gaining access to another source involves considerable cost and inconvenience, and the information in that source is likely of dubious quality, would obtaining that source to examine that fact go beyond being "reasonably diligent?" Does the ease and cost of obtaining the source have any bearing on what is a reasonably diligent search?

2. In 1998 Helen Leary wrote "Science and the law are in agreement: there is only one way to prove kinships beyond reasonable doubt — DNA testing. As a genealogical standard, that is hardly practical."  Now thirteen years later DNA has emerged as a practical tool. What knowledge about DNA as a source does a client of an accredited professional genealogist have a right to expect?

Fawne Stratford-Devai in Ottawa

This evening, 1 April 2011, sees the annual Pat Horan Memorial Lecture, this year on the topic "Leaving Ontario – Resources for Tracking Migrants" delivered by Fawne Stratford -Devai.

The lecture, sponsored by OGS Ottawa Branch, is free to attend at a session that starts at 7:30pm in the Auditorium at Library and Archives Canada.

Further information at www.ogsottawa.on.ca/