SCGS webinar bonanza

The following announcement is about some interesting looking not-to-be-missed webinars by well-known US genealogy speakers, from December 19 to December 2013, 25 in total. Many are not specifically US-oriented.

The Southern California Genealogical Society announces that registration is now open for the popular Jamboree Extension Webinar Series for 2013. The webinar series provides web-based family history and genealogy educational sessions for genealogists around the world.

Jamboree Extension Series webinars are conducted the first Saturday and third Wednesday of each month. Saturday sessions will be held at 10am Pacific time /1pm Eastern time. Wednesday sessions will be scheduled at 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Upcoming sessions are listed below. Click on the link to register for any session you want to attend. For more information on each of these sessions, check out the SCGS website.

Wednesday, December 19 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.
Schelly Talalay Dardashti

Jewish Genealogy 101

 

Saturday, January 5 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Lisa A. Alzo

Family History Writing Made Easier: Cloud-based Tools Every Genealogist Can Use

 

Wednesday, January 16 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Linda Geiger Woodward, CG, CGL

Documentation: Never Having to Ask, 'Where Did That Come From?'

 

Saturday, February 2 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time.

Eric Basir

Digital Organization for Documents and Photos

 

Wednesday, February 20 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Michael John Neill

No Will? No Problem

 

Saturday, March 2 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Lisa Louise Cooke

Time Travel with Google Earth

 

Wednesday, March 20 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Michael Brophy

Erin in the USA: Irish Research on This Side of the Atlantic

Saturday, April 6 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Denise Levenick

Break Down Brick Walls with Home Sources

 

Wednesday, - April 17 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Janet Hovorka

Trip the Tree Fantastic: Intriguing Family History Trips for the Whole Family

 

Saturday, May 4 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Peggy Clemens Lauritzen, AG
Homespun and Calico - Researching our Foremothers

 

Wednesday, May 15 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.
Debbie Mieszala, CG

Options in Post-Adoption Research

 

Saturday, June 1 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Jane Neff Rollins

Is There a Baby Catcher in your Bloodline?

 

Saturday, June 1 - 2pm Pacific time / 5pm Eastern time

Leo Myers and Paula Hinkel

Sneak Peek at Jamboree

 

Wednesday, June 19 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Valerie Brown Elkins, CG

Interest in Pinterest: Pinning Your Family History

 

Saturday, July 6 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Tonia Kendrick

Transform Your Note-Taking and Remember Everything with Evernote

 

Wednesday, July 17 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Nancy Lauer

Path to Organizational Bliss

 

Saturday, August 3 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Jay Fonkert, CG

Official, but Wrong: Testing the Validity of Genealogical Information in Official Records

 

Wednesday, August 21 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Mary Roddy

Mark Golden: A Case Study in World War II Research

 

Saturday, September 7 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

George G. Morgan

Sidestep Genealogy

 

Wednesday, - September 18 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Beth Foulk

Imported to America - Colonists for Sale

 

Saturday, October 5 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Taneya Koonce

Genealogy News at Your Fingertips: From RSS Feeds to Digital Magazine Platforms

 

Wednesday, October 16 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Drew Smith

Effective Online Queries

 

Saturday, November 2 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Jean Wilcox Hibben, PhD, CG

Getting Family History Information through the Back Door

 

Wednesday, November 20 - 6pm Pacific time / 9pm Eastern time.

Leland K. Meitzler

Mobile Capturing of Your Ancestor's Documents and Pictures

 

Saturday, December 7 - 10am Pacific time / 1pm Eastern time

Gena Philibert Ortega

Women in WWII

 

Please share this notice with your fellow genealogical society members, librarians, cousins and others that share your interest in genealogy.

The initial (live) webcast is offered free of charge and open to the public. "We offer these webinars as part of our educational mission," said SCGS president Alice Fairhurst, "but are always grateful for contributions to offset our costs." Donations can be made through PayPal, online through the SCGS website or by check made out to SCGS and mailed to the address below.

As a benefit of membership, SCGS members can review archived sessions at any time by accessing the SCGS members-only section of this website.

To join a webinar, most participants attend via computer with audio speakers or a headset. Those with a fast Internet connection (either broadband or DSL) will have the most satisfactory experience. It is possible to phone in to listen to the presentation. Long-distance charges may apply.

For more information contact:

Paula Hinkel ( phinkel@pacbell.net )

Vice President

Southern California Genealogical Society

417 Irving Drive

Burbank, CA 91504

Australian home child exhibit

Unlike Library and Archives Canada the National Archives of Australia continues to host exhibits. From 24 November 2012 to 10 February 2013 there's one
"On Their Own – Britain’s child migrants" telling the story of the:

"more than 100,000 children sent from Britain to Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries through child migration schemes from the 1860s onwards.
The lives of these children changed dramatically and fortunes varied.
Some succeeded in creating new futures. Others suffered lonely, brutal childhoods. All experienced disruption and separation from family and homeland."

In fact more than 100,000 children came to Canada alone.

Child immigration continued to Australia well after it came to an end in Canada.

Thanks to Maggie Loughran for bringing this to my attention.

2011 census of England and Wales

The UK Office of National Statistics have released statistics from the 2011 Census of England and Wales. It does a good job presenting the information graphically, sometime audio-visually, exploiting local variations and comparing 2011 with data from previous censuses.
There's a good offering on the changes over the past hundred years with age pyramids and an option to hear the descriptions explaining the changes and why they happened.  www.ons.gov.uk/ons/interactive/vp1-story-of-the-census/index.html.

Enter the era of the $99 autosomal DNA test at 23andMe

Personal genetics pioneer company 23andMe has announced the acquisition of $50 million in new financing. They're targetting one million clients helped along by lowering the cost of service substantially. Can it be true? Read the release at http://bit.ly/UzKSVL.

History Extra Interviews

Two interesting interviews in the latest podcast from BBC History magazine.

Elizabeth T Hurren, author of  Dying for Victorian Medicine: English Anatomy and its Trade in the Dead Poor, c.1834 - 1929 discusses how the bodies of paupers helped advance medical science in the era after the resurrection men scandal and the passage of The Anatomy Act of 1832. An estimated 125,000 bodies were traded from the gates of workhouse infirmaries and asylums to facilitate the training of the six-fold increase in the number of physicians over the 19th century and the advancement of medical technology.

Robert Greene, author of best selling book The 48 Laws of Power discusses his latest book Mastery explains the lessons of success from maters in their fields and how to become the next Napoleon or Leonardo da Vinci.

BC civil registration from the Royal BC Museum/Archives

At least three people have mentioned to me the civil registration records for British Columbia now freely available online through The Royal BC Museum/Archives.  They're likely puzzled as to why I didn't mentioned them before.

The site at http://search collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Genealogy/BasicSearch contains indexes to births (1854-1903), marriages (1872-1936), deaths (1872-1991), colonial marriages (1859-1872) and baptisms (1836-1888). There's the option of using wildcards, all nicely explained in a quick search guide at http://search-collections.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/Docs/GenealogyBasic.pdf

Many of these records have been available elsewhere.

Some have been, and still are available as transcriptions through FamilySearch. Their birth records are for 1854-1903, marriages 1859-1932, deaths 1872-1986. What's extra at the new site is four additional years of marriages, five of deaths and the baptismal records and original record images where available.

In addition FamilySearch has BC records for: Crown Land Grants, 1869-1930; Dominion Land Branch Records, 1885-1949; Estate Files, 1859-1949; Naturalization Records, 1859-1926; Victoria Times Birth, Marriage and Death notices, 1901-1939; Wills, 1861-1981.

Ancestry also has a BC collection including civil registration transcriptions missing a few later years, and others including: 42,740 items in Border Entries and Passenger Lists, 1894-1905; 21,206 items in the Central Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, Newspaper Birth, Marriage & Death Indexes, 1917-1990; and smaller databases. Not to forget that Ancestry's federal census and voters lists also include BC residents.

What good about the new site is it's easy to use, it has a few additional years, and most important, the availability of original images for some records.

Thanks to the folks who pointed out the site.

Pharos Teaching & Tutoring Courses

Be a better family historian in 2013.

There are lots of options for instruction in researching and preserving family history, more so at the beginner level. Here are some forthcoming opportunities for online instruction with a British flavour at a "beyond the basics" level through Pharos Teaching & Tutoring Limited

Migration in the British Isles (#314), starts 10 January, 3 Weeks, £48.99

So You Think You Know Family Search - A Guided Tour (#810), starts 22 January, 4 Weeks, £39.99

Introduction to Medieval Genealogy (#501), starts 28 January, 5 Weeks £45.99

Victorian Crime and Punishment (#308) starts 1 March, 5 Weeks £61.00

The Parish Chest - There was more to life than baptism … (#310) starts 3 March, 4 Weeks £39.99

Climbing Trees - How to get children interested … (#820) starts 4 March, 4 Weeks £39.99

Developing and Writing Your Family History (#803) starts 8 March, 3 Weeks £33.99

Organizing Your Genealogy (#805) starts 12 March, 3 Weeks £33.99

Caron denounces ideological library cuts

Thankfully someone by that name opposes eviscerating library services. From the Halifax Chronicle-Herald:

"Fisheries and Oceans Canada will close most of its nine libraries across the country and split their collections between just two — in Sidney, B.C., and at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Dartmouth.
A third Library in Ottawa will be reduced in size but retain a physical location.
At the same time, the federal department is digitizing its collection to make it available online.
That isn’t good enough for Quebec New Democrat Guy Caron, whose riding of Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques is losing a French-specific library.
Caron denounced the closure in the House of Commons on Monday as “ideological cuts” by the Conservatives, who he said are trying to “destroy our scientific institutions.”"

Saskatchewan, Catholic Church Records, 1846-1957 at FamilySearch

Now available at familysearch.org. baptisms, confirmations, marriages, burials, and other records from several Roman Catholic parishes in the province of Saskatchewan for 1846-1957.  There are 6,587 browse images for churches in:

Allan; Balgonie; Battleford; Brochet; Lac Caribou; Cantal; Chamberlain, Indian Head, Liberty, Lumsden, Rouleau; Cumberland House, Esterhazy, Forget; Frankslake; Grayson; Green Lake; Île-à-la-Crosse; Kamsack; La Loche; Langenburg; Lebret; Leipzig; Lestock; Marieval; Moose Jaw; Moosomin; Onion Lake; Pelican Narrows; Prince Albert; Prud'Homme; Regina; Saskatoon; Scott; Vonda; Willow Bunch; Wolseley; Yorkton.

The content and time period varies by parish.

23andMe adds ancestry composition

Up until last week 23andMe's analysis of my overall ancestry was 100% European and Near Eastern, 0% African, 0% Asian. That's 100% dull.

It is entirely consistent with my analysis from Family Tree DNA, 84.25% European (Western Europe), 15.75% Middle East (Jewish).

A few days ago 23andMe upped their game when it comes to examining what your DNA tells you about your ancestral origins. The new more detailed presentation is called Ancestry Composition and it's based on data from the Human Genome Diversity Project, HapMap, and the 1000 Genomes project.  It tells you what percent of your DNA comes from each of 22 populations worldwide reflecting where your ancestors lived 500 years ago. Here's the default display for my results.

It's graphically more interesting, but the information isn't greatly different.

But wait, there's more.

Three levels of estimate are built in, conservative, standard and speculative. My conservative estimate decreases the European fraction to 95.5% transferring the remainder to Unassigned. The speculative estimate increases the European fraction to 99.1%.

You can simultaneously select three levels of regional resolution, global (the default), regional and sub-regional.

Staying with the speculative estimate and moving to the sub-regional resolution the analysis become more interesting.

The largest sub-region in my DNA is 45% associated with British and Irish, followed by 19.1% Ashkenazi, and then 16.1% non-specific Northern European.

That's more like it! Three quarters of my ancestry based on paper records is British, one quarter Jewish, not all of that Ashkenazi. If I revert to the conservative estimates the British and Irish fraction is mostly thrown into the Nonspecific Northern European and Nonspecific European categories. However, the Ashkenazi fraction is only marginally decreased, to 17.3%.

Perhaps the most innovative presentation, called split view, depends on having DNA samples from a parent and child. In my case my mother provided a sample prior to her recent passing. Here's the analysis of my DNA for the speculative estimate at regional resolution.

At this level  22.3% is Northern European from my mother. At sub-regional resolution that breaks down to 11.3% associated with Britain and Ireland ancestry. 18.3% is Ashkenazi. The DNA inferred as inherited from my father is 49% Northern European including 34.4% British and Irish at the sub-regional level.

There's a lot of background information on the 23andMe website. It would be good if there was a clearer statement of the error bound on the percentages. Is 0.3%, or 3%, within the likely bounds of error, to be zero for the various estimates and resolutions?

I suspect this 23andMe improvement to 22 sub-regions was stimulated, at least in part, by the improved geographic resolution being promised by the new Ancestry DNA product. The new Geneographic Project 2.0 offers just nine regions.

Manitoba church records at FamilySearch

A collection of Lutheran, Catholic and Unitarian church records as browse images for Manitoba communities, 1800-1959

Bifrost Municipality
Bifrost Municipality: Arborg
Bifrost Municipality: Arborg, Framnes
Bifrost Municipality: Framnes
Bifrost Municipality: Hnausa
Brochet
Gimli Municipality
St Eustache
St François Xavier Municipality: St François Xavier
Winnipeg

English Architecture and the First World War

An online video lecture , and versions in other media, from Gresham College looking at both the cultural effects of the War and its architectural impact. I particularly enjoyed the first part that explored some little known remains from the period before and during 1914-1918.
This is a part of the lecture series, English Architecture: Into the Modern World.
presented by Simon Thurley. The other lectures in this series are:
Building the Victoria City: Splendour and Squalor
Forwards and Backwards: Architecture in inter-war England
Coming to Terms with Modern Times: English architecture in the post-war era

Urbanism in Britain and Canada

Working on my presentation for WDYTYA Live has prompted investigation of comparative Canadian and UK statistics:

Canada has just over half the population of the UK
Canada's population density is 71 times less than the UK

In both countries 80% of the population is urban.

Based on the 2001 censuses, the major conurbations rank as:

8.2 million - Greater London
2.5 million - Toronto
2.3 million - Birmingham - West Midlands
2.2 million - Manchester
1.5 million - Leeds/Bradford
1.2 million - Glasgow
1.0 million - Montreal
0.9 million - Tyneside
0.8 million - Calgary
0.8 million - Liverpool

Surprised at how many Canadian cities rank in the top 10?

16 Ayrshire burial sites with memorial inscription added to Deceased Online

Deceased Online continues to grow its collection of Scottish memorial inscriptions with the addition of thousands of records in 14 cemeteries, burial grounds and churchyards in Ayrshire

There are now 16 burial sites, dating back to 1611, in the registration county of Ayrshire, East, North and South Ayrshire councils.

Burial grounds and cemeteries in Ayrshire	Earliest Readable Year
Darvel New Cemetery, East Ayrshire	1901
Darvel Old Cemetery, East Ayrshire	1824
Dreghorn Churchyard and New Cemetery, North Ayrshire	1695
Dreghorn Old Cemetery, North Ayrshire	1846
Glaston Cemetery, East Ayrshire	1810
Hawkhill Cemetery, Stevenston, North Ayrshire	1901
Kilmaurs Cemetery, East Ayrshire	1881
Kilmaurs St Maur's Glencairn Parish Church, East Ayrshire	1721
Mauchline Churchyard, East Ayrshire	1717
Muirkirk Cemetery, East Ayrshire	1685
Muirkirk Church, East Ayrshire	1719
Newmilns Cemetery, East Ayrshire	1851
Newmilns Churchyard, East Ayrshire	1666
New Street Cemetery, Stevenston, North Ayrshire	1817
Sorn Churchyard and Cemetery, East Ayrshire	1806
Stevenston High Kirk, North Ayrshire	1611

 

Search these, with more than 200 other sites in Scotland, at www.deceasedonline.com

Also check out www.scottish-monumental-inscriptions.com/

Anglo Celtic Roots: Winter 2012

This latest issue of BIFHSGO's quarterly Chronicle, Anglo Celtic Roots, is out. The major family history research articles in the issue are:
Mamie Wear, a Scot, by Carolyn Emblem recounts the story of her grandmother and delves into some DNA findings.
Life in Saskatoon, 1912, by Andrew Frowd is the second installment of letters describing the life sent from a young married woman, and English immigrant, in Saskatoon.
Tracking Great Uncle Stan, by Brooke Broadbent is a well-written tale providing cautions about interpreting letters from World War I soldiers and how others serving at the same time and place can be helpful.
The BIFHSGO trip to Québec City and Grosse Ile by Irene Kellow Ip is an interesting trip report on this summer's outing by 17 society members and friends.
In addition there are the usual columns from President Glenn Wright, myself, and society librarian Betty Warburton; poetry from Ottawa poet Allan Matthews; plus various news items.

Ottawa Central Archives Video

FMP adds further British Army records

From FindMyPast.co.uk

British Army service records
In addition to the Militia service records 1806-1915 (WO96) and Chelsea Pensioners British Army service records 1760-1913 (WO97) already published on findmypast.co.uk, you can now search the following records as part of our British Army service records 1760-1915 collection:

Royal Hospital, Chelsea: pensioners' discharge documents 1760-1887 (WO121)
Royal Hospital, Chelsea: pensioners' discharge documents, foreign regiments 1816-1817 (WO122)
War Office: Imperial Yeomanry, soldiers' documents, South African War 1899-1902 (WO128)
Royal Hospital, Chelsea: documents of soldiers awarded deferred pensions 1838-1896 (WO131)
The records are made up of soldiers' attestation forms (completed when the soldier joined the army) and discharge papers (filled in when the soldier left the army) and form part of the WO (War Office) series of records held at The National Archives in Kew. The War Office was the precursor of today's Ministry of Defence.

We have scanned and transcribed these records for the very first time for TNA.

These records provide rich information about your ancestors to a level that is difficult to find elsewhere. Each soldier usually has several pages of records – some even have hundreds of pages of records!

The records usually include a combination of the following information:

Biographical information – e.g., name, age, occupation, next of kin details and information about marriage and children
Appearance – including fascinating details, such as height, chest size, complexion, hair and eye colour and distinguishing features like tattoos and scars
Service history – details of date the soldier joined and left the army, his regiment and rank (including a record of any promotions), campaigns fought, medals awarded, medical history and conduct and character observations

Joseph Frederick Farley's physical description when he enlisted in 1900 tells us, among other things, that he had dark grey eyes, light brown hair, a medium complexion and a 'Serpent tattooed on right arm and on left wrist shamrock thistle + rose on left arm'.

The records include soldiers from other ranks, rather than officer class soldiers, unlike many other military resources of this period. This means that you're much more likely to be able to find your ancestors in this collection.

We've also published Royal Hospital, Kilmainham: pensioners' discharge documents 1783-1822 (WO119).

These records contain 41,651 images of discharge documents for 19,109 men for the period 1783-1822 and provide similar information about your ancestor's life, appearance and service history as the British Army service records.

Included in the records are men discharged to pension from English, Scottish and Welsh units, as well as Irish regiments, even though the pensions were administered from the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham near Dublin, as opposed to the Royal Hospital in Chelsea.

London Blitz map

For those of us who had relatives in London during the Blitz, which includes my grandfather, Find out how close he or she came to being one of the 20,000 London fatalities from German bombing. The database includes every bomb dropped on London between 7 October 1940 and 6 June 1941.

Read the Daily Mail article at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2243951/The-astonishing-interactive-map-EVERY-bomb-dropped-London-Blitz.html
or go directly to the site at http://bombsight.org

Several bombs are shown as having fell close to the road where my grandfather lived in Kingsbury, Brent.

Thanks to Gail Dever for the lead.

What's on your Christmas list?

Brenda Turner wrote to me saying she is receiving a subscription to the British Newspaper Archive as a Christmas gift. She's "happy as a clam."
What's on your list as a gift for the deserving family historian?

WDYTYA UK John Bishop episode

The much delayed final episode of the BBC current season of WDYTYA featured British stand up comedian John Bishop. A Canadian connection for his paternal great great grandfather cropped up with a marriage, found in the Drouin collection, in Montreal while he was a bandsman in the British army. Bishop took great delight in finding his ancestor had subsequently been a prominent performer in minstrel shows, even playing in some of the same theatres he has played.

Ancestry updates Liverpool, Lancashire, England, Marriages and Banns, 1813-1921

Liverpool, Lancashire, England, Marriages and Banns, 1813-1921 contains Church of England marriage registers from the Liverpool area of Lancashire. It now has 660,517 records, up from the 199,696 made available last April.
There are links to images of the original records which often duplicate the civil registration after mid-1837. You can also browse by parish and year.

England, Cheshire Parish Registers, 1538-2000

Familysearch.org now have transcriptions of 4.1 million Cheshire parish registers

Cheshire researchers are fortunate. Since June 2010 FamilySearch have added the following Cheshire record sets (number of records) to their collection:

Bishop's Transcripts, 1598-1900 2,180,763
Non-conformist Records, 1671-1900 157,094
Probate Records, 1492-1940 107,290
Workhouse Records, 1848-1967 99,349
Land Tax Assessments, 1778-1832 2,011,948
Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1606-1900 451,783
Register of Electors, 1842-1900 4,332,903
School Records, 1796-1950 435,681

Ancestry, Deceasedonline and FindMyPast all have Cheshire records. UKBMD have a listing of sources for the county.

Farnworth cemetery (Bolton) added at deceasedonline.com

Notice from deceasedonline.com

View Larger Map
All records for Farnworth Cemetery are added to the Bolton, Lancashire, cemeteries collection making nearly 260,000 records available to search.
Farnworth Cemetery records date from its opening in 1876 and the data comprises:
Details of all graves indicating those buried in each grave
Scans of all burial registers
Cemetery maps indicating grave locations
Farnworth Cemetery includes many Victorian and later memorials of prominent Bolton residents as well as 43 war graves from both World Wars
Records for the remaining two cemeteries and Overdale Crematorium will be added very soon.

BIFHSGO December meeting: Great Moments

Join BIFHSGO members, guests and visitors on Saturday, 8 December for the semi-annual Great Moments in Genealogy session, four presentations by society members on highlights of their family history investigations. More on the presentations at www.bifhsgo.ca

That will be preceded at 9am by part two of Jane Down's Before BIFHSGO educational talk: Organize It: Systematic, Safe, Accessible

In the vesibule you will find a Discovery Tables, this month featuring England Resources with John Sayers, Jane Down displaying her Family Binders & Organizational Tools after her talk.

Admission is free; conversation and consultation is free. There is a nominal charge for refreshments.

The event takes place at Library and Archives Canada building, 395 Wellington St.

Coincides with the QFHS meeting posted yesterday.

Bob Campbell RIP

Sad to learn that Bob Campbell, one of the founding members of BIFHSGO, passed away on Tuesday. Read the official obit here.

Commemorating Dave Brubeck

From Take Five, listened to as a teenager, to an Ottawa Jazz Festival concert a couple of years ago, Dave Brubeck's music has been part of my (our) lives. Brubeck passed away today, December 5
Two of my favourites.

Free Irish records

Via Pamela Moore and the Ontario Irish list:

Church of Ireland parish registers of baptisms, marriages and burials online for the parish of Delgany (Glendalough) and vicinity in North Wicklow. The records (together with an index of names) span the years 1666 to 1900. Access is free. The complete Delgany parish registers can also be conveniently downloaded as a pdf. This is a wonderful resource. http://ireland.anglican.org/about/152

Ireland, Registry of Deeds, now have 108,003 index records from 13,151 memorials. Nearly 1200 of these memorials are marriage settlements or related to
marriage settlements.
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~registryofdeeds/index.html

Ireland, Newspaper Extracts, Index, with miscellaneous entries from various Irish newspapers, 1720 to 1865, sorted by family name.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickred/newspaper/index.html

The latter two are from Nick Reddan

QFHS meeting: 8 December

Saturday, December 8, 2012 (Free Public Lecture)
10:30 am to 12:00 pm, Briarwood Presbyterian Church Hall, 70 Beaconsfield Blvd., Beaconsfield
An Insider's View of the Institut généalogique Drouin
Presented by Sébastien Robert

Sébastien Robert, vice-president at the Institut généalogique Drouin, will provide us with a unique opportunity to learn from an insider what the Drouin records offer family historians.

Until the late 1900s, church registers in Quebec were the source of birth, marriage and burial records. Every year, all churches were required to send a copy of their registers to the appropriate courthouse. During the 1940s, these records were filmed by the Institut généalogique Drouin.

Members and non-members are invited to attend and stay afterwards for refreshments and conversation,

Coincides with the BIFHSGO meeting - notice tomorrow.

Belt, braces and DNA archiving

The post yesterday with a suggested method for backing up your genealogical data provoked several responses.

Charlie Godwin emailed me to encourage every attempt to get people to archive their data, but warning that flash drives have a limited life. "You can only write so many times and then poof! Using multiple drives or some other device periodically is good practice."

Personally I use an online service and selective media backups on CDs and flash drives. I also have a gedcom copy with my brother in England and selective parts of my family tree on Ancestry. At present I still have most confidence in the survival of information committed to print and distributed to family members with copies to a physical public archive if possible - lots of copies keep stuff safe.

When will the day come when we will have the option of coding our family history into our DNA? A whole book has already been recorded in DNA http://hms.harvard.edu/content/writing-book-dna. Imagine multiple copies of a family history engraved on various chromosomes, in the regions with no (known) biological function, being automatically passed down to trillions of cells of the body of the next generation.

 

Letter on impact of LAC cuts to interlibrary loan

A letter in the Ottawa Citizen from Tom Schwarzkopf ends:

"Celebrate Canada's past, says the government - but only perhaps what they want emphasized (see: War of 1812). Maybe my work on urban transit isn't on everybody's reading list, but much of that story has never been told either. And now, despite the cuts to my most valuable resource, it will. And my publisher will be required to place several copies in the National Library - to gather dust."

www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Cuts+valuable+resource+leave+books+dust+with+video/7641838/story.html#ixzz2E1OiZlhG

LAC obscures financial situation

Library and Archives Canada, never slow to publicize the latest batch of a dozen or so photos added on their site, have quietly posted their second quarter financial report.

Examined casually it suggests the financial situation is not so grim. Total authorities available for use are $119.7 million compared to $116.7 at the same time the previous year. Available for use is an interesting expression as it turns out that $3.5 million of this year's amount is unavailable to Library and Archives Canada having been clawed back in budget 2012. So 2012-13 authorities in fact available for LAC use are $116.2 million, down half a million from the previous year.

The old term "Indian Giver" comes to mind. To look good maybe next year the government will go further and give an extra $100 to LAC and immediately claw it back leaving it on the books but as an unspendable frozen allotment.

There are details on the impact of the 2012 budget near the end of the document.

"The total cost-saving measures for LAC are $3.5 million in 2012–2013; $6.6 million in 2013–2014; $9.6 million in 2014–2015 and ongoing."

"Budget for acquisitions: The $0.4 million dedicated budget to purchase documents and special collections was eliminated. In future, these purchases will be made within LAC's regular investment decision process based on available resources."

"National Archival Development Program (NADP): The NADP was terminated in Budget 2012 and certain wind-down costs were incurred in 2012–2013."

"Reduced spending related to the five other LAC programs affected by Budget 2012 impacts salaries due to workforce reduction."

LAC continues the shell game of moving activities around making it difficult to compare year to year.

In a section on Risks and Uncertainties we learn that: "With the advent of new technologies, LAC faces another operational risk: the overabundance of documentary heritage." LAC management should be welcoming "the advent of new technologies" as an opportunity, not a risk. Libraries and Archives have always had to be selective in what they collect.

In a section on Significant Changes ... we read that "LAC regrouped the modernization innovation initiatives into six organizational priorities ... with changes to titles that reflect the progress to full-scale implementation."

These are:

1. LAC will begin to implement a new service delivery model to improve access to its holdings;

How does the elimination of interlibrary loan improve access?

2. LAC will develop and implement a whole-of-society model to frame appraisal and acquisition decisions;

How does the model help if there are no funds for non-governmental acquisitions?

3 LAC will adopt a more collaborative approach to fulfilling its mandate;

How does eliminating the NADP help collaboration?

4. LAC will review how it describes and organizes its information resources to improve content distribution and access;

Will the review result in any positive action?

5. LAC will adapt how it manages its holdings;

Hasn't been doing that all along?

6. LAC will adopt a new model for internal operations and will ensure that its workforce has appropriate skills to deliver on its mandate.

How is that consistent with eliminating virtually all specialists.

It's the season to indulge

That's the heading on an email from Air Canada. Similar sentiments are flooding in from all points hoping to take advantage of seasonal largess excess, including genealogy companies. Tom Lehrer had the season pegged.

Simple backup for genealogical data

The following backup tip comes from BIFHSGO colleague Ken McKinlay.

For backing up just my genealogy data I use a 16 GB USB memory stick and a free program called Syncback. I've setup the task in Syncback to only synchronize the changed data going from my desktop computer to the memory stick. It is quick (1-5 minutes usually) and painless to run ... plug in memory stick, and a couple of clicks later my data is backed up. I then take that memory stick to my laptop and sync that information on the stick to the drive on my laptop so that I have current information on my laptop.

There are paid version of Synback, SE and Pro, but Ken advises that the free version works just fine for simple synchronizing of information.

Once you've backed up check to make sure you can recover your files or its all a big waste of time and resources.

Relative economic value

A previous post on the topic got considerable attention, who isn't interested in money?

The Welsh Genealogy book by Bruce Durie has a short section on relative values. Calculators at the Economic History Services website, www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppoweruk/ are recommended.

By coincidence BIFHSGO colleague Barbara Tose wrote suggesting looking at a site from the Economic History Association http://eh.net/hmit.

Certainly monetary conversion across the ages is not an exact science and changes in technology mean comparing the prices of different products, even commodities, across the years can lead to vastly different conclusions.

Book Review: Welsh Genealogy

Welsh Genealogy
Bruce Durie
288 pages (pb), Kindle edition
Publisher: The History Press Ltd (13 Nov 2012)
ISBN-10: 0752465996
ISBN-13: 978-0752465999
Cover Price: £17.99

If asked who had written a new book on Welsh genealogy I doubt many people would have Bruce Durie near the top of the list. He's well known for his book Scottish Genealogy, now in its third edition, and as former Course Director for Genealogical Studies at the University of Strathclyde. I enjoyed a presentation he gave "Inheritance in Scotland – testaments and retours", at TNA last year. It's available as a podcast. Scotland yes, but Wales?

You can see Durie's plan of attack in the table of contents:

Preface

1. An Introduction to Genealogical Research 
2. The Welsh – A Genealogist’s Perspective 
3. Welsh Surnames 
4. Administrative Areas and Local Records 
5. The Welsh Censuses of 1841 to 1911 
6. Statutory Registers of Birth, Marriage and Death Post-1855 
7. Parish Registers Pre-1837 
8. Nonconformist and Other Church Records 
9. Welsh Emigration and Immigration 
10. Taxation and Representation 
11. Welsh Heraldry 
12. Dates, Money and Measure 
13. Occupations and Professions 
14. Military Records 
15. Welsh Language for Genealogy 
16. Organising Your Research 
17. Degrees of Kinship 

Envoi
Index

Things are approached very much from a Scottish genealogical perspective with considerable detail on Scottish records and how they differ from the Welsh/English. It gets a bit much. A chapter heading mentions "after 1855" which has no significance for Wales but is when civil registration started in Scotland. The are more than 100 pages mentioned in the index for Scotland or Scottish.

Durie gets carried away in areas that seem to particularly interest him; 33 pages on Welsh Heraldry, the second longest chapter, seems excessive.

The longest chapter, on the census, introduces a case study which is carried on later in the book and helps draw resources together.

Canada or Canadian are mentioned on 18 pages but if you're looking for insight into the Welsh in Canada this is not the resource. The chapter on Welsh Emigration and Immigration to Canada rates a quarter page, America (the US) 5 1/2 pages, Australia 6 pages and Patagonia half a page.

He also ventures into areas rather unusual for a genealogy book, including units of measure, coins and currency. It makes the treatment a bit of a miscellany, fun to browse in the same way as the Guinness Book of World Records.

If you can accept the approach and despite problems which should have been fixed in editing, the treatment is comprehensive and content sound.

The book is not due for release in North American until February, but can be ordered directly from the publisher The History Press for mailing anywhere.

Curiosity on Wellington

The Supreme Court of Canada is a source for Interlibrary Loans, but Library and Archives Canada isn't! That's supposed to be what's libraries do, but LAC is now competing in a different field, by providing (bad) judgement!

 

http://micheladrien.blogspot.ca/2012/12/supreme-court-of-canada-new-library.html

Ancient human occupation of Britain

From the BBC: Eight times humans came to try to live in Britain and on at least seven occasions they failed - beaten back by freezing conditions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5317762.stm

NGS conference 2013

Take a chance. Sometimes you need to step outside familiar territory. There`s a conference off the beaten path for most readers of this blog, the (US) National Genealogical Society 2013 Family History Conference to be held at The LVH-Las Vegas Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, 8–11 May 2013.

The program is now available with many speakers returning from previous conferences, and some surprises. Browse the program here. Registration is now open at early-bird rates.

 

Good news on unregistered Ontario cemeteries

A post on the Ontario Genealogical Society blog gives what appears to be good news, more than 1500 unregistered cemeteries across the province look set to receive the protection of registration.
Read the details at http://www.ogs.on.ca/ogsblog/?p=2613

For your seasonal gift list

Preparations for Christmas and other seasonable celebrations are underway. Shopping centre parking lots are becoming the "traditional" seasonal nightmare. People are shopping online in ever increasing numbers. It's time to post the annual Anglo-Celtic Connections list of best sellers from Global Genealogy.

Sandra Roberts tells me their very best seller this year has been the Flip Pal Scanner and Case. http://globalgenealogy.com/software/flip-pal/index.htm

 

For books this year's list has a focus on UK items.

No. 1 –Dictionary of Scottish Settlers to Canada before 1869. (Consistently a best seller) http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/canada/general/resources/221004.htm

 

No 2 – Tracing Your English Ancestors from 1066 to 1837 http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/england/resources/105063.htm

 

No. 3 – Tracing Your ancestors in the British West Indies by John Titford. http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/england/resources/334227.htm

 

No. 4 – Cary’s Atlas on CDROM http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/england/general/101cd016.htm

 

No. 5 – John Grenham’s Tracing Irish Ancestors/4th Edition http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/ireland/resources/2182385.htm

 

No. 6 – Ulster Source Book http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/ireland/resources/973014.htm

 

No. 7 – Lowlands of Scotland http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/scotland/resources/973015.htm

 

No. 8 – Old County Maps of England 1836 ( on CDROM) http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/england/resources/101005.htm

 

No. 9 – Tracing Your Family History on the Internet by Chris Paton http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/england/resources/105048.htm

 

No. 10 - Tracing Your Scottish Ancestors, A Guide for Family Historians, by Ian Maxwell http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/scotland/resources/105071.htm


Sandra and Rick were also keen on "excellent materials" from Ian Maxwell and Chris Paton." For Ian Maxwell especially Tracing Your Irish Ancestors and Tracing your Northern Irish ancestors. For Chris Paton, his books on Scottish Church and Scottish Land Records are excellent as well."

Benchmarks update for November 2012

Here are some benchmarks for genealogy sites as of 30 November 2012. Comparable figures a month ago are shown in brackets. The higher the Alexa ranking the more popular the site. With two exceptions every site mentioned has a lower Alexa rank (less popular); www.familytreedna.com and www.cyndislist.com managed to buck the trend.

Familysearch.org has 1,373 (1,306) record collections: census & lists 117 (118); birth, marriage, & death 839 (813); probate & court 126 (109); military 100 (98); migration & naturalization 67 (67); other 124 (101). It has Alexa rank 4,689 (4,312).

Ancestry.com has Alexa rank of 635 (612); ancestry.co.uk ranks 7,005 (6,661) and ancestry.ca 32,157 (27,943). There are 31,308 (31,035) datasets in the collections including 1,939 (1,934) for Canada, 1,691 (1,451) for the UK and, 25,030 (25,008) for the USA.

Findmypast.co.uk has an Alexa rank of 22,166 (20,822). Findmypast.com ranks 77,362 (72,103).

Family Tree DNA has 399,775 (396,357) records in its database. It ranks 30,819 (33,092) on Alexa. 23andMe ranks 36,074 (34,464).

GenealogyinTime.com ranks 32,399 (27,533); Mocavo.com has rank 43,256 (40,982)

Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk celebrates 6,011,380 (5,878,403) pages digitized, 4,432 (4,427) pages per day. Alexa rank 138,232 (136,925).

Cyndislist.com claims 325,441 (325,094) total links in 192 (191) categories, with 1,801 (1,803) uncategorized. Alexa rank 73,900 (75,639) .

FreeBMD has 223,319,729 (221,265,710) distinct records, Alexa rank 71,576 (63,562).

UKBMD provides 2,369 (2,368) links to web sites that offer on-line transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and censuses. Alexa rank 258,900 (237,350).

CanadianHeadstones.com has over 528,000 (508,000) gravestone photo records from across Canada. It scores 623,601 (431,454) in Alexa traffic rank. The Canadian Gravemarker Gallery, with over 680,000 (663,000) photographs from across Canada, ranks 659,400 (519,431).

bifhsgo.ca ranks 1,035,279 (781,685). qfhs.ca ranks 2,245,656 (2,157,321), ogs.on.ca 178,241 (169,048).

And in case you're curious: while Anglo-Celtic Connections had more visitors in November than since January, and has 4,156 (4,033) posts, It continues to sink in Alexa rank to 229,950 (215,121).

Did I miss something significant? If so please post a comment with statistics.

1,387 genealogists from 1907 and their interests

Consider this a Directory Day coda: check out The International Genealogical Directory, 1907 compiled by Charles A Bernau, of Bernau Index fame. The digitized version is on the Internet Archive via the Allen County Public Library.

Bernau wrote 7,200 letters and received 1,387 responses resulting in entries in this directory, plus a few unusual responses on which he comments in the opening pages.

The volume is in six Parts.
1. Names and addresses, and sometimes interests, of nearly 1.400 genealogists, both amateur and professional, the majority residing in Britain and the US, but also Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and elsewhere.
2. Surnames of nearly 4.500 families, about which those who are named in
Part I. either possess or desire information.
3. Nearly 300 "Genealogical Queries and Memoranda."
4. The Antiquarian Societies of Ireland, the North of France, and the Channel Islands, with a list of the Officers of Arms for the United Kingdom.
5. Particulars of a few publications of which their respective authors
have surplus copies to dispose in exchange.
6. A list of privately-printed Family Histories and Pedigrees received from January 1, 1905 to the printing deadline.

Moore on LAC

Concern remains about the direction of Library and Archives Canada. This is well expressed in a lengthy letter to Minister Moore from the Bibliographical Society of Canada here (pdf)

On Thursday in Question Period Heritage Minister James Moore answered a question on LAC.

Mr. Pierre Nantel (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, NDP):  
    Mr. Speaker, what we are hearing on the news makes us wonder if the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages is already on Christmas break. It would not be surprising because there is nothing on the government's legislative agenda, no proposals, nothing.
    The TVA network is reporting that not a single management position will be among the 200 positions cut at Library and Archives Canada. Some managers will even receive bonuses and promotions. It is unacceptable to see the minister wash his hands of this.
    How can the minister allow Library and Archives Canada to cut all these positions and public access?
 
Hon. James Moore (Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, CPC):  
    Mr. Speaker, I saw the news on the TVA network. Quite frankly, the allegations are absolutely false.
    If my colleague would like to learn more about what is happening at Library and Archives Canada, I urge him to invite Daniel J. Caron to the heritage committee. We could certainly discuss this matter. What we are doing is reinvesting in order to open the doors of Library and Archives Canada to more Canadians than ever before and give them access to its services and contents. We will continue with this work in order to improve the situation for all Canadians.

By inviting the heritage committee to call Caron, rather than offering to appear himself supported by Caron, the Minister continues to 'wash his hands" of the issues as pointed out by M. Nantel.

At a hearing by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage later in the day M. Nantel indicated he would be raising the question of M Caron appearing in an in-camera session of the committee, one followed immediately after the Minister's appearance. Whether the Conservative majority on the committee will permit this is to be seen.

For the record, on Tuesday Minister Moore introduced Bill C-49 "An Act to amend the Museums Act in order to establish the Canadian Museum of History"

The Bill states that "The purpose of the Canadian Museum of History is to enhance Canadians’ knowledge, understanding and appreciation of events, experiences, people and objects that reflect and have shaped Canada’s history and identity, and also to enhance their awareness of world history and cultures."

While the initiative changes the emphasis of the museum in maintains a broader view than Canadian history as was present in the predecessor Museum of Civilization. Had the proposal been to rename it the Museum of Canadian History I'd have been concerned. In my view this is a change to support.