Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Aren't you glad Spring has arrived? Prospects are we'll have the opportunity to be vaccinated sooner rather than later. Things are looking brighter.

Zoom Escaper: a free web widget that lets you add an array of fake audio effects to your next Zoom call in case you need an escape route.

Advance Notice: Archives Association of Ontario East - Virtual Tour: Ingenium Archives, the
Port Hope Archives, and the City of Ottawa Archives
Thursday 9 April.

White Slavery: the Scottish slaves of England and Americas

BIFHSGO Conference Update. The first week of conference registration has been very successful with triple-digit registrants from as far away as Australia and the UK. Registrations have come in from across Canada and the United States, with five provinces (BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec) and 11 states represented.

How the West Lost COVID
A long article from The Intelligencer. This extract particularly struck me and the parallels to addressing climate change.

On March 13, 2020, Mike Ryan, WHO’s executive director of health emergencies, took the podium at a Geneva press conference and delivered in just a minute what is, to me, probably the most chilling and illuminating speech of the entire pandemic. Asked what lessons from a career fighting outbreaks of Ebola were called to mind by the arrival of COVID-19, Ryan replied with terse, cinematic force. “What we’ve learned through the Ebola outbreaks is you need to react quickly. You need to go after the virus. You need to stop the chains of transmission. You need to engage with communities very deeply — community acceptance is hugely important. You need to be coordinated, you need to be coherent.”

When it came to this pandemic, he said, speaking in a clipped Irish lilt, the lessons were the same: “Be fast. Have no regrets. You must be the first mover. The virus will always get you if you don’t move quickly.” He continued, “If you need to be right before you move, you will never win. Perfection is the enemy of the good when it comes to emergency management. Speed trumps perfection. And the problem in society we have at the moment is everyone is afraid of making a mistake, everyone is afraid of the consequence of error. But the greatest error is not to move. The greatest error is to be paralyzed by the fear of failure.”

Thanks to this week's contributors: Alison-Vancouver, Anonymous, Bob H, BT, Btyclk, Celia Lewis, Chris Paton, Dibry, Ed Chadwick, Gail B, Jean, Jean A. P., Joyce M Butcher, Kenneth R Marks, Linda Stufflebean, Lynn, Nancy, Norm Prince, Paul Milner, Peggy Homans Chapman, reflective thoughts by Barbara, romaine, Unknown

Ancestry Updates Bristol, England, Non-Conformist Baptism, Marriage and Burial Registers, 1644-1981

Incomplete, with information provided varying by denomination, the 413,736 records in this collection include Roman Catholic, Methodist, Quaker, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Congregationalist, Baptist, Unitarian, and other denominations.

The previous update was a year ago, mentioned on 11 March 2020 on this blog when there were 409,374 records in the collection.

LAC and Canada's Sad Newspaper Digitization Situation

"Canada, unlike many other countries (for example Chronicling America in the United States and Trove in Australia), does not have a national newspaper digitization program. With the lack of such a program, public libraries, historical societies, provincial and local archives, as well as university libraries and archives, are left to fill the void, digitizing their local newspapers, often in piece-meal fashion. In doing so, Canadian institutions face many challenges, such as copyright and permissions issues. Individual institutions do their best to manage these issues, but do not necessarily have the expertise that is often required. Lack of funding is also a constant challenge. Canada lags far behind places like the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia for funding newspaper digitization, and most projects in Canada have relied on one-time grants, volunteers, and non-government contributions to move forward."

That's a paragraph from a Heritage Content Priorities Task Group report to the Canadian Research Knowledge Network.

It's from a section of the report, starting on page 8, Environmental Scan of Newspaper Digitization mentioning a number of challenges, including:

A further obstacle lies in simply trying to discover what has been digitized and what has not. There is no national inventory or index and the most comprehensive listing, by province, of both free and subscription sites is on a US-based genealogy website called The Ancestor Hunt. With no national index, it is often challenging for organizations to avoid duplicating digitization efforts.

The sad situation in Canada is a result of many years, particularly since the amalgamation of the National Library and Public Archives, when the leadership given to the Federal government under the 1985 federal-provincial agreement, the Decentralized Program for Canadian Newspapers, was deliberately abandoned.

Newspapers are mentioned in two recommendations of the report:

1. The Canadiana Collections should be enhanced with 1) content that is more reflective of the diversity of Canadians; 2) at risk materials; 3) high interest archival collections; and 4) newspapers. CRKN should consider focusing its efforts in these areas through the creation of collection development strategies developed in collaboration with members.

4. It is recommended that CRKN work collaboratively with Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) and Library and Archives Canada and other major organizations (OurDigitalWorld, Internet Archive Canada) on solutions to enable digitization, access, and digital preservation of newspapers.

I wish I could be more encouraged by these two recommendations, but there have been numerous previous studies and recommendations all of which have come to nought -- paralysis by analysis. 

More of the same? The report mentions — Library and Archives Canada is currently working on a newspaper strategy with national implications.

OGS Toronto Branch Meeting on Monday evening

On Monday at 7:30 pm Toronto Branch of OGS  welcomes genealogist and historian Dan Buchanan to tell the story of the HMS Speedy: Tragedy and Mystery. In October 1804, a British gunboat disappeared in a storm on Lake Ontario near Presqu’ile Point south of Brighton, and all 20 on board were lost. To this day, the circumstances surrounding this tragic chapter in the history of Upper Canada remain shrouded in mystery. Why did the ship set sail to begin with? Who were the people on board and what were their family connections? That's followed by a short presentation on Why you should paint your chromosomes by Linda Reid. Further information and registration at https://torontofamilyhistory.org/event/hms-speedy/

Findmypast Weekly Update: Ireland and Leicestershire

Ireland, Dublin Guinness Brewery Employees

There are 8,697 records in this title typically giving name, occupation, birth date, age joined, date joined, department and date left. The source is https://www.guinness-storehouse.com/en/archives/archives-genealogy

Clare Poor Law Unions Board of Guardians Minute Books

Over 500,000 records added to this County Clare collection. The records include all the surviving Board of Guardians minute books from the Corofin (1850-1922), Ennis (1849-1877 with many gaps, 1883-1922), Ennistymon (1839-1924) and Kilrush (1848-1923) unions, four of eight poor law unions located in County Clare. 

Leicestershire Parish Records

Privacy rules have allowed the release of another tranche of baptism, marriage, banns and burial records from churches across Leicestershire.

Baptisms are added for 212 out of 307 parishes for a new total of 1.22 million records. Records are typically from 1572 to 1921. 

Banns are added for 130 out of 282 parishes for a new total of 335 thousand records. Records are typically from 1754 to 1935.

Marriages are added for 139 out of 306 parishes for a new total of 709 thousand records. Records are typically from 1574 to 1935.

Burials are added for 23 out of 287 parishes for a new total of 837 thousand records. Records are typically from 1570 to 1970.

Co-Lab Updates for March

Here's my monthly Library and Archives Canada progress report on its Co-Lab Challenges since last month.

John Freemont Smith is 2% complete and is a new challenge. 

The late 19th century saw thousands of people flock to British Columbia, but few were as remarkable as John Freemont Smith. With an enthusiasm for his new home and a determination to succeed, he flourished as a businessperson, a municipal and federal official, and a civic volunteer. His accomplishments were all the more outstanding given that he was a Black man in a white settler community. He endured racism throughout his life while also earning respect and admiration from his contemporaries. Library and Archives Canada holds many records relating to Smith’s work as the Agent for the Kamloops Agency from 1912 to 1923, and a selection of these documents has been prepared as a Co-Lab challenge. 

Read the LAC blog post about him and you'll be amazed he's not in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.

There are 90 images available in total.

War Diaries of the First World War: No. 2 Construction Battalion is 38% complete, 26% last month.

Canadian National Land Settlement Association remains 94% complete.

Molly Lamb Bobak remains 86% complete.

Diary of François-Hyacinthe Séguin remains 98% complete.

George Mully: moments in Indigenous communities remains 2% complete.
There are 297 images available for tagging by those who recognize someone or a location, or know when an event took place.

Correspondence regarding First Nations veterans returning after the First World War remains 99% complete.

Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 is 96% complete, 84% complete last month.

Legendary Train Robber and Prison Escapee Bill Miner remains 99% complete.

Japanese-Canadians: Second World War, remains 61% complete.

The Call to Duty: Canada's Nursing Sisters remains 94% complete.

Projects that remain 100% complete are no longer reported here.

Prominent Women: NOT

Another post today refers to the Dictionary of Irish Biography now online. Digging into the advanced search I found there were articles for 9,515 men and 1,116 women, or about 9 to 1.

The Dictionary of Canadian Biography has 16,572 men and 1,118 women, about 15 to 1.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has 64,471 men and 9,265 women, about 7 to 1. 

The Australian Dictionary of Biography has 11,679 men and 1,681 women, 7 to 1

There appears to be no gender search in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography

American National Biography has 19,206 men and 3,583 women, 5 to 1.

You may have come a long way ladies, but you've still got a long way to go.

The Dictionary of Irish Biography

Now online for free, an authoritative reference work of nearly 11,000 lives for scholars of Irish history, society and culture. 

Although it's unlikely you'll find your relative there will almost certainly be somebody from a place of interest to be found using the full-text advanced search.

Check out locations in your family history. Bunclody where I stayed for a vacation has seven mentions, Kilkeel where I may have ancestry has 13.  Look further afield too. There are 44 entries mentioning Ottawa.

https://www.dib.ie/

Kirk Session Records on ScotlandsPeople

News from ScotlandsPeople on long-awaited kirk session records.
Around 6,000 unindexed volumes have just been released. Others are promised. They're free to view, cost 2 credits to download. 

Thousands of volumes of historical records from the collections of National Records of Scotland (NRS) are now available online for the first time.

Images of more than a million pages from the kirk session and other court records of the Church of Scotland can now be viewed and downloaded on ScotlandsPeople. These records contain details of key events in communities across the country between 1559 and 1900 and are one of the most important sources for Scottish historical research.

The kirk session - the local court of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland - comprised the minister, the elders and a session clerk. The records they created offer remarkable insights into the everyday lives of ordinary Scots, capturing important moments such as births, marriages and deaths. The church court also adjudicated on the paternity of children, awarded relief to the poor and needy and provided basic education, as well as disciplining parishioners for what could be called anti-social behaviour – drunkenness, cursing and breaking the Sabbath. The most commonly known punishment was public repentance or penance. 

The newly added records document how people dealt with exceptional historical events such as wars, epidemics, crop failures and extreme weather.

They are not simple to use. The best way in is via the Virtual Volumes portal at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/virtual-volumes. Read the full announcement at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/article/news-article-virtual-volumes-records-released and take advantage of the other extensive information on these records on the site.

O/T: Hope in a Time of Pandemic

The most recent issue of the semi-annual Canadian Studies from The Association for Canadian Studies is Hope in a Time of Pandemic – Selected presentations from the Stories of Hope : A Celebration of Canada Conference.

In his welcoming remarks, Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault mentions the importance of sharing our life experiences, something that's not news to family historians but bears repeating.

Here's the table of contents.

INTRODUCTION
BUILDING BONDS IN THE MIDST OF SOLITUDE Miriam Taylor
WELCOME REMARKS The Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage
OPENING ADDRESS: SPEAKING THE TRUTH FOR A NEW BEGINNING The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean
RENEWAL Charles Taylor

INSPIRATION FROM IMMIGRATION: STORIES OF COURAGE AND HOPE
THE NOMADIC OLYMPIAN Mohammed Ahmed
FROM REFUGEE TO ECO-INNOVATOR Can Nguyen
INCARNATING THE MESSAGE The Honourable Jean Augustine
NEVER-ENDING LEARNING Major Samson Young

LEARNING FROM HISTORY: TRANSCENDING THE PAST, TRANSFORMING THE FUTURE
A BATTLE WON FOR LGBTQ+ RIGHTS Michelle Douglas
RESOURCES OF HOPE Jean Teillet
PROMOTING BLACK HISTORY: A PERSONAL JOURNEY SHARED Rosemary Sadlier
HOPE IN ADVERSITY: A WELL-TRAVELLED JOURNEY Senator Wanda Thomas Elaine Bernard

BUILDING THE CANADA OF TOMORROW: YOUTH MAKING A DIFFERENCE TODAY
THE OPTIMISM OF CANADIAN YOUTH IN A HOPELESS PANDEMIC Ashley Manuel
INTERGENERATIONAL SOLIDARITY: THE PANDEMIC’S SILVER LINING Ilona Dougherty
GENERATION ZED: LEADING THE WAY TOWARD AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE Deborah Morrison
CONNECTING YOUTH AND BREAKING THE DIVIDE Abhayjeet and Sukhmeet Singh Sachal 

Ancestry Updates

Two recent updates at Ancestry.

The 1939 England and Wales Register now has 45,915,027entries. In Dccember 2018 when first added there were 45,876,575 entries. That must reflect those who have subsequently died or passed their 100th birthday. Interestingly the Findmypast version, which pioneered this title, has 42,067,384 entries.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, RMS Titanic Fatality Reports, 1912 now has 328 entries.

St Patrick's Day and Irish Newspapers

The British Newspaper Archives put in a special effort leading up to St Patrick's Day to add Irish papers to the collection. Here are the additions.

TITLE	DATE RANGE
Belfast Weekly Telegraph	1873-1893, 1895-1922
Cashel Gazette and Weekly Advertiser	1865-1866, 1868-1887, 1889-1893
Evening Irish Times	1880-1895
Evening News (Dublin)	1859-1862
Bassett's Chronicle	1863-1884
Drogheda Conservative	1889, 1897-1908
Mayo Examiner and West of Ireland Agricultural and Commercial Reporter and Advertiser	1868-1882, 1884, 1886-1903
Fermanagh Times	1881-1886, 1888, 1891-1900
General Advertiser for Dunlin and all Ireland	1837-1841, 1846-1852, 1856-1866, 1874, 1885, 1897-1923
Ulster Football and Cycling News	1888-1896

St George's Day is coming!

Anglo-Celtic Roots, Spring 2021

The new issue of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa quarterly chronicle, Anglo-Celtic Roots arrived in the mail on Monday and is online behind the members-only firewall. It's a special themed issue, something the society rarely does, to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the arrival in Canada of war brides who constituted the largest cohort of immigrants that year. The articles are:

Canada’s War Brides: Love and Marriage in Times of Uncertainty, by Glenn Wright
Mary Imhoff, the War Bride on Our Family Tree, by Carol Annett
Researching WW II British War Brides to Canada, by John D. Reid
War Brides of the First World War, by Glenn Wright and John D. Reid

Further war bride stories will be published in the next issue, that's in addition to the ten online in a special section on the Society website at
 https://bifhsgo.ca/upload/files/Research/War_Brides/War_Brides.pdf

What do you think of special issues? Do you want broader coverage in each? Should BIFHSGO use its quarterly chronicle to recognize special anniversaries with occasional themed issues?

Additions to FamilySearch Indexed Records

This week's update on FamilySearch Indexing for Canada and the UK sees a huge addition, over 200,000 records, to Cambridgeshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1538-1983.

Collection	Newly Indexed	Total Indexed
Canada, Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001	1,435	209,584
England, Cambridgeshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1538-1983	200,954	847,077
England, Essex Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1971	1,108	96,139
England, Gloucestershire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1642-1996	4	129,330
England, Herefordshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1583-1898	13,580	1,314,904
England, Hertfordshire, Marriage Bonds, 1682-1837	318	1,513
England, Lancashire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1746-1799	68	320
England, Lincolnshire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1574-1885	1,323	68,451
England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988	37,667	1,557,941
England, Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1920	4,329	297,127

This Week's Online Genealogy Events

Choose from free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Assume registration in advance is required. Check so you're not disappointed.

Reminder: Gene-O-Rama is coming soon. Don't miss it!

Tuesday 16 March, noon: Using the Census for Family History, by Myko Clelland for Findmypast. www.facebook.com/findmypast.

Tuesday 16 March, noon: Ask and Irish Expert, with Joe Buggy for Ancestry. https://www.facebook.com/AncestryCA

Tuesday 16 March 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 16 March 2:30 pm: Introduction to Irish Internet Sites, by David Rencher for the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/4913183

Tuesday 16 March 8 pm: Reporting on Research: Standards Encourage Better Communication, by Nancy A Peters for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. 
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1586

Wednesday 17 March, noon: St Patrick;s Day: Irish Genealogy Q/A, with Brian Donovan and Fiona Fitzsimons for Findmypast. www.facebook.com/findmypast

Wednesday 17 March 2 pm: FamilySearch.org - 10 Links You Have to Try, by Devin Ashby for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1650

Thursday 18 March 2 pm: Nurse Ratched: Evil Nurses, by Joanna Bourke for Gresham College. 
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/evil-nurses

Thursday 18 March 6:30 pm: A Lonely Voyage: Late 19th Century Irish Immigrant Women in the United States, by Elizabeth Hodges for the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/4907467

Friday 19 March 2 pm: Tracing Your War of 1812 British Soldier, by Paul Milner for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1663

Friday 19 March 7 pm: The Doan Gang: my notorious ancestors, by Janet Hodgkins for Niagara Branch OGS. https://niagara.ogs.on.ca/events/the-doan-gang-my-notorious-ancestors/

Saturday 20 March 10 am: Getting to Know TONI, The Ontario Name Index, by Mike More for Kingston Branch OGS. https://kingston.ogs.on.ca/

Saturday 20 March 1 pm: DNA, Law Enforcement and Your Privacy, by Terry Maurice for Quinte Branch OGS. https://quinte.ogs.on.ca/2021/03/12/march-20-dna-law-enforcement-privacy/

Advance Notice: The 2nd Annual 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon hosted by FamilyTreeWebinars.com and MyHeritage is announced - April 8-9, 2021. For once Canada is not overlooked. https://news.legacyfamilytree.com/legacy_news/2021/03/announcing-the-2nd-annual-24-hour-genealogy-webinar-marathon-april-8-9-2021-registration-now-open-an.html

Monday Memories: Money

You come home from a holiday or business trip with a few bills in your wallet. 

Some aren't worth the trip to the exchange bureau, some you keep in the hope you'll return, or just as souvenirs. 

They pile up in the container where you throw them.

Occasionally you take them out, along with the coins and tokens you accumulated. That's all it takes for the memories to flood back.

Last Day for Gene-O-Rama Early Bird Rates

Save a few shekels by taking advantage of Ottawa Branch OGS Gene-O-Rama discount registration rates. It's just two weeks away, 27-28 March and virtual for the first time. Here's the program.

Saturday
08:30	Update from Library & Archives Canada	Lisa Tremblay-Goodyer
09:00	Pat Horan Memorial Lecture
Successful Collateral and Cluster Searching	Thomas MacEntee
10:00
Break & Browse Marketplace
10:20	Silver Spoons and Short Straw: British Immigrants to Canada	John Reid and Glenn Wright
11:20
Lunch Break & Browse Marketplace
12:15	Strategies to Analyze Endogamous DNA	Alec Ferretti
01:15
Break & Browse Marketplace
01:35	All Kinds of Loyalists	Kathryn Lake Hogan
02:35
Break & Browse Marketplace
02:55	Genetic Genealogy Tools	Mags Gaulden
Sunday
10:00	Opening
10:30	Uncommon Websites to Help Your Research	Lianne Kruger
11:30
Lunch Break & Browse Marketplace
12:10	Irish Research Methodology	Donna Moughty
01:10
Break & Browse Marketplace
01:30	Female Ancestors	Gena Philibert-Ortega
02:30	Live Chat with our Vendors
03:00	Closing

Canada's Anglo Celtic Connections 15th Anniversary

Today, 14 March 2021, is the 15th anniversary of the start of this blog. I wrote about Library Elf for the first post and still get notifications about OPL books coming available and due for return.

I'd hoped to have a new edition of the blog, moving to WordPress in time for this anniversary. Now I'm aiming to get there in April. Meanwhile, you get to see a preview of the header.

Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Birdcast: US bird migration forecast maps and alerts. It doesn't extend to Canada. For Ottawa try Ogdensburg, NY.

Genome-wide association study in almost 195,000 individuals identifies 50 previously unidentified genetic loci for eye color. "Our findings collectively explain 53.2% ... of eye color variation using common single-nucleotide polymorphisms. Overall, our study outcomes demonstrate that the genetic complexity of human eye color considerably exceeds previous knowledge and expectations, highlighting eye color as a genetically highly complex human trait."

England’s Protestant Reformation: A Gresham College video.

OGS/Ontario Ancestors Weekly Update: Everyone can get a Saturday morning email brimming with a wide-range of genealogy news and happenings, with an Ontario flavour. It's free. Go to https://ogs.on.ca/ and scroll down to find the link to subscribe on the left-hand side.

Thanks to this week's contributors: Anonymous, BT, Btyclk, Celtictwigs, Elizabeth Vincent, Gwen Harris, Helen B, Unknown

New Records from London, Yorkshire and India on Findmypast

London Fire Brigade Reports 1915-1918

These 5,042 intriguing records, transcriptions painstakingly copied from the original reports, reveal the damage caused by bombs in London during World War 1, along with the names and addresses of those involved.

Many entries, notably commercial buildings, have no personal names. Try a search for a road or borough of interest.

Yorkshire Monumental Inscriptions

Records, spanning nine centuries of Yorkshire history are added to this collection. The parishes with  additions are:

Riding	Place	Year from	Year to	Number of records
Yorkshire (Ainsty & City of York)	Copmanthorpe	1740	2008	497
Yorkshire (Ainsty & City of York)	Dringhouses	1798	1992	996
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Haxby	1784	1994	437
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Newton on Ouse	1735	1994	877
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Rufforth	1726	1992	307
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Slingsby Cemetery	1889	1992	312
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Sutton on the Forest	1689	2001	154
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Sutton on the Forest	1852	2012	941
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Thormanby	1798	1991	174
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Thorp Arch	1280	2016	585
Yorkshire (North Riding)	Welburn	1806	2007	428
Yorkshire (West Riding)	Cotton Stones	1833	1994	1574
Yorkshire (West Riding)	Halifax	1614	2003	17593
Yorkshire (West Riding)	Heptonstall	1897	2016	1511
Yorkshire (West Riding)	Heptonstall	1607	2008	6503
Yorkshire (West Riding)	Southowram	1806	2005	1953
Yorkshire (West Riding)	Sowerby	1658	2018	8345
Yorkshire (West Riding)	Soyland	1819	2000	637

The total collection is now 261,917 records.

British India Office Life Events

Explore new births and baptisms from 1921 and marriages from 1937. The exclusive British India Office collection also includes deaths and burials, army and navy pensions, wills and probate, and assistant surgeon records. The total collection is 1,193,450 records.

MyHeritage Opens Irish Records Until 18 March

For St Patrick's Day MyHeritage becomes MyO'Heritage by offering free access to all its Irish records.

The Irish record collection includes around 14 million records of all kinds: census records, vital records, directories, wills, and much more. 

The titles with over 1 million records are the 1901 and 1911 censuses, Ireland Marriages, 1619-1898 and Ireland, Griffith's Valuation, 1847-1864.

Included are 120 million family tree profiles with Irish heritage.

FreeBMD March Update and Pandemic Impact

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Thursday 11 March 2021 to contain 279,220,849 unique records (278,743,782 at the previous update.)

Years with major additions, greater than 5,000 records are: for births 1986-90; for marriages 1986-89; for deaths 1986, 1988-90. 

Interested in whether COVID has had any impact?

This chart of annual additions (March - March) showing the last year somewhat reversed the long-term decline in records added.

Focusing in on the past year there is an apparent correlation between the number of entries and periods of pandemic lockdown.

www.freebmd.org.uk/

BIFHSGO March Presentations: Lucille Campey Double Header

Saturday, March 13

Numbers not Names: Using British Government Publications to Locate Ancestors  (Education Talk)

9:00 am to 10:00 am

Although census returns, customs records and the British Parliamentary Papers may seem like unlikely sources to use in tracking down a British ancestor who immigrated to Canada, they do hold nuggets of data that can provide vital clues. Lucille Campey will demonstrate how such sources can sometimes reveal the geographical origins of immigrants and/or their places of settlement in Canada. This can be achieved by analyzing numeric data rather than hunting down a particular surname. 

Saturday, March 13

Canada's Irish Pioneers: Their Story  (Feature Talk)

10:30 am to 11:45 am

As pioneers, the Irish bestrode Canada. They were the largest immigrant group during Canada's formative years. They dug its canals, built its roads, chopped down its trees and established many of its early farming communities. They were ambitious, self-funded people with big dreams who were desperate to escape from the poverty in their homeland. And yet, despite their great pioneering successes, some politically-motivated people continue to depict them as sad and helpless exiles. Lucille Campey will debunk this negative imagery by revealing the facts underlying their immigration saga. She will demonstrate how the Irish were able to fund their own sea crossings, find out about the availability of prime locations and make tremendous strides as pioneers. She will conclude that Canada's Irish pioneers deserve our admiration and gratitude - not our pity.

Lucille Helen Campey
Born in Ottawa she moved to England following her marriage to Geoff. Having trained as a scientist, she later entered the world of politics, when she became an adviser to a cabinet minister during the John Major years. An ongoing love of history led her into another world around twenty years ago. Having obtained a PhD on Scottish immigration to Canada from the University of Aberdeen, she went on to write fourteen books on British Isle immigration to Canada. Her latest book, "Canada's Irish Pioneers," was published in September 2020.

Register

Participants who register for the earlier Education Talk need not register again for the Feature Talk.

The COVID Pandemic: One Year On

Today, 11 March is the first anniversary of the declaration of a pandemic by the WHO. How things have changed! 

I flew back from Victoria in early March 2020. Finding myself sitting next to someone wearing a mask I felt uncomfortable. In early October I flew back again and would have felt uncomfortable if everyone had not been wearing a mask.

We've experienced massive behaviour change in the year forced by regulation and our response to it, facilitated by technology. Many people no longer commute to work, testified to by mostly empty rush hour busses and reduced traffic volumes. We commute online. We no longer travel to genealogy meetings, witness one million attendees at last month's virtual RootsTech, and locally, online Gene-O-Rama and BIFHSGO Conference 2021. Online socials go some way to replacing the in-person interaction aspect, but not the ability to hug.

Without a doubt, things won't go back to the way they were. Many of us can look back in our family history; our ancestors moved from a rural/agricultural economy to an urban/industrial one made possible by technology that increased agricultural productivity per worker, and the ability to transport those products to towns and cities. That happened over a longer period—the pace of change is more rapid today.

On this anniversary consider how things have changed for you, the pros and cons. I'm optimistic. This pandemic has taken millions of lives while the 1918 flu took tens of millions. That's thanks to health services, government regulation and messaging. I'm optimistic that with vaccines coming soon to all who want them we will be able to look back philosophically at having lived through a period of social revolution facilitated by technology.

Worth Waiting For: BIFHSGO Conference 2021

 

Having been teased for months with information about the BIFHSGO conference next September I was delighted when I finally got to see the program.

BIFHSGO broke the mould, something I've advocated, and now a matter of necessity in this time of COVID — an example of "when life gives you lemons making lemonade."

Because it's happening online there's a much wider variety of quality international speakers than would be affordable if they had to be flown to Ottawa.

For the same reason, it's spread out from Sunday 19th to Sunday 26th of September with three presentations each day, no parallel sessions, and skipping Tuesday, Thursday and Friday in between.

The timing, with nothing starting until noon, good for those who burn the midnight oil and sleep in late, is convenient for those in time zones from our west coast to Europe.

If you have a conflict, access to the presentation videos and handouts will be available for two weeks after the conference concludes.

Not having the travel expenses the registration is kept low, $45. For 15 presentations that's an unheard-of low $3 per session - but you do have to provide the snacks of your choosing! To the relief of the organizers that means they don't have to account for food preferences.

It's only good value if the presentations are good. The speakers I've heard are excellent, there are a couple I don't know. I'm looking forward to attending all the talks. 

You be the judge if what's on offer meets your interest. I will be registering at the earliest opportunity. I am now registered.

https://bifhsgo2021.ca/

LAC Reopens Microfilm Access at End of Month

After a year of closure LAC on Ottawa has figured out a way to safely open up access. Here's the notice:

Reopening: Limited access to microform collection in Ottawa

The microform collection is now available for consultation in our Ottawa public service point, in a limited capacity. We will start accepting reservations on Monday, March 15 at 10 a.m. EDT for the week of March 30 to April 2 (Tuesday to Friday only). You will be able to book up to four reservations per week, each for a duration of three hours.

Microforms can be consulted in the Textual Consultation Room.

To complete your booking, you will need your user card. If you do not already have one, please register for a user card.

Once you receive your confirmation email, you will have a maximum of 24 hours to order the material you need to consult during your visit. This will allow our reference specialists to prepare your requested material and enable us to respect health and safety measures. If you do not order any material, your reservation will be cancelled. All of the details on how to order your material, along with general as well as health and safety instructions, will be included in your confirmation email.

Rest assured that we are monitoring the COVID-19 situation very closely and are ready to make any changes required by public health authorities. For all of the latest news, visit our Reopening Library and Archives Canada web page and follow our social media accounts.

Ancestry Irish Bonanza

Is it the gift of St Patrick? Ancestry has just added seven titles with over 5.1 million records to its collection, over 5 million categorized as Court, Land, Wills & Financial. 

Claire Santry points out that while five of the seven are already online on the National Archives of Ireland's free Genealogy website or other commercial databases, two are new.

Ireland, Court of Chancery Records, 1633-1851 (841,316)
"As one of the four older 'Superior' courts in Ireland, the Courts of Chancery were at the very centre of Ireland's legal system. Surviving records consist mainly of bill books with some other records including an Index to Pleadings and records of Pleadings themselves."

Ireland, Exchequer Court of Equity Bill Books, 1674-1850 (688,470)
"The Exchequer Court of Equity was at the very centre of Ireland's legal system and from the mid-17th century held jurisdiction over financial disputes such as titles of land, debts and wills. Surviving records consist mainly of bill books which detail case participants and proceedings."

Both are name indexed with links to images of the originals which are a challenge to read.

FamilyTreeDNA Sale

St Patrick's Day is coming and FamilyTreeDNA is first out of the gate I've seen with a sale. Just as well there are so many such days or we'd all be paying the full price all the time. Or maybe regular prices would be reduced!

Family Finder, FTDNA's autosomal DNA test, is reduced to $59 US from $79 US. The field is competitive, it's not the lowest price out there but if concerned about privacy you may want to take into account their commitment that they won’t share your DNA—"we will never sell your DNA to third parties."

https://www.familytreedna.com/

WDYTYA Magazine: April 2021

Just out and available in Canada online through Press Reader at many public libraries.

Family history software Discover the best software to research and record your family tree with our buyers' guide. It gives pros and cons of Family Tree Maker 2019, Family Historian 7, Heredis 2021, Legacy 9.0, and MacFamily Tree. Not included is RootsMagic as version 8.0 is soon to be released.

The Society of Genealogists Else Churchill explains how the UK's national family history society has adapted to thrive during lockdown.

Australian ancestry The best websites for family history research down under.

Gibraltar records How to trace your family history on the Rock.

Eureka moment
How WDYTYA? reader Sarah Fuller uncovered a family history that reads like a Catherine Cookson novel.

Plus: How to find missing street addresses, understanding Irish tithe applotment books, the lives of silk workers and much more...

Page 13 includes a "What's On" list of forthcoming presentations online, most require payment or a membership.

This Week's Online Genealogy Events

Choose from free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Assume registration in advance is required. Check so you're not disappointed.

Reminder: Gene-O-Rama is coming soon. Don't miss it!

Tuesday 9 March 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 9 March 2 pm: Using different family tree views for your research by Uri Gonen for MyHeritage Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1688

Tuesday 9 March 2:30 pm: Who, What, Where, When, How to Look at Your Photographs, by Kay Spears for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/4913634.

Tuesday 9 March 7 pm: All Aboard the Port Arthur, Duluth and Western Railway Line, by Dave Battistel for Thunder Bay District Branch of OGS. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85936606557?pwd=czR5d1pjK0R4QURGQkhkbXlMK3ZQUT09.

Wednesday 10 March 11 am: Women in Genealogy, by the Findmypast Team. www.facebook.com/findmypast.

Wednesday 10 March 1 pm: England’s Protestant Reformation, by Alec Ryrie for Gresham College. https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/protestant-reformation.

Wednesday 10 March 1 pm: Dive Deep into Deep Nostalgia™, by Thomas MacEntee for MyHeritage. www.facebook.com/myheritage.

Wednesday 10 March 7 pm: What’s Ottawa Hiding:  Exploring the Mysteries of our City’s Past, by Andrew King for the Historical Society of Ottawa. To register click here.

Wednesday 10 March 8 pm: Researching Ancestral Locations in Prussian Genealogy Records, by Nancy E. Loe for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1619

Thursday 11 March 6:30 pm: Expanding Your Family History Journey, by Melissa Tennant for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/4930877.

Thursday 11 March 7 pm: Religious Records, by Ruth Burkholder for Lambton Branch of OGS. https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/calendar/lambton-branch-ruth-burkholder-religious-records/

Saturday, 13 March 9 am: Numbers not Names: Using British Government Publications to Locate Ancestors, by Lucille Campey for BIFHSGO. https://bifhsgo.ca/eventListings.php?nm=127#er560

Saturday, 13 March 10:30 am: Canada's Irish Pioneers: Their Story, by Lucille Campey for BIFHSGO. https://bifhsgo.ca/eventListings.php?nm=127#er560

If that's not enough for your tastes, Family Tree Magazine (UK) has a selection of recommended presentations from the recent Rootstech https://www.family-tree.co.uk/useful-genealogy-websites/rootstech-connect-playlist-hand-picked-by-the-ft-team

Free Access to The Toronto Star Archive

If you're in Ontario you can now get free access to the Toronto Star: Pages of the Past archives covering 1894 - 2015. 

This was mentioned by Gail Dever a couple of days ago. Having now had an opportunity to try it I can report success. I was able to research a topic for a forthcoming Gene-O-Rama presentation and add information to a slide.

The service is offered through the Brampton Public Library. 

To start go to https://www.bramptonlibrary.ca/index.php/about/get-a-library-card, fill out the form and submit it to start your registration. They make it clear Brampton Library membership is free to all residents of Ontario. 

You should receive an acknowledgement and link to another form to complete the registration.

Submit that and shortly, it took only a couple of hours when I did it during regular library work hours, you'll receive a library card number and notification of your password which is the last four digits of the telephone number you gave at registration.

Note your library card number, you'll need it again further along the process. Log on, go to the portal and look in the left-hand column for "eMagazines & Newspapers" or "Research Online". Both will get you to the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail archives, as well Brampton Newspaper Index and Ontario Newspaper Index. To proceed you'll likely need to enter your library card number again.

Women/Commonwealth Day

Today is International Women's Day, and also Commonwealth Day.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission has a blog post celebrating women of conspicuous courage.

Included are Nursing Sister Agnes Wightman Wilkie - Royal Canadian Navy, who died when the  SS Caribou was torpedoed in 1942,  Her 36-page service file, all but 11 of which are for dates after her death, is at LAC here.

Monday Memories: Genealogy CDs

The era of CDs started around 1980, peaked in the late 1990s returning back to the 1980 level today. That's according to the Google Ngram utility. 

Today's computers don't come with CD drives so if I want to consult one in my substantial collection accumulated over the years I have to hunt for my USB plug-in CD drive. It's a while since I used that. 

Some in my collection, bringing memories of my earlier days researching my family history, are:

• CDs for British Records published as in the series Family History Resource File by the LDS Church.
• magazine cover CDs from the now-defunct UK Your Family History magazine.
• one published by the Ottawa Branch of OGS for Beechwood Cemetery and another for Pinecrest and Highland Park Cemeteries.
• disks from Archives CD Books and Archive CD Books Canada.
• CDs with files ordered from Library and Archives Canada -- why are CDs still being sent when the technology is fading so fast?

Not shown, and one I'd be reluctant to throw out, is the British 19th Century Surname Atlas, a groundbreaking resource from Stephen Archer published in 2003.

Do you have a genealogy CD collection? Do you still make use of them other than to fill up storage?

 

Sunday Sundries

 Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Two recent blog posts by Daniel M Lynch for Findmypast
10 Google search techniques for family history research
Tips and tricks for handling name variations in family history

Global Energy Review: CO2 Emissions in 2020: Understanding the impacts of Covid-19 on global CO2 emissions

Strange and Powerful (and probably totally untrue)
"Reporter and author Violet Blue googled “why do people throw car batteries in the ocean.” The algorithm’s top response, which was formatted in a blurb at the top of the results, was strange. “Throwing car batteries into the ocean is good for the environment, as they charge electric eels and power the Gulf stream,” it read."

 “Yes, this is my album”: Victorian Collections of Scraps, Signatures, and Seaweed. Online exhibit

What if.... poets had to undergo academic philosophy's refereeing process?

Thanks to this week's contributors: Anonymous, btyclk, Carole Linton MacFarquhar, Teresa, Unknown

TheGenealogist Expands Military Records Collection

You don't often find Canadian material from TheGenealogist. A release this week of over 150,000 individuals added to its ever-expanding Military Record Collection includes two Canadian sources.

These searchable records contain lists of men and women who served their country in various capacities connected to the military, and not just on the front line. The sources are:

A List of the Royal Military College at Sandhurst 1833,
Bombay Artillery List of Officers 1749-1902,
Canada, Defence Forces List August 1938,
Canada Defence Forces List November 1939,
Colonial Office List for 1914,
East-India Register and Directory 28th August 1821,
Gradation List of Officers of the British Army July 1924,
Graduation List of Officers of the British Army Oct 1915,
India List Civil and Military July 1881,
Northern Command Official Directory No. 45 Nov 1938,
Records of Clan Campbell in the Military Service of the Honourable East India Company 1600-1858, Rules And List Of Members Imperial Service Club,
Salisbury Plain Military Directory April 1914,
War Office List 1939,
War Office List 1920,
Western Command Official Directory No. 12 April 1938

Trustworthy Communications and Complete Genealogies: Unifying Ancestries for a Genealogical History of the Modern World

Here's a newly published book that should be of interest to the professional/academic genealogist. By Reagan W. Moore, a professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, it looks interesting but hard going for the amateur or those of us with declining attention spans. If you yearn to establish a link to royalty or nobility this volume may give you heart.

Here's the abstract and table of contents from the Publisher, Morgan and Claypool:

Genealogies document relationships between persons involved in historical events. Information about the events is parsed from communications from the past. This book explores a way to organize information from multiple communications into a trustworthy representation of a genealogical history of the modern world. The approach defines metrics for evaluating the consistency, correctness, closure, connectivity, completeness, and coherence of a genealogy. The metrics are evaluated using a 312,000-person research genealogy that explores the common ancestors of the royal families of Europe. A major result is that completeness is defined by a genealogy symmetry property driven by two exponential processes, the doubling of the number of potential ancestors each generation, and the rapid growth of lineage coalescence when the number of potential ancestors exceeds the available population. A genealogy expands from an initial root person to a large number of lineages, which then coalesce into a small number of progenitors. Using the research genealogy, candidate progenitors for persons of Western European descent are identified. A unifying ancestry is defined to which historically notable persons can be linked.

Table of Contents: Introduction / Research Genealogy / Research Genealogy Knowledge Base / Genealogical History of the Modern World / Trustworthy Communications / Summary / Appendix A: Cousin Relationship Terminology / Appendix B: Simple Lineages to the Unified Ancestry Progenitors / Appendix C: Sample Lineages for Linking Historically Notable Persons to the Unifying Ancestry / Appendix D: Sources Referenced in the Lineages / Appendix E: Algorithms Used to Analyze Genealogies / References/ Author Biography.

I found a generous preview here and a link to buy an Ebook at $45.77 Cdn.

via a lead on David Rajotte's Documentary Heritage News

Ireland: Update on Beyond 2022

One of the talks in a 23 February 2021 event ‘Using Digital Archives for Historical Research’, the first of three, had Dr Ciarán Wallace speaking on "Beyond 2022: Emerging from a Century of Lockdown."

"The archival initiative aims to restore – as far as possible – the collections lost in the destruction of the Public Record Office (PROI) of Ireland in 1922, at the outbreak of the Irish Civil War. Ciarán described Beyond 2022 as an archive that is emerging from a century of lockdown’ thanks to the opportunities afforded by digital technologies to recreate what was once lost. Bringing together copies of lost originals, held in archives and libraries around the world, Beyond 2022 is creating Ireland’s Virtual Record Treasury and is due to launch in June 2022, at the centenary of the PROI’s destruction. Ciarán took us through the fascinating history of recordkeeping in Ireland and highlighted the importance of records for understanding our history. Attendees were also given a preview of the Virtual Reality prototype of the destroyed Record Treasury which is currently in development."

Ciaran Wallace's presentation starts 7 minutes into the video at https://dri.ie/using-digital-archives-historical-research-exploring-online-research-opportunities/.

via a lead on David Rajotte's Documentary Heritage News

Genealogists’ Magazine: March 2021

Here's the table of contents from volume 33 number 9 of Genealogists' Magazine, the journal of the (UK) Society of Genealogists.

300 Who Was ’Old Mac’?, by Gwyneth Wilkie

309 A Southampton shipbuilding dynasty, by  James Day

314 The Tudor Will of Anselm Browning. Standish. 1572 - an interesting time capsule, by Jeffrey Grenfell-Hill

316. Say it like you sec it

317. Some echoes of the Crimean War in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and adjacent parishes, by Mike Hinton

328 More doors opening into the past... by Helen Dawkins LRPS

332 The Boys' Brigade in Wartime Liverpool, by Diana Swinfield 334

334. Egiptian Valentine

Centre Pull-out Section

1. 6 Library Section

1 Society of Genealogists’ News

2. 3 The Society launches a new dedicated events website

7-12 Library Section (continued)

New: Essex Baptisms, Kent Baptisms and Marriages on Findmypast

Essex Baptisms
In partnership with the Family History Federation, over 38,000 new records are added to this collection bringing the total to 2.9 million. The 16 Anglican churches with additions span over 380 years of Essex history:

Place	Year from	Year to	Number of records
Blackmore, St Laurence	1813	1851	788
Bobbingworth, St Germain	1783	1920	1112
Chipping Ongar, St Martin of Tours	1813	1920	2026
Epping Upland, All Saints	1833	1842	539
Great Bromley, St George	1813	1851	862
Harlow, St John the Baptist	1841	1920	959
Hatfield Broad Oak, St Mary the Virgin	1859	1920	826
High Laver, All Saints	1750	1812	502
High Ongar, St Mary the Virgin	1743	1914	4491
High Roding, All Saints	1764	1875	1217
Latton, St Mary at Latton	1813	1920	774
Little Laver, St Mary the Virgin	1538	1920	847
Magdalen Laver, St Mary Magdalen	1669	1920	1293
Moreton, St Mary the Virgin	1659	1868	1828
South Weald, St Peter	1895	1920	993
Waltham Holy Cross, St Lawrence & Holy Cross	1713	1920	19629

There are now records for 659 Essex parishes in the collection, typically from 1677 to 1920 and 2245 records.

Kent Baptisms
Over 10,000 new records from two parishes have joined the collection. These latest additions cover the parishes of Chelsfield, St Martin of Tours and Greenwich, St Alphege, and stretch from 1640-1910. The Kent parish list includes 545 parishes and 3.5 million baptismal records.

Kent Marriages
Continue tracing Kent family milestones with over 9,000 new marriage records from three churches, covering 1750-1936. The newest arrivals, from Lewisham, Westerham and Eltham make a collection total of 2.8 million marriages from 532 parishes 

New Ireland Transcriptions

There are already new transcription data added to the Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives in March, for Galway. That's in addition to transcriptions added in February for Fermanagh, Galway, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, and Tipperary.

The site claims "Over 158,000 Headstones"

FamilySearch Records Update

Here is the latest list of Canadian and British Isles updated records since the start of the month from FamilySearch,

Country	Title	Total Records
Canada	Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001	207,820
England	Essex Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1971	94,577
England	Gloucestershire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1642-1996	129,315
England	Herefordshire Bishop's Transcripts, 1583-1898	1,290,218
England	Hertfordshire, Marriage Bonds, 1682-1837	1,038
England	Lancashire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1746-1799	152
England	Lincolnshire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1574-1885	67,284
England	Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988	1,479,000
England	Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1920	294,444
Isle of Man	Parish Registers, 1598-2009	438,382

Ancestry adds Web: Ontario, Canada Immigration Records 1865-1883

Ancestry adds this Ontario database of 33,607 records. Created by the Toronto Emigrant Office, the original is "a chronological listing of those new immigrants who were assisted by the government to travel to different destinations across southern Ontario." That's according to the description at https://data.ontario.ca/dataset/immigration-records-1865-1883.

The search on Ancestry provides name, arrival date, arrival place, and destination as well as a link to the additional information: nationality, ship, railway, total number in party and, others listed. There's also a link to the source site from the Ontario Ministry of Government and Consumer Services. That was last updated on 1 January 2000.

You may also want to consult the FamilySearch database Ontario, Immigration Records, 1862-1897.

Advance Notice: 2020 Library and Archives Canada Scholar Awards.

The Library and Archives Canada Scholar Awards were created to recognize remarkable Canadians who have made an outstanding contribution to the creation and promotion of our country’s culture, literary heritage and historical knowledge.

The 2020 Awards will be given in an online ceremony on Wednesday, 21 April 2021, at 7 p.m. (Eastern Time) on Library and Archives Canada’s English YouTube and French YouTube channels.

This online event, presented by the Library and Archives Canada Foundation, and Library and Archives Canada, with the generous support of our Founding Sponsor, Air Canada, will honour:

Margaret Atwood, poet, novelist, literary critic and essayist
Roch Carrier, novelist and author
Charlotte Gray, historian, author and biographer
Serge Joyal, former senator, art collector and philanthropist
Terry O’Reilly, broadcast producer and radio personality

All are invited.

This Week's Online Genealogy Events

Choose from free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Assume registration in advance is required. Check so you're not disappointed.

🇨🇦 Tuesday 2 March 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library. Join here.

Tuesday 2 March 2:30 pm: Introduction to WorldCat Tools, by Aaron Smith and Kasia Young for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/4870967.

🇨🇦 Tuesday 2 March 7 pm: Radio Before Regulation, by Sean Graham for the Ottawa Historical Association. https://ottawahistoricalassociation.wordpress.com/announcements-schedule/.

🇨🇦 Tuesday 2 March 7:30 pm: Getting the Most Out of FamilySearch.org, by Nick Post for Durham Region of OGS. https://www.durham.ogs.on.ca/.

Tuesday 2 March 8 pm: British Genealogy Online: The Top English & Welsh Family History Websites. by Rick Crume for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1599

Wednesday 3 March 2 pm: La Madre Chiesa - Italian Catholic Parish Records, by Suzanne Russo Adams for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1618

Wednesday 3 March 7 pm: Think like a genealogist: Creative search techniques to help you follow the right ancestral trail, by Jane MacNamara for Manitoba Genealogical Society. 
https://mbgenealogy.com/webinars/

Thursday 4 March 6:30 pm: Can DNA Testing Help Solve Your Genealogical Problem? by  Sara Allen for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/4906609

Friday 5 March 2 pm: The Ten Percent: Free People of Color, by  Nicka Smith for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1674.

🇨🇦 Saturday 6  March 10 am: Publishing a Family History. by David Bellhouse for London Middlesex Branch of OGS. https://londonmiddlesex.ogs.on.ca/events/publishing-a-family-history/.

🇨🇦 Saturday 6 March, 1:30 pm: The Collections, Genealogies and Educational Resources at the Middleville District Museum, presented by Board Members.
https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJItcOGtqzwjG9xeJKvLlq-EKIkAQnA3kltw

Finally, a reminder that FamilySearch offers many sessions, mainly at the beginner level. Find the schedule for March at https://media.familysearch.org/free-family-history-classes-and-webinars-for-march-2021/

Digitizing Hidden Special Collections & Archives

Here's information on a funding program newly opened to Canadian organizations.

Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives: Amplifying Unheard Voices is a national grant competition administered by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) for digitizing rare and unique content stewarded by collecting organizations in the US and Canada.

In 2021, the call for applications will focus on projects that propose to digitize materials that deepen public understanding of the histories of people of colour and other communities and populations whose work, experiences, and perspectives have been insufficiently recognized or unattended. The program is generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. 

There is a rigorous application process now open for awards to be made 1 April 2022. 

Find out more at https://www.clir.org/hiddencollections/ including a link for a Zoom event on 17 March which will help in deciding whether to go ahead.

Findmypast Improves Image Viewer.

FindMyPast has announced a 'major update' to its viewer for original documents.

As described in a post by Family Tree (UK), the new features and tools include:

• Brightness and contrast controls
• Previews of previous and subsequent pages
• Page numbers
• Easier access to transcripts
• View transcript on the page within the 1939 Register

Monday Memories: Beer Mats and St David's Day

Saint David is the patron saint of Wales and today, 1 March, is St David's Day. 

Following up on a previous post, Gail Benjafield from St. Catharines sent a Monday Memory. Gail has Welsh heritage so it seemed appropriate to save it for today.

Decades ago, our family lived for a couple of years in South Yorkshire, later in Cardiff. When there we collected beer mats and coasters in whatever pubs we patronized.  In fact, Sheffield had an off-license shop that sold beer mats from time to time. We have various beer mats dotted around our kitchen counters and elsewhere. On one of our last visits to the U.K. we stopped in a pub in Childe Okeford, Dorset; they had a beauty of a beer mat and gave it to as, as other pubs had done.  It is our favourite.

As for beer coasters, we just collected them throughout the U.K. We have dozens still in use as coasters.  We discovered in our last years of visiting that of the pubs still operating, many had become Gastro pubs owned by global conglomerates and they had no coasters unique to the area, just standard ones, often from American breweries.  So we took our old unique and often eccentric ones and had them framed. They are now mounted in our library and remind us of our good fortune.

Thanks to Gail for sharing her Monday Memories story.

16 things you (probably) didn’t know about St David’s Day traditions

Your Genealogy Today: Mar/Apr 2021

The new issue will be published on 10 March. Contents are:

Remembrances of Things Past
Sue Lisk says with imagination you can seek out those special connections to your ancestors

Changing Boundaries – Changing Nationalities
David A. Norris looks at territorial changes in 19th century Europe and the resulting potential confusion in census records

Honoring Your Ancestors: Early American Immigrants and Settlers
Karen L. Newman looks at active societies you might consider joining as part of your family history journey

The Great Blizzard of 1891
Wayne Shepheard looks at the event and its impact on the people of Southwest England

Genealogy & Bingo
Donna Potter Phillips says doing your genealogy and playing Bingo have a lot in common!

US Social Security & Delayed Birth Certificates
George G. Morgan looks at the importance of utilizing other sources when certain documents are not available

“Colored News” – Part I
Diane L. Richard says don’t miss out on this hidden, though invaluable, goldmine

Could Sherlock Holmes Have Been a Genealogist?
Robbie Gorr suggests that the famous fictional detective’s prowess in solving mysteries might apply to our genealogy research

Bounty of the Sea: The Gift of Hidden Treasures
Sue Lisk shares recommendations on what to do if you discover “hidden treasure” in familiar locations

The Back Page: Don’t Hold Back on Your Family History Research!
Dave Obee says there is always more to find if you just keep looking