Capital Punishment U.K

Was your ancestor hung subject to capital punishment?

Capital Punishment U,K, takes a comprehensive look at the death penalty in Britain, including lists of those executed and many of their victims. There are also lists for Canada 1867-1962, and Australia 1870 - 1867. Worth a browse.

World Meteorological Day

Wednesday 23 March is set aside as World Meteorological Day under the leadership of the World Meteological Organization.

This year the theme is Hotter, Drier, Wetter. Face the future. A recent UN report found that worldwide, over the last twenty years, 90% of major disasters have been weather-related.

I won't have time for more than a very brief mention of climate change in my talk to Gene-O-Rama on 2 April. There are too many other interesting aspects to Ottawa's weather history.

Has Ottawa's climate changed? At the Central Experimental Farm it’s clearly warmer, wetter, and with less snow now than when observations were first taken in 1889.

Ancestry adds TNA files for Ireland pre-independence

Two smaller collections of interest for Ireland are new on Ancestry.

Ireland, Courts Martial Files, 1916-1922 has 1,913 records containing evidence against individuals suspected of being involved with the Nationalist movement in Ireland. Half are for 1920. Files include charge sheets and detailed court transcripts running to more than 1,000 pages in some capital cases.

Ireland, Intelligence Profiles, 1914-1922 has 766 files with photographs, newspaper clippings and notes recording Sinn Fein meetings as well as the everyday movements of those deemed to be suspects in the eyes of the British forces. Most are for 1917 onward.

Home Front stories of the First World War.

Given the heroics and horrors of battle it's easy to overlook that a world war involves everybody.
A TNA blog post Building a virtual First W orld War village describes an experiment in telling stories of events on the Home Front, and to showcase related documents.

John Grenham evaluates the Irish Catholic parish record transcripts

In his latest blog post John Grenham looks at How good are the new Ancestry/FindMyPast Catholic transcripts?
I had not been aware that the indexing was a cooperative project between Ancestry and Findmypast. That fact is obscured by the subtleties of the search engines used by the two companies, notably different treatment of surname variants.
Grenham points to a case study where a large number of variants were not caught by the indexing, perhaps in part as the indexing was done from poor quality microfilm copy. Just because you don't find someone doesn't mean they weren't there - so goes the game of genealogical hide and seek with indexed records.

Honouring Arthur Doughty

22 March 2016 is the 156th anniversary of the birth of Sir Arthur George Doughty.

Born in England he came to Canada in 1886  and was the longest serving Dominion Archivist and Keeper of the Public Records of Canada, from May 1904 until 1935.

He is buried with his second wife in Ottawa's Notre Dame Cemetery.

What's special about 10 May?

14 questions in five steps. The first is your telephone number, the second your email address. What's asked on the 2016 short form Canadian census of population would never have been contemplated in 1666. That's when the first ‘Canadian’ census was taken in New France by Intendant Jean Talon. It enumerated 3,215 inhabitants and collected information on age, sex, marital status and locality.

In 2016 Statistics Canada has set the official date of the census as Tuesday 10 May.

The questions on the short form census are here. For the long form census the questions are here.

Again this census you will have to positively agree to having your data released after 92 years, otherwise according to current law, the individual data will never be released.

Expect to receive information from Statistics Canada in early May. They are asking most people to respond online.

Ancestry updates Derbyshire and Essex parish records collections

This may be nothing more than a couple of minor corrections so, FWIW, take note that
Essex, England, Select Church of England Parish Registers, 1518-1960 now has 2,220,120 records and Derbyshire, England, Select Church of England Parish Registers, 1538-1910 has 3,309,988 records.

Also Isle of Man, Select Parish Registers, 1598-1936 now has 764,286 records.

From Steamboats to the NHL: The Ottawa Valley’s Cowley Family

Hot off the press from the Historical Society of Ottawa (HSO) is the latest in their Bytown Pamphlet Series—From Steamboats to the NHL: The Ottawa Valley’s Cowley Family (no. 98, 5.5”x 8.5”,
soft cover, 68 pp, includes a personal name index).

Researched and written by Christine Jackson, a long-time family historian and active member of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa and HSO, this booklet traces the early Ottawa Valley history of the entrepreneurial and pioneering riverboat captain, Captain Daniel Keyworth Cowley—or “Captain Dan” as he was to become known—and his descendants.

Christine reveals Captain Dan’s connection with Champlain’s iconic lost astrolabe as well as his family’s role in the Ottawa Valley’s history and economic development, including their surprising and great contribution to Canada’s national winter game. Also included is an account of the Cowley family’s origins in England, reaching back into 16th century Derbyshire.

The HSO publishes several of these popular research papers on aspects of the history of Ottawa and region each year. They are a benefit of membership for HSO members and are available to the public for a small fee. Back issues on a huge range of topics are listed on HSO’s website at http://hsottawa.ncf.ca/pamphlets.html and may be consulted at the Ottawa Public Library’s Main (Ottawa Room) and some other branches, the Ottawa City Archives and in the Ottawa Resource Room of Carleton University’s MacOdrum Library.

To order this pamphlet ($5) or any of the others in the series back to 1981, contact George Neville at 613-729-0579 or george.neville at ncf dot ca

Follow-up on FTDNA and GEDmatch

Continuing the developing matter of suspension of uploads of FTDNA autosomal (Family Finder) results to GEDmatch, he following is posted at GEDmatch.com.

Family Tree DNA and GEDmatch jointly announce that we are in serious conversations regarding issues that have resulted in GEDmatch discontinuing uploads of FTDNA data. Both companies recognize the importance of these talks to their customers and are committed to quickly resolve differences. We regret any inconvenience that may have been caused and assure our users that our primary focus and efforts are geared toward your benefit.
We appreciate the overwhelming support GEDmatch users have expressed on public forums. 

It would seem the reaction of the community is having the desired effect.

Welcome vernal equinox

Spring has sprung, arriving on Sunday, March 20, 2016 at 12:30 AM EDT

The vernal equinox, with the sun is directly overhead at the equator, was thought to be a time of equinoctial gales.  Although there may be gales at the equinox, storms are not especially prevalent and there's no cause and effect relationship.

In Calendar Curiosities for 29 February, a presentation given at Gresham College in London last 29 February, lecturer Tony Mann points out oddities such as that while the two great writers Cervantes and Shakespeare both died on 23 April 1616 they did not die on the same day.

You may also learn a calendar calculation trick useful for genealogy, and daily life -- if your mental arithmetic skills are up to it.

www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/calendar-curiosities-for-29-february

Browse The Glengarry News

I'm a sceptic when it comes to claims such as that included in the latest OGS weekly eNewsletter that the Glengarry County Archives, in Alexandria, is the largest archives in Eastern Ontario. On what basis, floor-space, volume of the collection, visitors? The claim is taken from the archives website.

However, the claim achieved the objective in encouraging a virtual visit where I learned that browse images of The Glengarry News, a weekly, published from 1892 to 1956, and the short-lived Glengarrian from 1895 to 1898, are online. The images are from microfilm so the quality is poor. If you're hunting for news for a specific date, perhaps a family event, death of a local soldier or other locally newsworthy happening this is a resource you'll want to consult. With no OCRing there's no realistic expectation of successfully fishing for casual mention of a person who was, say, a long time resident.

I checked for reports on a major late December 1942 storm only to find that the paper was unable to publish full editions for three weeks owing to general lack of power. When they were able to report on the storm the copy was largely illegible. Photos in the January 24 edition of Bell repairmen at work, again poor microfilm copy, had a caption that the weight of ice was estimated as 24 ounces per foot of wire, and that it was the worst such storm in 40 years between Ottawa, Montreal and Brockville. That would put it in league with the 1998 ice storm in the hardest-hit areas with 100 mm of ice accretion.

Rick Mercer's take on AncestryDNA

Worth a look at www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/videos/clips/ancestry

Irish police records from Findmypast

Irish Revenue Police, 1830-1857 consists of 37,800 records, transcript indexes and images, consisting of minutes of appointments, which recorded transfers of privates between stations or parties, dismissals of privates and, appointments to permanent positions at the end of their probation period. Disbanded on 1 October 1857 the role was assumed by the Irish Constabulary. Read more at http://irish-police.com/irish-revenue-police-1832-1857/


Royal Irish Constabulary pensions 1873-1925, with 112,581 entries records amounts paid monthly to RIC pensioners and their dependents. Includes pension registers, registers of deceased pensioners, pension rolls upon disbandment (1922), and registers of widows and children. In the pension registers find name, rank, where pension paid as well as year and age when pensioned.

Royal Irish Constabulary History & Directories contains over 1,670 pages from 6 different publications printed between 1871 and 1920 that provide further insight into the daily operations of the police force and the history of the organisation.

A timely Flickr set from LAC

This snippet is from one of the images included in a weather related Flickr set placed online by Library and Archives Canada. They're from across Canada, this one is of snow clearance on Sparks Street. Ottawa, taken by William James Topley ca 1891.
It's timely as it gives me another excuse to mention my Gene-O-Rama banquet talk Blowin' in the Wind: Ottawa Weather events and people. I'll be giving on 2 April.  None of the images in this set are in my talk.
Find out more on Gene-O-Rama at http://ogsottawa.on.ca/Gene-O-Rama/

Findmypast adds Western Australia BMD indexes

Just added at Findmypast. Will you find the British stray you've long been seeking?

Western Australia Birth index, 106,049 records from 1841 to 1989 with transcripts of name, birth year and place.
Western Australia Marriage index, 527,168 records from 1841 to 1965 with transcripts of name, spouse's name and marriage year.
Western Australia Death index, 450,353 records from 1841 to 1980 with transcripts of name, death year and place with birth year and parents names in later years.

FreeBMD March update

The FreeBMD database was updated on Thursday 17 March 2016 to contain 253,123,910 (252,514,853 last month) distinct records.
Years with major updates, more than 5,000 new entries, are for births: 1963, 1964, 1966, 1971, 1974, 1976; for marriages: 1965-66, 1968-69, 1974-76; for deaths: 1973-77.

Ancestry adds Web: Global, Gravestone Photograph Index, 1265-2014

Ancestry has another database added, scraped from Gravestone Photographic Resource, an international directory of grave monuments at www.gravestonephotos.com/.

Ancestry claims 876,327 entries in the database.
Toronto's Mount Pleasant and St John Norway's cemeteries are well represented. Other Ontario communities I noticed are: Durham, Glenelg Township, Gravenhurst, Maple, Markdale, Maxwell, Nottawasaga, Orange Valley, Oro, Pickering, St Catharines, Vespra, Whitevale, and Williamsford.

There are some BC and Alberta entries, and just two for Manitoba.  Only Nova Scotia in the east has and entries.

The UK has over 750,000 entries.

Claire Santry has published 'New Irish Genealogy Records 2011-2015'

If you research Irish ancestry you'll want this. Leading blogger, #1 Irish Rockstar Genealogist, Claire Santry has just made available this "handy e-book setting out all the Irish family history records released in the last 5 years"
If you were able to view the recent webinar by Irish genealogy expert Brian Donovan, or his presentation at Rootstech (available here on YouTube) you'll be aware, if not before, of the masses of Irish information which has become available on Findmypast.
There's more than Findmypast and Claire's book New Irish Genealogy Records 2011-2015 sets out all the new, mainly online, records at your disposal. All the links are clickable so no retyping as you'd have to do with hardcopy or taking them from a webinar presentation.
Find out more, view a sample and purchase a copy at the introductory price here.

Family Tree DNA uploads to GEDmatch suspended

This notice posted on the GEDMatch website got a lot of attention in the genetic genealogy community.

This is strange. FTDNA has formerly been supportive of citizen scientists who want to delve further into their DNA results than is possible on the company website. Why the suspension? An answer from FTDNA was posted on Facebook

"We have reached out to GEDMatch expressing our concern that their website could potentially lead to breach in privacy of our customers. Given this, we propose to discuss the subject with them, but in parallel we suggested that until further clarification and assurances that the privacy of out customers records are protected, Family Tree DNA uploads should be suspended. We hope that with the cooperation of GEDMatch we can reestablish the uploads in the near future."

It's unclear how a FTDNA client who voluntarily go through the process of transferring their own results to GEDMatch could in any way assign blame to FTDNA for any such breach. One can speculate and there may well be more to it.

Most recently GEDmatch posted the following.

We regret we had to make the decision to stop accepting FTDNA DNA uploads. FTDNA has threatened to sue GEDmatch over claimed privacy issues. We have been asked not to discuss the details, because it would be to FTDNA's disadvantage. Suffice it to say that FTDNA's own site seems to currently violate these same issues. 

We would prefer to work closely with FTDNA in solving this problem to everybody's benefit, but we have not received a response to any of our suggested compromise solutions. The technical obstacles to satisfying FTDNA current demands are significant. It appears that our only alternative may be to remove all FTDNA DNA match results from GEDmatch. The issues raised by FTDNA do not apply to kits from other testing companies. 

We appreciate the overwhelming support GEDmatch users have expressed on public forums. 

Hopefully this gets resolved quickly as FTDNA risks losing clients to other companies and existing clients could be deprived of a facility they formerly had the option of using.

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