A major British Great War archive of 6.5 million records

The Western Front Association (WFA) announces that it has secured the safe storage of a major archive of over six million British Great War soldiers' pension record cards obtained from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

These are records of dependents of each serving WW1 British soldier, sailor, airman and nurse who was killed and entitled to a pension, as well as service personnel who were wounded or otherwise incapacitated due to the conflict. There is a card for each of:

• Other Ranks Died (this contains nearly one million individual records)
• Widows and Dependents of Other Ranks Died (in excess of one million records)
• Other Ranks Survived: Requested/Rejected/Receiving Pension (over 2.5 million records)
• Officers survived and Officers' Widows (approximately 150,000 records)
• Merchant Naval Cards (about 5,000 records)

The records unite genealogical information with military information: the soldier's date of birth, address and the names and dates of birth of dependants.

Further information on the WFA plans for the collection and how to request a look up is at http://goo.gl/tUKWC

CAMDEX: Cambridge country civil registration index online

The local version of the civil registration indexes for births, marriages and deaths is now available for Cambridgeshire on CAMDEX, at https://www.camdex.org.uk/search.cfm.

Local indexes are considered more accurate and complete, and you get a bit more information than in the GRO indexes at FreeBMD and elsewhere. For marriages usually the spouse's name; for deaths the age.

You need to enter at least type of record, surname, year, and range of years up to +/-10. You may also specify first name, location, and exact or soundex search.

WDYTYA Live workshop schedule

If you're thinking of attending the world's largest family history event, Who Do You Think You Are? Live, at London's Olympia exhibition centre, 22-24 February 2013, take a look at the schedule of workshop presentations on offer.
Each day there are presentations in eight timeslots with usually four choices in each. That's over 100 presentations in the three days which doesn't include those offered in their own exhibit areas by Ancestry, Family Tree DNA, Find My Past, and maybe others.

The speakers, luminaries of British genealogy, include Nick Barratt, Gill Blanchard, Peter Christian, Else Churchill, Lisa Louise Cooke, Bruce Durie, Simon Fowler, Michael Gandy, Kirsty Gray, John Hanson, Celia Heritage, Peter Higginbotham, Sharon Hintze, Janet Hovorka, Michael Leclerc, Alistair Moffat, Eileen M. O Dúill, Chris Paton,  Jayne Shrimpton, Roy Stockdill, Geoff Swinfield, Maureen Taylor, Alec Tritton, Patricia Whatley to name just a few.

There`s also some stray named John D Reid speaking at 2pm on the Saturday on Finding English Emigrants To Canada & Their Descendants

Irish researchers rejoice

National Archives of Ireland has a new genealogy website, worth bookmarking, at http://www.genealogy.nationalarchives.ie/

At present you can access the Census Records for 1901 and 1911, the Tithe Applotment Books from 1823 to 1837, and the Soldiers’ Wills from 1914 to 1917.

More is planned to be added over the coming years, including

Calendars of Wills and Administrations, 1858 – 1922;
Nineteenth century census survivals, 1821-51;
Valuation Office House and Field Books, 1848 – 60;
Census Search Forms for the 1841 and 1851 censuses.

All of these records will be free to access, through searchable databases and linked images of relevant pages.

Red hair in Scotland

According to the BBC Alastair Moffat, managing director of ScotlandsDNA, is pursuing a project to map the number of possible carriers of the genes responsible for red hair in Scotland and to explain why so many Scots, perhaps ten times the world average, are so afflicted blessed.

Read the BBC story here. 

A previous post on red hair is here.

Alastair Moffat will be a speaker at the 2013 WDYTYA Live event in London.

Thanks to Gail Dever for the tip.

Ancestry updates two British military databases

Ancestry's UK, Navy Lists, 1888-1970 database is taken from The Royal Navy's publication of the same name is a great way to follow the career of an officer in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Queen Alexandra’s Royal Nursing Service, Coast Guard, and other naval entities. It has nearly 4 million records.

"The list includes both commissioned and warrant officers, and along with names, lists can indicate rank, seniority, decorations, and other details.

The Navy List includes numerous groupings. For example, officers are grouped by rank. These include admirals, commanders, captains, lieutenants, chaplains, carpenters, boatswains, artificer engineers, gunners, surgeons, and others. There are also lists of ships with their officers and current stations, as well as lists of pensioners and retired officers.
Organizations and items included among list lists varied over time. In the volumes in this database, you will find officers in the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR—including the New Zealand Branch) and Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR—including the South African Division), the Royal Naval School of Music, the Royal Humane Society medal roll (where you may find enlisted men included), as well as lists of clerks, schoolmasters, civilian dental surgeons, warrant writers, warrant armorers, head schoolmasters, head stewards, and others. You will also find regulations, members of boards, vessels for sale, and hundreds of other details related to life and service in the Royal Navy."

UK, British Prisoners of War, 1939-1945 includes 163,857 records of

World War II British Army, Navy and Air Force POWs.
The information I found in doing trial searches is name, usually initials and last name, and location. I did not find Rank; Branch of the armed forces; Regiment; POW number as indicated inAncestry's documentation.
Ancestry's source for this data is the Prisoner of War Collections. Sussex, England: The Naval and Military Press.

Many Ancestry military records free over weekend

Many of Ancestry's military databases will be free to access over the period around November 11th

Free genealogy crime mystery

From an update to the recent Lost Cousins newsletter

"Finally, there's an amazing special offer at Amazon. Right now you can get the Kindle version of In the Blood, Steve Robinson's unputdownable genealogical crime mystery ABSOLUTELY FREE. As far as I know the free version will work with the free Kindle apps for PC, iPad, and Android tablets - but even if I'm wrong, what have you lost? Click here to go direct to the page at Amazon.co.uk (for the equivalent offer at Amazon.com click here). I'm sure this fantastic offer won't last for long...."

The book is highly rated.

Kyle Betit presentation in Ottawa

Further information has just arrived on the topic of the OGS Ottawa Branch Ryan Taylor memorial lecture to be delivered by Kyle Betit on Sunday, November 18, 1-4pm at Library and Archives Canada.

Title: Irish sources you may never have considered

In Ireland, many records were destroyed or were never very well kept, so we need to access as many types of records as possible for successful Irish research. There are numerous record types to try beyond the most commonly known ones. This presentation will discuss such important sources as occupational records; court records; freeholders, freemen and voting records; militia and yeomanry records; prison records, school and educational sources; convert rolls and Catholic Qualification Rolls, the 1841 Morpeth Roll, Registry of Deeds, Land Registry, and more!

Kyle J. Betit BS (Biology) is a professional genealogist, lecturer and author residing in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was a co-editor of the popular journal The Irish At Home and Abroad, and is co-author of A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your Irish Ancestors. He is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), the National Genealogical Society (NGS), the National Writer’s Union, and the Genealogical Speakers Guild.

BIFHSGO November Meeting

For many people finding the origin of their early 19th century immigrant ancestors poses a lifelong conundrum. Just occasionally a breakthrough occurs. Sometimes it's through DNA evidence, and occasionally through a serendipitous discovery in an archives.

A discovery of this kind by Faye Kirt is the topic for the main presentation Prizemaking in the War of 1812, Relatively Speaking at the 10 November BIFHSGO monthly meeting at Library and Archives Canada. Find out more in this interview (mp3).

As usual there's an educational "before BIFHSGO" presentation at 9am, this month the first of two parts with the title Organize It: Systematic, Safe, Accessible by Jane L. Down, the topic of her four page laminated guide.

Bolton's Tonge Cemetery and the Lion Tamer

In the next few weeks Deceased Online is adding the burial records for the seven cemeteries and a crematorium managed by Bolton Council, Lancashire, to their collection. Available as of noon, November 8, is Tonge Cemetery which was the first municipal cemetery in Bolton when it opened on New Years Eve 1856 and was known simply as Bolton cemetery.

Tonge Cemetery has many impressive old memorials featuring prominent industrialists and other citizens from the area. It is also the last resting place of 94 war casualties in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database.

Deceased Online highlights an unusual and tragic case of Thomas McCarte (aka MacCarte) buried there who died in 1872.  Mr McCarte was a lion tamer with the visiting ‘Manders Menagerie’ and he had already lost an arm working in his chosen profession with Bell and Myers’ Circus at Liverpool.  On January 3rd, 1872, Mr McCarte, billed as ‘Massarti the Lion Tamer’, commenced what was to be his final performance in Bolton. A gruesome newspaper report is at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40617FC3C5D1A7493C2AB178AD85F468784F9

A. S. Wright is listed in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database as buried at Tonge cemetery with the additional information he was a serjeant; Service No:45395; Date of Death: 29/04/1919; Regiment/Service:Royal Army Medical Corps; Grave Reference II. PI. CE. 82.
A Deceased Online search allows us to give him a name, Alfred Stanley Wright. The burial was on the 5th of May 1919. That much is free. If you pay to view the burial register it's confirmed that he was a soldier and that he died at the military hospital at Fordsham, his age was 27 years, with the grave reference the same as above. He is found in the 1911 census, age 19, working as a machine maker's clerk, living with his parents John Thomas Wright and Hannah Stanley Wright, and brother John Charles Wright in a four room house at 59 Longworth Street, Tonge, Bolton.

Addition of partial CWGC records to Ancestry

Records for 560,902 out of the 1,700,000 men and women of the Commonwealth who died in the two world wars are added to Ancestry.co.uk in their new UK, Commonwealth War Graves, 1914-1921 and 1939-1947 database. The database was produced from older CWGC publications so lacks more recent information.
Despite bearing UK in the title this database includes Commonwealth cemeteries, a large number in Canada.
The free CWGC database appears to include the same information and being more complete is a preferred source.

Reaction to LAC Ending Interlibrary Loan

CBC News is running a story Library and archives interlibrary loans soon eliminated which includes reaction and comment on LAC terminating ILL service.

Shirley Sturdevant, president of the Ontario Genealogical Society reacts that key information only available at the national library would not be digitized in time and "People will have to drive, fly, take trains, hire researchers in the Ottawa area to do that research for us."

Comments posted are:

As someone who works for Library and Archives Canada, I have say that it is disheartening to not only lose our ILL service but also to have to listen to LAC officials tell Canadians that they will somehow be better off at the end of all of these cuts. First, despite what LAC spokesman Marc Comeau states it is highly unlikely that LAC has digitized 25 million items. They may have 25 million e-resources available but they certainly didn't digitize those items themselves. Big difference. Second, even if LAC could go from 25 million digitized items to 60 million digitized items in 2 years (which they can't because they have just finished gutting the team responsible for digitizing those items) what kind of access are those items going to have. Are the bibliographic records going to magically appear in Amicus? As always, the devil is in the details. It's one thing to digitize items, it's another to provide proper access to those items. Anyone who attended CLA 2012 and had to sit through Daniel Caron's opening address is all too familiar with the con job that LAC is trying to pull on both its employees and on Canadians.

and

Over ten years ago, LAC catalogued its 200th reel of microfilm for newspapers. Newspaper on microfilm are the most-requested item because of LAC's unique collection. About 1 /100th of the newspapers in the collection have been digitized and these by companies who charge to view entire articles.

Britain, Australia, the U.S.A., Finland and New Zealand all have strong government-supported digitization projects for historic newspapers. Genealogical communities in Canada should be incensed about the lack of digital access to Canada's newspapers.

With cuts to important staff who oversaw digital projects and to specialist positions (such as the newspaper specialist), it appears apparent that Caron is cutting some deal with a company for access to LAC resources in exchange for digitization. At least that would be a step in some direction instead of the do-nothing attitude under Caron's "reign". And if you think this is only the Canadian government's fault, think again. Caron has been left in place to encourage the demise of Library and Archives Canada as both a library and an archives.

Also the article mentions that Library and Archives will hold a roundtable Thursday, 8 November, via teleconference to discuss the upcoming changes. It will only include library associations and the top institutional borrowers.

What does the Obama victory have to do with genealogy?

The answer is ... probably not much directly. Romney would have been positively inclined toward the LDS church's work on family history, but Obama too has good links to some in the community.

Likely more significant, if only a step along a long road, is the success of Nate Silver, writing a blog for the New York Times, in using Bayesian statistical techniques to correctly predicted the winner in all 50 states (although as I write Florida is still not settled). If you're not familiar read Pundit Forecasts All Wrong, Silver Perfectly Right. Is Punditry Dead?

So what's the connection to family history?

The Bayesian approach is the one I've been advocating as a technique to add to the Genealogical Proof Standard. See my three part post here, here and here. Just as Nate Silver combined the evidence from polls conducted by others to make a superior quantitative prediction, so genealogists could use similar techniques to combine evidence from various sources to provide more confidence, or perhaps less confidence where it isn't justified, in genealogical conclusions.

I`m not holding my breath that political pundits will immediately take to Bayesian statistics, and the same for professional genealogists.

Records of the Canadian Expeditionary Force

As we approach November 11 Library and Archives Canada blogs to remind us of the records it holds appropriate to the occasion in a post From Enlistment to Burial Records: The Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War

Elizabeth Lapointe continues a series of military-related postings at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.ca/

Don't overlook the other Canadian military records available online at ancestry.com

Commonwealth War Graves Commission short film on the Remembrance Trail

In less than 5 minutes this video tells of the "Forgotten Front" Remembrance Trail as well as other initiatives of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission with the approach of the centenary of The Great War.

The death of death?

The UK Office of National Statistics just published a report, available here, showing that mortality rates (age-standardised) in 2011 were the lowest ever recorded for England and Wales, at 6,236 deaths per million population for males and 4,458 deaths per million population for females.

Mortality rates have been dropping dramatically. For men they were twice the 2011 level in 1980. For women, where the mortality rate is substantially lower, the 2011 level is half that in 1974.
There's no sign of leveling off so on the naive assumption the same trend continued there would be no more deaths after 2042 for men, and after 2048 for women.
Good news? Remember Methuselah -- it ain't necessarily so.

Riding a Crest

Today is my mother's birthday, the first since she passed away. In remembrance her is one of her many poems.

Riding a Crest
 When you wake to the chirrup of birds at dawn
As they call up the sun to a golden morn;
When your head is clear and your step has a spring
And you're ready for anything fate may bring.
 When the morning air insights you to sing
And your eyes seek beauty in everything;
When your mind is free and your heart aglow
With a feeling of love for friend and foe.
 When the sun sinking down in a fiery blaze
Leaves the western sky in a spectrum haze;
And a full moon waits in the fading light
To rise in glory and clothe the night.
 When the chirruping swallows are ready for rest
And one by one they fly to the nest;
The evening air is a soothing balm;
And the body is tired and the soul is calm...
 This is a day you are riding the crest
Of a wave, and living is at its best.

This item is copyright Dorothy Reid, 2012. All rights reserved.

QFHS AGM and meeting

The Quebec Family History Society meets on Saturday, November 10 at Briarwood Presbyterian Church Hall, 70 Beaconsfield Blvd., Beaconsfield for a scheduled brief Annual General Meeting starting at 10:30 am followed by a free public lecture.

Discover 100 Years of Records at the Montreal Archives will be presented by Mario Robert, head archivist, Montreal Archives

Learn about the different types of records that are held in Montreal city hall's vaults and how they can be used in genealogical and historical research. Mr. Robert's presentation will kick off the 100th anniversary of the Montreal Archives that takes place in 2013. Although Montreal was founded in 1642, its political history as a municipality only began in 1833 when the first municipal election took place. It was not until 1913, however, that city council voted to create Montreal's Department of Archives.

Members and non-members are invited to attend and stay afterward for refreshments and conversation.

Sir Guy Carleton Branch UELAC Christmas Social

The Sir Guy Carleton Branch, United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada invites all who are interested in the War of 1812 to come to their annual Christmas Social.  The details are:

November 24, 2012 - Christmas Social
Location: Macies Best Western Hotel, Carling Avenue (opposite Westgate Mall)
Time: 11:30 a.m.
Speaker: Victor Suthren
Topic: An Identity Peril: The War of 1812
Cost: $30.00 per person
Please send your cheque made out to Sir Guy Carleton Branch UELAC to Bob Adair at 34 Briardale Cresc., Nepean, ON K2C 1C2 by November 20th indicating choice of main course.
Menu
Choice of
A) Beef au Jus
B) Chicken with sauce
C) Salmon
Meal includes salad and desert
Tea and coffee

Thanks to Dorothy Meyerhof for the tip.