Ontario Township Papers

The Ontario Genealogical Society is exploring interest in indexing Ontario's Township Papers described by the Archives of Ontario as "a miscellaneous group of land-related records, which have been arranged by township name, then by concession and lot or by town name and lot number. Under any lot for which documents are available, researchers may find the following: copies of orders-in-council; copies of location certificates and location tickets; copies of assignments; certificates verifying the completion of settlement duties; copies of receipt; copies of descriptions; and copies of patents; and copies of incoming correspondence." The dates covered are ca. 1783-ca.1870.
The collection, 72 metres of textual records, is available as MS 658 on 541 microfilm reels.
As a first step OGS is seeking a project leader. Volunteers may contact OGS vice-President Mile More at vp@ogs.on.ca who would surely be open to innovative proposals to make this valuable collection more accessible to 21st century genealogists and local historians.

Blighted Nation

A series of radio programs from RTE1 on The Great Famine which struck Ireland in the middle of the 19th century, the biggest social catastrophe in Irish history.

Episode 1 deals with the arrival of the blight, the breakdown of society, starvation and disease, mass evictions, soup kitchen, workhouses, burying the dead, public works, bitter winter conditions, how the famine affected different areas and private charitable donations – the first example in history of a major international relief effort.
Episode 2 examines Britain’s response to the famine.
Episode 3 examine people’s desperation to get out of Ireland during the famine, there's a story of Irish immigrants from Strokestown who went through Grosse Île.
Episode 4 deals with the aftermath and the legacy of the famine. The starvation officially lasted for seven years but are the effects continue.
There are also podcasts.

Start at http://www.rte.ie/radio1/blightednation/

Thanks to Catherine Cavanaugh for the tip.

The Ottawa Journal, 1885-1980 on Ancestry

A nice start to the year in making Canadian records available online; 687,002 page images of The Ottawa Journal, 1885-1980 added to the Ancestry.ca collection.
At the moment the images can be browsed and perused much like the physical version of the paper. The images are chronologically indexed, in the early years to the half-year and later in the coverage to the month.
Some papers are not available:

1909, July-December is entirely missing.
1963, October, the original film was damaged and certain days or pages may be missing or illegible.
1970, January and May, the original film was damaged and certain days or pages may be missing or illegible.

Soon Ancestry will be launching a World Archives Project, volunteer indexing of the birth, marriage, and death notices. In the meantime a card index of births, marriages and deaths reported in the Ottawa Journal, from December 21, 1885 to January 10, 1922 is at the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library. You can also use Ontario civil registration records, available on Ancestry to 1913 for births, 1928 for marriages, and 1938 for deaths as a guide on where in the images to look. For obits use burial records for Beechwood cemetery at Ancestry. For Pinecrest and some other local area cemeteries try the Canadian Gravemarker Gallery.
You might also want to try the collection of the Ottawa Citizen, kludgy as it is, through Google at http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=QBJtjoHflPwC

These images were from microfilms donated to the City when the Journal folded and now in the collection at the City of Ottawa Archives. This is another good example of a local archives taking advantage of a partnership with a commercial organization, in this case Ancestry.ca, to make a resource more widely available without in any way taking away from the free access available at the original depository. In this case the free access is even enhanced through Ancestry Library subscriptions widely available at public libraries.

UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 now on Ancestry

A major database of 23,768,544 records starts off the year for ancestry.co.uk.  UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960 is taken from series BT27. Records of the Commercial, Companies, Labour, Railways and Statistics Departments. Records of the Board of Trade. Previously, and still available from findmypast.co.uk, or through original records at The National Archives at Kew, the database contains passenger lists recording the names of people leaving from UK ports for destinations outside of Europe.
The information is name indexed and linked to the original image in colour.
Details you may find include:
name; age at departure; gender; profession; last address in the UK; last country of permanent residence; country of intended permanent residence; port of departure
country of departure; date of departure; port of destination; country of destination; ship name; shipping line; ship master’s name.
Although the information on these lists is generally less than in the corresponding incoming lists at Library and Archives Canada, also on ancestry.ca, the period of coverage extends further and for the first decade includes Canadian ports for which no incoming lists were kept. You may also find the outgoing lists easier to read giving a lead on the Canadian incoming list to consult, especially as the passenger number, often easier to read than the name, is the same on both lists.

Call for presentation proposals: OGS 2014

Here's early notification and call for presentation proposals from The Niagara Peninsula Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society for the Society's annual conference, May 1 - 4, 2014 at Brock University.

The conference theme is GENEALOGY WITHOUT BORDERS.

Although borders are an important aspect in defining a country, they also often delineate an area of genealogical study. In the past, genealogists often had to travel across borders to complete family histories in their genealogical area. Today's genealogist can often cross these borders while sitting at a desk. We can trace the movement of settlers from European countries from the American states and other provinces to Ontario.
We invite seminar proposals with this theme in mind.
Our Saturday and Sunday, May 3rd and 4th seminar sessions are generally fifty minutes in length with ten minutes for discussion. We also have workshops on Friday, May 2nd, which are of three hours duration. We invite lecture and workshop submissions on a broad range of genealogical topics which will help to solve family history problems by any of the following methods.
1. Use of technology in genealogy (DNA, internet, software etc.)
2. Records at a distance (especially Eastern USA and European)
3. War records, 1812, W.W. 1
4. Land records, census, directories,
5. Early Ontario records, prior to 1869 and their repositories
6. Proposals are also solicited for the broader genealogical categories including the histories associated with the War of 1812, methodology, analysis and problem solving used in genealogy

Each proposal should include the following information:
a. Speaker’s full name, address, telephone and e-mail address
b. Title of the presentation, not to exceed fifteen words, and a brief but comprehensive outline
c. Lecture summary, not to exceed twenty-five words, to be used in the program registration brochure
d. Identification of the audience level; beginner, intermediate, advanced or all levels
e. Speaker biography, not to exceed twenty-five words
f. Resume of recent lectures by the speaker
g. Presenters may submit any number of proposals.

Complete proposals should be emailed to conference2014@ogs.on.ca by May 15, 2013

If using a Power Point presentation, then the image should be easily read at a distance of 20 metres or 65 feet.
If your proposal is accepted, you will be notified in early summer and we will request that you provide a 4 page summary of your talk or workshop for our syllabus by Dec. 31st, 2013. This should include references and web addresses mentioned, sample screen images etc. It will be submitted electronically (in Word, RTF or PDF format).
Please include your approximate travel costs, economy class to St. Catharines, Ont. Canada. Besides remuneration, food and lodging will be based upon the number of lectures given and transportation expenses will depend upon the speaker’s home address. Workshop fees may be negotiated.
Questions can be directed to conference2014@ogs.on.ca
Please Note: We are looking for speakers who would be open to being streamed out from the conference to those individuals who cannot travel but still wish to join us. As well, we are looking for speakers who may be interested in speaking but cannot travel as we can stream you in to the conference.

Deceased Online plans for 2013

According to Richard Gray from Deceased Online the company will be at least doubling the database size during 2013 and will be announcing some exciting news during February and March on many new and important additions.

Over the Christmas/New Year period data for a total of 41 burial sites (cemeteries and churchyards) throughout Fife in East Scotland was added and these comprise nearly 80,000 names with the records dating back to 1635.  The records comprise photographs of headstones and memorials together with the digitized carefully transcribed inscriptions from all.  There are now nearly 1.2 million burial records in Scotland on the Deceased Online website.

Toronto Trust Cemeteries indexing project closes in on the finish

Jane MacNamara, who leads the Toronto Trust Cemeteries indexing project for Ontario Genealogical Society's Toronto Branch, wrote with the news of the project. Roughly 229,000 records have been since the project started on September 30, 2009 with good progress in 2012 and the end in sight for 2013. Read all about it at http://torontofamilyhistory.org/projects/.

Congratulations to Jane and team members Barry, Joyce, Verna, Heather, Marg, and Valerie who have each indexed and/or arbitrated over 5,000 records

WDYTYA Live presentations from TNA

WDYTYA Live at Olympia in London, 22-24 February, continues to enhance the series of presentations again this year. Talks in The National Archives Theatre now announced are:

Friday 22 February
11am:  Merchant Navy with Janet Dempsey
3pm:    Tracing Caribbean Ancestors with Guy Grannum

Saturday 23 February
11am:  Tracing HM Customs Ancestors with James Cronan
3pm:    BMDs Overseas with Keith Mitchell

Sunday 24 February
11am:  First World War Records with John Wood
2pm:   Criminal Records with Nigel Taylor

Fortunately these don't clash with my session at 2pm on Saturday although with such a rich program hard choices between excellent presentations will always have to be made.

Vancouver’s History Online

A short article in the Globe and Mail profiling work underway by Vancouver Archives staff – digital conservator Sue Bigelow, archives manager Heather Gordon, and city archivist Les Mobbs – exploring intensively to make the city’s history available in all the ways that people use now - digitization, map scanners, blogging, YouTube, Historypin and Flickr for displaying historical photos and videos. Read the article at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/putting-vancouvers-history-online/article6825147/

It's good to see this type of initiative, look for news of a partnership initiative of the Ottawa Archives coming soon.

Is your local archives doing something innovative. Please post a comment or send a tip.

 

 

FTDNA sale extended

There's a short extension of the Family Tree DNA year end sale, until 3 January, a bonus for excessive procrastinators.

Thanks to Barbara Tose for the tip.

Backup reminder

The first day of a new year would be a great time to back up your computer data, especially your genealogy files which should be small enough to go on a flash drive. Even better is online backup, just make sure you can recover from the cloud, or a high capacity external drive.

Make it a new year resolution to backup your data, every month at least.

Benchmarks update for December and 2012

First post for the new year -- a final look at how various genealogy sites fared in 2012 -- benchmarks as of 31 December 2012. Comparable figures are for (a month ago, and a year ago where available). The higher the Alexa ranking the more popular the site.
Most sites sank in the Alexa rankings. Exceptions were the DNA sites which gained, likely on the basis of the year end sale for Family Tree DNA and a major price reduction for 23andMe. The British Newspaper Archive likely dropped as Find my Past subscribers gained access without a separate subscription.
Familysearch.org has 1,413 (1,373, 1,008) record collections: census & lists 117 (117, 88); birth, marriage, & death 863 (839, 602); probate & court 131 (126, 68); military 100 (100, 83); migration & naturalization 73 (67, 45); other 129 (124, 62). It has Alexa rank 5,003 (4,689, 6,218).
Ancestry.com has Alexa rank of 671 (635); ancestry.co.uk ranks 7,578 (7,005) and ancestry.ca 33.316 (32,157). There are 31,322 (31,308) datasets in the collections including 1,939 (1,939) for Canada, 1,692 (1,691) for the UK and, 25,042 (25,030) for the USA.
Findmypast.co.uk has an Alexa rank of 22,549 (22,166). Findmypast.com ranks 112,252 (77,362).
Family Tree DNA has 401,047 (399,775, 355,935) records in its database. It ranks 30,503 (30,819, 51,424) on Alexa. 23andMe ranks 32,707 (36,074).
GenealogyinTime.com ranks 35,112 (32,399); Mocavo.com has rank 51,202 (43,256)
Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk contains 6,165,662 (6,011,380, 3,276,840) digitized pages adding 4,977 (4,432) pages per day. Additions during the month are: Aberdeen Journal 1901, 1904, 1908 - 1909, 1941 - 1942, 1947; Berkshire Chronicle 1827 - 1870; Cambridge Independent Press 1839 - 1841, 1843, 1848, 1850; Dundee Advertiser 1881; Gloucester Journal 1837; Hartlepool Mail 1883; Isle of Wight Observer 1852, 1862; Post., The 1915, 1922, 1926; Sligo Champion 1923; Taunton Courier, and Western Advertiser 1848, 1959, 1961; West London Observer 1954 - 1957. Alexa rank 141,975 (138,232, 97,044).
Cyndislist.com claims 325,756 (325,441) total links in 192 (192) categories, with 1,797 (1,801) uncategorized. Alexa rank 79,154 (73,900, 98,926
FreeBMD has 223,319,729 (223,319,729) distinct records, Alexa rank 82,569 (71,576, 110,903).
UKBMD provides 2,369 (2,369) links to web sites that offer on-line transcriptions of UK births, marriages, deaths and censuses. Alexa rank 311,218 (258,900, 375,712).
CanadianHeadstones.com has over 548,000 (528,000) gravestone photo records from across Canada. It scores 631,105 (623,601) in Alexa traffic rank. The Canadian Gravemarker Gallery, with over 695,000 (680,000, 500,000) photographs from across Canada, ranks 864,650 (659,400, 1,956,006).
bifhsgo.ca ranks 1,700,945 (1,035,279), qfhs.ca ranks 2,376,742 (2,245,656), ogs.on.ca 187,234 (178,241).

And in case you're curious, Anglo-Celtic Connections has 4,240 (4,156, 3,130) posts, It continues a long slide in Alexa rank to 273,701 (229,950, 150,366).

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

 

Thanks to contributors for 2012

2012 saw just over 1,100 items posted on the blog. That was made possible by many of you who helped and encouraged this year by posting comments, questions, providing information, completing polls and surveys, or publicizing the blog, including;
Alec, Alex, Alison, Alona, Amy, Andrew, Ann, Anne, Annette, Anonymous, Archivus, Astrid, Audrey, Barb, Barbara, Bill, Bob, Brenda, Brian, Brooke, Bruce, Bryan, caiteile.com, Cannuk, Carol, Carolyn, Catherine, Cecil, Cece, Celia, Charles, Chris, Christina, Christine, Claire, Claudia, Crissouli, Darryl, David, Dawn, Debbie, Debra, Del, Derek, Diana, Diane, Dick, Don, Dorothy, Douglas, DWP, Ed, Elayne, Elizabeth, Ellen, Eric, Gail, Gary, Geoff, Glenn, Gordon, GordSK, Greta, Gwyneth, Harold, Harry, Heather, Helen, Hugh, Ian, infolass, J, J Brian, J Paul, James, Jane, Janet, Janice, Jean, Jeff, Jennifer, Jess, Jill, Jim, Jo, John, Kanata Barrie, Little London Observationist, Lois, Lucille, Jill, Judith, Judy, Katherine, Kathy, Kelt, Ken, Kirsty, Kyla, Leighann, Lesley, Linda, Lisa, Lucille, Luvvie, Lyn, Lynda, Lynne, Malcolm, Marcus, Marcy, Margaret, Marian, Marion, Marjorea, Mark, Mel, MelMcL, MHD, Michael, Mick, Mike, Murray, Myron, Nancy, Nathan, Old Census Scribe, OnceCanadianByHeritage, Pat, Patricia, Patrick, Patti, Paul, Pauleen, Penny, Persephone, Randy, Regina, Richard, Rick, Rod, Roger, Ross, Roy, rquacke, Ruth, Salli, Sandra, Scott, Sharon, Shauna, Shelley, Sherry, Shirley Ann, Simon, Steve, Susan, Tamara, Teribus, Terry, Thomas, Tony, Trudi, Tyrone, Unknown, Wallace, Wayne, Yolanda.

Those names include bloggers, Facebook and Google+ posters, tweeters and folks who send out information on new resources from various organizations from the family history community.

Thank you all, not forgetting the readers who make the blog worthwhile, a Happy New Year.

 

Year in review summaries

Genealogy bloggers aren't immune from the urge to look back as the year draws to a close.
Roberta Estes, has posted the top ten genetic genealogy happenings at http://bit.ly/VbVSbZ
Chris Paton looks back through the files of his British GENES blog, giving excellent coverage of UK and Ireland developments, Jan through April at http://bit.ly/TnzYEr, May - August at http://bit.ly/RouOIB, and Sept-Dec at http://bit.ly/WSSqVc

I'm looking forward, especially to the release of the 1921 Canadian census this year. It was taken on 1 June 1921 so should be available very soon after the anniversary date. We'll see how serious Library and Archives Canada is about online service. I'm hoping for some turn around from the performance that led to the comment made following Cecilia Muir's presentation at the ACA conference in June that "LAC has lost its soul & its way."

The Family History Show: Surrey History Centre

The most recent edition of The Family History Show, with Nick Barrett and Laura Berry is a rainy day visit to the Archive of the Year 2012 award winner, the Surrey History Centre.

The show is about equally divided between exploring the resources of the Centre and an advertorial for sponsor My Heritage.

In Laura Berry's interview with staffer Jane Lewis they point out the online index to records of the Royal Philanthropic School, Redhill (pdf). More than 1,000 of the children are noted as subsequently moving to Canada, sometimes with the name of the ship or destination given.

Scouting around the site you will see news of the Centre's cooperative project with Ancestry. There's a long list of records being photographed for publication online:


Church of England parish registers from 1538 (baptisms to 1912, marriages to 1937 and burials to 1987)
Land tax records 1780-1832
Electoral registers 1832-1945
Brookwood Hospital Woking, Registers of Admissions 1867-1906
Holloway Sanatorium, General Registers 1885-1904
Calendar of prisoners: Surrey Sessions and Assizes 1848-1902
Freeholders Lists 1696-1824
Licensed victuallers 1785-1903
Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment enlistment registers 1920-1946
Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment transfers in registers 1939-1947
Queen's Royal West Surrey Regiment World War II Honours Indexes [1939]-1946
East Surrey Regiment enlistment registers 1920-1946
East Surrey Regiment transfers in registers 1924-1946
East Surrey Regiment 21st - 24th Battalions the London Regiment Nominal Rolls of Officers 1914-1919


I notice that Ancestry is now at work photographing the Electoral registers 1918-1945 which should be completed by the end of March.

AFHS Chinook: table of contents

The latest issue of the Alberta Family Histories Society quarterly magazine Chinook features articles on the theme “Find YOUR Tree in the Forest”

President’s Message – Lorna Laughton
Greetings from the AGS – Les Campbell
Community Spirit Grants – Ruth Sutherland
Editor’s Observations – Wayne Shepheard
Call for Articles – Local Resources and Archives; (Way) Back in Time
Getting the Most from the FamilySearch Website – Peter Darby
What’s Out There – Linda Murray
Finding the Living: Not an easy task for genealogists – Thomas MacEntee
Computer Tricks – Jim Benedict
Delivering Genealogy Programs via Videoconferencing – Penny Allen
Library Research – Lois Sparling
Surname Connections; Federation of Family History Societies Report – Ann Williams
Budget Cuts at LAC – Laura Kirbyson
Once Upon a Time in the Graveyard – Nancy Millar
AFHS Projects – Heather Williams
Periodicals Place: The Breeze and Chinook
Calgary Public Library – Christine Hayes
AFHS Annual General Meeting – First Notice
Events – Laura Kirbyson
AFHS Membership Information and Application Form
AFHS Publications for Sale and Order Form
AFHS Objectives; Contact Information; Board of Directors and Committees

The Society next monthly meeting on Monday, Jan 7, 7-9 p.m. sees Lois Sparling
speaking on Four Reasons to Use Land Records in Your Research

Yuletide R&R - Max Bygraves

Unashamed nostalgia. Max Bygraves, an all round entertainer of my childhood who died this past August. There are a video medley and anecdote at



Also a couple of popular kid-oriented audios here and here.

Saint-John-at-Hampstead parish churchyard stories

The London Borough of Hampstead has a major conservation project for Camden's Hampstead Parish Churchyard which includes an online education resource and audio exploration of the stories of some of the people who are buried at Saint-John-at-Hampstead.

66 items are highlighted including overviews of the church and churchyard; most relate to individuals.

About two-thirds have associated recorded interviews with direct descendants and family members, as well as academics and experts. Those featured range from the famous,  painter John Constable, inventor John Harrison, to victim of a body snatching John Lloyd and rough sleeper Tom Sneddon.

"The Sound Trail is designed to add a new dimension to the written histories of this remarkable and picturesque place, whose original churchyard is the oldest surviving unspoiled churchyard in the centre of greater London. This was officially closed in 1878, but in 1812 an additional burial ground was created, now closed for burials.

Find this interesting site at http://gis.camden.gov.uk/geoserver/SoundTrail.html

via tweet posted by Ancestree Research

DNA poll

Back in August OGS conducted a poll on use of DNA in genealogy. As I prepare for a Before BIFHSGO presentation on January 12 I went back to have a look and found quite a few more responses. Here are the results

Have you used DNA testing as an aid in building your family tree?

• Yes and it was very interesting, glad I did it (49%, 70 Votes)
• No, but I am considering it (31%, 44 Votes)
• Yes, but nothing helpful or surprising turned up so buyer beware (8%, 11 Votes)
• Have never even considered it, will never do it! (6%, 8 Votes)
• Looked into it but decided it was not for me (5%, 7 Votes)
• Awaiting my results now! (3%, 5 Votes)

Total Voters: 143

And if you're still one of those lacking a DNA test a final reminder you have until the end of the year to take advantage of the Family Tree DNA special.

Yuletide R&R - extra

This is a last minute substitution for the previously scheduled item.  You may recall this WDYTYA parody.

It's better in reality

Thanks to Gail Dever for posting this on Facebook.