Find A Grave Community Day

For those not attending another event, such as the OGS Kingston Branch or Quinte Branch meetings, or the Toronto Branch all day seminar on Atlantic Canada genealogy, this Saturday 17th October, Ancestry is hosting global Find A Grave Community Day. The objective is "to encourage people to visit their local cemeteries to take photos and videos of headstones, explore the grounds and share stories – to preserve the history of all our ancestors buried in cemeteries across the world."

There are three locations in Canada:

In Ottawa, Pinecrest Cemetery, 2500 Baseline Rd, Ottawa, ON K2C 3H9 at 9:30 am with Lesley Anderson.
You can find out more about this annual community day here or on the Ancestry blog.

In Vancouver, Mountain View Cemetery, 5455 Fraser Street at East 41st at 10 am

In Massey, Sudbury District, Immaculate Conception Roman Catholic Cemetery, 205 Sable Street, Massey, Sudbury at 3:30 pm 

Find out more about this annual community day here or on the Ancestry blog.

Hornblow or Jackson: WW1 Beechwood Burial

Died on this date in 1915, Private S G Hornblow who served with the 77th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry. He served with the alias James Jackson.

Sydney George Hornblow was "son of Julia Ann Hornblow, of 38, Goldsmith Avenue, Eton, England, and the late Charles George Hornblow."

The CWGC and Canadian Virtual War Memorial records give his age as 38. Sydney Hornblow is shown as arriving in Quebec City on the Lake Manitoba on 19 June 1911, age 31.

His birth was registered in the March quarter of 1877 in Brentford, Middlesex. According to his Canadian attestation paper he was born on the 2nd of February. He had two older sisters, Annie Louisa and Ada Edith, and one younger Kate Mabel. His father Charles George Hornblow died in 1908, his mother Julia Ann (Benham) Hornblow died in the December quarter of 1938 at age 92.

His death at the Rockcliffe Range, Ottawa, was registered under his alias . The cause of death was "natural causes probably accelerated by alcoholism."

Friends of the City of Ottawa Archives AGM

Sunday 18 October at 2 pm is the date for the Annual General Meeting of the Friends. Stop by 100 Tallwood Drive (City of Ottawa Archives) as Bryan Cook gives us a look at his recent book on William Pittman Lett, Ottawa's first city clerk. Light refreshments will be served.

William Pittman Lett is recognized by few in this 21st Century. In Ottawa, he may be remembered by some as the City’s first and longest-serving Clerk for thirty-six years (1855 -1891). Yet, he was the City’s Manager in a time when the Clerk held the power of the pen and wielded extraordinary influence behind the scenes to shape Canada’s Capital. He witnessed and recorded the turbulent evolution of Canada throughout most of the 19th century.
Illustrated extensively with 19th century photography, his biography by Bryan Cook introduces a complex and charismatic character, maturing from a militiaman, radical journalist and theatre pioneer to a highly respected public personality, sportsman, patriot and proud chronicler of his city’s history.

Communicating Uncertainty in Genealogy

In genealogy when, despite best efforts toward a reasonably exhaustive search, you're still faced with conflicting evidence the genealogical proof standard leaves you stranded. If pressed a professional genealogist will often give her opinion using descriptive terms regarding degree of uncertainty. However, there is no professional standard or even terminology. That means when one professional says she is confident another may express it as likely. Do these mean the same thing or is one more probable than another?

Dr. Susan Jocelyn, a cognitive psychologist from the Decision Making with Uncertainty Lab at the University of Washington, has spent many years studying how people make decisions based on uncertainty. She has dispelled many misunderstandings about the public's perception of uncertainty.

According to her research uncertainty estimates give people a better idea of what to expect both in terms of the range of possible outcomes as well as the amount of uncertainty in the particular situation. She answers YES to each of the following questions.

1. Can people understand expressions of uncertainty?
2. Do people make good decisions with uncertainty information?
3. Does uncertainty information increase trust?

Dr. Joslyn's work has been done mostly in the context of understanding probabilistic weather forecasts which long ago adopted probability of precipitation in public weather forecasts.

Further objections to the use of quantification of uncertainty, or probability, in genealogy have been addressed by Paul Jones as I reported on the blog in May last year.

Reference
Snyder, B, Schneider, S, 2015: Communicating Uncertainty to Users of Weather Forecasts, CMOS Bulletin SCMO, Vol. 43, No. 5.

Linda Reid at Kingston Branch OGS

Next Saturday October 17, 2015, OGS Kingston Branch will feature Linda Reid presenting "Hunting & Fishing: Different Approaches to Genetic Genealogy."
This is a talk Linda, a retired librarian, frequent genealogy speaker and long-time volunteer in the Toronto Family History Centre, gave at the One World - One Family Conference in August.
The meeting, which starts at 10 am, is at the Seniors Centre, 56 Francis Street, Kingston, not far from St Lawrence College where the last Ontario Genealogical Society annual conference in Kingston was held. Find the Seniors Centre  at https://goo.gl/maps/mBQVgM6E9ay

Finding Women on Ancestry

This Saturday afternoon, 17 October, Lesley Anderson will be speaking to the Goulbourn Township Historical Society in Stittsville on Finding Women on Ancestry.

"As you research your family tree do you find tracing females to be somewhat problematic? Female ancestors are often neglected in family histories and genealogies. Until recently women nearly always changed their names when they married either by law or custom. In addition women were often not allowed to sign legal documents or to own real estate in their name. Men were also the ones whose surname was carried into the next generation by the children.
Our female ancestors can be mysterious and they are waiting for you to come and find them! In this presentation, Lesley Anderson will share with you specific tools and strategies when searching for women in the Ancestry databases. This includes methods to uncover females using name variations and other search techniques. Famous and interesting women will be highlighted. The presentation will appeal to both new and experienced researchers."

Find details of location and time at http://goulbournhistoricalsociety.org/images/event

Historic Maps from Ordnance Survey Ireland

Of interest to the Ireland researcher, historic map overlays on a current map. Zoom, pan and fade between maps. Start at http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,578432,756724,0,10

Thanks to Pauline Johns for the tip.

Quinte Branch OGS October Meeting

Deceased Online adds Hither Green Cemetery

Deceased Online has completed the full collection of burial and cremation records for the London Borough of Lewisham with the addition of Hither Green Cemetery near Catford.

The collection includes 83,000 names for Hither Green to 1999 and and another 63,000 for co-located Lewisham Crematorium for 1956 to 1995.

According to the book London Cemeteries by High Mellor and Brian Parsons the 65 acre Hither Green Cemetery, founded in 1873, "portrays as well as anywhere the richness of the 19th century cemetery and the vacuity of the 20th century counterpart." The former they describe as "a satisfying disarray which create the atmosphere of a country churchyard." For the latter they comment "any imaginative landscaping has been discouraged."

Deceased Online now has a total of 8 million records for the London area,.

To look forward to: "more records for a significant city in the East Midlands will be added to Deceased Online very soon."

John Grenham says Rootsireland improving dramatically

"The only absolutely essential website for Irish genealogy" is how John Grenham characterizes the Irish Family History Foundation’s transcription site, rootsireland.ie.
He praises some specific additions while still finding room to complain about "the Stalinist pretence that rootsireland is the only Irish genealogy website on the planet."
Read the details in Grenham's latest Irish Roots column

Lumber Barons, Rascally Politicians & Canada’s Railway King: The Ottawa Valley in the Railway Age

Here is information about an interesting looking presentation from the Perth & District Historical Society for Thursday, October 15, 2015

"Lumber Barons, Rascally Politicians & Canada’s Railway King: The Ottawa Valley in the Railway Age"

For our October 15 meeting, we are pleased to present Perth native son and ex-pat, Brian Gilhuly, on the fascinating story of the Ottawa Valley railroads, including the Perth branch of the Brockville to Ottawa (B&O) line - which celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2014.      

Trains!  There are those who embrace the lore of the railway and the sound of the train, and those who just endure them, particularly in more recent years.  In the last half of the 19th century, the train played an integral role in the development of this region and of this country, enabling the growth of commerce and communities, and the movement of people.  Following World War I, the internal combustion engine and private vehicles paved the way to the end of its dominance.

Brian Gilhuly’s recent e-book, and this evening's presentation, carry us down the railroad line of the interaction between lumber, steamboats and local railways, and eventually the national project.  Without a means of transporting sawn lumber to American buyers, the mills of the Ottawa Valley would have remained small, local enterprises.  With the waterfront terminals in Brockville just a short ferry trip from the US railroads, the B & O Railway opened the path to markets to the south and beyond.  Over this track, the lumber barons of the Valley exported their mill production for decades.  The Ottawa Valley was also the natural route for a railway to the Pacific, involving the valley towns and their railways in high finance and low politics.

Brian Gilhuly was born in Perth, the son of the owner of Gilhuly’s Stationery Store, at 47 Foster Street; his mother, Edith, was a nurse at GWMH.  Over a 40-year career with the federal public service, he managed heritage programs as a Director-General with the Canadian Heritage Department.  Since retiring in 2011, Brian has researched the history and social impact of Canada’s railways, and is the author of Arnprior Area Railway History in Maps.  He has lived in Arnprior since 1993.  Brian's father was also manager of Perth's Royal Canadian Legion, and his grandfather, Gordon Gilhuly, was appointed police chief in 1927.

Please join us for an evening trip back to railroad's golden era, at Perth's Royal Canadian Legion, home of the Hall of Remembrance, 26 Beckwith Street E., Perth, at 7:30pm (Toonie donation)

Ancestry adds England, Suffragettes Arrested, 1906-1914

This is a small database, just 1,339 names of all suffrage campaigners provided amnesty on the outbreak of the First World War. Although the document is entitled ‘Amnesty of August 1914: index of women arrested 1906-1914’ it also includes the names of 109 men.  Name, date and place of arrest are given.  For those arrested more than once details of each arrest are given. Some on the list were not identified by name and are listed under U for unknown.
Of historical interest is a collection of correspondence and memos at the end of the associated browse file.

Changing with the times?

The 68 year old Canadian Library Association (CLA) is proposing change detailed in the document Toward a Federation of Library Associations in Canada: Strengthening the national voice for Canadian libraries. The current CLA legal entity would be dissolved and a new national not-for-profit entity created, tentatively named Canadian Federation of Library Associations / Fédération canadienne des associations de bibliothèques.

While some of the consideration behind this proposal are specific to the library field there are more general social trends identified by The Canadian Society of Association Executives (CSAE) impacting associations and various reasons why association membership has waned in past years, including:
● Members scrutinizing and evaluating every expenditure (value-consciousness);
● Rapid growth in technology, in particular, social media and the ability to access education workshops delivered via webinars;
● Time-poverty on the part of volunteers;
● The demand for instant service delivered at the members’ convenience, not the association’s;
● The demand for more choice in services and how they are delivered,
● Expectations for higher levels of quality.

How are these factors impacting your genealogical or family history society?

The CSAE website includes an article Your Conference is a Strategic Asset – Manage it Accordingly with food for thought for any society which holds conferences.

Dorset and Isle of Man Parish Registers on FamilySearch

New records have been added to two existing FamilySearch databases which include links to original record images.

Isle of Man Parish Registers, 1598-2009 with 447,486 records is updated from 424,389 records last November
England, Dorset, Parish Registers, 1538-1936 with 1,288,325 records has a massive increase from 447,092 records in January last year.

More cuts at LAC?

Relax. It's not what you think. Would you really expect that in the middle of an election campaign, although I wouldn't put it past Harper if returned with another majority?

CORRECTION
The news this week is more mundane. I'm informed that as of last Monday email addresses for Library and Archives Canada staff have been cut by seven four characters. Instead of the clumsy first.last@lac-bac.gc.ca you can now, optionally, leave out lac-bac. use first.last.@canada.ca

When there's more than one person with the same name the situation may be different.

Do you know how to find contact information for a Government of Canada federal employee? They're not all listed but the best resource is GEDS, the Government Electronic Directory Services.

Thanks to Julie from LAC for the correction.

The Ottawa Genealogist: Oct-Dec 2015

The front page highlighted items in the new issue of The Ottawa Genealogist are:

• Researching families of Rideau Canal workers in the Ottawa, Canada area.  Using resources available at the OBOGS Library
• The Little Dutch Boy in the War “Extra Brothers and Sisters”
• Finding Theses on the Library and Archives Canada Website
• Noah Force (Cir 1768 - Bef 1851) – one of my 3 x Great-grandfathers 

While you can always learn something from any article, as I have no Ottawa roots I appreciate most the items of wider application, and good stories well told.

In the latter category is the Little Dutch Boy article by Kyla Ubbink which starts

What story will it be tonight? I wondered as I snuggled under my blankets, waiting for Dad to pop into my room and tuck me in. 

I won't give the story away. Kyla says there are more to look forward to.

In the former category is the one page article Finding Theses on the Library and Archives Canada Website by Dorothy Meyerhof. Access the Theses Canada Portal and do a basic or advanced search, including a full text search option. This portal is one that's been in active development at LAC this year so if you tried it before and were disappointed it might be worth trying it again. Remember you may find yourself deep into highly technical material with reference to a name searched being in a bibliography or list of references.

Regular columns Electronic Notebook, Interesting Web Sites and Gleanings from Newsletters in the Ottawa Branch Library are always worth browsing.

Ottawa Branch's search for volunteers continues with a need to fill to the Secretary, Newsletter Editor, and Webmaster roles as well as help with Gene-O-Rama, the Library and TONI Indexing. If you can help contact ottawachair@ogs.on.ca.

Findmypast adds Electoral Register Collection for England

England and Wales Electoral Registers 1832-1932 with over 5.4 million images and approximately 220 million names, the largest single collection released on Findmypast to date, is the gem of this week's additions. These annual registers, sourced from the British Library, also include brief details of property ownership, filling gaps between the censuses.

Here's a summary of number of results, first and last years for selected counties.
Cornwall: 57,899; 1832 - 1931
Cambridgeshire: 56,068; 1873 - 1931.
Cumberland: 49,273; 1842 - 1931
London: 237,904;  1850 - 1932
Middlesex: 306,251; 1857 - 1932
Norfolk: 221,758; 1852 - 1931
Rutland: 10,309; 1842 - 1931
Staffordshire: 79,926; 1851 - 1915
Suffolk: 88,239; 1839 - 1915

Despite the title I found no coverage for Welsh counties.

Coverage is best between 1885 and the First World War when enumeration was suspended.
Searching is on records that have been digitally scanned and then converted to machine-encoded text using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This process is not perfect. Check out the search tips at http://goo.gl/Gqspux

Ancestry has a similar collection coverage for London, the Midlands, West Yorkshire, Surrey and Dorset.

Also added to Findmypast this week:
Ireland, electoral registers 1885-1886. Covers Armagh, Fermanagh, Down, Limerick, Mayo, Meath, Tyrone, Roscommon, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow.
Scotland, Linlithgowshire (West Lothian), electoral registers 1864-1931 - over 23,000 records
Britain, Absent Voters Lists 1918-1921 - over 26,000 records

LAC Top Ten Topics

From March 2 - 6  2015 Library and Archives Canada conducted an online web usability study. There was feedback from 705 respondents. Clients responses produced the following ranking by subject area.

1. Genealogy (e.g. penitentiary lists, family histories)
2. First World War (e.g. maps, trench newspapers, photographs)
3. Photographs (e.g.  cities, people, events)
4. Finding aids (e.g. government, private)
5. Canadian people (e.g. Aboriginal heritage, authors)
6. Canadian events (e.g. Rideau canal, Expo 67)
7. Transportation (e.g. aircraft registration documentation, train photographs)
8. Canadian government (e.g. Cabinet documents, Orders in Council)
9. Rare books (e.g. comic books, Lowy collection of Judaica and hebraica)
10. Prime Minister Papers.

Item 1 received four times as many votes as item 10.

Hopefully the Genealogy category goes beyond the examples to include directories and newspapers.

The list should not serve to marginalize other essential activities at LAC. Sometimes questions like this lead to impossible choices. Which is more important air or water? Lack of either will kill you, it depends on whether you'd prefer to die a quick painful death or a slow painful death.

Thanks to LAC for a timely response to my information request.

Brockley Cemetery records now on Deceased Online

Records for Brockley cemetery back to 1858 as well as those for the conjoined Ladywell cemetery are now at Deceased Online. They promote it as "one of South London's cemetery jewels" with a wide range of fascinating records.
As usual the search is free, including a free advanced search where you can specify the exact cemetery. The free list of matches returned includes the exact date of burial.

Two new Irish Web databases at Ancestry

They're new to Ancestry as of October 8 and listed as:

Web: Dublin, Ireland, Wilson's Directory, 1820 (7,721 records)
Web: Ireland, Wills of Irish Soldiers Who Died in the British Army, 1897-1922 (9, 360 records)

As Ancestry cautions about all its Web databases "All data in this third-party database was obtained from the source’s website. Ancestry.com does not support or make corrections or changes to the original database."

With these two additions Ancestry now claims 183 Irish titles although you might well ask why some of these rate as specifically Irish. For example:

JewishGen Yizkor Book Master Name Index
UK, RMS Titanic, Outward Passenger List, 1912
Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F., 1916-1919
New Zealand Army WWI Casualty Lists, 1914-1919 New Zealand Army WWI Roll of Honour, 1914-1919
Registers of Kendal Westmorland 1558-1587
UK, Extracted Probate Records, 1269-1975
Miriam Weiner Eastern European Archival Database
Holocaust: Survivor names printed in Sharit Ha-Platah, 1946
Holocaust: Survivor List from the files of World Jewish Congress Jewish Given Name Variations
Holocaust: Register of survivors printed in Pinkas HaNitzolim I & II, 1945
Great Britain, Royal Naval Division Casualties of The Great War, 1914-1924
The Loyalists of Massachusetts
Private Member Stories Public Member Stories Private Member Photos
Public Member Photos & Scanned Documents
Royalty for Commoners
Queen Victoria's Descendants
Dictionary of National Biography
Glossary of Terms Used in Heraldry
Railway Gazette Worldwide Historical Data, 1860-1930

While there are likely people with Irish connections given the extent of the Irish diaspora the same could be said of almost any Canadian or US census.