Ancestry's addition of a Web database Gloucestershire, England, Non-Conformist Baptisms Index, 1739-1987 with 24,206 records sent me off looking at the website of the source, the Gloucestershire Archives.
The link given by Ancestry is ww3.gloucestershire.gov.uk/genealogy/Search.aspx
Check it out and you'll see Non-Conformist is just one of the categories of record in the online collection. Others are: Canal Boat Inspections, Overseers, Gaol, Wills 1541 - 1800,
Inventories, and Wills 1801 - 1858, An unrestricted search yields a total of 239,795 records.
The search is quite straightforward, there are no complicated instructions. Check out the results and click on the forename and scroll down to see a form with more detail. It may be all you need, or you can order a copy of the document from the Gloucestershire Archives.
The archives has an active blog at https://gloucestershirearchives.wordpress.com/
21 November 2015
Gloucestershire Archives
Devon Social & Institutional records on Findmypast
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Findmypast characterizes it as an "extraordinarily rich set of records." The 113,145 entries are classified as: Apprentices, Bastardy, Christmas Gifts, Convicts, Creed Register, Debtors, Deserters, Fallen Girls, Freeholders, Hackney Carriages, Hospital, Industrial School, Licences, Lists Of Inhabitants, Local Census, Lunatics, Magistrates' Court, Marriage Notices, Militia, Nuisances, Nurses, Paupers, Pedlars, Police, Police Returns, Poor Rates, Poor Relief, Prison Ladies, Rates, Reformatory, Returns Of Deaths, School, Soldiers, Vaccinations, Vagrants, Warrants, Workhouse Births, Workhouse Deaths.
Deceased Online adds Grimsby and Cleethorpes records
Grimsby's Scartho Road cemetery, Scartho Road crematorium, and Cleethorpes cemetery are the latest additions to records at www.deceasedonline.com.
Cleethorpes Cemetery, Beacon Avenue, Cleethorpes, 31 acres, has records from 1877 - 1999 including 77 military burials from the First World War and 50 from the Second.
Scartho Road Cemetery, Scartho Road, Grimsby, 67 acres, has records from 1889 - 1994 with 290 from the First World War and 258 from the Second World War.
Grimsby Crematorium, Weelsby Avenue, Grimsby, has records from 1954 - 1992
There are nearly 400,000 records and over 170,000 named burials and cremations in this addition comprising digital scans of original burial and cremation registers, grave details for each burial and cemetery maps indicating the section for each burial.
20 November 2015
StoryCorps
The idea is to have kids interview the older generation using the StoryCorps.me app, a smartphone app that anyone with an Android and iOS device could download and use to record high-quality audio. There are prompt questions the kids can ask to get the interview rolling.
StoryCorps’ founder Dave Isay was the winner of the 2015 TED conference $1 million prize to someone with “a creative, bold vision to spark global change.”
Read more about it at The Great Thanksgiving Listen from The History Blog.
Brian Glenn on The Hell of War and the Bells of Home
In the course of photographing All Saints Church, Sandy Hill, in Ottawa before Anglican services within its walls ceased in the late summer of 2014, Brian Glenn came across a wooden box with some 60 well conserved 3" x 5" glass slides. From the style of the box and the limited view he had of the contents they appeared to be photographs taken on the battlefield during Great War.
At the time Sandy Hill was still the hottest residential district of Ottawa, in a generation before Rockcliffe Park and the Glebe began to be considered prime residential districts of the capital. As home to many senior public servants including prime ministers Laurier, Borden and Mackenzie King, there was immense public interest in the progress of the war.
As Brian Glenn began to research these images, he discover that many of them were well known photographs from the First World War. The talk will discuss the history of photography in WW1; give a brief profile of three official CEF photographers and show a couple of examples of how photography was used for exhibition purposes.
The main part of the presentation will focus on one photograph of four graves near Vimy Ridge. While not an in-depth genealogical study of the four soldiers, I have drawn on the usual online sources: Ancestry, LAC, Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Findmypast to put together a picture of their lives, the battle and their deaths.
The talk will end with a video of the last ringing of the bells of All Saints Sandy Hill Church, where the box of glass plate photos was found.
The meeting is open to all.
19 November 2015
Ancestry adds English and Irish Freemason Registers
England, United Grand Lodge of England Freemason Membership Registers, 1751-1921 which has 1,713,246 entries
Ireland, Grand Lodge of Freemasons of Ireland Membership Registers, 1733-1923 containing 318,964 entries.
The collections are name indexed with images of the original registers linked. Registers vary but typically list name, a date or dates for an event or events, a record of dates of continuing membership and "observations," which can include a date of death. They may also note the dates a man advanced through the degrees of Freemasonry, and from the latter part of the 19th Century, professions.
Men in business were often Masons.
This collection is worth searching on the off chance. I was surprised to find in the English collection a family member who subsequently "did a run." His occupation and address are in the register. In the Irish collection I found a man with a somewhat uncommon family surname in New Brunswick in 1848.
For more on Freemasonry in England today see www.ugle.org.uk/what-is-freemasonry
ScotlandsPeople releases Military Service Appeals Tribunal records
The following is from ScotlandsPeople
"Now available to search are 7,977 index entries relating to the Appeal cases of 5,820 men seeking exemption from military service between 1916 and 1918. Fully searchable by name, address, grounds, and occupation, the index is FREE* to search, offering access to a little-known series of records which are of importance to family and military historians alike. Each record is a full colour facsimile of the Appeal case documents, and for an introductory period, are only 10 credits (2.33GBP) to view. Find out more about the Military Service Appeals Tribunal Records.
The Index for Military Service Appeals Tribunal Records is free to search. Images are chargeable and can be viewed for 10 credits per document until 3 December 2015, and will cost 20 credits per document thereafter."
Any true Scot would act before the price increases!
Read more about these records at http://goo.gl/ZVjKQQ
Home Child data online
As anticipated Library and Archives Canada have now updated their website at Home Children, 1869-1932.
LAC describes the contents as:
This database includes names indexed from the following Canadian immigration records:
Passenger lists from 1869 to 1921 and 1925 to 1932 (RG76): These lists constitute the official record of immigration to Canada in those years and are arranged by date and port of arrival. They were consulted to find names of Home Children. The lists have been digitized and can be viewed online through our Passenger Lists 1865-1922 database. Form30A immigration records (1919 to 1924) were not systematically indexed, but other sources were consulted for the years 1922 to 1924.
The annual Sessional Papers for the Immigration Branch were sometimes used to help identify particular parties of children when the passenger lists did not provide precise details.
When passenger lists were not available or partially illegible, other Canadian immigration records were consulted to identify children or help decipher the names such as:
Department of Agriculture (RG17): Prior to 1892, the Immigration Branch was under the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. The General Correspondence Series includes some correspondence between the Immigration Branch and various sending organizations. These records are not available on microfilm or online.
Immigration Branch, Central Registry Files (RG76 B1a): These files include correspondence between the Immigration Branch and various sending organizations. Files may contain annual reports, information booklets and some lists of the names of children sent to Canada. Relevant files in that series cover the years 1892 to the early 1930s. Available on microfilm and online.
Immigration Form 30A (RG76 C1j): From 1919 to 1924, individual Form 30A records were used instead of passenger lists. Available on microfilm and online.
Juvenile Inspection Reports (RG76 C4c): These reports, which date mostly from the 1920s, recorded the inspection visits to individual children in the years after their arrival. Available on microfilm and online.
Manifest indexes (RG76 C2): Transcripts created by the former Immigration Branch in which the names on each passenger list were grouped alphabetically for that ship. They include fewer details than the corresponding passenger lists. These indexes are arranged by date of arrival, regardless of port. They cover the years 1906 to 1920. Available on microfilm and online.
Names of Home Children were also indexed from non-Canadian immigration records such as:
Outwards passenger lists: Passenger lists for ships leaving ports in the United Kingdom. These lists are in the Board of Trade series at the National Archives in England.
Records held by of other institutions: When a reference is provided to documents held by another institution, such as the Colonel Laurie's Papers at the Nova Scotia Archives, you must contact the specified office for information about those records.
U.S. passenger lists: Some groups of children arrived at American ports and are recorded on American passenger lists held at the U.S. National Archives.
This database also includes names indexed from other various archival records or published sources from the:
Canadian Department of Agriculture
Canadian Immigration Branch, Central Registry Files
Catholic Emigration Association, England
Charlotte A. Alexander, England
Chorlton Union, England
Barnarbo's Homes, England
Father Berry's Home, England
Father Hudson Society Archives, Coleshill, Birmingham, United Kingdom
Fegan Distributing Home, Toronto, Ontario
Gibb Home, Sherbrooke, Quebec
Girls' Friendly Society, England
Isle of Man
Leeds Board of Guardians, England
Middlemore Children's Emigration Homes, England
National Children's Home, Hamilton, Ontario
Nugent Care and other Catholic Liverpool Agencies, England
Soeurs de la Charité, Rimouski, Quebec
West Derby Union, children sent to Canada by Father Berry's Home, England
Westminster Catholic Diocese, London, England
This database also includes names of Home Children:
Sent by Maria Rye to Canada from 1869 to 1879
Enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces and who died in the First World War.
In addition to the names of Home Children, some of the records that were indexed include the names of:
Some unaccompanied juvenile migrants who were not Home Children
Some older boys who were recruited for farm training schemes
Some older children and young adults who were recruited by immigration agents in the U.K. for farming and domestic work in Canada
Some Armenian orphans who arrived with Home Children groups
Some young adults who had been in care as children and travelled as chaperones for the organizations
There are links to additional information sources at:
British Home Children & Child Migrants in Canada: Research pages
British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa: Home Children pages
It's good to see LAC giving credit to volunteers:
Library and Archives Canada gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa and its volunteers, without which this project would not have been possible. In particular, we would like to thank John Sayers, who coordinated the BIFHSGO volunteer indexing project and contributed in many ways to the database partnership with LAC.
Library and Archives Canada would like to thank the late Mr. Brian Rolfe, who donated the microfilm of the Dr. Barnardo's Homes Ups and Downs magazine and initiated that indexing project.
Library and Archives Canada would like to thank Gail Collins, who compiled the index to Maria Rye children who were sent to Canada between 1869 and 1879.
Library and Archives Canada would like to thank Lori Oschefski, Dawn Heuston, Jenn Layne, Marjorie Kohli and Perri Snow for their work on identifying Home Children who enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces during the First World War and who died during the war.
What's LAC talking about in 2015?
To underline the benefit he mentions, in six of those speeches, that LAC has "one of the most popular websites in the Government of Canada, with an average of 1.8 million visits a month."
Leaving out stop words, the most frequently used words in his speeches are: LAC - 255 mentions, digital - 207, Canada - 180, government - 145, archives - 137, national - 118, library - 106, records - 99, information - 95, memory - 94, heritage - 90.
Further down the list are 50 mentions of archivists, 41 for Canadians, 30 for clients, 29 for partners, 26 for librarians, 10 each for citizens and professionals, nine for researchers, three for historians and genealogists (the largest single client group).
In a social media age there at seven mentions of Flickr, four for YouTube, and one each for Facebook and Twitter.
I used the text analysis tool AntConc to compile the statistics.
OGS Kingston Branch 21 November Meeting
Who were the Loyalists? What were on their geographical origins and settlement areas in British North America?
Regarding the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada, founded in 1914, the talk will cover why someone would want to join and to obtain a certificate proving descent from a United Empire Loyalist, the application process and the types of documents required with examples of items such as land claims obtained from the Archives of Ontario.
The meeting is in the Frontenac Room, Seniors Centre, 56 Francis Street, Kingston.
18 November 2015
Survey - Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada wants your input to assist in developing a strategic plan for the next three years. This survey is being conducted by Nanos Research and is registered with the national survey registration system. By participating in this survey you will help LAC to improve their services. Your responses will remain confidential and protected.
England and Wales Deaths 1838 - 1962
The statistics are based on death registration statistics from FreeBMD and population figures from the decennial census, interpolated to annual values.
There's a general decline in the death rate from the early 1870s to the early 1920s.
Did your ancestor die in a large epidemic or other fatal episode?
Comparing the area within the labelled peaks to the total area under the curve shows death is much more likely to NOT have occurred in one of these episodes.
The top five events, identified as most prominent compared to the eight adjacent years, are labelled by severity.
1. The influenza pandemic which peaked in the last quarter of 1918 and first quarter of 1919.
2. Deaths associated with the Irish Famine occurring primarily from 1846 to 1849. In Lancashire, close to Ireland, deaths peaked in the second and third quarter of 1847. Nearly 20% of deaths in England and Wales were in Lancashire in the third quarter of 1847 whereas 15% was typical.
3. Deaths were greater in the last quarter of 1940 and first quarter of 1941, during the Blitz. But it was the first quarter of 1940 that saw the year's peak for deaths. The cause isn't clear. There was an outbreak of influenza but the strain was not classified as especially fatal.
4. Influenza was prevalent from late 1889 to early 1892.
5. There appears to be no single cause for this peak which is only slightly more prominent than the typical year to year variability for the first half of the record. The high rate of infant mortality, 150 per thousand births prior to 1900, means that a year with more births would also be one with more deaths, a trend evident in the registration data.
CLA defends the expression of repugnant opinion
The Canadian Library Association has issued a revised Statement on Intellectual Freedom and Libraries. It includes the statement:
Libraries have a core responsibility to safeguard and facilitate access to constitutionally protected expressions of knowledge, imagination, ideas, and opinion, including those which some individuals and groups consider unconventional, unpopular or unacceptable.It can be difficult to accept the right of people to express themselves in a manner which, while legal, violates once's ideas of what's acceptable in a civilized society, more so when one's taxes are being used to facilitate that access.
Tolerance
17 November 2015
LAC Service Files Digitization: November Update
As of 16 November, 217,062 of 640,000 files are available online via Library and Archives Canada's Soldiers of the First World War: 1914–1918 database.
The latest box digitized: Box #3121 and surname Fitzpatrick.
Last month's update reported 203,393 files digitized. The rate of digitization is accelerated from last month and at the most recent rate would be complete by the end of 2018.
Perth & District Historical Society 19 November Meeting
Uprooting Your Family for a Life in a New and Uncertain World
What would make you decide to uproot your family, take the arduous journey across the Atlantic Ocean and start a new life in a strange land?
For our November 19, 2015, meeting, the Perth and District Historical Society presents Kay Rogers, local editor and co-author of At Home in Tay Valley. Kay will begin her presentation by posing the question: What prompted people to leave their homes to start new lives in Tay Valley Township, indeed more generally, the Perth Military Settlement, starting in 1816?
Kay will tell us about the settlers’ first year, the year of no summer. She will describe how the Algonquin, the First Nations people who were here long before the settlers arrived, helped the newcomers survive in their new homeland. Kay will paint a picture of the lives of the settlers at a time when there were work bees of all kinds and that the fiddler was the focus of community gatherings, barn dances, fairs and socials.
Throughout her presentation, Kay will draw from Tay Valley Township’s recently released book celebrating the people, places and events in the history of the Bathurst, North Burgess and South Sherbrooke municipalities. Over 60 community members contributed to At Home in Tay Valley, a history that’s been 200 years in the telling for the settlers, and several thousand years for the Algonquin. Kay will illustrate her presentation with maps, paintings and photographs.
The proceeds from the sale of At Home in Tay Valley, as well as the 200th Anniversary calendar of the Perth Military Settlement, will be directed to a Tay Valley Township 200th Anniversary legacy project: a history scholarship for a student graduating from PDCI or St. John who has demonstrated a keen interest in history and who has been accepted into a post-secondary programme.
Raised in Ottawa, Kay’s ties to Tay Valley extend back to childhood visits to Christie Lake, and later, visits with extended family near Sheridan Rapids. Over this time, Kay fell in love with the area; about a decade ago, she fulfilled her dream of making Tay Valley her adopted home.
Please join us for an evening visit back to the very beginning of our community,
at Perth's Royal Canadian Legion, home of the Hall of Remembrance,
26 Beckwith Street E., Perth, at 7:30pm (Toonie donation)
16 November 2015
Family Tree DNA Year End Sale
The Y-DNA test is reduced from $169 to $139 for the 37 marker STR test.
The Family Finder test is reduced from $99 to $89
The mt Full Sequence test is reduced from $199 to $169.
All prices are in US dollars.
There are similar reductions on other tests, see the website.
Every genealogist should have at least a Family Finder (or equivalent) test.
More than 80% of presenters at OGS Conference 2016 to be Canadians
Ask Canadians about their favourites in any other field: literature, music, art, or the most recognised in any field of endeavour such as science or business and you'd hardly expect the top ten to be packed with Canadians. With most Canadians having immigrant ancestors it's not surprising Canadian genealogists have an international perspective. On top of that in fields that are "generic", like genetic genealogy, there's every reason to expect the Rockstars to be from the most populous countries.
Nevertheless the collective ego of some Canadian genealogist-speakers was bruised by the choices of Canadian genealogists. One of the complaints was that not enough Canadian speakers were featured in Canadian genealogy conferences.
As awareness is a step in addressing an issue Lorine McGinnis Schulze of The Olive Tree Genealogy set out to compile a list of Canadian Genealogy personalities and seeking input from her readers. Read her 12 November Update on Where Are the Canadian Genealogists Hiding?
Information just released to OGS branches on the June 3 to 5 OGS 2016 conference at Toronto’s International Plaza Hotel shows a program with many Canadian speakers.
"The invited presenters break down as follows:
- 1 resident of the UK
- 5 Americans
- 1 Canadian living in the US
- 2 Quebecers
- 1 Atlantic Canadian and 1 Western Canadian
- 9 Ontarians from Barrie, Bolton, Oakville, Ottawa, Simcoe, Sudbury, Waterloo
- 9 who live and/or work in the City of Toronto
More than 80% of presenters will be Canadians, with non-Canadians overwhelmingly focused on areas of technology where they enjoy global leadership."
That ratio could change as OGS issues a supplementary call for speakers in the new year to cover late-breaking news. Will Canadian genealogy speakers grasp that further opportunity to demonstrate they are at the leading edge?
15 November 2015
Advice to Authors
1. Focus on one subject or story – Pick and write about just one topic of interest to you in a single article. For example, don’t try to give the history of your entire family, describe multiple events or do an exhaustive summary of many different methods of research.
2. Keep the message simple – Get to the point quickly. Don’t include too much ancillary data about a myriad of people, places, activities or dates. Stay on topic throughout.
3. Create a structure for the article – Start with a brief introduction of the subject – even listing basic conclusions at the beginning so the reader knows where you going. Keep the main body of the text, including any subsection on topic. Write a summary at the end bringing together all the results of the story/project or any problem that was solved. is applies no matter how short or long an article is. It is important to get the readers’ attention from the start. Do not wait until the end of a piece to let them
know what the story was all about. Very simply, “Tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them, and tell them what you told them.” By the way, this methodology works very well for verbal presentations, too.
4. Set out the article in point form to start with – Before you get to the actual writing, organize your thoughts by listing them in point form. It is then easier to rearrange material to follow a logical framework. Individual points can be expanded and linked once a basic outline of what you want to say has been established.
5. When writing about family members, stick with one family or one individual – It’s ok to briefly mention family or one individual direct family relationships but avoid writing a wholesection about a spouse’s family history, distant cousins, children of siblings, uncles, aunts or the parents of brothers-in-law, as examples.
6. Use proper English – Some tips: avoid long sentences; use one subject per sentence and one subject per paragraph; check spelling; use similar word structures when listing items or phrases; don’t mix tenses; avoid repeating words and phrases; make sure adjectives and adverbs are placed near the words they are supposed to modify; make sure any pronouns and relative pronouns are properly placed and which nouns they are replacing is clearly evident; don’t mix singular and plural expressions.
7. Headings and subheadings – Use headings or subheadings within the text where necessary to separate information or guide the reader through the article. If several major points are to be emphasized break them into sections with titles.
8. Precision and clarity – Use language that is easy to understand. Avoid the use of colloquial expressions and jargon. Every word and phrase that is written should mean exactly what it is intended to mean. Reading material aloud, to yourself or someone else, sometimes helps in determining whether the writing is clear and unambiguous.
9. Citations and references – Always clearly state the sources of information used, within the text where appropriate and in a list at the end of an article. A reference section at the end of an article should have full details on books and articles, and the URLs of any websites from which information was downloaded. Use quotations marks around material published elsewhere and note the source of same.
10. Assistance in writing – For those authors who would like help in constructing their articles, use Internet help sources or contact the publication editor. Most editors will be willing to help review drafts and make suggestions as to style and content.
For BIFHSGO there's a pdf Guide to Authors at http://goo.gl/aTIihY
Thanks to Wayne for permission to publish the extract.
Other contents of the November 2015 issue of RELATIVELY SPEAKING are:
Sowing Winter Wheat: Introducing genealogy and family history to children and youth, by John Althouse
Family Adhesive: The value of family history for children, by Janet Hovorka
Th e Search for Captain Roy Brown, by John J. N. Chalmers
Visiting Alberta’s Past: What was it like when you were my age? by John Althouse
Is Family History for Children and Youth? by Helen Gwilliam
Mystery, by Anne Baines
Immigrants to Canada: A family history project in grade 5 Social Studies, by Marion Rex
Our Acker Family’s Journey to Canada, by Colin Acker & Allison Martens
Escape from Czechoslovakia: The Bouz Journey, by Leah Kinahan & John Bouz
Isley Family Descendants, by Andrew Kennedy
Let Th em Contribute: How today’s youth are engaging in the genealogy space, by Amanda Terry & Devin Ashby
Soft launch of the new archivescanada.ca
You may have been familiar with the old site at www.archivescanada.ca which became dated. At Friday's meeting on Canada's Archives: A New Blueprint Laura Wilson, Chair of the CCA Board of Directors announced the soft launch of the new site which is in continuing development. Explore, but be sure to go to the site without the www preface - that leads to the old site.
The technically inclined might be interested to know the site incorporates AtoM version 2.2, a multi-level archival description and archival repository database developed by artifactual based in Wesminster BC
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