Anglo-Celtic Connections

This collection, sourced from the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service, includes 366,964 marriage records from the county.

Most records include images of the original documents, while some offer indexed information only. The documents consist of marriage registers (multiple marriages per page) and marriage licenses (for single marriages). They can confirm the date and place of an ancestor’s marriage, along with the names, and residence parishes. Licenses can contain handwritten details not abstracted with additional information, such as the name of a parent or guardian approving the marriage of an underage person.

If you have Worcestershire ancestors, visit the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service website to explore its resources. You never know!

Two collections, sourced from The Royal Mail Archive at The Postal Museum, have recently been updated on Ancestry, offering insights into the lives of postal workers.

UK, Royal Mail Pension and Gratuity Records, 1834-1970

Pensions were granted to civil servants who served for ten years or more or retired due to medical reasons. If a person died while working, a gratuity was paid to their next of kin. Women forced to resign upon marriage also received a gratuity, a practice that continued for the Home Civil Service until 1946.

These 661,010 records often include a wealth of detail, including name, birth date, age, occupation, length of service, salary, and the date the pension was granted or the date of death. If you don’t find a record, check their service length, as ten years was required for eligibility.

UK, Postal Establishment Books, 1691-1979

This extensive collection of 1,273,579 records encompasses the employment of “established” workers, who were higher-grade employees with salaries, benefits, and pensions, such as clerical staff and postmasters.

Look here for name, date of birth, occupation, employment history, length of employment, and salary. Though women began working for the Post Office in 1870, the “marriage bar” often restricted them from established positions until 1946. Use his database for tracking early and mid-career postal service employment details.

The Ottawa Citizen of November 16, 1994, had a front-page headline, “Keep US power at bay.” Plus ça change!”

It was a cold day for the date, with some morning cloud but mostly clear skies and light winds. That’s unremarkable. What was remarkable was granting BIFHSGO its Letters Patent —happy 31st birthday.

According to Article III, taken from the inside cover of the first issue of Anglo-Celtic Roots, the Society’s objectives were:

Promoting and preserving British Isles/Canadian family and social history;
Encouraging research, publishing and sharing of British Isles/Canadian family
and social history;
Conducting public education programs on British Isles/Canadian
family and social history;
Undertaking public education programs on the freedom, access, and
sharing of British Isles/Canadian family and social history source
material;
Participating in the programs and projects of the Canadian
Federation of Genealogical and Family History Societies, Inc; and,
Joining appropriate genealogical and family history organizations.

The Canadian Federation no longer exists. BIFHSGO does— maintaining an active all-volunteer program. Thanks to all who have contributed to the successes over the years.

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge

Researching Military History in the Canadiana Collections

MyHeritage makes a major update to Theory of Family Relativity
Here’s what MyHeritage wrote “Our team just rolled out an update to Theory of Family Relativity™, adding an impressive 103 million new theories — a 44% increase that brings the total to over 336 million.”

CKCU-FM
A belated recognition of the 50th anniversary of one of Canada’s most enduring independent media organizations, CKCU 93.1 FM. Anytime you want to listen to music from the British Isles and beyond, go to https://www.ckcufm.com/, click on demand, and check out the archives of Music From the Glen, or listen live on Sunday starting at 11:30 am.

Presentation Opportunity
A reminder that OGS is currently accepting proposals for its 2026 Virtual Conference: From Steamships to Microchips to be held June 12-14, 2026.
The deadline for presentation proposals is 1 December at https://ogs.on.ca/conference-speaker-submission-page/

Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Anonymous, Bryan Cook, Darryl Bonk, Gail, Joan, Teresa, and Unknown.

This week, FMP’s military collections and newspaper archives are boosted with 2,858 new service records and over 200,000 fresh newspaper pages.

• British Royal Navy & Royal Marines Service and Pension Records, 1704–1939
  Years covered: 1842
  Records added: 1,385

• British Army Service Records, South Wales Borderers
  Years covered: 1891, 1914, 1915
  Records added: 1,473

• Newspapers
  FMP gets its newspapers from the sister site, the British Newspaper Archive. Here are the BNA additions in November. The earliest starts in 1751; most are from the second half of the 19th century.

A document dated 6 November 2025 outlines Library and Archives Canada’s strategic approach to integrating artificial intelligence into its operations. The key messages are:

• LAC embraces AI as transformative for making Canada’s documentary heritage more discoverable and accessible
• Four guiding principles: Transparency, Fairness, Human-in-the-loop, and Trust
• Three strategic pillars: (1) Making collections discoverable through enhanced metadata, (2) Building trust in information by combating misinformation, and (3) Partnering for innovation across sectors
• LAC positions itself as a responsible leader in the GLAM sector, aligning with government-wide digital transformation priorities

The Critique: All Talk, No Show

While establishing a foundational ethical framework is important and necessary, LAC’s document fails to move beyond this preliminary stage. Instead, it reads as if assembled from a corporate buzzword generator—or worse, written by the very AI it claims to be thoughtfully deploying. Here’s why it falls flat:

1. Zero concrete examples: The document mentions “pilot projects” and “concrete actions” but provides not a single specific example. What metadata was enhanced? Which handwriting recognition tool did they test? What were the results? We get platitudes about “accelerating workflows” without evidence that anything has been accelerated.

2. Principles without teeth: The four principles sound admirable until you realize they’re unfalsifiable. “Human-in-the-loop” and “Trust” mean nothing without specifics: Who reviews AI outputs? What happens when bias is detected? What are the actual protocols?

3. Strategic pillars built on air:

• Pillar One promises to “explore” and “pilot” metadata creation—but no timelines, success metrics, or examples of what they’ve actually created
• Pillar Two claims LAC combats misinformation but offers only vague “educational resources” with no description of content or reach
• Pillar Three celebrates partnerships without naming a single AI partner or collaborative achievement

4. Responsibility theatre: The repeated nods to government policies (Digital Ambition, Policy on Service and Digital, etc.) feel like box-ticking rather than meaningful accountability.

5. The irony is deafening: A document about transparency that reveals nothing. A commitment to “showing” how Canadians can engage with heritage that only tells us they’re thinking about it. The lack of self-awareness is almost impressive.

What’s actually missing:

• Specific AI tools or technologies being used or evaluated
• Measurable outcomes and lessons learned from any pilot project
• Budget allocations or resource commitments
• User testimonials or impact data
• Honest discussion of failures or limitations
• Timeline for implementation

This reads less like a position statement and more like a grant application—designed to signal virtue and alignment rather than demonstrate competence or achievement. For an institution tasked with preserving Canada’s documentary heritage, the complete absence of documentation about LAC’s own AI work is remarkably on-brand for government opacity.

And in case you’re wondering, I did use AI to assist in composing this critique.

As a service to LAC, I then asked AI to draft a likely rebuttal. Here it is, unedited.

LAC’s Likely Rebuttal

Re: Concerns Regarding AI Position Statement

We appreciate the thoughtful engagement with our AI position statement and welcome the opportunity to clarify its purpose and scope.

On the Nature of Position Statements

This document was intentionally designed as a strategic framework, not an operational report. Position statements articulate vision, principles, and direction—they establish the “why” and “how” of our approach before diving into the “what.” Detailed project reporting would be premature at this stage and risks creating false expectations about work that is still exploratory and evolving.

On Transparency and Timing

We acknowledge the desire for concrete examples. However, responsible innovation requires careful evaluation before public disclosure. Many of our AI pilots are:

• Still in active testing phases, where outcomes remain uncertain
• Subject to privacy and procurement considerations that limit what we can share publicly
• Being developed in partnership with vendors and institutions under confidentiality agreements
• Dependent on federal approval processes that govern public communication about emerging technologies

Premature disclosure of specific tools, vendors, or methodologies could compromise competitive procurement, create vendor lock-in, or raise unrealistic public expectations.

On Alignment with Government Priorities

The references to federal policies are not “box-ticking”—they represent mandatory compliance frameworks for all federal institutions. The Directive on Automated Decision-Making, for instance, requires algorithmic impact assessments before deployment. Our alignment with these frameworks demonstrates due diligence, not bureaucratic theatre.

On the Scope of This Document

As explicitly stated in the introduction, this position statement does not attempt to address all impacts of AI. Issues including copyright, legal deposit, and definitional questions around creation are being worked through separately with government and GLAM sector colleagues. A comprehensive document covering every dimension of AI would be unwieldy and quickly outdated.

On Substance Over Spectacle

We respectfully disagree that concrete examples are the only measure of serious commitment. The foundational work of:

• Auditing legacy metadata for quality and bias
• Establishing ethical review protocols
• Building staff capacity through training
• Developing partnerships with peer institutions

…is inherently less visible than launching a flashy AI tool, but it is no less essential. Rushing to deploy AI without this groundwork would be the truly irresponsible path.

Looking Forward

We commit to more detailed public reporting as projects mature and move from pilot to implementation phases. Future communications will include case studies, metrics, and lessons learned. However, we will not sacrifice careful planning for the appearance of momentum.

Our position statement is meant to signal readiness and commitment, not premature victory. We invite continued dialogue as our work progresses.

Translation: “We’re a government institution. We write frameworks, not features. Check back in 3-5 years for the progress report that will say we’re still exploring opportunities.”

The above translation paragraph was also composed by AI.

Researchers with Ontario roots have reason to celebrate: The Ontario Name Index (TONI) is now available on Ancestry, significantly expanding access to this valuable resource.

For years, TONI has been available only through the Ontario Genealogical Society website. While genealogists familiar with OGS knew to search there, the collection remained relatively unknown to the broader community of researchers who might benefit from it.

Two Versions, Different Scopes

The Ontario Name Index is a comprehensive database spanning records from 1812 to 2023, created by OGS volunteers and launched in 2011. Now it exists in two locations with different record counts.

Ancestry’s collection contains 7,656,896 records—all those that OGS volunteers have transcribed from original sources. The version on the OGS website at https://ogs.on.ca/toni/ is substantially larger, with 14,668,724 indexed records.

Why the difference? According to Mike More, who leads TONI, the OGS website includes records that were incorporated with permission from other sites. While OGS can host these records, they don’t have the rights to share them on platforms like Ancestry.

What You’ll Find

The index draws from diverse sources including birth, marriage, and death records, newspapers, censuses, government documents, and family histories. Entries typically include the individual’s name, county and township, record type, year, and repository location.

While the collection doesn’t contain images of original records, it serves as a crucial finding aid, pointing researchers toward the repositories where original documents can be accessed.

A Practical Approach

For researchers, searching this might mean a two-step strategy. Start with a familiar Ancestry search. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, check the OGS website directly, as additional records may fill in the gaps.

A recent post about the LAC Annual Departmental Results Report for 2024-2025 included information that

A new partnership with Internet Archive Canada (IAC), announced in June 2024, contributed another 2.8 million images by March 2025. The collaboration focuses on copyright-free publications from the 1300s through the 1920s, making rare historical materials freely available online. The initiative has already processed over 14,000 publications.

Updated information from LAC is that as of October 2025, 20,254 publications have been digitized, generating 4,320,900 images.

Information on the digitized catalogue will be shared once the material becomes publicly available through the IAC website. There’s no target date.

Dick Eastman has a post about a new online resource that opens Ireland’s transport heritage to the public with a genealogical database of almost 7,000 names.