Kinfolk Observatory, a free tool with no account or sign-in, has 13 ways to explore a family tree. It reads and works in your browser; nothing is uploaded to the web.
It was developed by Steve Little using advanced AI. A sample of the charts from my GEDCOM is below.
Take a look at the anomalies found in Things Worth Checking.
https://observatory.
The new collection Ireland, Dublin Maternity Hospital Births, 1797-1882, contains 616,962 transcription records and was posted on 11 November 2026.
The records from Rotunda Hospital in Dublin typically include the child’s name, date and place of birth, date of baptism, and the parents’ names. Some also include the parents’ birth years and the mother’s place of residence.
The collection may be especially useful for births before 1864, when Ireland began civil registration of all births. Before then, researchers had to rely mainly on church records, which are often incomplete or hard to access.
Dr Bartholomew Mosse founded the Rotunda Hospital in 1745, and it remains one of the world’s oldest maternity hospitals still in operation.
Today, Friday, 13 November 2026, is doomsday. Professor von Foerster and two colleagues at the University of Illinois published that prediction in 1960 in the respected journal Science.
https://theconversation.com/why-the-doomsday-prediction-of-1960-matters-today-295817
Join the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa on Saturday, 14 November 2026 for two presentations covering local genealogical discoveries and wartime clandestine operations.
9:00 a.m. EST: A Life Lost, A Face Found
Presenter: Sara MacKenzie
Sara MacKenzie recounts tracking down her great-granduncle, Donald McKenzie of Horton Township, whose story had vanished from family memory. Starting from an unexpected will discovered at the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives, the trail wound through First World War service files, prairie newspapers, and archival photos to reveal the life of a young man cut down in his prime—bringing the search full circle to the archives where she now serves as Board President.
More about the speaker: Sara MacKenzie Profile
Presenter: Paul McCue
Military historian Paul McCue details the life of SOE wireless operator Lilian Rolfe in Nazi-occupied France, her training in England alongside a Canadian agent from Camp X, and the archival obstacles faced in reconstructing her clandestine mission. McCue has written six books on wartime special operations and serves as Executive Trustee of the educational charity SECRET WW2.
Meeting & Registration Details
Find out more at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events
In Person: Geneva Hall, Knox Presbyterian Church (Lisgar & Elgin). Use the Elgin Street Garden Entrance. Limited free street parking on Saturdays; City Hall garage is $2.00.
Online: Streamed live via Zoom. One registration covers both presentations.
Save up to 50% on selected Findmypast subscriptions with their limited-time family history sale, running until 16 November.
Billed annually at $149.99
The discount covers access to billions of historical records, extensive parish registers, and their vast historical newspaper archives. Included are automated record hints, integrated newspaper clipping, and research Workspaces, which make organizing and citing evidence much smoother.
TheGenealogist has added a batch of burial registers, church memorial inscriptions and cemetery records to its collection. The additions, for more than a dozen places in England and Ireland, cover roughly 1562 to 1853, plus later monumental inscriptions in the cathedrals and cemeteries.
London: St Paul’s, Covent Garden, 1653–1853
The burial registers of St Paul’s Church, Covent Garden cover two centuries. The church was built in the 1630s as part of the Covent Garden development, and the registers run from the Commonwealth period through the Georgian era and into the 1850s. The first plague victim of the 1665 plague was buried at St Paul’s in Covent Garden in April of that year.
Suffolk: St James, Bury St Edmunds, 1562–1800
The parish registers of St James, Bury St Edmunds, start in the first years of Elizabeth I’s reign and run to 1800. St James later became the town’s cathedral, so these registers cover the parish church before that change. For most researchers, the registers’ value lies in 238 years of ordinary burials in a prosperous Suffolk market town.
Buckinghamshire: Bletchley parish registers
Bletchley recorded 126 burials in 1665, most attributed to plague, in a parish that normally buried about 20 or fewer people a year. Most of those deaths fell in August, September and October.
Durham and Hereford: cathedral memorials
Two cathedral cities are covered by monumental inscriptions. The Durham material includes memorials in the cathedral as well as in the surrounding churches and cemeteries. The Hereford volume covers monuments in the cathedral. Cathedral memorials tend to commemorate clergy, gentry and prominent townspeople.
Devon: a dozen churchyards
Churchyard inscriptions from a dozen Devon parishes are included; the press release doesn’t say which parishes
Ireland: Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin
For Irish researchers, the collection includes records of historic graves at Glasnevin Cemetery. Glasnevin opened in 1832 and is Dublin’s best-known cemetery.
LAC is mentioned twice in the 5 November budget document.1. “Budget 2026 proposes to provide $783.1 million over five years, on a cash
basis, starting in 2026-27, to support Canada’s national museums, the
National Battlefields Commission, the National Arts Centre, and Library and Archives Canada. This investment will help repair and renew aging facilities, protect national collections, and sustain the exhibitions, performances, and services that connect Canadians to our history and culture.”
2. A table on Policy actions taken since the Spring Economic Update 2026 shows LAC as allocated an additional $ 1 million each year from 2027-2028 onward.
The last time LAC was mentioned in the budget document was in 2022 when ” $25 million over three years, starting in 2022-23, to Library and Archives Canada to support the digitization of millions of documents relating to the federal Indian Day School System”
Performance Indicator Comparison (2024–25 vs. 2025–26)
| Indicator | Target | 2024–25 Actual | 2025–26 Actual | Trend & Status |
| Federal institutions transferring records | 10% | 13.14% | 21.6% | Improved (Target Met) |
| Increase in digital published titles | 25% | 40.4% | 13% | Stabilized (Below 25% benchmark, though LAC counts as met) |
| Target acquisition areas covered | 75% | 96% | 96% | Unchanged (Target Met) |
| Government records processed in standard | 60% | 61.2% | 68% | Improved (Target Met) |
| Published heritage processed in standard | 83% | 93% | 89% | Declined due to budget cuts (Target Met) |
| Private archives processed in standard | 75% | 91% | 98% | Improved (Target Met) |
| Analog preservation facility standards | 75% | 57% | 64.25% | Improved, but Target Missed |
| Digital material preserved (Cumulative) | 18,871 TB | 17,371 TB | 19,132 TB | Improved (Target Met) |
| Images digitized for access | 6.5 M | 10 M | 11.4 M | Improved (Target Surpassed) |
| Unique website/online visitors | 3 M | 2.9 M | 5.7 M | Improved; moved from missed to Target Met |
| Onsite and remote service transactions | 60,000 | 50,606 | 83,658 | Improved; moved from missed to Target Met |
| ATIP requests processed vs. total active | 70% | 66% | 69% | Improved, but Target Missed |
| Exhibition and event attendance | 150,000 | 161,992 | 222,193 | Improved (Target Met) |
| Collection items loaned for exhibitions | 75 | 88 | 44 | Declined; fell from met to Target Missed |
| DHCP recipients achieving results | 90% | 91% | 100% | Improved (Target Met; program now cancelled) |
What Has Improved
What Hasn’t Improved (Or Slipped)
What Remain Major Concerns
Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—please check the links to avoid disappointment. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/
Tuesday, 10 November
2:00 PM: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, by OGS Ottawa Branch. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/
2:00 PM: DNA Matches on MyHeritage: From Chaos to Clarity, by Kate Penney Howard for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/
2:30 PM: Stories of the Final Chapter: What Death Records Reveal – About Our Ancestors, by Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/17653046
7:00 PM: The Teacher Goes Off To War, by Ron Gilmore for OGS Lambton County Branch. https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/events/november-10-2026-webinar-ron-gilmore/
Wednesday, 11 November
2:00 PM: Following the Armies: Researching Military Maps, by Michael L. Strauss for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/
Thursday, 12 November
7:00 PM: Lending a Hand and Bending a Back: The Story of the Farmerettes 1941-1952, for OGS Essex Branch and HEIRS. https://essex.ogs.on.ca/events/essex-branch-heirs-nov-2026-webinar-lending-a-hand-and-bending-a-back-the-story-of-the-farmerettes-1941-1952/
Friday, 13 November
2:00 PM: Researching in Devon, by Janet Few for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/.
7:00 PM: The Bandit of Skunks Misery, for OGS Kent Branch (hybrid meeting). https://kent.ogs.on.ca/events/kent-branch-november-13-hybrid-presentation-the-bandit-of-skunks-miser.
Saturday, 14 November
9:00 AM: A Life Lost, A Face Found, by Sara MacKenzie for BIFHSGO.
10:00 AM: Lilian: the challenges of researching and writing the true story of a Secret Radio Operator in WW2 France, by Paul McCue for BIFHSGO
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events
National Records of Scotland (NRS) and ScotlandsPeople made two notable announcements in the past seven days:
WWI Pensions Appeal Tribunal Records Online: Released on 5 November 2026, ScotlandsPeople launched more than 25,000 case files from the military Pensions Appeal Tribunals for Scotland. These cover appeals by First World War veterans or their surviving dependents and include detailed medical assessments, service histories, witness statements, and personal correspondence about disability claims and pensions. More at https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/news-and-articles/graveyards-hope-pensions-appeal-tribunals-scotland
Updated Scottish Family History Guide: Published on 6 November 2026, NRS released an updated official guide book for tracing Scottish genealogy, outlining modern methodologies, revised record sets, and step-by-step navigation for statutory, church, and court records. More at https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/latest-news/uncover-your-scottish-roots-with-updated-guide-book/
Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.
AI can make mistakes. Double-check responses
This Little World: A New History of Tudor and Stuart England
At 2:30 PM ET on 11 November, historian Nandini Das in conversation with Neil Johnston, Head of Early Modern Records at The National Archives (UK).
Tracing the Spread of Celtic and Germanic Languages Using Ancient Genomics (Video)
A First Full-Count Linking of English and Welsh Censuses, 1851–1921
This publication in the Cambridge Working Papers in Economic and Social History series successfully linked 56.26% of all ‘linkable’ individuals between successive censuses across the entire period. The paper describes the method in detail, which relies heavily on a technique proposed in 1969 by Ivan Fellegi (former head of Statistics Canada) and co-author Alan Sunter.
The Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum
The integration of the Oxfordshire Aviation Archive, which provides family and military historians access to new personal papers, flight logs, and service records, was recently completed.
London’s Poverty Maps – Discover Where Your Ancestors Lived
Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Anonymous, Elise, Gail, Glenn Wright, Teresa, Unknown.
With Remembrance Day approaching, this week’s Findmypast release carries a strong military focus, featuring First World War pension award case files from The National Archives, major additions and access to British Army Service Records from 1760 to 1939, and an update to the British Newspaper Archive adding 269,680 pages across five new titles and 29 updated publications.
British Armed Forces First World War Pensions Award Files
Searchable fields include name, year, regimental number, rank, regiment, description, notes, nature of disease or disability, archive reference, sub-series, and covering dates.
British Army Service Records
Transcript details typically include first and last name, birth year, birth county and country, service number, rank, regiment, battalion, attestation age and date, residence, pension information, date of death (if died in service), document type, and archive series. Accompanying original images often provide rich biographical context, including physical descriptions, previous civilian occupations, marital status, religion, next-of-kin names and addresses, and complete campaign histories.
Newspapers
| Title | Years Added | Pages Added |
| Christian Lady’s Magazine | 1834–1841, 1843–1846 | 11,540 |
| Lady’s Magazine | 1770–1814, 1816–1823, 1828–1830 | 41,110 |
| Lady’s Magazine and Museum | 1832–1836 | 3,948 |
| Lady’s Monthly Museum | 1798–1832 | 27,340 |
| Maids, Wives and Widows Magazine | 1832–1833 | 348 |
| Title | Years Added | Pages Added | Total Years Covered |
| Derby Daily Telegraph | 2000, 2004 | 44,150 | 1879–2000, 2002–2004 |
| Bristol Evening Post | 2005 | 30,758 | 1939, 1949, 1951–1999, 2001, 2003–2005 |
| Heartland Evening News | 2002, 2004–2005 | 27,800 | 1992–1999, 2002, 2004–2005 |
| Nottingham Recorder | 2000, 2002–2003, 2005 | 12,614 | 1981–2000, 2002–2003, 2005 |
| Herts and Essex Observer | 2000, 2003 | 12,382 | 1862–1863, 1874–1875, 1877–1889, 1921, 1930–2000, 2003 |
