Month: May 2021

Wednesday 12 May, 7 p.m; The Assassination of D’Arcy McGee, by James Powell for the Historical Society of Ottawa.
https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/34/16,17,19,21/the-assassination-of-d-arcy-mcgee

Too late to be included in the regular weekly event listing are these free Irish presentations online via Irish Genealogy News.

Wednesday 12 May: Ireland in Flanders: Men from the island of Ireland during the First World, with Piet Chielens, director of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres. Host: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland. All welcome. Free. 3pm ET. Need to register.

Thursday 13 May: From Turmoil to Truce: Photographs of the War of Independence, an online tour. Host: National Library of Ireland Photographic Archive. 6am ET. Free. All welcome. Need to book.

Thursday 13 May: Recovering the Voices of West Cork in the American Civil War, with Dr Damien Shiels. Host: Dúchas Clonakilty Heritage. An online lecture, starting at 3:30pm ET. Free. All welcome. Need to register. Details.

Thursday 13 May: Online book launch: Shadows from the Trenches – Veterans of the Great War and the Irish Revolution by Emmanuel Destenay. In conversation with Professor William Murphy. Host: UCD Press. 2pm ET. All welcome. Need to register.

Friday 14 May: From Speed to the OS: Surveying the Streets through the Irish Historic Towns Atlas, with Sarah Gearty. Host: Carti Cymru 2021 symposium (12-14 May), National Library of Wales. Free but need tickets. 8am ET. Online.

Saturday 15 May: Emigrants and Exiles, the East Galway Story, a day conference. A range of speakers composed of descendants and academics will gather virtually across the diaspora to share their stories and the stories of their communities. Host: Trasna na Tíre. On Zoom. 6am ET. Free. Download programme pdf. Registration.

Tuesday 11 May 2021 —
Happy Census Day in Canada.

Whether you got the short or long-form, remember that the return will only be used for statistical purposes for 92 years. I recommend making a copy of your return and keeping it with your family records.

Choose from free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Those in red are Canadian, bolded if local to Ottawa. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed.

Tuesday 11 May, 2 pm:  Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 11 May, 2 pm: Latest updates to MyHeritage Genetic Groups, by Daniel Horowitz for MyHeritage. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1692

Tuesday 11 May, 2:30 pm:  Find Your American Ancestor Using Canadian Records, by Kathryn Lake Hogan for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5087318

Tuesday 11 May, 7 pm: Finding Our Female Ancestors, by Cindi Moynahan-Foreman for Essex Branch OGS. https://essex.ogs.on.ca/events/essexoa-may-presentation/

Wednesday 12 May, 11 am: Monthly Genealogy Q&A with Myko Clelland for Findmypast. https://www.facebook.com/findmypast

Wednesday 12 May, 8pm: DNA Downer: Strategies for Dealing with DNA Fatigue, by Blaine Bettinger for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1627

Thursday 13 May, 6:30 pm: Reverse Genealogy: Finding Cousins and Chasing the Living, by Nicka Smith for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5087326

Thursday 13 May, 7 pm: Findmypast, what’s new and how to get more information, by Jen Baldwin of Findmypast for Lambton Branch OGS. https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/calendar/lambton-branch-findmypass-what-new-and-how-to-get-more-information-with-jen-baldwin/

Friday 14 May, 7 pm: Life Transitions Cemetery Video Series, by James MacNeil for Kent Branch OGS. https://kent.ogs.on.ca/events/life-transitions-cemetery-video-series/

Saturday 15 May, 10 am: Kingston Frontenac Public Library: Around the Room in 40 Bookmarks, by Joanne Stanbridge for Kingston Branch OGS. https://kingston.ogs.on.ca/

LOOKING AHEAD

4 — 6 June 2021: OGS Conference. conference.ogs.on.ca 

19 – 26 September 2021: BIFHSGO Conference. Irish Lines and Female Finds: Exploring Irish records, female ancestors and genetic genealogy. www.bifhsgo2021.ca/.

Deaths in the Second World War were more age-concentrated than in the First World War. That’s based on data from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission,

Why?

I’m saddened to pass along news of the passing of Dolly Allen (nee Wilson) on Friday, May 7, 2021.
Into her 90s, Dolly was the kind of member any society would wish for.  She excelled in transcribing and indexing materials for the Ottawa Branch of OGS. More than 100 items in the Ottawa Branch library catalogue dating from the 1980s to the 2000s have her name attached.  Dolly served on the Branch Council for many years as the librarian and volunteered for Gene-O-Rama and other genealogical events. Until recent years she was a frequent attendee at Ottawa Branch meetings.
She will be interred in the family plot at Ramsayville (Bethany United), a cemetery that has her name attached as a transcriber.

Ten Middlesex parishes and spanning 1699-1846 now have transcripts of settlement examinations to bastardy bonds searchable. The parishes covered are:

Chelsea, St Luke
Ealing, St Mary
Feltham, St Dunstan
Fulham, All Saints
Hammersmith, St Paul
New Brentford, St Laurence
Shepperton, St Nicholas
Staines, St Mary
Stanwell, St Mary
Uxbridge, St Margaret

It’s your lucky day if you find a relative as the transcripts can be very informative. For example, this settlement examination in July 1838 at
Chelsea, St Luke:

MARY ANN CLARK, wife of THOMAS CLARK of 7 Ellis Street. They married at St. Peter ad Vincular in the Tower of London on 4th July 1836 and have 2 children, WILLIAM HILL (born 7th August 1836) and MARY ANN MARTHA (born 15th April 1838). Her husband is a private soldier in the 2nd Battalion of 1st Grenadier Guards and is at present in Canada. Before going there he made a deposition on oath at the Public Office, Queens Square, Westminster. The following is a copy: The examination of THOMAS CLARK, a private in the 2nd Battalion of the 1st Regiment of Grenadier Guards, now living at 3 Earl Street, Chelsea, taken on 22nd March 1838. He says he has a wife and 1 child. He was born in Moreton by Sea in the parish of Hodent, Salop, and he has done no act to gain any subsequent settlement.

Available thanks to a partnership with West Middlesex Family History Society and the Family History Federation.

Human remains buried in the churchyard at St Lawrence, Brentford, are to be removed and re-interred at Brookwood Cemetery.

A pdf list of more than 900 burials at the church, which is at High Street, Brentford in the London Borough of Hounslow, with surname, first names, age, day/month of burial, year of burial is here. Burials are from 1843 to 1973. Appended are two lists of gravestones not in situ.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Love the reaction as well as the original.

Ads are everywhere. Turn on the TV and you’ll likely see one. You have to watch an ad or two before and sometimes during viewing a YouTube video – as with the one above. On Saturday BIFHSGO broke new ground by inserting an ad seeking volunteer Board members into a monthly meeting presentation. Your opinion please.

Additions to Findmypast on Friday included Australia, Inward, Outward & Coastal Passenger Lists 1826-1972. “We’ve merged our huge collection of Australian passenger lists into one searchable record set and added over 9 million new entries.”

Making it Count — Canada’s first census taken and revised.

Lost and Fonds: Our national archives’ poor record
An opinion piece by former LAC archivist Paul Marsden

Maths Challenges
Which is the better fit – a round peg in a square hole or a square peg in a round hole? In this question, “better fit” means filling more of the available space.
Want more maths challenges? Go to https://www.u3a.org.uk/learning/national-programmes/maths-challenge

For Mothers Day, celebrate “the biggest shake-up to the Marriage Act since 1837.” Mothers now to be listed on their children’s marriage certificates in England and Wales.

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous,  Cliff, Darrel. Dena, gail benjafield,  Glenn Wright, Ian, Nancy, Rod G., Susan, Unknown.

A couple of folks who use Chrome with gmail have let me know they found the daily email notifications for the blog diverted to a Promotions inbox category.

It’s easy to stop that from happening. How depends on whether you’re using Android, Computer or iPhone & iPad. Find the instructions at

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/3094499?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en&oco=0

Over 240,000 new baptism, marriage and burial records from Devon are ready to explore sourced from the Devon Family History Society and the Family History Federation.  Some are transcripts, many have images of the original record.

Over 122,000 baptism records (1538-1919 and 1921) are added for 46 parishes which now have a total of 200,361 entries. There are 2,553,052 baptismal records in the collection.

No new banns are added; the total remains 425,486.

Over 20,000 marriage records (1538-1799 and 1921) are added for 71 parishes. The total for those parishes is 733,270. The total for the collection is 1,944,242 marriages.

Over 104,000 burial records (1538-1917 and 1921) are added from 32 parishes which now have a total of 256,208 records. The whole collection has 2,133,751 burials.

Y-chromosome haplotyping and genealogical evidence were used to confirm the identity of the remain from HMS Erebus.

That’s all the DNA detail available in the abstract of the article DNA identification of a sailor from the 1845 Franklin northwest passage expedition by Douglas R. Stenton, Douglas R. Stenton, Stephen Fratpietro,
Anne Keenleyside and Robert W. Park in the 28 April issue of the journal Polar Report. I’m not about to lay out $25 US to read the full article.

I shall be interested to find out if a formal analysis of location, carbon dating, physical information from the skeletal remains as well as the DNA and genealogical evidence were formally drawn together in forming the conclusion.

Genealogists can note with pleasure that two of the references are to the Lancashire Online Parish Clerk Project.