Month: August 2021

In partnership with the British Library, Findmypast now has over a million newspaper pages free to search and view, with more than 2.7 million additional free pages to come over the next four years.

There are currently 158 free newspapers on offer, dating from 1720 to 1880 and covering a diverse array of histories, locations, and topics.

Highlights from the collection include:

Barbadian (1822-1861) – a fascinating Caribbean publication that covers the transition of Barbados from the colonial, pre-modern to the modern era, including the Emancipation (1834), and the end of the apprenticeship system (1838)
British Emancipator (1837-1840) – an anti-slavery newspaper that fought for the abolition of the system of apprenticeship, which was put into place after slavery was abolished in the British Colonies
British Miner and General Newsman (1862-1867) – a journal devoted to working miners, which went through a number of titles including The Miner, The Workman’s Advocate, and The Commonwealth
Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register (1803-1836) – a famous and hugely information-rich vehicle for the ideas and opinions of the great nineteenth-century radical William Cobbett
The Examiner (1808-1880) – a leading radical weekly, edited by Leigh Hunt, with contributors including William Hazlitt, John Keats, and Percy Shelley
Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review (1862-1870) – a lively, visually rich newspaper covering a wide range of sports and theatrical events, with many fine illustrations
Royal Gazette of Jamaica (1779-1840) – a West Indies newspaper notorious for its slavery advertisements
Lady’s Newspaper and Pictorial Times (1847-1863) – one of the earliest newspapers produced for an exclusively female audience
Morning Herald (1800-1869) – founded in 1780, a national daily that for a number of years rivalled The Times in importance
Poor Man’s Guardian (1831-1835) – the most successful and influential of the radical unstamped (and thus illegal) newspapers of the early 1830s
Sun (1801-1871) – a daily evening national newspaper, founded in 1792, originally with pro-government and anti-French revolutionary stance, before changing to advocate liberal and free trade principles.

Find out more at https://www.findmypast.com/blog/new/free-newspapers

Findmypast tweeted about a live “Tour of the Free Newspapers” presentation by Mary McKee today, 9 August at 11 am ET.  Find it at www.facebook.com/findmypast or possibly www.facebook.com/findmypast/live/.

A week ago I mentioned the South Staffordshire FHS is adding information on soldiers on local war memorials, now comprising 1065 records. They include the following who served with Canadian forces, likely being commemorated on their original home memorial.

Rank:	Number:	First:	Last:	Regiment:	Died:	Place:	SWFHS Memorial:
Pvt	463806	Frederick	PANTER	Canadian Infantry	Wednesday, June 28, 1916	France	Alcester
Pvt	443145	William Barton	BOARDMAN	Canadian Light Infantry	Tuesday, September 11, 1917	France	Alderminster
Pvt	426874	William	SALT	Canadian Infantry	Wednesday, July 26, 1916	France	Alveston
Pvt	451949	Francis Price	TAYLOR	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, June 13, 1916	France	Arrow
Pvt	405761	Frank	HOUGHTON	Canadian Mounted Rifles	Friday, June 2, 1916	France	Arrow
Tpr	15646	Lord Edward Beauchamp	SEYMOUR	Lord Strathcona’s Horse	Wednesday, December 5, 1917	France	Arrow
Pvt	721235	Aubrey J	KIRBY	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, October 30, 1917	France	Berkswell
Pvt	171589	John	BEESLEY	Canadian Infantry	Friday, September 29, 1916	France	Bishops Itchington
Sgt	63235	Gerald	COLLARD	Canadian Infantry	Thursday, October 12, 1916	Home	Claverdon
Pvt	472605	Harold	ROBERTS	Canadian Infantry	Friday, October 26, 1917	France	Claverdon
Pvt	430157	William Sutton	FINDON	Canadian Infantry	Wednesday, July 4, 1917	France	Henley in Arden
L/Cpl	633789	Francis William	PORTER	Canadian Infantry	Friday, October 11, 1918	France	Preston on Stour
Pvt	77303	William	TIMMS	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, May 18, 1915	France	Snitterfield
Pvt	426686	Arthur	WHITE	Canadian Machine Gun Corps	Wednesday, December 12, 1917	France	Snitterfield
Pvt	654	Edmund Fenning	PARKE	Canadian Light Infantry	Saturday, May 8, 1915	France	Wellesbourne
Pvt	443115	William Victor	WYLDES	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, September 26, 1916	France & Flanders	Ettington
Cpl	136492	George	MALIN	Canadian Infantry	Monday, May 7, 1917	France & Flanders	Rowington
Pvt	148456	William Henry	HAYNES	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, November 21, 1916	France & Flanders	Warmington

The database includes other mentions of Canada, some who had spent time there, who died in a Canadian-staffed hospital or were relieving Canadians at the front.

http://www.swfhs.org.uk/

I’ve previously mentioned another instance, the first CWGC burial at Beechwood Cemetery. Thomas William Hardingham is also on the war memorial in Great Yarmouth. There must be many more.

Information from the seven volumes of  Directory of Scottish Settlers in North America, 1625-1825, by David Dobson, published by the Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore, Maryland, is now on Ancestry. It comprises 26,157 entries.
Searches return, where available, name, birth date, residence year, residence place, ship,  relatives and a link to the publication image.
A search for Canada residence returns 777 items, many in Eastern Ontario, 40 in Perth.
Data in the volumes were collected from “a range of Scottish newspapers and magazines in national, regional and local circulation.”

Born 28 July 1887 in Frankford, Ontario, his father, Rev John George Hooper, died in 1906. His mother was Jennie Harriett nee Greaves.

He attested on 15 May 1918 at Barriefield (Kingston), Ont., Service Number: 3059938, while living at his mother’s residence at 413 Elgin Street, Ottawa.

Before enlistment, he was a traveller for a drug company which may account for his service being with the Canadian Army Medical Corps where he was a Quartermaster Sergeant.

However, he became ill and was hospitalized shortly after enlistment. The cause of death was tuberculosis of the liver and bladder predating enlistment.

He died on 8 August 1921 and is buried in Sec. 19. Lot 133. North-East. 1. at Beechwood Cemetery.

This is the last of 100 posts made on the centennial of the deaths of servicemen and women interred at Beechwood Cemetery.  The first was Thomas William Hardinghan who died in a machine gun training accident on 21 September 1914. Along the way, I was able to find a burial not commemorated and was pleased to attend the dedication of the headstone, a rare joint one with the colleague who drowned at the same time.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Archive Jigsaws
Great seal    The quill

The Proms
The 2021 season of  “the world’s greatest music festival” is underway until 11 September.  On Saturday I enjoyed Beethoven’s Eroica, but missed the first half of the prom. BBC Radio 3 streams each concert from the link above, just recall the times are BST, five hours ahead of EDT.

What You Can Do Today to Revitalize Your Productivity

The Trial of Agnes Waterhouse – Witchcraft in Essex, 1566

The lost history of the electric car – and what it tells us about the future of transport

The “Unremembered”
Gail B wrote that the August issue of BBC HIstory magazine has a fascinating story about the “many Indian, Egyptian and African troops” who have been ‘Unremembered’ by the CWGC.” She asks did this happen for Canadian visible minority deaths? Reading the CWGC response to a report on historical inequalities in commemoration here. I’m not aware Canada had any troops in the areas mentioned.

Genealogy News: a perspective from Down Under

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Gail B., Unknown.

Ancestry’s collection Radnorshire, Wales, Anglican Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1994 now has 285,581 records with images of the originals linked. That’s ten times the population in the 2011 census!

Original data is from  Wales: Archives and Records Council Wales.

BIFHSGO has announced additions to the conference program—Conference Connect and Exhibitor Connect.

Two sessions of Conference Connect will be offered on non-presentation days—Tuesday, 21 September (2–4 p.m. EDT) and Thursday, 23 September (7–9 p.m. EDT). Registrants are invited to visit one of several breakout rooms, each covering a conference theme—Irish records, female ancestors and genetic genealogy—where experienced researchers will be available to share their knowledge and exchange ideas with registrants.

There will also be two sessions of Exhibitor Connect, in which participants can visit breakout rooms hosted by conference exhibitors to learn more about their products and services. The sessions will be held on Wednesday, 22 September (2–3:30 p.m. EDT) and on Saturday, 25 September (10–11:30 a.m. EDT), just before the presentations on those days. No registration is required. You can move between sessions, ask questions or just listen and learn.

For more about the conference visit the website.

That’s right — subtracts — not adds. This time it’s less. Findmypast no longer makes available Canadian (and US) newspapers.

The papers that were available were from newspaperarchive.com, are still available at that subscription site.

Canadian newspapers were one of the few exclusive benefits Findmypast provided by way of Canadian records. Without question FMP is invaluable for the exclusive UK record, is the subscription worthwhile for Canadian research?

The FMP catalogue has 242 datasets when filtered for Canada. Top of the list by number of records is British & Irish Roots Collection with over 63 million records, a little over 11 million when filtered for Canada. Mostly these are duplicated from Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960 and census records, both available as separate FMP titles and available at competitor websites.

The World War 2 Allies Collection has over 15 million records but just over 11 thousand when filtered for Canada. They are mostly from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

This table is a complete list of FMP titles with more than 10,000 Canadian records. Most if not all are to be found elsewhere, many freely available, so is a subscription worthwhile?  Now questionable for Canadian research if you have other access.

Record Set	Canadian Records
British & Irish Roots Collection	11,235,113
Canada Census 1911	7,157,334
United States, Canadian Border Crossings	6,150,580
Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960	5,418,130
Canada Census 1901	5,167,206
Canada Census 1891	4,539,639
Canada Census 1881	4,273,962
Canada Census 1871	3,292,788
Canada Census 1861	2,764,253
Ontario Birth Index 1860-1920	2,076,058
Canadian Headstones Index	1,881,403
Canada Census 1851	1,364,597
Canada Billion Graves Cemetery Index	1,343,005
British Columbia, Canada, Death Index, 1872-1992	994,738
Manitoba Probate Records 1871-1930 Browse	802,992
New Brunswick, County Deed Registry Books Image Browse	792,235
British Columbia Estate Files 1859-1949 Browse	783,176
Ontario, Canada, Federal Census Of 1871 Ontario Index, 1871	374,095
Canadian Directories & Almanacs	356,897
Manitoba Marriage Index	154,052
Manitoba Birth Index	143,055
Ontario Genealogical Society Provincial Index	132,979
Canada, Home Children Immigration Records Index, 1869-1930	125,086
Manitoba Death Index	112,525
Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1891 Census Index, 1891	105,373
Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1901 Census Index, 1901	104,139
Lower Canada Census 1825	74,323
New Brunswick, Canada, Land Petitions Index, 1783-1918	66,872
Canada, Saskatchewan Vital Records Birth Index	64,614
Alberta, Canada, Metis National Council Historical Online Database Index, 1770-1919	60,717
Canada, Saskatchewan Vital Records Death Index	55,302
Lower Canada Census 1842	46,467
New Brunswick, Canada, Marriage Bonds Index, 1810-1932	41,282
British Columbia, Canada, Birth Registration Index, 1872-1903	36,930
British Columbia, Canada, Birth Index, 1854-1903	36,602
Canada, Ontario, Oddfellows Life Insurance Applications	31,167
British Columbia, Canada, Baptism Index, 1772-1888	30,942
Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, Estate Index, 1884-1984	29,414
Canada, Ontario, Toronto Emigrant Office Records Index	29,064
Canada, Immigrants To Canada Index, 1750-1854	25,353
New Brunswick Birth and Baptism Index 1769-1899	25,219
New Brunswick, Canada, Irish Immigrants In The New Brunswick Census Of 1851 and 1861 Index, 1851, 1861	21,048
Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, Canada, Estate Index, 1884-1984	18,455
World War 2 Allies Collection	11,376

Most of us aren’t legal eagles. Fortunately, we are being alerted to Ancestry’s  information grab by  Judy G. Russell, “One big change at Ancestry,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 4 Aug 2021).

“In plain English, the rights to use that family photo you posted, that story you wrote and uploaded, that snippet of family history you’ve shared basically now belong to Ancestry. You can continue to use it elsewhere if you wish, since you’re still technically the owner, but you can’t do anything to stop Ancestry from using it any way it wants, forever.”

Did Ancestry give specific warning it was making this change so information could be deleted from their system.? No.  Ancestry is acting like the 800lb gorilla on the genealogical block.

 

 

The very latest UK title at FamilySearch is United Kingdom, British Royal Navy Ships’ Musters, 1739-1861 with 280,357 transcript records. Find out more about these records, sourced from the UK National Archives via Findmypast, here.

Other additions to FamilySearch UK transcripts this week.

Collection	Indexed Records
England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988	84,783
England, Essex Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1971	8,854
England, Lancashire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1746-1799	4,988
England, Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1920	4,215
England, Lincolnshire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1574-1885	100
England, Hertfordshire, Marriage Bonds, 1682-1837	45
England, Gloucestershire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1642-1996	25
England, Herefordshire Bishop’s Transcripts, 1583-1898	2

There are no Canadian additions this week. See the complete list of additions.