Month: December 2021

Following up on a previous post, the National Library of Scotland now has online old maps and town plans for more than 380 English and Welsh towns (all those with more than 4,000 people) at the highly detailed scale of 1:500.

NLS is georeferencing these maps so they can be easily compared to the present day, or to other historical dates (for example Leeds in 1840s compared to the 1880s).

Browse a list of all the towns with links to view maps
Browse a clickable map of England and Wales
OS Town Plans of England and Wales home page

This week the focus is on Kent, the Garden of England.

Kent electoral registers, 1570-1907
Documenting both parliamentary and local voters, the collection contains 4,678,563 transcripts with the name, address, nature of the qualification to vote, and the period during which each individual is entitled to vote.  The record types transcribed include oath rolls, burgess rolls, freeman certificates, and jury service lists as well as voters registers

The original registers are held at the Kent History and Library Centre in Maidstone and have been available at FamilySearch for some years.

Kent Burials
The additions to this expansive Kent Burials collection, now 3,032,823 records, are information on 16,013 burials that took place in Watling Street Cemetery in Dartford. They cover the period 1855 to 1934.

Sadly none of the three Reids included are in the branch of my Reid family that lived in the area.

The transcriptions were by the North West Kent Family History Society.

Findmypast has nearly 15 million Kent records in 16 titles, plus over 16 million articles in Kent newspapers. Ancestry has 6.6 million Kent records.

A 30-minute Q/A session at https://www.agra.org.uk/podcasts#202112

Registration for the 2022 edition of RootsTech, the largest family history event in the world,  is now open. RootsTech 2022 will be a virtual-only experience, 3 – 5 March 2022, with some enhancements and improvements.

Find out more and register for free at www.rootstech.org. 

Don’t plan on doing research at Library and Archives Canada over the Christmas – New Year period. Here’s the notice.

Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) public service points located in Ottawa, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Halifax will be closed to the public from December 24, 2021 to January 3, 2022, inclusive. Remote reference and genealogy services remain available during this period, Monday to Friday except for December 27 and 28, and January 3.

Contact us by using our Ask Us a Question or Ask Us a Genealogy Question forms, or by calling 1-866-578-7777 (option 8; toll-free in Canada and the United States).

Please note that after the holidays, a gradual increase in our services is planned. Visit our Reopening Library and Archives Canada web page for an overview of services available and region-specific details.

Here are the contents of the next issue, to be available on 10 December.

COVER: Who’s Your Daddy: A Durham DNA Puzzle!
Michelle Dennis offers advice as well as rich resources on searching for ancestors in Durham, England.

Freedman’s Savings Bank
Diane L. Richard examines these short-lived, but invaluable records for family historians.

The Winter of Their Discomfort: Coping With the Cold
Sue Lisk looks at how our ancestors coped with the cold before the dawn of the thermostat.

A Yuletide Genealogical Resource: “Dear Santa” Letters
David A. Norris looks at online newspapers and how ancestors’ letters to Santa may shine some light on their holiday wishes.

The Historical Marker Database
Jean King looks at a database project that currently holds over a half-million photos of historical markers in the US, Canada and several other countries.

Death by Waterpik, Or In Search of the Cause of Your Ancestor’s Passing
Sue Lisk looks at sources that may help in revealing the cause of death of an ancestor.

Principles of Relativity
Robbie Gorr looks at correctly identifying family relationships and connections.

Online Repository Assistant (ORA)
Diane L. Richard looks at software designed to help genealogists be more efficient, effective, and diligent with their research.

Jewish Genealogy In New York City: Discovering The Early 1900s TB Epidemic
Michael Chaplan shares his journey to learn about his grandfather’s life and death in the early 1900s.

Finding Heirs for Your Family History
Marian B. Wood looks at how to prepare a succession plan for your valuable genealogical items.

NetNotes
Internet Genealogy looks at websites and related news that are sure to be of interest.

Advice From the Pros:Truth or Troll? Surviving Speaker Evaluations
Lisa A. Alzo discusses how to survive feedback on conference evaluations.

Back Page: Check and Re-Check Your Matches!
Dave Obee says be vigilant about checking your own work, and the work of other genealogists.

Find out more, including access to preview the first page of longer articles and subscription information, at https://www.internet-genealogy.com/index.shtml

I’ve been wondering what Rick and Sandra Roberts have in the Global Heritage Press pipeline.

Here it is, a 450-page tomb billed as the first complete and comprehensive nominal Index of Audit Office 13 (AO13) claims & documents, a book that most libraries with a reference section and interest in Loyalists will want in their collection. Individuals wondering why they can’t find their Loyalist ancestor(s) on Ancestry will want the more affordable pdf.

Index to Monetary Claims by American Loyalists – A New Index to Audit Office 13
By William Bruce Antliff
Published by Global Heritage Press, Ottawa, 2021
ISBN 9781772401882 (hardcover)

The documents, archived at TNA as AO13, were collected and produced by a number of British commissions that examined monetary claims by American colonists who claimed to remain loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution (United Empire Loyalists).

Although the documents in AO13 are available at Ancestry, “comparing the results of using this New Index versus using the AO13 search box results in Ancestry, showed that Ancestry’s indexing of AO13 is very incomplete.”

William Bruce Antliff, now well into his 90s, has published on Loyalists since the 1980s,

https://globalgenealogy.com/countries/canada/loyalist/resources/101041.htm

 

The last additions to Ancestry were on 19 November, an unusually large gap. There are often updates at the end of the month or at the beginning of the new month.

A note from Ancestry alerts to a new exclusive collection “on the horizon”,

Glamorgan, Wales, Calendar of Prisoners, 1850-1890,  34,072 records.

Also,

Devon Parish Indexes, 8,151,467 records.

Outside the UK there are no Canadian records to be added. Otherwise, look for the following new records

Web: Greece, Census Indexes, 1724-1879

South Australia School Admissions Registers, 1876-1989
South Australia Police Inquest Registers, 1885-1953

Texas, U.S., Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio Sacramental Records, 1700-1940
Wisconsin, Death Records, 1907-2013
Wisconsin, Marriage Records, 1907-2015