Due to pandemic restrictions, the 2021 Shannon Lecture series will take place in the Spring of 2022. It will be virtual and will be about “The exploitation of natural resources in Canadian history”. The convenor will be Stephen Osei-Owusu, a Ph.D. candidate in History and Political Economy. The dates and speakers will be announced in March.
The theme of the 2022 Fall series, originally scheduled for Fall 2021, will be “Climate History”. The convenor will be Professor Joanna E. Dean.
There’s mostly good news in the press release Canada tops G7 growth despite COVID from Statistics Canada.
The population of Canada in the spring of 2021 was 36,991,981. (find the current population estimate by Worldometers here — it keeps changing!)
Approximately 1.8 million more people were calling Canada home in 2021 compared with five years earlier, with four in five of these having immigrated to Canada since 2016.
The growth rate is almost twice that of every other G7 country; the population increased by 5.2% from 2016
Nearly three in four Canadians lived in one of the 41 large urban centres.
Toronto (6,202,225 people) remains the most populous CMA, followed by Montréal (4,291,732 people) and Vancouver (2,642,825 people). Ottawa–Gatineau (1,488,307 people) regained fourth place after temporarily losing that title in 2016 to Calgary (1,481,806 people). Edmonton (1,418,118 people) remained the nation’s sixth largest CMA.
The most populated downtowns were Toronto (275,931 people), Vancouver (121,932 people), Montréal (109,509 people), Ottawa (67,169 people) and Edmonton (55,387 people).
Urban spread occurred in the intermediate suburbs (20 to 30 minutes from downtown) in Edmonton (+23.4%), Calgary (+23.3%) and Ottawa (+21.4%). The growth in these intermediate suburbs largely surpassed that of their respective downtowns, urban fringes and near suburbs.
Are you waiting patiently, or impatiently, for a substantive response from LAC to a request for information? Frequently I hear researchers expressing frustration over long delays, the situation was mentioned in a webinar I attended on Tuesday evening.
Library and Archives Canada Annual Report on the Access to Information Act: 2020–2021, published in January, details the situation for that period in context.
Requests received grew for four years from 2015-2016 until declining in the 2020-2021 (pandemic) year, notably at the start of the year. Overall, the number completed did not keep pace so the backlog grew from 2,885 to 16,922 — 586 percent.
During 2020-2021 urgent requests related to medical benefits, social services, class actions, legal proceedings, and other urgent circumstances were prioritized. That would not include applications for genealogical and historical research, thus the delay.
Forty-two percent of requests in 2020-2021 (3,529) were identified as being from the public, as distinct from media, organizations, businesses (private sector) and academics. An additional 30% were not identified so it seems likely over half the requests were from individuals pursuing their family history. Six in every seven of the public requests were informal, and 90% of informal requests were for Canadian Armed Forces and Canadian Public Service Records. The bulk of our community applications will be a low priority.
In January 2021 the Information Commissioner initiated a complaint against LAC regarding its ongoing failure to provide timely access to information. An official report on the investigation is expected to be completed in the 2021-2022 fiscal year (by the end of March.)
UPDATE
Media Relations for the Information Commissioner informs that the report will now be coming out in April 2022.
WHAT TO DO
If you have a request pending, re-submit as a “formal” request and pay the $5 application fee. This will prioritize your request since LAC has a legal obligation to provide an answer and the documents within 30 days. If applying for a Second World War service record, familiarize yourself with the access conditions for making a “formal” request for the file.
If you are dissatisfied with services at LAC in meeting legislated timelines, write to your MP.
Your local or provincial family history/genealogical society likely has an advocacy mandate. If so, encourage your society to lobby for service improvements. Better still, like-minded societies whose members have encountered long delays in accessing archival records might partner to bring their collective concerns to senior management at LAC and the political level.
COMMENT
The report Library and Archives Canada Annual Report on the Access to Information Act: 2020–2021 is full of detail, a model of openness. It should be linked with similar LAC reports.
UPDATE
I’m told by Media Relations from the Information Commissioner that the report will now be coming out in April 2022.
There’s good news in the following responses from the Media Relations team to questions posed to LAC.
Q: Will the collection of published family histories presently available on open access continue to be available in the new facility?
A: Yes. In the new genealogy reading room, located on the second floor.
Q: Will the open access microfilms, including newspaper microfilms, presently available on open access continue to be available in the new facility?
A; Yes, unless digitized and made available online (and onsite on public terminals).
Q: Will the collection of city and other directories presently available on open access continue to be available in the new facility?
A: LAC is currently working on digitizing documents in high demand, such as the city directories. If digitization is completed, they may not be physically available onsite, but online (and onsite on public terminals).
Q: Will government documents such as sessional papers presently available on open access continue to be available in the new facility?
A: Yes, government documents presently available on open access will continue to be available in the new facility, unless digitized and made available online and onsite on public terminals. Please note that the published sessional papers have not been available in the public rooms for several years now, but can be requested from the service collection and are available online:
o 1867-1900: https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.9_08052;
o 1901-1925: https://prod.library.utoronto.ca/maplib/dmgis/ca1_ys_s27.htm.
Q: What provision is being planned for access to maps and photographs in the new facility?
A: The access to maps and photographs is planned to happen in the main reading room of the new building, in an area dedicated and adapted to consultation of specialized media.
Not receiving needed help is costly. It therefore stands to reason that help-seekers would want to maximize their chances of getting a “yes.” In two experiments, we found that seeking help in-person was far superior to seeking help through any form of mediated communication channel—including seeking help over synchronous, with- face video channels. Nonetheless, we found that richer media channels do still offer an advantage over text-based channels. Yet, importantly, help-seekers appear largely unaware of both these facts. These findings suggest that people may miss out on receiving needed help by asking for it in suboptimal ways.
That’s the conclusion from a study Should I Ask Over Zoom, Phone, Email, or In-Person? Communication Channel and Predicted Versus Actual Compliance, by M. Mahdi Roghanizad (Ryerson University), and Vanessa K. Bohns (Cornell University), published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
There’s a lesson for family history/genealogy societies that believe repeated pleading to the society membership for volunteers at meetings and in newsletters is an effective way to recruit the people they want.
There’s a new simplified search interface for England and Wales wills from 1858.
Previously you had to choose between three searches, an early period, a later period, or a soldier’s will. It was easy to forget to select the appropriate tab. Now there’s a single search form asking for the last name, year of death, and whether or not the deceased was a soldier who died while serving in the British armed forces between 1850 and 1986.
For more recent probate, where more information is indexed, you have the option of an advanced search, although as previously you don’t get as much information as for the earlier period.
There’s a help file at https://probatesearch.service.gov.uk/help
The change is in Beta and feedback is requested. Lots of comments about deficiencies and missing data on social media. It did warn about being in Beta!
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 or recommended
Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed.
Tuesday 8 Feb: 1 pm: Municipal Records, by Fraser Dunford for Kawartha Branch OGS. Register via TraceyT@curvelake.ca/.
Tuesday 8 Feb. 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.
Tuesday 8 Feb, 2 pm: What’s New in the MyHeritage Photo World, by Tal Erlichman for MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/whats-new-in-the-myheritage-photo-world/
Tuesday 8 Feb. 2:30 pm: Introducing the 1921 Census of England & Wales, by Jen Baldwin of FindMyPast for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6109977.
Tuesday 8 Feb. 7 pm: Love in War – War Brides of WW2, by Shiela (Sutton) Hewett for Thunder Bay Branch OGS. Zoom meeting ID 881 5668 3784, Password 532 137.
Tuesday 8 Feb. 7 pm: How Sisters Found Their Missing Sister; The Route They Took, by Beth Atkinson and Penny McDonald for Lambton Branch OGS. https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/calendar/lambton-county-branch-a-sister-found/
Wednesday 9 Feb. 7 pm: We are the Children: Coming to Terms with our Past, by June Girvan for the Historical Society of Ottawa. www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/64/16,17,19,21/we-are-the-children-coming-to-terms-with-our-past
Wednesday 9 Feb. 7 pm: Researching in Colonial New England, by Ann G. Lawthers for Legacy Family Tree webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/researching-in-colonial-new-england/
Thursday 10 Feb. 6:30 pm: City Directories: More than Basic Facts, by Melissa Tennant for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6111750.
Friday 11 Feb. 7 pm: Remembering Their Legacies: Stories from Chatham-Kent’s Black Community, by Dorothy Wallace and Samantha Meredith for Kent Branch OGS. https://kent.ogs.on.ca/events/kent-branch-remembering-their-legacies-stories-from-chatham-kents-black-community/.
Saturday 12 Feb. 9 am: Introduction to Welsh Resources, by David Jeanes for BIFHSGO. www.bifhsgo.ca/events.
Saturday 12 Feb. 10 am: 1600 years of stories from St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, by Kristen Mercier for BIFHSGO. www.bifhsgo.ca/events.
Saturday 12 Feb. 2 pm: Surviving the Famine: Tracing the Irish Famine Generation in Ontario, by Laura Smith and Charmaine Lindsay for Simcoe Branch OGS, https://simcoe.ogs.on.ca/events/simcoe-county-branch-surviving-the-famine-tracing-the-irish-famine-generation-in-ontario/
Gena Philibert-Ortega has produced an entirely new edition of this 68-page publication from Moorshead Magazines.
Contents include: Starting Your Research; She’s Not There; Making the Most of Online Searches; African American Newspapers; Her Life in Books; Finding Herstory in Archives; What is Her Maiden Name?; Introduction to Catholic Records; Finding Female Ancestors Pre-1850; Twentieth Century Ancestors; Cemetery Research; Community Cookbooks; Ten Records You Are Not Using; Female Ancestor Checklist; and Finding Female Ancestors: Glossary.
You will perhaps recall Gena’s talk “The Secret Lives of Women: Research Female Ancestors Using the Sources They Left Behind” from last year’s BIFHSGO conference.
In addition to the Canadian War Museum reopening on Wednesday (UPDATE – NOW POSTPONED) —
The deadline is now past for presentation proposals for the 24-26 June 2022 OGS/Ontario Ancestors conference hosted by Ottawa Branch. Program lead Gloria Tubman informs me invitations to chosen speakers will be sent in the next week.
On Friday 24 June, one of the major genealogy companies will host sessions under a separate registration. Attendees at the last Ottawa-hosted OGS conference will recall Ancestry held a dedicated day on the Monday following that conference.
On Friday evening the conference proper will commence “with an opening session unlike any you have attended previously.”
Saturday and Sunday you will be able to choose from 28 diverse, inclusive, and educational presentations given by Canadian and international speakers. Each day will offer you two streams with seven sessions each. Attendees will have access to the recorded sessions for 30 days.
Stay current with developments at the Conference 2022 home page at https://conference2022.ogs.on.ca/.
The conference organizers seek volunteers to take on various time-limited roles. See https://conference2022.ogs.on.ca/call-for-volunteers/.
Ages are only in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database when provided by the next of kin. How many lack age information?
I used as a sample the 666 Canadian airmen buried at Harrowgate (Stonefall) Cemetery as listed in the database.
There are 77 (11.5%) with no age given. Most do have a birthdate on the LAC Service Files of the Second World War – War Dead, 1939-1947 database.
Birthdates for all but one of the others, Joseph Donat Bedard, can be easily found. For Bedard, there’s only a baptismal record.
I wonder if present-day next of kin, who may be two or more generations distant, can have age information added to the CWGC database? Perhaps the CWGC imposes the same limitation that they do in their periodic appeal for relatives, without making it clear they mean grandchildren, nieces, nephews etc and that cousins, including first cousins, are too far removed.
