Month: April 2023

Here, as I’ve not yet read more than a couple of articles, is editor Ed Zapletal’s summary of the latest IG issue.

Welcome to our Spring 2023 issue!
We have a great line-up to offer, and we hope you enjoy it! Our cover feature in this issue is Irish Research by frequent contributor Joe Grandinetti. Ireland is rich in history, and Joe delves into the research of his Kielty ancestors in Ireland by including census, civil registration, church records, tithes, taxes, and tenancy, highlighting key Irish website resources along the way.
If you are researching your ancestors’ marriages pre-1850 in the U.S,, as well as Great Britain and many former British colonies, David A. Norris suggests you might encounter references to marriage banns and marriage bonds. David sheds light on what these are and why they were required.
Lisa A. Alzo is back and reviews We Are […], a new site for collating and showcasing shared family history.
In Walking Between the Worlds, Robb Gorr returns with a look at the challenges of Métis  genealogy.
In Like Pulling Teeth, Sue Lisk returns and investigates what dentistry was like for our ancestors. (Remember the belt-driven dentist drill!) In Sue’s second article, Beyond the “Goldilocks Zone™: Strategies for Seekers, she offers some guidelines to consider if you are not getting the search results you are expecting.
In On The Beat, Steve Ward looks at his own family and the contribution made to modern policing in the United Kingdom. Stephen L.W. Green is back with The Value of Including Friends with Family in Your Genealogy, a brief article discussing why it is important to include friends with family when doing your genealogy.

And don’’t forget to check out our regular columns: Genealogy
Questions, Photos & Genealogy, and Dave Obee’s Back Page (where Dave mentions he’s compiled information on the 1931 census, which will be released on 1 June, at CanGenealogy.com.)

Just 17,819 records in this early survey conducted by the government of Ireland to determine the religious affiliations of the population. Only a fraction survived the destruction of 1922. Records typically include the name of the individual, place of residence, and religion.

The census recorded the number of individuals affiliated with each of the major religious groups in Ireland, including the Church of Ireland (Anglican), the Roman Catholic Church, and the Presbyterian Church. It also recorded the number of individuals who were not affiliated with any particular religious group.

There’s more detail at https://virtualtreasury.ie/gold-seams/1766-religious-census/.

I occasionally get comments that this kind of database is deplicating what’s available elsewhere, particularly if that elsewhere does not require a subscription.

Perhaps you remember the days when there were no supermarkets. Shopping required stops at the butcher, baker, grocer, greengrocer, fishmonger, cheesemonger, and perhaps the chemist, each with a queue until you could be served. And there was the queue at the bank, during banker’s hours, to get the cash you needed to pay. Supermarkets provide a one-stop for all those, and it’s the same with the major genealogy websites.

An article in the 4 March 1952 issue of the Suffolk Free Press includes:

Mr John Vaughan Lambert of Foxearth is making a claim in accordance to a right of a 700-year-old deed of service, he has the right to make and bake and serve wafers at the Queen’s coronation banquet, the right came into the family Lambert when they purchased Lyston Hall several centuries ago but little remains of that lovely Elizabethan mansion as it is being pulled down, the last member of the Lambert family, Mr Lambert’s grandfather left the Hall in 1913, the family are of Irish descent, the present Lord of the Manor was born in 1905, he was educated abroad and went into farming when he left school on the land his father owned, apart from Foxearth Hall he owns Lyston Place farm in all 1500 acres, he has a dairy farm at Lyston Place , he also has a flock of pedigree Suffolk sheep.

John Vaughan Campbell Lambert died in 1986. His son, John Rambaut Vaughan Campbell Lambert, who was born on 2 March 1940, would appear to have inherited that right.

Plans for the coronation period in 2023 make no mention of a banquet. There will be a Coronation Big Lunch, at which neighbours and communities are invited to share food and fun together, will take place across the country on the same date. Similar street parties were held in 1952. Did you or an ancestor attend one?

LAC warns of services partially or fully disrupted as of mid-April. Most people probably won’t notice for a while, given existing delays owing to the backlog of orders.

• Ordering Archival Material
  • Expect delays in retrieving and circulating material
• Ordering Published Material
  • Expect delays in retrieving and circulating material
• Requesting Copies
  • Expect delays in processing requests for copies
• Ask us a Reference Question and Ask us a Genealogy Question
  • Expect delays in processing requests and appointments for reference or genealogy help
• Making an ATIP request
  • All ATIP services will be affected as the vast majority of our employees fall under the collective agreement under negotiation. In this context, the following types of requests will be prioritized: urgent requests for health reasons for Canadian Armed Forces veterans and requests made in the context of litigations and class actions that have time sensitive deadlines.
• Services to Publishers
  • Possible delays in processing requests
• Making licensing or copyright requests
  • Expect delays in responses

The April – June 2023 programme of 14 online talks from the UK National Archives is detailed at https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/visit-us/whats-on/online-events/.

Scroll down on the page for a preview of some of the talks through March 2024.

Choose from selected 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. Additional mainly US events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual.

Tuesday 11 April
2 pm: DeepStory – Your Visual Storytelling Tool, by Janna Helshtein for Legacy Family Tree Webinars and MyHeritage.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/a-myheritage-webinar-9/

Wednesday 12 April
7:15 pm: Unusual Sources in York Region, by Ruth Burkholder for OGS York Region. 
https://york.ogs.on.ca/meetings-events/

Thursday 13 April
5pm: Solving Unknown Parentage Mysteries with MyHeritage DNA, by Michelle Leonard. 
This is the first presentation in Legacy Family Tree Webinars/MyHeritage 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon. Full details at https://familytreewebinars.com/24-marathon/

Friday 14 April
12 midnight: Legacy Family Tree Webinars/MyHeritage 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon continues. Full details at https://familytreewebinars.com/24-marathon/

Saturday 15 April:
10:00 am: Self-Publishing on Amazon, by Johanne Gervais for OGS Kingston Branch.
https://kingston.ogs.on.ca/

1 pm: You Found What Where! by Linda Corupe for OGS Quinte Branch.
https://quinte.ogs.on.ca/2023/03/30/april-15-you-found-what-where/

DNA analysis initially used blood samples, later and now commonly a buccal (cheek) or saliva sample. DNA is also now recovered from hair and ancient bones. An article, Using FastID to analyze complex SNP mixtures from indoor dust , describes a study that used single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and massively parallel sequencing (MPS) to analyze human DNA from indoor dust samples.

Samples of dust from five locations in a house were compared with buccal samples. They found that 93% of known occupants were detected in at least one dust sample. Non-occupant alleles were present in 54% of dust samples. They concluded that analyzing SNPs from indoor dust could be a potential forensic tool to identify past presence of individuals and envisaged the technique being used for investigative leads, to refute a suspect’s alibi, or link a suspect with a crime scene.

In genetic genealogy one can imagine taking an ancestor’s old dusty album, stored away for decades, yielding dust that could be analysed to reveal their DNA profile. It might be possible to trace their ancestry and physical characteristics based on their SNPs.

Technical challenges remain, such as the degradation, contamination, and complexity of the DNA mixtures in the dust samples, as well as ethical and legal issues.

When Ancestry updates a collection, we’re rarely, if ever, informed if it’s substantial.

England & Wales, Non-Conformist and Non-Parochial Registers, 1567-1936 is advertised as now containing 5,730,258 records sourced from RG4, RG5 and RG8 at the UK National Archives.

Birmingham, England, Calendar of Prisoners, 1880-1913 now has 12,454 records. The printed calendars are indexed for convicted persons and include summaries, more or less detailed, of the offence. The collection now includes years to 1922.

There are many convictions for bigamous marriages. For instance, on 15 October 1918, 40-year-old William Chester, Lieutenant with the RAF, was convicted that “On the 4th Sept., 1918, did marry Lilhan Nora Baird, his former wife being then alive.” There’s more detail on the circumstances in an article in the Birmingham Daily Post of 16 October 1918.

For almost 40 years, harvest excursions were organized in Eastern Canada to assist prairie farmers with the grain harvest. Thousands of men and women were recruited, no experience necessary, and transported out west to work in the fields, to ensure that Canada maintained its reputation as the breadbasket of the world.

That’s the opening paragraph of an article published in Legion magazine in 2001, authored by Glenn Wright. about a little-known aspect of Canada’s history.

Starting with Canadians on Vimy Ridge, April 1917: Resources and Research last Saturday, Glenn has three presentations in one month. A recording of that will become available to BIFHSGO members soon.

Early May has two opportunities to learn from Glenn.

On Monday 1 May, a special day, Glenn will present The Printed Page: Online Newspapers and Books during the Ottawa Public Library Genealogy Day at Ben Franklin Place. It’s a free event, no registration. More information here.

On Thursday 4 May Always Get Your Man: Researching the Men of the Mounted Police, 1873-1920 will be his presentation for the Ontario Genealogical Society monthly webinar. OGS webinars are free to view live.

Remembering — on 9 April 1917 Allied troops launched an attack on Vimy Ridge. At the end of the day, 2,400 troops of the Canadian Expeditionary Force lay dead.

Here is a probably incomplete list of those born in Ottawa who died that day.

FIRST NAMES	LAST NAME	Age	Regiment
JOHN DOUGLAS	ARMSTRONG	28	Canadian EngineersCanadian
CHARLES ANDREW	BUTLER	19	Canadian InfantryCanadian
ALEXANDER ALLEN	HALKETT	29	Canadian InfantryCanadian
GORDON RUTHVEN	HERON	33	Canadian InfantryCanadian
FRANK CAMERON	JAMIESON	26	Canadian InfantryCanadian
GEORGE GEOFFREY	MAY	23	Canadian InfantryCanadian
ALBERT EDWARD	MOSS	32	Canadian Machine Gun CorpsCanadian
GEORGE EDGAR	RUSSELL	28	Canadian InfantryCanadian
REGINALD LAWRENCE	SLADEN	19	Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
GEORGE ARTHUR	THORNE	21	Royal Canadian RegimentCanadian

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Emily Carr Canada, via Bing and DALL-E

Le Hibou

Leaders of the all-woman gang from the Elephant and Castle

The man in the monkey nut coat

Monument as Method: Transforming Collective Memory in Canada

Every Canadian Prime Minister as the lead singer of a 1980s metal band

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Bonnie, Brenda Turner, Christine Jackson, Chuck B., Ed Chadwick, Jane Down, Nick McDonald, Teresa, Unknown