Month: July 2023

Given my career, here’s one I couldn’t resist sharing.

Historical weather information for Canada, the UK and USA is available from  http://www.wolframalpha.com/.  Enter the word weather followed by a date and a location. For instance:

weather 25 December 1966 Ottawa

See what Wolfram Alpha returned here.

Be careful to ensure it got the location correct as the same name is used for different places. This is via Dick Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.

The period covered by Wolfram Alpha is limited. For longer including earlier periods, as posted before, try the direct-from-the-source historical weather data for Canada to be found starting at https://climate.weather.gc.ca/historical_data/search_historic_data_e.html /. For the UK check the Daily Weather Report /Daily Weather Summary (METDLA/6/1/1) back to 1860 along with other resources at the Complete Archive from the Digital Library and Archives of the British Meteorological Office.

 

Were into the summer slump for webinars — quantity, not quality. Choose from selected free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed. Looking for more options? Additional mainly US events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual.

Tuesday 25 July
2 pm: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In for OGS Ottawa Branch
https://meet.google.com/nvz-kftj-dax

2 pm: A Deep Dive into U.S. City Directories at MyHeritage, by Katharine Andrew for MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/a-deep-dive-into-u-s-city-directories-at-myheritage/

Wednesday 26 July
2 pm: Why We Should Look at In-Laws When Doing Genealogical Research, by J. Mark Lowe for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/why-we-should-look-at-in-laws-when-doing-genealogical-research/

2 pm: Researching Your New England Passengers of Great Migration 1620-1640, by David Allen Lambert for RootsTech and FamilySearch.
http://www.facebook.com/events/685381690267324/

Thursday 27 July
6:30 pm: Casting a Wide Net: Researching Your Ancestors in the Eastern Canadian Provinces, by Pamela Vittorio for Allen Country Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/8714778

Friday 28 July
9 am: Wedded Wife: A Feminist History of Marriage – the remarkable story of how the institution of marriage has developed, by Rachael Lennon in conversation with Vicky Iglikowski-Broad for The National Archives (UK).
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/wedded-wife-a-feminist-history-of-marriage-tickets-636506797967?aff=em

Saturday 29 July
9:15 am: Land Girls, Brocket Babies and Beyond, by Janice Brooker for Hertfordshire Family History Society.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/land-girls-brocket-babies-and-beyond-speaker-janice-brooker-tickets-503399991927

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Sunday, 23 July 2023, to contain 288,680,995 unique index records, increased from 288,509,399 at the previous update.

Years with additions of more than 10,000 records are: for births 1992-3, for marriges 1991-3, for deaths 1967 and 1993.

 

Here’s a promo on a project just getting underway.

As of 19 July the following were updated.

UK, Household Cavalry Records of Service, 1799-1920
Now 17,653 records

UK, Officer Service Records, 1764-1932
Now 132,421 records

UK, Royal Air Force Muster Roll, 1918
Now 194,814 records

UK, Military Deserters, 1812-1927
Now 302,802 records.

Also, new on Ancestry as of 20 July, Aberdeen, Scotland, Roll of Honour, 1914-1918, 1939-1945 for 8,186 individuals, name, residence street address, death date, military rank, military regiment, and more depending on time period. It includes over 300 men who served with Canadian forces. Check with www.cwgc.org for possible additional information as well as in LAC service files for the Canadians.

Jonny Perl, genealogist, DNA enthusiast and the creator of the award-winning website dnapainter.com, will be coming to OGS Conference 2024 as a marquee speaker. He will lead a limited-enrolment workshop, present an enhanced weekend session, and participate in a special panel discussion. Conference attendees will also have the opportunity to meet and chat with Jonny on an informal basis.
Paul Milner, Blaine Bettinger, and Ron Arons have already been announced by OGS. As hinted at previously, Chris Paton recently confirmed in his Scottish GENES Newsletter that he will also be part of what is be sure to be an exciting and engaging family history experience!
Registration for Conference 2024 will open in the fall of 2023.

As a service to those who want to decolonize Canada, here’s a list of streets and other places in Ottawa named for English counties. For a few, a place within a missing county is given.

Bedford Crescent
Berkshire Way
Buckingham Private
Cambridge Street
Cheshire Road
Cornwall Street
Cumberland Street
Derby Place
Devonshire Place
Dorset Drive
Durham Private
Essex Street
Gloucester Street
Hampshire Place
Hereford Place
Huntingtonshire
Kent Street
Lancaster Road
Leicester (Wigston Private)
Lincoln Heights
London Terrace
Middlesex (Hackney Private)
Norfolk Avenue
Northampton Drive
Northumberland
Nottingham Court
Oxford Street
Rutland (Oakham Ridge)
Shropshire (Newport Crescent)
Somerset Street
Stafford Road
Suffolk Street
Surrey Avenue
Sussex Drive
Warwick Place
Westmoreland Avenue
Wiltshire Circle
York Street

After those are finished there’s plenty of scope in Ontario county names before moving on to the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and French from France.

The list could also be used to celebrate heritage, or a challenge for how many you could visit in a day!

This post was prompted by The World in Hong Kong.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Walt Disney’s Little Known History in Canada

Lotions and Potions in the Papers

How the shape of your skeleton could affect your health

‘It was as if my father were actually texting me’: grief in the age of AI

National Library of Scotland Virtual Reading Room

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Nick Mcdonald, Sunday Thompson, Teresa, Unknown.

Newfoundland and Labrador death certificates for the period are now available from Ancestry, as well as directly from The Rooms, N&L Provincial Archives. https://www.therooms.ca/collections-research

The 59,895 records have partial transcripts and links to images of the original.

For events prior to Newfoundland Confederation check Canada, Newfoundland Vital Records, 1840-1949 from FamilySearch, also on Ancestry along with several other Newfoundland databases.

 

Based on records at the Portsmouth History Centre. FamilySearch provides these collections online as transcriptions with images accessible at FamilySearch Centres and affiliate libraries.

Collection Title	Records
England, Hampshire Parish Registers, 1538-1980	1,853,815
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Baptisms, 1538-1940	537,320
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Marriages, 1537-1930	393,770
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Burials, 1538-1926	313,412
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Cemetery Records, 1881-1918	129,284
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Hospital Records, 1878-1918	71,376
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Workhouse Registers, 1879-1919	60,953
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Military Tribunals, 1916-1919	14,141
England, Hampshire, Portsmouth, Police Staff Records, 1908-1924	313

We have Cliff Webb and collaborators to thank for two of the three collections in this week’s FMP update.

Greater London Burial Index
236,204 new records are added this week. That makes a total of 2,137,775 records, from 1394 to 1905. Additions  are from these parishes:
Battersea
Bermondsey
Camberwell
Edmonton
Enfield
Lambeth
Streatham
Southwark
Tooting
City of London
and … records from Bermondsey Workhouse

Shoreditch Settlement Examinations 1758-1802
These 10,782 transcriptions relate to the Poor Law, which administered and provided relief to destitute members of a local parish.
The information given varies, as there are records for both the individual examined and their close family members. You can expect to learn details like a name, place of origin, date of examination, occupation, residence, and relationship to the subject of examination.
Survival of such records is spotty, these Shoreditch records are now preserved at London Metropolitan Archives, references P91/LEN/1200 to 1216.

Scotland, Glasgow City Volunteers, Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902
This set records the burgess tickets granted to Glasgow’s volunteer soldiers travelling to South Africa. Burgess tickets granted them full rights to trade within the burgh, and bestowing the highest form of civic honour upon them. The 1,019 transcriptions include a name, an occupation, an address, company and regiment information, and the date appointed burgess of the City of Glasgow.

 

 

ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk now has searchable registers of lightkeepers employed by the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses (Northern Lighthouse Board) between 1837 and 1921.

The lightkeeper registers have two parts. The first has individual pages for each lightkeeper. The second  consists of individual pages for each lighthouse, which lists all lightkeepers who served there. After signing in, choose the relevant selection to search by either individual lightkeeper, or by individual lighthouse.

I found 20 Macdonalds and 10 Mcdonalds. The search is case-insensitive.