Month: October 2023

Many people will be interested in the OGS double-header webinar today on Ontario land records. On Tuesday, I posted an incorrect start time for Janice Nickerson’s talk. It starts at 6:30 pm.

You need to register for each presentation separately.

6:30 pm: Ontario Land Records Demystified, by Janice Nickerson for OGS.
https://ogs.on.ca/october-ontario-land-records-demystified-janice-nickerson/

8pm: FamilySearch’s Ontario Land Records, by Ken McKinlay for OGS.
https://ogs.on.ca/october-webinar-familysearchs-ontario-land-records-ken-mckinlay/

I viewed and now recommend Jonny Perl’s Legacy Family Tree Webinars presentation Beginning with DNA Painter from Wednesday. It’s extremely clear. Perhaps the chromosome mapping section gets deeper than some of us will want.

DNA Painter, which has a free tier, has had upgrades since I last looked at it, and there are more coming all the time. The video may only be free until next Wednesday. Take a look and follow Jonny’s recommendation of taking things slowly.

Note that Jonny is one of several DNA marquee speakers at the 2024 OGS Conference in Toronto.

An EXCLUSIVE from the Daily Mail.

I tested an AI ‘digital afterlife’ service so my clone can live on after death

Not something I’m in any hurry to test!

Claire Santry has posted an update on her Irish Genealogy News blog detailing “fourteen different packages of records – a mix of headstone photos and inscriptions from seven burial grounds, church register transcriptions from four congregations, and tabular renditions of 1860s Revision books for two parishes in the Ballymote ED – were added to Ireland Genealogy Projects Archives during September. Eight counties are represented, two of them from Northern Ireland.”

BIFHSGO member Margaret Caughey passed away peacefully on 27 September 2023 at the age of 86.

Margaret volunteered for several years with the BIFHSGO conference organization, including as program co-chair, despite living with Parkinson’s. I remember her as the kind of person organizations look for as volunteers who get on with the job without making a lot of fuss.

https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/margaret-caughey-1088870978

When released in 2113, will your census information be missing?

A study by Statistics Canada evaluates the number of people missed, and the number of people enumerated more than once by the 2021 census. The net undercoverage rate was 3.1%, higher than for the three previous censuses.

The undercount for the Northwest Territories is 8.0%, for
Nunavut 7.8, and for the Yukon 5.8%. The best coverage is Quebec with only 0.7% undercoverage.

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. Are you looking for more options? Additional mainly US events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual.

Tuesday 3 October

1 pm: New Historical Records on MyHeritage, by Mike Mansfield and Myko Clelland for MyHeritage.
http://facebook.com/myheritage

2pm: Ottawa Virtual Drop-In, for OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/virtual-genealogy-drop-in-2-2023-10-03/

2:30 pm:  The Roots Beneath Your Feet – The Homestead Act of 1862, by Jonathan Fairchild for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/9187575

7:30 pm:  Proudly She Served: Canadian Women in Uniform, 1885-1945 by Glenn Wright for OGS Durham Region Branch.
https://durham.ogs.on.ca/

9 pm: Gold Fever and Finding Miners Down Under, by
Shauna Hicks for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/gold-fever-and-finding-miners-down-under/

Wednesday 4 October

9:30 am: Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials – In Conversation with Marion Gibson for The National Archives (UK).
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/witchcraft-a-history-in-13-trials-in-conversation-tickets-698354666607?aff=web

2 pm: Beginning with DNA Painter, by Jonny Perl for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/beginning-with-dna-painter/

2 pm: Wednesdays with Witcher: Collecting the Stories of Our Lives: Tips for Recording Oral Histories and Life Stories, by Curt Witcher for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/9187614

6:30 pm: Ethical Dilemmas in Genealogy, by Penny Walters for OGS Huron County Branch.
https://huron.ogs.on.ca/events/huron-branch-ethical-dilemmas-in-genealogy-dr-penny-walters/

Thursday 5 October

6:30 pm: Using DNA Testing to Locate Ancestors Back in the Old Country, by Sara Allen for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/9187683

7pm: Ontario Land Records Demystified, by Janice Nickerson for OGS.
https://ogs.on.ca/october-ontario-land-records-demystified-janice-nickerson/

8pm: FamilySearch’s Ontario Land Records, by Ken McKinlay for OGS.
https://ogs.on.ca/october-webinar-familysearchs-ontario-land-records-ken-mckinlay/

Friday 6 October

2 pm: Tracing West Indian Ancestors: Strategies & Resources, by Diane Warmsley for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/tracing-west-indian-ancestors-strategies-resources/

Saturday 7 October

10 am: Researching Family in the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), by Carla Cegielski for Northwest Suburban Genealogy Society
https://nwsgenealogy.org/carla-cegielski-researching-family-in-the-digital-public-library-of-america-dpla/

Roughly 6,500 names of UK men and women honoured with civilian gallantry awards have been added to TNA’s Discovery online catalogue. As well as listing names, it lists the associated towns, cities, and counties. This will help people researching bomb damage and explosions during the Second World War. As expected, there are many recommendations associated with events which took place in London and in other ports and cities targeted by the Germans, such as Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Swansea, Coventry Hull, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton and Plymouth.

In the catalogue there are 15 records for Great Yarmouth, including George Ferrow ( 1891-1960), a second hand book dealer in whose shop I occasionally browsed. He was awarded the British Empire Medal for rescuing “persons trapped in a cellar at Row Area adjoining Middlegate Street, Great Yarmouth [Suffolk!], on 8/9 July 1941.” Newspapers report he tunnelled for two hours under tons of debris and released two women and a youth.

The collection includes those honoured with two new awards, the George Cross and the George Medal, instituted in September 1940 to recognize the outstanding contribution made by civilians during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. These awards were primarily aimed at those involved in civil defence, such as Air Raid Precautions officers, rescue party workers, fire fighters casualty and medical service workers as well as vital work carried out by people from many walks of life.

Read about the collection at https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/civilian-honours-in-the-second-world-war/ and search the catalogue at https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C15354

During this month, libraries and library partners across Canada raise awareness of the valuable role libraries play in Canadians’ lives. The 2023 national theme is Libraries for Life.

What will your local library be doing to raise awareness?

A new Time Team episode has some familiar faces invited to Aldbourne, Wiltshire, on the 80th anniversary since Easy Company of the US 101st Airborne Division was stationed here in 1943, shortly before D-Day.

Working alongside service men and women from the US and UK, the team has just over a week to investigate the camp, once home to the ‘Band of Brothers’.

Here are two items reflecting on the applause all members of the House of Commons gave to a former Nazi soldier of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS.  I intended to include these on Sunday, but they fell into a pothole.

About the SS Officer in the Gallery

Those Who Forget The Past…are doomed to screw up royally.

What about others?

A member of the Nazi Party and major in the Allgemeine SS. He escaped justice for his Nazi war crimes due to the US desire to beat the Soviets in the space race. That’s Werner von Braun.

“the enemy of my enemy is my friend”

There have been 39 additions in September. Did you search in the past ten days? There have been no new additions since.

The collection now totals 71,140,389 pages, up from 70,394,671 in the August update.

The six new titles added are:

Walthamstow Express ( 1894, 1897-1899)
East Essex Advertiser and Clacton News (1889, 1900-1905, 1912)
Schoolmaster and Edinburgh Weekly Magazine (1832-1833)
Kent Times, Tonbridge and Sevenoaks Examiner (1858-1859, 1861-1862)
Liverpool Saturday’s Advertiser (1823, 1826-1828, 1830-1832)
Epsom Journal (1871-1896, 1898-1899, 1901-1902).

Papers with more than 10,000 pages added are: