Month: March 2024

The old Personnel Records of the First World War database is widely acknowledged as a gem in LAC’s online collection. With it, we could search the archive of roughly 622,000 individual First World War service files by first and last names, regimental numbers, city or province of birth and/or enlistment, and box number.

After more than a decade, with the supporting technology nearing its end of life, LAC decided to integrate that collection into the larger Collection Search tool and simplify access through a specific interface for World War I personnel records.

With the new First World War Personnel Records database we can reduce the number of results using limiter options such as military rank, date range for year of birth, birth country or different enlistment geographic options.

I was interested to see how well the new interface would surface just those born in the UK.

At first glance, it suggests not. The dropdown against Birth province/state has no UK or other country option. Wait, there’s a dropdown option under Specific terms for Birth city and Birth country. England found 46,141 filtered results, Scotland 16,766, Ireland 6,363, and three for the United Kingdom. That total is much less than almost half of the CEF born in the UK.

While that search found none for Wales, searching Birth city found 236 for Cardiff!  The glass is half empty and half full; there’s a lot already available and an ongoing project to index extra details about the place of birth and enlistment. That’s a crowdsourcing opportunity that would be a better use of volunteer resource than the present Co-Lab challenges.

For a more detailed explanation, see the blog post https://thediscoverblog.com/2024/03/07/accessing-personnel-records-of-the-first-world-war-a-new-database-at-library-and-archives-canada/

If you’re concerned about saved links, old URLs will redirect users to the exact new location.

Courtesy of the Investigative Journalism Foundation, a  repository of more than 20,000 documents is now freely available to promote government transparency.

Open By Default surfaces internal government records released under federal access legislation.

Here’s what I found searching between 2011 and 2024.

Keyword	Hits
genealogy	48
genealogical	41
Ontario Genealogical Society	4
Census	879
Library and Archives	1,653
War Brides	4
Home Children	14

These are not all what you’d expect. Hits for Home Children includes “… home. Children …”

Find the IJF release at https://theijf.org/the-ijf-launches-open-by-default/. Give it a try for a name or topic of interest.

There are numerous interesting articles from IJF at https://theijf.org/articles

Women’s Land Army Service Cards 1939-1950

This new-to-FMP collection contains 128,440 service records, offering details about those who served in the Women’s Land Army during World War II. It’s sourced from TNA, Kew. The Land Army was vital to supporting the war effort by carrying out essential agricultural work.

Records include:

• Name
• Marital Status
• Date of Birth
• Enrollment details

This collection is also on Ancestry although these 128,440 records mean FMP has a few more.

Ireland Land Commissions

Findmypast continues to expand its Irish holdings with 741,255 newly added Irish Land Commissions records. These records, spanning 1891 to 1920, document tenants who were able enough to purchase their farms with financial assistance from the UK government, from their landlords. Around 13.5 million acres, the vast majority of the farm land of Ireland, was acquired by occupying tenants prior to Independence. Discover:

• Purchaser’s name
• Seller’s name
• Townland
• County
• Acreage: in acres “a”, roods “r” and perches “p”
• Rental valuation: in pounds “£”, shillings “s”, and pence “p”
• Tenement valuation: in pounds “£”, shillings “s”, and pence “p”

Northamptonshire Militia Lists 1762-1819

An additional 13,351 records bolster the existing early Northamptonshire Militia Lists on Findmypast to 26,819 records. Militia lists offer a snapshot, prior to the nominal census and civil registration, often with details including:

• Name
• Year recorded
• Occupation
• Place

Live at Knox Presbyterian Church or online, BIFHSGO welcomes you on Saturday to its first hybrid monthly meeting of 2024.

9 am: Back to Basics: Civil Birth, Marriage, and Death Registrations, by Ken McKinlay.

Around the middle of the 19th century England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland all implemented their own government-mandated registrations for births, marriages and deaths. In this Back to Basics session we will look at the various online resources, free and otherwise, that can be used to find and explore these sorts of records.

10 am: So, who was Jack Hibbard’s wife? by Ann Burns

Ann Burns had researched her paternal grandmother Ethel Hibbard’s direct ancestors, but other than collecting a few facts about her siblings, had not studied them closely. Ann mostly ignored her French ancestors, as they had been well documented by others, and pursued her Irish lines. An impending visit from Robert, the grandson of Ethel’s sister Mildred, who wanted to know more about the family, started Ann working on a line of collateral research as well. Robert was more interested in Ethel and Mildred’s parents, grandparents, etc., but Ann also looked more closely at the sisters’ brother John, known in the family as Jack. And there she found a conflict in the information. That led to a situation offering a challenge she couldn’t resist. Who, exactly, had Jack Hibbard married?

https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

Just out, this issue of Canada’s History Magazine commemorates the 100th anniversary of the formation of the RCAF.

In “The Darkest Nights”, by Joel Ralph, The Battle of Berlin, where Allied bombers relentlessly attacked the German capital and other important targets, is recalled through the story of Canadian aircrew, bomb aimer Joe Halloran, navigator Sid Philp, and pilot Roger Coulombe.  The missions, over heavily defended cities like Berlin, Magdeburg, and Leipzig, saw them  facing the threat of anti-aircraft fire, searchlights, and deadly night fighters.  Aircrews like Halloran, Philp, and Coulombe were products of the Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Their stories are commemorated at museums such as Bomber Command Museum in Nanton, Alberta.

Planes of the RCAF, by Joel Ralph, is a quick look at five iconic aircraft, from the First World War to the 1980s. They are the Sopwith Camel, Vickers Vedette, Hawker Hurricane, F-86 Sabre and C-100 Canuck

Men against the Desert, by Dawn Martens, is the story of two downed airmen, Canadian Flight Sergeant Robert Leslie Spemce and Australian Air Gunner Sergeant John Wood’s 560 km trek through enemy territory to freedom when their plan was forced down.

The 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO on 4 April 1949 is not forgotten.

Books reviewed are:

Blood on the Coal: The True Story of the Great
Springhill Mine Disaster, by Ken Cuthbertson

Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada, by Stephen R. Bown

New World Dreams: Canadian Pacific Railway and the Golden Northwest, by David Laurence Jones

The Duel: Diefenbaker, Pearson, and the Making
of Modern Canada, by John Ibbitson

Trees Against the Wind: The Birth of Prairie Shelterbelts, by William R. Schroeder

Oak Island Odyssey: A Masonic Quest
by Scott Clarke

There’s a lot more too!

Ken McKinlay has updated a Family Tree Knots blog post with links to instruction manuals for Canada’s post-Confederation census enumerations.
Manuals aren’t exactly inspiring reading, but if you take the time to read them thoroughly, they may help you understand some peculiarities. For instance, there’s the thorny question of race. You may not like it, but here’s the reality of the 1921 instructions.

https://familytreeknots.blogspot.com/2024/03/canadian-census-enumerator-instructions.html

This collection contains images of marriage and baptism records for Royal Navy personnel dated between 1754 and 1878. The source is holdings of The National Archives, Kew:

ADM 6: Admiralty: Service Records, Registers, Returns and Certificates, 1673-1960 (Piece 432);
ADM 7: Admiralty: Miscellanea, 1563-1956 (Piece 1);
ADM 81: Admiralty: Royal Marines, Woolwich Division: Correspondence, Registers and Papers, 1805-1869 (Piece 25);
ADM 193: Admiralty: Royal Marines: Miscellanea, 1761-1982 (Piece 9);
ADM 305: Admiralty: Royal Naval Hospital, Haslar: Miscellaneous Books and Records, 1755-1968 (Piece 86).

Searching for keyword Canada surfaces three hits, all in ADM 193 that includes “various Royal Marine units overseas.”

Two are for the same marriage event — Thomas Newton and Catherine McCullough who married on 10 August 1814. The location, Amarachy, Upper Canada, is a mystery.

The other is the baptism of Ann G Thistleton on 27 February 1818 in Montreal, born on 8 February 1814 to William and Ann Thistleton.

 

Sourced from PRONI, the bulk of these ten directories are for  Belfast. You will find some other towns, like Londonderry and even villages.  Sadly for me, of the 1,508,227 records, only 175 were for Kilkeel. Even though it was too late for my interest, the 1865 directory had two pages on Kilkeel with a town profile and a list of clergy, gentry and traders.

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. Find out about many more mainly US events at Conference Keeper at https://conferencekeeper.org

Tuesday 4 5 March 

8 am: The Mathematics of Coincidence, by Sarah Hart for Gresham College.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/maths-coincidence

2 pm: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-in by OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://meet.google.com/nvz-kftj-dax

2:30 pm: Finding Her: Our Female Ancestor, by Melissa Tennant Rzepczynsk for Allen Country Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/9961533

7:30 pm: The History of Camp 30, by Amy Barron for OGS Durham Branch.
https://timetraces.com/durhambranch

8 pm: Empowering Genealogists with Artificial Intelligence, with Steve Little for Utah Genealogical Association:
https://ugagenealogy.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_EDNoGnzuRzSZ0tDn2_kjsw

8 pm: Beyond the Church Register: Finding and using religious archives in Australia, by Ben Hollister for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/beyond-the-church-register-finding-and-using-religious-archives-in-australia/

Wednesday 5 6March

2 pm: Using DNA To Identify Irish Ancestral Locations, by Michelle Leonard for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/using-dna-to-identify-irish-ancestral-locations/

7:30 pm: British Home Children and Huron County, by Cookie Foster for OGS Huron County Branch.
https://huron.ogs.on.ca/events/huron-branch-british-home-children-and-huron-county-cookie-foster/

Thursday 6 7March

6:30 pm: Sorting Your DNA Match Lists, by Kelli Bergheimer  for Allen Country Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/9951976

7 pm: Oh, Canadiana! by Kathryn Lake Hogan for OGS.
https://ogs.on.ca/march-webinar-oh-canadiana-kathryn-lake-hogan/ (Free to OGS members)

Friday 7 8 March

2 pm: Researching in Cumberland and Westmorland, by Joe Saunders for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/researching-in-cumberland-and-westmorland/

7 pm: Storytelling Our Ancestors: Genealogy in Fiction, by Cameron Alam for OGS Kent Branch
https://kent.ogs.on.ca/events/kent-branch-storytelling-our-ancestors-genealogy-in-fiction/

Saturday 8 9 March

9 am: Back to Basics: Civil Birth, Marriage, and Death Registrations, by Ken McKinlay,
and
10 am: So, who was Jack Hibbard’s wife? by Ann Burns
for the British Isles Fmily History Society of Greater Ottawa.
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

2 pm: Finding Your Innisfil Roots, by Mark Hall for OGS Simcoe County Branch.
https://simcoe.ogs.on.ca/branch-meetings/

 

 

Clotworthy and McQueston

These unusual surnames show up and sucked me down the rabbit hole when searching this 5,745-member database with Canada as a keyword.

Neil Desmond Clotworthy was buried in 1992 in the Friends Burial Ground, Temple Hill, Dublin. Curiously, a Dublin burial appears in a Northern Ireland database!
The inscription has him born in Canada on 15th July 1917. Ancestry has records giving the birth as in Saskatoon, living in Vancouver in 1931, leaving Montreal on 1 July 1932 for Liverpool, living near Enfield, Middlesex in 1939.

Hazel Doreen McQueston was buried in 2011 from Tandragee Baptist Church, Armagh, Northern Ireland. The inscription is that she was the wife of Melville G. McQueston of Canada. There’s an In Memorium note in the Montreal Gazette giving her birth date as 31 October 1918 and death as 14 August 2011 in Newtownards. Melville died in 1983 in Montreal and is buried in a military grave. Could she have been a war bride?

 

OGS Leeds & Grenville Branch hosts author Jean Rae Baxter at 7 pm tonight, Monday 4 March.

This presentation tells the story of the American War of Independence from a “Canadian” point of view. Covering the period from 1777 to the settlement of the Loyalist refugees in what is now Canada, it will examine the effect of the conflict on those who opposed the Revolution. It wasn’t just white colonists who became Loyalists! The native people, especially Iroquois (Haudenosaunee), and thousands of enslaved black people, earned their freedom through their service to the British military. All these became Loyalists, too.

More details and registration at leedsandgrenville.ogs.on.ca

AI has the potential to streamline family history research and reveal exciting discoveries. Although able to generate impressive amounts of plausible text, it’s no perfect all-knowing expert. The companies make that clear up-front.

“ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.”

“Gemini may display inaccurate info, including about people, so double-check its responses.”

“Copilot uses AI. Check for mistakes.”

Mistakes cross the line to blatant lying, as I found when one of them produced a quote from an old book that supported my theory. When I checked the book, the quote was nowhere to be found. When confronted, the AI app eventually acknowledged the fabrication.

Just as you would in finding “facts” in a compiled family tree, always test AI information against primary sources so you can harness it responsibly for your family history.

Let AI do what it does best. Examples are:

Suggest record sources you may have missed.
Suggest outlines and drafts.
Summarize documents. TL/DR!
Transcribe faded documents using handwriting recognition tools.
Colourize old photos.

I also suggest treating it as a toy to learn about its burgeoning capabilities in these early days. It’s fun to get it to write poetry like this which it did when prompted  about the forthcoming total eclipse of the sun on 8 April.

Cosmic Tango

Sun and moon, celestial pranksters, Engage in their cosmic dance. Sun says, “I’m the center of attention!” Moon winks, “Hold my shadow.”

The sky dons its twilight cloak, Birds gossip, leaves gasp. Sun’s corona—fancy halo or bad hair day? Moon shrugs, “It’s all about perspective.”

Eyes squint through eclipse glasses, Hearts race like caffeinated squirrels. Totality arrives—a cosmic mic drop, And we’re left starstruck, craving more.

Sun reclaims its spotlight, moon sulks, But we? We’re forever changed. We’ll tell our grandkids, “I saw the sun blush!” And they’ll say, “Sure, Grandma. Pass the bananas.”