Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week. In this post:
Extreme Cold Warning
Congestion Pricing
FindmyPast Weekly Update
New on Ancestry
British Newspaper Archives Update
Newspapers.com Canadian Updates
Identifying a Canadian Birth Mother: A DNA Story

Extreme Cold Warning

Overnight temperatures in Ottawa are forecast to drop below -20C on Monday and Tuesday nights. Those would be the coldest since February 2023. Be prepared if you’re looking skyward to see the rare alignment of six planets on 21 January.

Congestion Pricing

On Sunday, 5 January,  New York City became the first in the US to implement congestion pricing. It costs $9 for passenger vehicles during peak hours and $2.25 off-peak to enter Manhatten’s busiest part. Congestion pricing has existed in London, Singapore and Stockholm for years.
https://grist.org/article/the-climate-benefits-of-nycs-hard-won-congestion-pricing-plan/

FindmyPast Weekly Update

The 89,704 Kent monumental inscriptions added bring the total to 106,278. These index entries provide name, age at death or birth year, denomination and place. Year of death is not given. There is a link to the Kent FHS with more detail, usually for £2.50, £4.00 for some. For those interested in the name Keel, are now 26 items in the collection.

Kent, Freemen of Canterbury has 18,380 records which document those granted the honour of Freedom of the City of Canterbury from the 16th to 19th centuries. Find the name of the master, father and spouse. The records are from the Canterbury Cathedral Archives .

Wiltshire Burials provides 55,967 new records for burials
between 1559 and 1837, bringing the total for this index to 2,151,528.

New on Ancestry

Updated is Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968, now with 41,012,638 records.
New is Ballymena, Antrim, Northern Ireland, Headstone Inscriptions, 1671-1996, with 10,193 records.

British Newspaper Archives Update

There are now 88,412,104 pages in the collection. In the past month, the following six new titles were added:
Bournemouth Times and Directory (1934–1950)
Cannock Chase Chronicle (1987–1995, 1997–2003)
Walsall Chronicle (1991, 1993–1995, 1998)
Louth Leader (2004)
Northern Weekly Gazette (2003)
Midland Counties Express (1995, 1998–1999).

Many of the additions are for 2004. Here are the top ten by number of pages added.

Newspaper Title	Number of Pages	Date Range
People’s Friend	64,074	1869–1928
Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette	60,068	1990–1991, 2004
Northampton Chronicle and Echo	54,962	1951, 1988, 1990, 1995, 2004
Milton Keynes Citizen	33,650	2003–2004
Cannock Chase Chronicle	31,220	1987–1995, 1997–2003
Ross-shire Journal	42,326	1877, 1913–1994
Epworth Bells, Crowle and Isle of Axholme Messenger	30,238	1905–2004
Walsall Chronicle	27,798	1991, 1993–1995, 1998
Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail	27,694	1976–1977, 2004
South Yorkshire Times and Mexborough & Swinton Times	24,556	1950–1951, 1953–1955, 1974, 1976–1991

Newspapers.com Canadian Updates

Here are the Canadian newspaper updated in the past month, including only those that date back for more than a century. Many of the updates are adding 2024, those earlier are bolded.

Newspaper	Location	Years	Pages
Gleaner	Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada	1818–1837	725
The Fountain	Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada	1847–1847	8
The Hamilton Spectator	Hamilton, Ontario, Canada	1852–2024	2,251,324
The Gazette	Montreal, Quebec, Canada	1857–2024	2,189,000
The Leader-Post	Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada	1883–2024	1,372,215
Daily News Advertiser	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	1887–1917	98,577
Calgary Herald	Calgary, Alberta, Canada	1888–2024	2,545,971
Vancouver Daily World	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	1888–1924	164,187
Telegraph-Journal	Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada	1874–2024	944,622
The Times-Transcript	Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada	1875–2024	900,366
Daily Gleaner	Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada	1884–2024	991,437
The Windsor Star	Windsor, Ontario, Canada	1893–2024	1,611,978
Waterloo Region Record	Kitchener, Ontario, Canada	1893–2024	1,367,539
The Province	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	1894–2024	2,410,673
The Times	Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada	1895–1915	8,042
The Ottawa Citizen	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada	1898–2024	2,120,889
The Toronto Star	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	1900–2024	3,895,092
Edmonton Journal	Edmonton, Alberta, Canada	1903–2024	2,101,100
National Post	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	1907–2024	869,051
The Vancouver Sun	Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada	1912–2024	2,225,506

Identifying a Canadian Birth Mother: A DNA Story

Thanks to Anonymous, Ken McKinlay, Teresa, and Unknown for this week’s contributions.