This is a reminder that the new season of Gresham College presentations is underway. Depending on the phasing of daylight savings time changes, they are typically streamed at 1 p.m. ET.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on

 

MyHeritage is patching deficiencies with its new coverage of Irish death records.

The 7,054,872 transcriptions are civil death records from all 32 counties of Ireland between 1864 and 1921, continuing for the Republic of Ireland until 1958. Records typically include the deceased’s name, age at the time of death, and the year and place of death.

Probate TV on YouTube dives into the world of international probate research. Follow stories from high-profile UK firm Fraser and Fraser as they chase down missing heirs.

The videos are 10 -12 minutes duration.

https://www.youtube.com/@ProbateTV

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Here’s what I wasn’t able to play fully on Saturday.

TheGenealogist now includes coverage of the 1910 Lloyd George Domesday records and geolocated maps for the entire county of Wiltshire. There’s information on more than 175,000 individuals and organizations.

Researchers can now:
● Locate ancestral homes and businesses with precision
● Discover details about the area their ancestors lived in, such as locating their local school, church or pub
● Gain insights into the social and economic conditions of Edwardian Wiltshire
● Cross-reference information with other historical records for a more complete family history.

There’s more information about the 1910 Lloyd George Domesday records at
https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/lloyd-george-domesday/.

For a limited time, you can claim a Diamond Subscription for £94.95, a saving of £45. Claim the offer at:
https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/MGBLGD924

The following are resources referred to in the presentation “Twas a Dark and Stormy Night: Connecting Weather and Personal Histories” by John D Reid for the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society, 14 September 2024.

Reconstructed temperature records for the St. Lawrence Valley

Historical climate observations in Canada: 18th and 19th century daily temperature from the St. Lawrence Valley, Quebec, by Victoria Slonosky
https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/gdj3.11

NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology – St. Lawrence Valley, Quebec 18th and 19th Century Daily Temperature Data
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/15654

Fort Colonge Records 1824-1831
Liveright J. 1833. Fonds McCord Family, P001-838 “John Liveright’s Thermometrical Journals”. McCord Museum: Montreal, QC, Canada.

Ottawa Storm Film December 1942.
https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?app=filvidandsou&IdNumber=27583&q=1942%20ottawa%20video&ecopy=27583

Canada
Meteorological Service of Canada
http://weather.gc.ca
Scroll to Past Weather and then Historic Data
https://climate.weather.gc.ca/historical_data/search_historic_data_e.html

Ottawa Weather Stats
https://ottawa.weatherstats.ca/

UK
British Meteorological Office.
http:.//www,metoffice.gov.uk
Scroll to National Meteorological Library & Archive
and find Daily Weather Report

Weather in History: 11,000BC to present
https://premium.weatherweb.net/weather-in-history-11000bc-to-present

USA
US Weather Bureau Historic Weather Records
https://www.weather.gov/
Click on Past Weather

Daily Global Synoptic Weather Maps: 1900 to 1971
https://libguides.library.noaa.gov/weather-climate/synoptic-map

Bonus Items

Northern Tornadoes Project
https://www.uwo.ca/ntp/index.html

The Michael Newark Digitized Tornado Archive
A collection of source and analysis materials related to tornadoes and other damaging wind events dating back to the late 1700s.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/ntp_mndta/

The Climate Trends and Variations Bulletin
A quarterly summary of how Canada’s climate has changed over the recent past and longer through maps of current and past departures from the mean.
https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/science-research-data/climate-trends-variability/trends-variations.html

Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Archives
See the publications
Climatological Bulletin (1967 – 1993)
The Canadian Weather Trivia Calendar (1988 – 2019)
Canada’s Top Ten Weather Stories (1996 to date)
Chinook (1978 – 1989)
https://cmosarchives.ca/index_publications.html

Copernicus ECMWF
X (Twitter) has news of the latest climate developments at @CopernicusECMWF

A staggering 6.2 million records for Sheffield and Rotherham, Yorkshire, have been added to Ancestry. They are for the Established Church of England, the original records from the Archdeaconry of Sheffield and under the care of Sheffield City Archives.

Title	Records
Baptisms, 1813-1923	2,764,405
Marriages and Banns, 1754-1948	1,849,381
Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812	1,167,123
Burials, 1813-1998	488,050

You can browse by parish and date range at Ancestry.

The latest post on John Grenham’s Irish Roots blog is the All-singing, all-dancing barony maps.

It links to interactive maps. Pick a county, see the barony boundaries, zoom in to see the civil parishes in each barony, zoom in further to see townlands. No clicking through barony names to the wonders of related Irish records.

The post explains the history of the baronies, which were largely irrelevant by 1860.

This is shameless self-promotion.
I don’t often give presentations. The last was a mini one at the OGS Conference AI Day in June. Starting at 1 pm on Saturday, I’ll make an online presentation for the OGS Ottawa Branch.

I’m pleased to have the opportunity to speak on a topic that combines my professional background, meteorology, and family history.
Find out about our and our ancestors’ vulnerability to weather, some notable events in Ottawa area history with a weather connection, and how to find out about the weather on a special day in your family history. Finally, we’ll peek at Ottawa’s future weather by looking at trends over the past century.

Please attend—it’s free, you supply your refreshments. Register in the right-hand column at https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/, where you can also find out about other Ottawa Branch activities.

 

 

In Ottawa, the genealogy scene is quiet during the summer months. We’re into September, and the drought is over. Starting with a two-fer at the BIFHSGO monthly meeting — two feature presentations.

At 9 am Patricia Roberts-Pichette and Glenn Wright will give a revised version of Middlemore Children: In Their Own Words.

For many years, extensive research and writing have focused on home children in Canada, but we have rarely heard the children themselves. Drawing on the records of Middlemore‘s Children’s Emigration Homes, Patricia Roberts-Pichette and Glenn Wright let the children speak of their hopes, fears, and experiences in coming to Canada as young immigrants.

Patricia Roberts-Pichette and Glenn Wright are long-time BIFSHGO members and have been inducted into the Hall of Fame. Patricia began her work on the Middlemore project in 2001, and Glenn Wright is looking forward to bringing to life the experiences of home children in their own words.

At 10:15 am, Laurie Fyffe recounts her journey in Exciting Cause: an investigation into women confined in the 1890s to the Kingston Asylum for the Insane (Rockwood) in Kingston, Ontario. Her great-great-grandmother, Sarah Ann Gerrard, died in that institution in 1901. How did Sarah Ann, a mother of four and a devout Anglican, come to spend the last eighteen months of her life in an asylum for the insane? Tracing Sarah’s surprising personal history led Laurie to the medical case history files of Rockwood’s female patients, where she found compelling stories and tragic outcomes for women who fell short of the ideal for female behaviour in late 19th-century Victorian Canada.

An Ottawa-based playwright and dramaturge, Laurie Fyffe has written and produced multiple theatrical presentations at the Ottawa Fringe Festival. In the spring of 2023, Laurie’s play Exciting Cause, created with choreographer Allison Burns, premiered at Arts Court Theatre, eventually receiving multiple Prix Rideau Award nominations. In the fall of 2022, Beowulf In Afghanistan was selected for development through the Great Canadian Theatre Company’s Tributary Project. A Playwrights Guild of Canada and the Canadian Authors Association member, Laurie was Artistic Manager of Ottawa StoryTellers from 2014 to 2017, and now teaches at the Algonquin College School of Media and Design. Laurie is the sister-in-law of a BIFHSGO Hall of Fame member.

Join the meeting in person or online. Details at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

The Family History AI Show
In the latest episode of this podcast, co-hosts Steve Little and Mark Thompson discuss the latest AI advancements revolutionizing genealogy.

A highlight is a deep dive into the world of AI image generators, exploring tools like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Adobe Firefly and discussing their potential to breathe new life into family history narratives. Find the complete content at https://blubrry.com/3738800/136034321/ep12-hollywood-ai-blunder-ai-image-generator-roundup-google-lens-saves-you-time-researching-use-ai-for-translation.

AI and Family History: Extending Beyond the Basics
On Wednesday evening, I caught this  Legacy Family Tree Webinars presentation by Andrew Redfern. It builds on his April presentation Artificial Intelligence & Family History: An Introduction still available to webinar subscribers.

I strongly recommend this new presentation if you are interested in using AI in family history. He shows various applications in a live demonstration. It should be available for free viewing at www.familytreewebinars.com starting sometime on Thursday morning.

It is the interaction between humans and the AI tools that makes a difference. Anyone can chat with a bot, but the true power is in refining what to say, how to say it, critically analysing output and reiterating details in a dance of manipulation.   
Andrew Redfern

FamilySearch
In just a few days, the number of British records full-text searchable through the Experimental Labs initiative has more than doubled. Most additions are for vital, religious, and government records.