Another Pandemic Fatality: Your Genealogy Today

From the Publisher of Your Genealogy Today:

Our printer who prints Your Genealogy Today (YGT) contacted us just before we were about to send our Sept/Oct 2021 25th Anniversary issue to press at the end of August to say that they were delaying the printing of YGT due to pandemic-related workforce shortages and paper shortages. They could not guarantee it would be printed in September, or even early October for that matter. That left us no choice other than to source a new printer, which we have done on very short notice; getting press time is difficult – but not impossible.

As a result, WE ARE printing the Sept/Oct 2021 issue of YGT (for subscribers only), but effective with the Oct/Nov 2021 issue of Internet Genealogy (IG), YGT will be merged into Internet Genealogy. Going forward, your subscription will be switched to IG for the duration of what is owed to you from your existing subscription to YGT. If you currently have a subscription to Internet Genealogy, we will extend your subscription by the number of issues owed to you from your existing subscription to YGT. Please feel free to contact our office if you have any questions about this arrangement. Our toll-free number is 1-888-326-2476.
We now have a firm date to print in the week of Sept. 13. and the magazine will be mailed in the week of Sept. 20.

We felt that we had to act now, rather than wait to see if the previous printer was going to get the magazine out. If we didn’t source a new printer, our schedule would surely be jeopardized for IG, and History Magazine as well. In doing so we maintain two quality magazines, plus our special issues. With regard to articles already booked for YGT, any currently accepted YGT articles have been booked into future issues of IG.

COMMENT: While it’s sad to see the end of any publication the overlap between the content of the two magazines has been evident for some while. We should look forward to an even higher standard of content in Internet Genealogy and, perhaps, some new initiatives.

Findmypast Friday Additions

Hundreds of thousands of records from St Martin in the Bull Ring, Birmingham are now online at FMP.

Over 138,000 baptism records
Over 155,000 marriage records
Over 101,000 burial records.

The hits are linked to images from the original register.

Also from Warwickshire, the Midwife’s Birth Register 1845-1875 for
Coventry midwife Mary Eaves attended over 4,400 births during her long career. The transcript gives the birth date, mother’s last name and address.

Don’t count on Library and Archives Canada this weekend

This notice was posted on the LAC website on 10 September.

Interruption of computing services from September 10 to 12, 2021
​We are updating some of our computing services from Friday, September 10 at 10 p.m. to Sunday, September 12 at noon (ET). Some of our websites may not be available during this time:

Library and Archives Canada websites
New France Archives Website
LAC Direct
We regret any inconvenience that this may cause.

Tracing Your 20th Century English Ancestors

If you’re new to researching English ancestry or could do with a refresher, I recommend viewing Paul Milner’s talk for Legacy Family Tree Webinars given on Wednesday evening. It’s free at the Legacy Family Tree Webinars site until 16 September. For webinar members, there’s an eight-page handout with additional information not covered in the talk, some new to me.

https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/tracing-your-20th-century-english-ancestors/

Newspapers Update

I was surprised the other day to discover, via a post referencing Lisa Louise Cooke, that the Google collection of historic newspapers isn’t as non-searchable as I’d thought. Here’s how to do it.

Go to https://books.google.ca/ enter the search term and hit return or the search magnifying glass. Then on the Any document drop-down select Newspapers. Click on the Any time drop-down to refine the date range.

Add additional terms to the search, like the place of interest, to further refine the results. There seems to be no way to identify at the site which newspapers are included. A sample search for the WW2 period found articles in Canadian papers The Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Toronto Daily Star, Calgary Herald, Maple Leaf, Windsor Daily Star, Regina Leader-Post, Edmonton Journal, Shawinigan Standard, St. Maurice Valley Chronicle, Sherbrooke Telegram, and Canadian Register.

There are also US and Australian newspapers. Likely the papers available are those listed by The Ancestor Hunt at https://theancestorhunt.com/newspaper-research-links.html, scroll down to Canada>Links by Province, select the province and then scroll down to Google News Archive. The same collection is available to MyHeritage subscribers.

Also new in newspapers is that Findmypast no longer provides access to Canadian or US newspapers. FMP does continue to add to the British newspaper collection, the latest being the Daily News (London) for 1846-1923, 1925, 1927, 1939. Newspapers.com continues to add US newspapers.

A Long Day: Saturday 25 September

I’ve been looking forward to the BIFHSGO conference talks on 25 September.  Now I find the Register of Qualified Genealogists are streaming a free Conference: Genealogy and Social History: Know your Ancestors on the same day. Here’s the programme (pdf). Register at https://www.qualifiedgenealogists.org/2021-conference

Fortunately, the time difference works in our favour.  The opening presentation for RQG, What genealogists and social historians can learn from each other, by Caroline Gurney starts at 5 am ET.  Chris Paton’s talk Church and State: Ireland’s Vital Records starts at noon ET. By that time the final RQG presentation, one I’d particularly like to attend, Lying Bastards: the impact of illegitimacy on family history research, by Dave Annal, will be about halfway through.

Advance Notice: Dublin Festival of History

From 20 September to 10 October, is a programme of 70+ free events, both online and in-person, organised by Dublin City Libraries, in partnership with the Dublin City Council Culture Company.

There’s too much to list here. Some of the events early in the festival are:

20 September, 7:00 pm: Wartime Work Opportunities for Irish Women, by Mary Muldowney

21 September, 6;30 pm All Quiet on the Southern Front, by Cathy Scuffil

22 September, 6 pm: Safe Haven: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and the WWII Immigrants That Helped Shape It, by Gisela Holfter.

23 September, 6 pm:  I Live a New Life: Frederick Douglass in Ireland, by Cecelia Hartsell

ALSO

22nd Medieval Dublin Symposium
September 24 @ 2:00 pm – September 25 @ 1:00 pm

Find everything that’s available FREE at https://dublinfestivalofhistory.ie/events

Can you help find Canadian CWGC relatives

Each month the Commonwealth War Graves Commission issues an appeal for next of kin for soldiers they commemorate. The September list,  which has 70 names, includes two who served with the Canadian Forces.

Driver W. G. Plumb (453108) died 21 January 1920. He was with the Canadian Army Service Corps and is interred at Camberwell Old Cemetery. It is now possible to mark the gravesite; a gravestone is being produced.

According to his attestation paper, William George Plumb was born in London on 13 November 1887 and enlisted in Niagara. It appears he chose to remain in England after the war. No cause of death is on his military file.

Private George Taylor (202042) is buried at Horningblow (St John) Churchyard. A memorial is being installed as the exact burial place cannot be located.

According to his service file, he was born in Burton on Trent on 29 July 1894 and enlisted in Toronto. His widow remarried to become Mrs Minnie Ager of 100 Sutherland Drive, Leaside, ON. He had a sister Alice living at 337 Symington Ave., Toronto. He was discharged with Tuberculosis. According to his military file, he died on 23 March 1921.

If you are related to one of the above casualties or can identify someone who is, and can provide CWGC with the documentation, please contact the Enquiries Team.

BBC History Magazine: October 2021

The (surprisingly) modern Middle Ages. From climate change to pandemics, Dan Jones looks at the issues that preoccupied our medieval ancestors and keep us awake at night today. Climate change, migration, populism and protest, globalization, technology.

What is history in 2021?
Suzannah Lipscomb and Helen Carr consider how we should tell the story of the past in the 21st century.

Royals in the trenches.
The British royal family emerged from the First World War stronger than ever. Heather Jones explains why.

The radical Wedgwood
Tristram Hunt reveals how an English potter embedded activism into his celebrated earthenware.

Romancing the Tudors
Sarah Gristwood chronicles how Henry VIll and Elizabeth I used courtly love to further their agendas,

In the shadow of 9/11
David Reynolds (emeritus professor of international history at Cambridge University) asks if the events of 11 September 2001 really were a turning point in world history.

“How will 9/11 be regarded at the 50th anniversary in 2051? Will it be seen as having led America, fatally, to ignore the resurgenceof China? Or as exacerbating the toxic cocktail of the Middle East, with its unresolved problems going back to the fall of the Ottoman empire in 1918? Perhaps, by 2051, 9/11 will seem far less important than Covid 19 – the onset of an era of zoonotic diseases, passing from animals to humans, which affected daily life across the world much more profoundly?Or maybe, by mid-century, the climate emergencywill dwarf all other issues, and our grandchil dren will point to a crucial tipping point in climate change that this generation failed to address. I’d put my money on climate, not Covid or China.”

The future for the past
Four historians discuss the issues shaping the study of history in universities, from Covid-19 to calls to decolonise the curriculum.

Some of these items are on the History Extra podcast.

This Week’s Online Genealogy Events

Choose from free online events in the next six days. All times are ET except as noted. Those in red are Canadian, bolded if local to Ottawa or recommended

Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed.

Tuesday 6 Sept, 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 6 Sept, 2:30 pm: History at Your Fingertips: A Guide to Hoosier State Chronicles and Indiana Memory, by Justin Clark for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
Register here.

Tuesday 7 Sept, 7 pm: I Just Can’t Get Enough of Eastern Europe, by Eva Kujawa​ for Durham Branch OGS
https://easterneurope.ogs.on.ca/events/cant-get-enough-of-eastern-europe/

Wednesday 8 Sept. 7:15 pm: Mixing DNA with a Paper Trail, by Penny Walters​  for York Branch OGS.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYkc–tqTstG9G1d5LmX4hia49Ep9oPlnl4

Wednesday 8 Sept, 8 pm: Tracing Your 20th Century English Ancestors, by Paul Milner for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/tracing-your-20th-century-english-ancestors/

Thursday 9 Sept, 6:30 pm: Moving Beyond Hit or Miss Genealogy to a Genealogical Plan, by Pat Stamm for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
Register here.

Friday 10 September, 10 am:  Webtember presentations from Legacy Family Tree Webinars. See the full program at https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1785

Friday 10 Sept, 7 pm: That Bubblin’ Crude: Early Oil in Kent County, by Deanna Bullard for Kent Branch OGS
https://kent.ogs.on.ca/events/zone-township/

Saturday 11 Sept, 9:30 am: Launch and Tour of BIFHSGO’s New Website, by Sheila Dohoo Faure for BIFHSGO.
www.bifhsgo.ca

Saturday 11 Sept, 10 am: The Paulin(e) Family Reunion: Taking Family Research to the Family, by Gilliam Leech for BIFHSGO.
www.bifhsgo.ca

Saturday 11 Sept, 10 am:  Cross-Border Cousins: Tip-toe Through Canadian Records, by Steve Fulton​ for London Middlesex Branch OGS
https://londonmiddlesex.ogs.on.ca/events/cross-border-cousins-tip-toe-through-canadian-records/

Saturday 11 Sept. 11 am: Victoria County Histories, by Caroline Gurney for International Society for British Genealogy and Family History
https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qn-qL_vORWqxt27beRTIgw

Saturday 11 Sept, 1 pm: Dr. William Arthur Rupert Michell (1879-1966), by Karen Prytula for Ottawa Branch OGS 
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/seasons-in-the-wind-tales-of-lanark-county-and-a-new-day-dawning/

Sunday 12 Sept. 2 pm:  Finding your Female Ancestors in Upper Canada, by Linda Corupe​ for Halton-Peel Branch OGS

Coming

19 – 26 September 2021: BIFHSGO Conference. Irish Lines and Female Finds: Exploring Irish records, female ancestors and genetic genealogy. www.bifhsgo2021.ca/.

 

Military Monday: Canadian War Brides to Britain

Many British men were in Canada during WW2 with the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (BCATP). Inevitably romance occurred, often marriage.

In July 1944 a train travelled from British Columbia collecting Canadian wives and children of British servicemen. After four nights in Montreal, they continued to New York, boarded the Union-Castle line “Athlone Castle” in convoy to Londonderry, onward to Liverpool arriving on Wednesday 23 August. The voyage had 2 couples, 7 unaccompanied men, 562 unaccompanied women, 265 children and infants.

The passenger list is archived at TNA; Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists.; Class: BT26; Piece: 1206. It’s available indexed with links to the original list image on Ancestry.

Newspaper research identifies other voyages in January 1944, November 1944, and December 1945. There were likely others.

Next Monday I expect to post on marriages to airmen from other countries.