Anglo-Celtic Connections

Today, 30 April, marks the 80th anniversary of the sinking of the only troopship carrying Canadian Army troops to be lost during the Second World War, resulting in the loss of 207 lives.

I recognized the ship name as a few months earlier, in September 1940, the S.S, Nerissa had brought 16 boys and 18 girls to Halifax, N.S. on their way to British Columbia as part of the CORB scheme to evacuate children from Britain.

As mentioned in the OGS eWeekly Update, today also sees the publication of the second edition of “S.S. Nerissa, the Final Crossing”, by William Dziadyk, a retired naval officer. Revised, “This second edition is the result of feedback from readers, and additional research and analysis related to:

• Nerissa’s many wartime sailings prior to and including her final crossing of the North Atlantic;
• Personnel and other records;
• Public relations dilemmas in both Canada and the UK; and
• Inclusion of additional humanizing details to a tragic story.

New material also includes contextual details of the overall Battle of the Atlantic war efforts, and Bletchley Park’s advances in decrypting German naval Enigma encoded messages … during the few weeks before and after the sinking of the S.S. Nerissa.”

Available at www.amazon.ca/dp/B08X3Q84BK

The British Newspaper Archive added 225,236 pages in the last 7 days for a total of  42,441,368 pages online (41,992,236 last month).

This month 102 papers had pages added (51 in the previous month). There were 50 (22) new titles. Dates range from 1801 to 1985.

The eight newspapers with more than 10,000 pages added were:

At the end of January, I listed the top tweeters using #genealogy and #familyhistory for the past week. Here’s an update for the past week ending noon 28 April.
FamilyTreeTips2 remains at the top of both lists. ClioVis, which wasn’t in the list at all in January, has now overtaken Heirs2U on the #genealogy list.

ClioVis is “an innovative digital timeline tool developed at the University of Texas at Austin by Dr Erika Bsumek.” Find out more at https://notevenpast.org/interview-with-dr-erika-bsumek-the-creator-of-cliovis/

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqcOmsrjIsGdaBJdtaF10hPvqMD9dwQ-MW

A final reminder that in celebration of reaching the milestone of the 1,500th webinar, Legacy Family Tree Webinars membership is on sale for $25 US until the end of April.  It’s a bargain.
https://legacy.familytreewebinars.com/

Previously “Know Your Place” was an admonition to someone to respect their usually lower status in the British social hierarchy.

Today you only expect to hear it in that context on “Upstairs-Downstairs.”

These days Know Your Place is a British digital heritage mapping resource. It gives “online access to a range of historic data, but more importantly provides a place where users can add information about your local area, building a rich and diverse community map of local heritage for everyone. It’s free to use and anyone can add to the map.”

Started in Bristol, Know Your Place expanded to the West of England where it now “spans eight counties and 7279 square miles, with other counties around the UK interested in putting their areas on the map in future.” The latest, just starting online, is Worcester.

Check it out for insights into the area where your ancestors lived.

Back on 5 September 2019, on the old blog site, I posted More digital promised at LAC.

Here’s the text.

“Here’s how Librarian and Archivist of Canada Leslie Weir responded to the question “What is your primary aim as Librarian and Archivist of Canada during your four-year term?”

My primary aim is to raise the profile of Library and Archives Canada through enhanced digital presence, responsive services and public programming, and engagement with the public in our new buildings and spaces.

It will be interesting to see what “enhanced digital presence” means. Is it more exhibit type social media — Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc? Hopefully, it’s more than that. In the LAC 3-year plan published in May a goal was “We will increase access to our collection and expand opportunities for the public to enhance LAC’s holdings.” LAC clients will look forward to news on how that will be accomplished with digitization at a pace above that already achieved.”

Now, 20 months in, how do you judge things are going? While the best-laid plans will suffer in an age of COVID the first of the above “enhanced digital presence” is something on which many peer organizations have continued to make progress.

If you’re reading this late at night and would like to sleep soundly you’d be well advised to stop—if you’re liable to have nightmares. Come back in the morning.

DIGGINGUP1800: DISSECTING THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD OF BRITAINS BODY SNATCHERS is a website by Suzie Lennox. To start she recommends two of her favourite posts Stealing a Cadaver and Making a Killing.

There’s also a YouTube video Raiders of the Grave: Macabre tales of Bodysnatchers & what churches did to stop them. The presentation starts at 17:10.

A post on the site Oakum Picking In A Victorian Prison is of relevance for my family history. I used an image from that, others could be too gruesome.

Choose from free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Those in red are Canadian, bolded if local to Ottawa. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed.

Tuesday 27 April, 2 pm:  Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 27 April, 2 pm: Recent updates to MyHeritage’s historical record search engine, by Dana Drutman for MyHeritage Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1691

Tuesday 27 April, 2:30 pm: Preparing Your Family History for Publication:
A Writing Workshop, by M. Teresa Baer for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5013512

Tuesday 27 April, 7 pm: The Family History Reno Project, by Bob Dawes for Wellington County Branch OGS. https://wellington.ogs.on.ca/events/wellington-county-branch-the-family-history-reno-project-with-bob-dawes/

Wednesday 28 April, 2 pm: 94% European and 6% Nigerian – Tracing My Missing Nigerian Ancestor, by Yetunde Moronke Abiola for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1625

Thursday 29 April, 6:30 pm: The Nuts and Bolts of Publishing Your Family History, by M. Teresa Baer for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5010533

Saturday 1 May, 10 am: Sisters of St. Joseph Orphanage Records, by Mary Kosta for London and Middlesex Branch OGS. https://bit.ly/LMOA-May2021

LOOKING AHEAD

4 — 6 June 2021: OGS Conference. conference.ogs.on.ca 

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

Herbert Kitcheman was born in Bradford, Yorkshire on 30 November 1869. He was the son of Robert (John?) and Mary Ellen nee Limbert, but n the 1881 census was in the home of his uncle Edward and aunt Mary Kitcheman. Together they came to Ottawa in 1883.

He was in the Active Militia in Ottawa in 1886 and appears as a civil servant with the Ottawa Post Office as of 13 April 1889. Herbert Kitcheman married Harriet Wilson in Ottawa on 31 October 1892.

Continuing service as a letter carrier, he enlisted for service in South Africa with the Royal Canadian Field Artillery. Serving from December 1899 to January 1901 he received three clasps to his Queen’s Medal.

For the Great War, he enlisted with the 69th Battalion Canadian Forestry Corps, Service Number: 2157329. Serving in Canada, England and France he was injured when a tree fell on him and subsequently discharged as unfit.

Herbert Kitcheman died at Davisville Hospital in Toronto on 26 April 1921 of carcinoma of the neck and cardiac failure.  His remains are in Sec. 41. Lot 35. South part, at Beechwood Cemetery.

The table below shows the number of deaths of Canadians in the LAC Killed in Action database for the Second World War on days with more than 200 fatalities.
You don’t have to know military history well to recognize the first two dates and understand the clustering of most of the others.
Can you name any battles associated with the other dates? What do you know about the large numbers of fatalities on 23 May 1944? Why is 26 February 1945 the only winter month in the top ten?

Irish Central has news of this resource, the first tranche of which is coming soon.
“In January, staff at Tipperary County Council Library Service undertook an ambitious project to commence digitizing its Famine-related Minute Books from the Poor Law Unions in Borrisokane, Cashel, Clogheen, Clonmel, Nenagh, Roscrea, Thurles, and Tipperary.”

Tipperary Studies says: “After the initial launch in May, work will continue on the digitization of the remaining minute books, a work that will bring the record collection up into the early decades of the 20th century.”

Find out the details at https://www.irishcentral.com/news/tipperary-famine-era-records