Anglo-Celtic Connections

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Irish DNA Decoded: 6,000 Years of Surprising Ancestry

Why do humans have near-equal numbers of male and female babies?

LONDON A to Z  1962-1973 is an interactive map of songs about London from the Swinging 60s.

What exactly’s going on with 23andMe?
A link to an article in Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.

The Material Culture of Wills: England 1540-1790
From TNA, a volunteer project, 39% complete, to transcribe 25,000 English wills.

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Barbara May Di Mambro, Barry Grisdale, Basil Adam, Brenda Turner, gail benjafield, Glenn Wright, Jane Watt, Nick Mcdonald, Robert Ross Halfyard, Teresa, Unknown.

This issue celebrates 40 years of publication. Here are the contents, drawing largely from the description here.

A.I. & Genealogy
Chris Paton looks at the world of Artificial Intelligence. Is it here to help us? A thoughtful article.

Finding your way around Findmypast
Genealogy tutor Jude Rhodes guides beginners and more experienced users around Findmypast’s key tools.

Free & frugal tips, tools & tactics for family historians
Useful family history tips from the Frugal Family Historian Alison Spring for saving time and money/ Her top 5 tactics are: connect with social media; learn with webinars; organize with free charts; surprise yourself with books, and plan with Trello.com. I’m surprised at the last of these, given the plethora of organization methods and apps.

The life of a 19th-century soldier
Family Tree Academy tutor David Annal explores the life of a 19th-century military man.

Twiglets
Gill Shaw turns her attention to (quite a) house history… okay yes, it’s a bit of a palace… that her erstwhile orphan great-great-aunt came to own!

Are you getting all the details you can from the 1939 National Register records
Richard Holt digs deeper into the 1939 Register for England and Wales

Spotlight on Leicestershire & Rutland Family History Society
Read about the latest society in our series, as they celebrate their 50th!

DNA Workshop
DNA Advisor Karen Evans helps readers with their DNA difficulties.

Witch-hunts during the Little Ice Age
Were your ancestors accused of – or even executed for witchcraft? Wayne Shepheard and Karin Helmstaedt investigate. I suggest remembering that correlation is not necessarily causation.

The life of George Smith, ARP warden
Janet Smith recounts the traumatic experience of her uncle George in his role as ARP warden.

Photo Corner
Jayne Shrimpton helps to put dates to pictures from the past.

And finally… Thoughts on…
Diane Lindsay has been thinking about her grandfather, and the many hats worn by this man who rarely spoke about the Great War.

Findmypast is offering free access to its First World War family and military records until midnight BST on 21 October.

The English country of Cornwall is the focus of FMP updates this week.

Baptisms adds 329,708 records from 1571 to 1976, many with linked images of the original.

Marriages adds 283,358 records with images of the original.

Burials adds 348,550 records with images of the original

All these are published in partnership with Cornwall Family History Society and the Family History Federation.

Among the 169,756 new newspaper pages this week are issues of The Field (1853 – 2009), a magazine for the hunting and shooting set. See the video linked from https://www.thefield.co.uk/

The past month saw major additions of New Brunswick newspapers back to the 19th century.

England and Wales had 19 new and 31 updated papers, all for issues in the 2010s. Scotland had six additions for the 2010s and an update to the Clydebank Post, 24,725 pages between 1983 and 2019. There were no changes for Ireland.

The following cemetery and crematorium records up to the year 2000 for Kingston-upon-Hull are now available on www.deceasedonline.com:

Eastern Cemetery: over 27,000 records from 1931 to 2000
Hedon Road Cemetery: over 86,000 records from 1875 to 2000
Northern Cemetery: over 77,400 records from 1929 to 2000 (includes 76 Canadians from WW2)
Western Cemetery: over 98,000 records from 1889 to 2000 (includes 4 WW1 Canadians and 3 from WW2)
Western Old Cemetery: over 17,000 records from 1861 to 1991
Chanterlands Crematorium: over 135,000 records, with early records from the Hedon Road cremation site, from 1902 to 1997.

Many of the original scans contain details such as the deceased’s occupation and address and, often, the cause of death.

Ancestry just added these Ontario records.

Trent Valley, Ontario, Canada, Membership Records from Fraternal Organizations, 1919-1971 has 923 records consisting of images of membership rolls and dues registers. Included are when admitted, signature, residence, occupation. and a second page with notes on length of membership and if deceased.

Trent Valley, Ontario, Canada, Peterborough Examiner Obituaries, 1980-1991 contains a summary transcription and images of the newspaper notice of these 135,548 obituaries. Interestingly, the Peterborough Examiner is not (yet) in the newspapers.com collection. However, there’s a collection of digitized areas newspapers from the Trent Valley Archives. They are presently unavailable as they’re hosted at archive.org which is dealing with a hacker attack.

Woe is me. I omitted mentioning Ken McKinlay’s presentation to OGS Ottawa Branch next Saturday at 1 p.m. in Tuesday’s roundup.

In Exploring Library and Archives Canada Online (Ottawa) Ken will look at the new LAC site, touch upon using the new census search system, and explore other resources they have made available to us.

The meeting is online. Find out more at https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/exploring-library-and-archives-canada-online-ottawa/

Vivid-Pix, and CEO Rick Voight, are big supporters of the Ontario Genealogical Society. They were exhibitors at the conference in Toronto (Mississauga) in June and donated a Memory Station, including a scanner and Memory Station software, to the Ontario heritage community valued at $2K CAD.

Memory Stations installed in libraries, archives, and senior living facilities allow visitors and residents to gather and share their stories. Is this an opportunity for an Ontario organization in your area?

OGS members may submit their ideas to OGS volunteer Paul Jones, who helped arrange the donation and has agreed to collect, collate, and forward ideas for Rick and his advisers’ consideration. Contact Paul at paul.jones@ogs.on.ca. Suggestions must be received by October 26, 2024.

Vicid-Pix demonstrated Memory Station at the OGS conference. If you missed it and are interested, take advantage of a free trial offer on Vivid-Pix Memory Station Software for Windows. Create 5 Stories with images already on your computer. Includes 10 Free RESTORE Fixes.

This is a new image-only collection containing 388 records of the “Freemen of the City” in Londonderry between 1675 and 1945.

It’s an opportunity for a shout-out for BIFHSGO’s 2024 Annual Conference, Teaghlach Gaelach: A Celebration of Irish Family History. 26-27 October 2024.

https://www.bifhsgo.ca/2024-conference

Research findings are presented in a four-part podcast by Mark Hailwood. Based substantially on witness statements in court cases, he addresses:

Episode 1: Hard, Cold, Short?
Episode 2: Working Life
Episode 3: Isolated and Insular?
Episode 4: Close-knit Communities?

It turned out life was more varied, and not as dull and monotonous, as respondents to a modern survey believed.

The History Association, the UK National Charity for History, makes an introduction to the series available here. It has a link to register with an email address to access them. They are free – you do not need to become a member of the HA.

Were you or an ancestor in Toronto 70 years ago?

Today marks the 70th anniversary of devastating Hurricane Hazel, which struck the Toronto area on 15-16 October 1954. It was Toronto’s worst natural disaster, leaving 81 dead, nearly 1900 families homeless, and causing between $25 and $100 million in damages.

During the storm, winds reached 124 km/h, and over 200 millimetres of rain fell in 24 hours. The heavily flooded areas were expropriated and barred from having homes, and most of the land was later converted into an extensive park system along Toronto’s rivers.

Read more on Wikipedia.