Anglo-Celtic Connections

This past week, 14,293 new photographs have been added to a collection that contains data on many individuals who served with the Coldstream Guards. Additionally, there are 256 transcriptions available from the British Navy’s 1817 mission to China, specifically from H.M.S. Alceste. Also, 5,331 new transcriptions have been added for those who fought in the Battle of Barrosa during the Peninsular War in 1811.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Exploring travel in England before the railway, from Teresa at Writing My Past.

Can you inherit memories from your ancestors?
The science of epigenetics suggests we can pass on trauma – but trust and compassion too. Perhaps epigentics accounts for the beliefs of descendants of some home children.

Congratulations to Librarian and Archivist of Canada Emeritus Guy Berthiaume, now a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.

Release discount for RootsMagic new users and updates until Sunday 7 July.

Photos from OGS Conference 2024 in Toronto

New online from the National Library of Scotland, the most detailed Ordnance Survey maps for post-Second World War England, Scotland, and Wales. No colour.

Houses are shown individually, often with the house number. Significant buildings, like churches, libraries and cinemas, are labelled. Bomb sites are labelled as Ruin(s).

Full detail and access at https://maps.nls.uk/os/national-grid/

Learn how to find and make the most of the NLS’s maps in an online interactive workshop at 9 am on Wednesday, 26 June 2024.

https://www.nls.uk/whats-on/navigating-the-maps-website-june/

The latest updates to the Canadiana Online collection, 45 items, range from local newspapers to British parliamentary papers, each offering unique insights into different aspects of Canadian life and governance.

The Irish University Press series of British parliamentary papers is particularly extensive. Published in the late 1960s, it includes selected  documents relevant to Canada, most for the mid-19th century. Find correspondence and reports on immigration, the clergy reserves, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and boundary issues between British North America and the United States.

For example, papers from 1847-48 and 1850-51 detail immigration policies, urgent as Canada was flooded with those escaping the famine, and railway developments, reflecting the significant socio-economic changes of that era.  Sadly, they are not full text searchable. There is a table of contents at the start of each volume.

Publications that might contain mentions of individuals or provide context for their lives are newspapers like “L’étincelle” from November 2, 1909, “Les cloches de Saint-Boniface” from 1923 to 1933.“The Montreal Tattler” captures a brief snapshot of Montreal’s society in 1844 through its eight issues. There’s also “Comet (Québec, Québec),” with issues from November 17, 1866, and February 29, 1868.

This new resource on TheGenealogist includes three centuries of obituaries for notable, mainly British, people.

They derive from three publications:

1. Index Society’s Obituary Notices (1880-1882): These notices cover a wide range of industry journals and periodicals such as The Lancet and The Law Journal, along with local and national newspapers like The Hertfordshire Mercury, The Guardian, and The Times.
2. Musgrave’s Obituaries: Primarily covering the 1600s to the 1800s, these records were meticulously assembled by Sir William Musgrave. The extracts from various works, including The London Magazine and The Gentleman’s Magazine, were compiled and published by The Harleian Society.
3. Society of Friends Records (1880, 1882, 1885): Known as the Annual Monitor or Obituary of the Members of the Society of Friends, these Quaker records provide detailed memoirs and anecdotes about the deceased and their families.

These newly digitized obituaries contain details for researchers, including birth and death dates, occupations, and family connections. They also often reference original sources, with images.

To find the browseable book go to Advaced Search, then Births, Marriages and Deaths, then use the drop down menu for Obituaries.

Much of the content is available at free sources like the Internet Archive.

The baby on the cover of the July WDYTYA magazine, is a sure attention grabber. It highlights Chris Paton’s lead article, 10 Baptism Problems and How to Solve Them. He looks at problems often encountered from across the UK and Ireland. In the Resources sidebar he mentions Mark Herber’s 2004 book Ancestral Trails, which “has yet to be bettered as the most useful general reference book for English and Welsh research.” It can be borrowed for free for one hour  from the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/inassociationwit0000unse

Also featured are articles based on Ruth Goodman’s podcast The Curious History of Your Home, and from Caroline Roope on Britain’s Beach Huts. That made me reminisce that as a kid I enjoyed many summer days in and outside a shared family beach hut. Unlike a Canadian cottage, it occupied a spot rented from the council and had to be removed in the Autumn.

Gemma Noon writes about records for exploring settlement on the Canadian Prairies. There’s much more.

Does your public library offer free online access to the new issue, available on Press Reader?

When we speak of the census we’re normally referring to the nominal censuses that list all individuals, one row for each, grouped by household. Early censuses recorded just the head of household.

There are other census components which LAC recently integrated into Census Search.

Schedule B to the 1851 Census
An agricultural census with 56 columns. The first few give the Name of occupier;  Concession or range; Lot or part of lot; Number of acres of land: held by each person or family; Number of acres of land: under cultivation, and so on. That;s followed by details on production of wheat, barley, rye, peas, oats, buckwheat … tobacco … maple sugar … cider … the list continues.

Not all have survived. Most of Carleton County, Canada West, is missing,

Schedules 2–9 to the 1871 Census

Schedule 2 to the 1901 Census
This covers buildings and lands, churches and schools. The 37 columns are grouped under the headings: Reference to Schedule 1; Houses; Institutions; Real estate owned; Real estate leased or otherwise held; Church or place of worship; Sunday school; Public school. Each row ends with columns: Date of visit; The reason, if not enumerated, on first visit; Date when enumerated.

Get a 25% discount on annual subscriptions Généalogie Québec.

Again this year, to mark St-Jean-Baptiste’s Day, Généalogie Québec offers a discount you can grab from today, 20 June until the 24th.

The offer is ONLY AVAILABLE at: https://www.genealogiequebec.com/en/subscription-offer-st-jean2024

There are currently 3,839 items in Collection Search identified as Co-Lab-only contributions, down from 3,841 last month!

No progress toward completion is reported for any of the Library and Archives Canada’s Co-Lab Challenges.

Treaty 9 with 27 images remains 3.7% complete.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary remains 48% complete.

Expo67 remains 7% complete.

Summiting Mount Logan in 1925: Fred Lambart’s personal account of the treacherous climb and descent of the highest peak in Canada remains 13% complete.

Women in the War remains 1% complete.

Arthur Lismer’s Children’s Art Classes remains 1% complete.

John Freemont Smith remains 93% complete.

Canadian National Land Settlement Association remains 98% complete.

Molly Lamb Bobak remains 95% complete.

Diary of François-Hyacinthe Séguin remains 99% complete.

George Mully: moments in Indigenous communities remains 0% complete.

Correspondence regarding First Nations veterans returning after the First World War remains 99% complete.

Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 remains 95% complete.

Legendary Train Robber and Prison Escapee Bill Miner remains 99% complete.

Japanese-Canadians: Second World War remains 3% complete.

The Call to Duty: Canada’s Nursing Sisters remains 94% compete.

Projects that remain 100% complete are no longer reported here.

Here are the newspapers.com papers that are news or have had updates in the past month.

Unbelieveable?

That’s the number of records Ancestry lists as in their new database Canada, Newspapers.com™ Stories and Events Index, 1800’s to current.

This index allows you to search by name in Canadian newspapers available on Newspapers.com™ from the 1800s to the present. Not all newspapers from Canada are included. Links to the newspaper article in which the name was found are included in the index, and there’s an illegible snippet.

Mostly you need a newspapers.com subscription to view the article. Some of the papers may be available through a local public library subscription.

This title, added on 12 June, provides a details on Ireland’s railways, bus lines, and tramways workers before and after the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.

Over 300,000 records give essential details including birth and death dates, occupations, salaries, and employment locations of railway workers. Find personal details such as pay adjustments, sick leave, and union affiliations.

The digitization of the records was a collaborative effort between Ancestry and the Irish Railway Record Society. It’s an example of Ancestry working with smaller, non-governmental organizations, with unique records.