Anglo-Celtic Connections

This week, FMP adds over 267,000 new records from Lancashire and Yorkshire, plus 286,735 pages new newspaper pages.

Greater Manchester Rate Books

262,466 records have been added to the larger collection of almost five million taxpayer names from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century in the boroughs that now make up Greater Manchester.

A census substitute, the information included is:

• Name of Occupier (head of household)
• Name of Owner
• Description of the property (house or business)
• Street Address/Township/Parish
• Rate to be paid (e.g. poor rate, water rate)
• Amount to be paid
• Date paid or any default on payment

Every fifth year’s rate books are indexed to coincide with census years for parts of the following boroughs:

• Bolton 1916-1936
• Manchester 1706-1941
• Oldham 1841-1936
• Rochdale 1826-1921
• Stockport 1886-1921
• Tameside 1846-1936
• Trafford 1836-1931
• Wigan 1806-1936

Yorkshire Marriages

An additional 4,986 records for 1883-1926. FMP doesn’t reveal the communities and years added in this small addition to a collection now totalling 4,502,537. Each record includes a transcript and, often, an image of the original record, saving the time and the cost of obtaining a GRO certificate.

Newspapers
FMP gets its newspapers from the sister site, the British Newspaper Archive.

This week’s two new BNA titles are Pullen’s Kent Argus (1857) and  Mansfield & North Nottinghamshire Chronicle-Advertiser (1986-1987, 1990-1995, 1999-2000).

Smaller additions are:  Pawnbrokers’ Gazette (1857), Kilsyth Chronicle (1944-1945, 1948), Horwich Chronicle (1888-1891, 1909-1911, 1913), and Finchley Press (1910-1913, 1919)

Like most federal departments, Library and Archives Canada is adjusting to reductions announced in the 2025 federal budget and the ongoing Comprehensive Expenditure Review.

Most departments are managing a 15% budget reduction target, with workforce reductions of about 10%. The expectation (hope) is that many cuts will be made through attrition, voluntary departures, early retirement incentives, and expiring programs rather than through explicit elimination.

The full scope of these reductions at Library and Archives Canada remains unclear.  Some items are being quietly revealed.

The Documentary Heritage Communities Program is being eliminated, with an annual expenditure of $1.5 million, plus administrative costs.

A table in “Workforce reductions in the federal public service,” updated on 11 February, includes a line showing the impact on employees and executives.

Total population as of March 2025:  1,138
Number of Employee positions to be reduced: 152
Number of Executive positions to be reduced: 9
Number of Employee positions to be reduced through WFA/CT: 53
Number of Executive positions to be reduced through WFA/CT: 3
Letters of affected or at-risk status sent to Employees: 90
Letters of affected or at-risk status sent to Executives: 4

WFA = Workforce Adjustment 
CT = Career Transition, a process to support executive sgnificant career change, whether they seek continued employment within it or choose to leave the Public Service.

To put the reductions in context, using data from Population of the federal public service by department or agency, the bar chart shows the LAC population since 2015, and the 2026 population with position reductions added as the red bar. It shows that LAC’s 14% population reduction means it is returning to very near the median since 2015.

It remains to be seen where the axe will fall within LAC.  We have to read the tea leaves to judge the impact on the now delayed opening of Adisoke. Will LAC cut what appears to be an unnecessarily cautious ATIP procedure regarding WW2 service files?  Will robust digitization reduce demand for producing archival documents? Will we have to wait until the Estimates document is tabled to find out?

This coming Saturday, 14 February 2026, the BIFHSGO monthly meeting will be online only. After the presentations, attendees are invited to turn on their video and microphone for an online social.

Click HERE to register.

9:00 – 10:00 am ET: Exploring Pictures with AI: the Good and the Bad
Presenter: Paul Cripwell
You’ve acquired a picture of an object, scene, or ancestor, but have no idea of its location or timeframe. How do you find out? Ask AI! That seems to be the answer to everything these days. But how do you know if the information you get back is accurate? Paul Cripwell will walk you through the explorations he conducted on some of his own pictures—what AI got right, what it got wrong, and how he figured it out.

10:00 – 11:30 am ET: Rain-Soaked Roots: Weather Shaped the Lives of Our British Isles Ancestors
Presenter: John Reid
Weather touched every part of our ancestors’ lives—from daily chores under rainy skies to celebrations on sunny summer days, from mild seasons that brought good harvests to the storms that forced people to adapt or move on. This talk explores how both ordinary and extreme weather shaped life across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Drawing on official records, newspapers, and personal diaries, John will trace how weather influenced work, health, migration, and memory, revealing a layer of family history often overlooked.

For five days only, there’s a 30% off sale on Newspapers.‌com.

Digitized, searchable newspapers are an essential tool for today’s family historian.

At newspapers.com, we get access to 1,183,872,543 pages in over 29,000 newspapers.

In Canada, the collection includes Ottawa (Citizen and Journal), Toronto (Globe and Mail, Star, Telegram), Vancouver (Province and Sun), Calgary (Herald and Albertan), Montreal (Gazette, Star, Le Devoir), and many more; 745 papers,  61,422,954 pages in total.

From the UK, there are 1,530 papers and 74,344,670 total pages.

View the offer here.

Wouldn’t it be great if your local public library offered access at branches, as it likely does for Ancestry?

A quiet day for gen-news is a good time to remind you about RootsTech 2026, the world’s largest family history conference, coming up 5-7 March. That’s just 20 days away.

Those of us reluctant to cross the border can still attend virtually. That also saves the hassle and cost of flights and accommodation.

Find out all you need to know about the more than 200 talks free online at https://www.familysearch.org/en/rootstech/

At 11:15 on this date in 1869, Patreick Whalen was hanged in Ottawa for the assassination of Thomas D’Arcy McGee. It was the last public hanging in Ottawa.

James Powell, in a post for the Historical Society of Ottawa, recounts that “Despite a driving snowstorm, people started to arrive at the prison at 9.00 to get a good view of the gallows.” An estimated quarter of Ottawa’s population gathered.

The snow continued. There are no official weather reports in Ottawa for the period. They started in 1872. From newspaper and diary entries, the 7 feet of snow that had fallen so far that winter was compacted so that it could be driven over. William Upton of Concession 2, Lot 5, R.F., Gloucester kept a diary where he mentioned cows getting stuck in the snow. Snow continued. Train travel from Ottawa to Toronto was disrupted by drifting snow and, later, by flooding as the snow began to melt.

For a deeper dive into weather and its impacts, come to my free online presentation, Rain-Soaked Roots: Weather Shaped the Lives of Our British Isles Ancestors, for BIFHSGO on Saturday.

If you could use a hand researching those who passed through the upper Ottawa Valley, from Clara to McNab on the Ontario side and from Eddy to Onslow on the Quebec side, the UOVGG can help.

The UOVGG has a new website and a library at 222 Dickson Street in Pembroke. Some resources have been digitized and are available to members. Membership is just $10.

There’s also an active Facebook presence at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/251504948665394

Findmypast and the British Newspaper Archive have reached the 100 million historical newspaper pages digitized and published online.
The collection dates back to 1699 and includes over 2,700 titles and more than 7 million issues, offering a vast, powerful resource for uncovering vibrant family stories.

To celebrate, Findmypast is offering free access to the entire newspaper archive until 16 February 2026, giving family historians a full week to explore.

Explore the newspaper archive at www.findmypast.com

In case you’re interested, Newspapers.com has 73,857,483 pages in 1,527 UK papers. Old News, from MyHeritage, has 91,424 pages in its UK collection. 

Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—please check the links to avoid disappointment. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/

Tuesday, 10 February

2:00 PM: Discovering your Eastern European Ancestors on MyHeritage, by James Tanner for MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/discovering-your-eastern-european-ancestors-on-myheritage/

2:30 PM,  Exploring Family History in Rhode Island, by Emma Holmes
for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/15525745

7 PM: Practical AI for Family History, by Cindy Robichaud for OGS Essex Branch.
https://essex.ogs.on.ca/meetings/essex-branch-february-2026-webinar-practical-ai-for-family-history/

7 PM: What Do I Do With All of This Stuff? [Leaving a Genealogical Legacy]
by Alan Campbell for OGS Lambton Branch.
https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/events/lambton-feb-2026-zoom-meeting-with-alan-campbell/

2:00 PM: Searching for Sisters? Researching Catholic Nuns in the United States, by Sunny Morton for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/searching-for-sisters-researching-catholic-nuns-in-the-united-states/

Thursday, 12 February

6:30 PM: A Fun Look at Fashion: What Did Your Ancestors Wear? by Stacie Murry for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/15525831

Friday, 13 February

2:00 PM, Breaking the 1870 Brick Wall: Comprehensive Strategies for Tracing Formerly Enslaved African American Ancestors, by Andre Kearns for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/breaking-the-1870-brick-wall-comprehensive-strategies-for-tracing-formerly-enslaved-african-american-ancestors/

Saturday, 14 February

BIFHSGO Monthly Meeting
9 AM: Exploring Pictures with AI: the Good and the Bad, by Paul Cripwell
10 AM: Rain-Soaked Roots: Weather Shaped the Lives of Our British Isles Ancestors, by John D Reid
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

11:00 AM: Breaking Down Brick Walls – The GPS Approach, by Janice Nickerson for OGS Simcoe Branch.
https://simcoe.ogs.on.ca/events/simcoe-county-branch-breaking-down-brick-walls-the-gps-approach-with-janice-nickerson/

As I prepare my weather and family history presentation for BIFHSGO on Saturday, Rain Soaked Roots, I’m becoming more aware of the role of water in family history. You don’t get water on land without rain or snow.

199 years ago, in February of 1828, an early thaw and a sudden rise of the Rideau River washed away much of the dam under construction at Hogs Back Falls. In April 1828, spring flood waters washed it away again.

On 11 March 1864, the newly built Dale Dyke Dam broke as it was filling for the first time, releasing a huge volume of water that caused the Great Sheffield Flood. At least 240 people were killed, and hundreds of homes and buildings were destroyed. Subsequent dams built to harness the Derwent Valley’s waters flooded centuries-old villages.

In the late 1950s, ten communities in Ontario, many of United Empire Loyalist origins, were fully submerged, along with parts of several others, when dams were built for the St Lawrence Seaway.

A memorable BIFHSGO talk by Jane Down recounted going to Devon to find Shop Farm, where her ancestors had lived. It turned out she was seven years too late, as the land had been flooded for a reservoir. It’s recounted in her article  Down Family of Ontario and Devon: Part 2 in Anglo-Celtic Roots,  2015 Vol 21 / Winter.

None of those will be mentioned in my presentation on Saturday. Weather is just too pervasive. To find out more about my Rain Soaked Roots presentation, and the preceding presentation on AI, and to register, go to https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events . It’s free.

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

The UK Web Archive is to be restored towards the middle of 2026

Good and Bad News for LAC
On the bright side, the LAC Foundation announces a gift of $5 million by Diane Blake and Stephen Smith to support the digitization, access to and public engagement with Canada’s Second World War collections.

However, Leslie Weir, Library and Archivist of Canada, informs that the Documentary Heritage Communities Program (DHCP) has been permanently discontinued and that there will be reductions to the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) functions. These measures are the result of federal budget cuts. On 5 February, the Association of Canadian Archivists sent a letter to Marc Miller, Minister responsible for LAC, asking him to “advocate for the restoration of dedicated federal support for community-based documentary heritage work.”

Perhaps through the donation ATIP will be relieved of the task of scrutinizing WW2 service file requests, at least where the person has been deceased for 20 years.

Destruction at the Gaza CWGC Cemetery
I received tips from two sources about this article in The Guardian. It quotes the IDF, “During IDF operations in the area, terrorists attempted to attack IDF troops and took cover in structures close to the cemetery. In response, to ensure the safety of IDF troops operating on the ground, operational measures were taken in the area to neutralize identified threats.” However, given that many of the graves destroyed were Australian, I was impressed by the words of Australian military historian Peter Stanley, “The first need is to stop people in Gaza dying and to provide succour to those who have been starving and suffering for years now: this needs to be kept in proportion.

Cost of UK TV licence fee set for 2026/27
The annual cost of a UK TV licence will rise to £180 from 1 April 2026, in line with inflation.

It’s Amazing I’m Still Alive

How to write a death notice
Forwarded to me by a prominent BIFHSGO member. Timely?