Findmypast, an essential resource for the UK family historian, sent an offer of 20% off selected subscriptions in a 48-hour flash sale. It’s available on all 1- and 12-month subscriptions.
Act quickly.
The discounted offer is available until 5 am EDT Friday, 30 September.
Use code SAVE20 on any 1- or 12-month subscription.
This addition to Ancestry’s Directories & Member Lists contains data for 150,226 people unfortunate enough to be caught in a mining accident. That’s 2,057 each year.
Compiled by Ian Winstanley, the index may include:
Names
Event type
Date of the event
Residences of coal miners
Names of mine owners
Occupation
Birth year
Notes about the event
The collection is not complete. For instance, no incidents are recorded for Bedwas Navigation Colliery in Monmouthshire for 1872 to 1909 and 1915 to 1924.
For further information see the source at https://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/disasters/index.html
The focus this week is the presentations during BIFHSGO conference 2022.
Choose from selected 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. Many additional events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/
Tuesday 27 September, 2 pm: Sweden Research with Online Records at MyHeritage and Beyond, by Mike Mansfield for Legacy Family Tree Webinars and myHeritage.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/sweden-research-with-online-records-at-myheritage-and-beyond/
19:00-20:00 / The Journey to Genealogy Services at Ādisōke / Robyn Feres-Cameron (LAC), Julie Roy (LAC)
Wednesday 28 September, 2 pm: Start with You: Writing About Yourself, by Brenda Hudson for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/start-with-you-writing-about-yourself/
Wednesday 28 September, 2 pm: Getting started on Ancestry.ca, by Crista Cowan for Canadian Association of Retired Persons.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/getting-started-on-ancestryca-with-barefoot-genealogist-crista-cowan-tickets-412315917007
September, 7 pm: Failure to Revolt? Why Winnipeg Had a General Strike in 1919 and Ottawa Did Not, by Brian McDougall for Historical Society of Ottawa.
https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/68/16,17,19,21/failure-to-revolt-why-winnipeg-had-a-general-strike-in-1919-and-ottawa-did-not
Thursday 29 September
BIFHSGO Conference
12:00–14:00 / Society Connect
14:30–15:30 / Great War Widows and Emigration / Andrea Hetherington
16:00–17:00 / Maps for Family Historians / Alan Ruston
17.30–18.30 / Liverpool: an essential emigration port / Paul Milner
Friday 30 September, 10:15 am: The Top Ten DNA Do’s and Don’ts!, by Michelle Leonard for Legacy Family Tree Webinars Webtember.
Friday 30 September, 11:30 am: Separate Even in Death – Black Funerals and Cemeteries, by Janice Lovelace for Legacy Family Tree Webinars Webtember.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/separate-even-in-death-black-funerals-and-cemeteries/
Friday 30 September, 12:45 pm: Indirect Evidence, A Case Study: The Parents of Elizabeth Wingate in Maryland (1795–1860), by Rebecca Whitman Koford for Legacy Family Tree Webinars Webtember.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/controlling-chaos-managing-a-genealogical-project/
Friday 30 September, 2 pm: 50 Mostly “Hot off the Press” Net Sites You Want to Check Out!, by Diane L. Richard for Legacy Family Tree Webinars Webtember.
50 Mostly “Hot off the Press” Net Sites You Want to Check Out!
Saturday 1 October
BIFHSGO Conference
10:00–11:00 / Emigration from England / Caroline Gurney
11:30–12:30 / Welsh Newspapers in the National Library of Wales / Beryl Evans
13:00–14:00 / In and Out of London / Ian Waller
14:30–16:30 / Vendor Connect
Sunday 2 October
BIFHSGO Conference
10:00–12:00 / Conference Connect
12:30–13:30 / The Poor and the Parish in England and Wales / Gill Blanchard
14:00–15:00 / Farm, Fish, Faith or Family: motivations for emigrating from North Devon emigration 1830 to 1900 / Dr. Janet Few
15:30–16:30 / Life at Home and on the Sea / Mia Bennett
On Friday, 30 September the Canadian Museum of History and Canadian War Museum are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with free admission all day.
This is in recognition of the second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, also known as Orange Shirt Day. This day recognizes the legacy of residential schools and honours the lost children and survivors of residential schools, their families, and their communities.
At both museums the film Picking Up the Pieces: The Making of the Witness Blanket will be shown from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Admission is free, but you meed to book a timed ticket online before your visit.
You may see them huddled together at family history society meetings, comparing notes on their latest finds.
It could be about the cousins they have in common, or to do with another interest they share.
It’s a passion for some who will be particularly interested in two books by Nicholas Milton, published by Pen and Sword this year because they also relate to the military.
The most recent, published 30 September, is The Role of Birds in World War One: How Ornithology Helped to Win the Great War.
The British Expeditionary Force sent to France in the late summer of 1914 has been referred to as ‘The Best British Army Ever Sent to War’ as it was one of the most highly trained and disciplined forces in the world. It was also the ‘Best Birdwatching Army Ever Sent to War’ for among its ranks were hundreds of both amateur and professional ornithologists. When not fighting many soldiers turned to birdwatching as a way of whiling away the long hours spent on guard duty or watching over ‘no man’s land’. As a result, the hobby ranked as one of the most popular past-times for soldiers at the front, on a par with smoking, writing, games, gambling, sport and shooting rats. The list of birds seen by soldiers serving in all the theatres of war was truly impressive ranging from the common like sparrows, skylarks and swallows to the exotic like golden orioles, hoopoes and bee-eaters.
Earlier this year, Pen and Sword published The Role of Birds in World War Two: How Ornithology Helped to Win the War.
A love of birds has always been an important part of the British way of life but in wartime birds came into their own, helping to define our national identity. One the most popular bird books ever, Watching Birds, was published in 1940 while songs like There’ll be Bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover epitomized the blitz spirit. Birds even featured in wartime propaganda movies like the 1941 classic The First of the Few starring Leslie Howard where they inspired the design of the Spitfire. Along the coast flooding to prevent a German invasion helped the avocet make a remarkable return while the black redstart found an unlikely home in our bombed-out buildings.
Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
Our taxes are put to such worthwhile use!
Probabilistic predictions
via Data Is Plural — 2022.09.21 edition
Metaculus is a forecasting platform whose community has registered more than 1 million predictions on questions such as “Will a major nuclear power plant in Germany be operational on June 1, 2023?” The website’s API provides data on questions posed, user rankings, and other aspects of the platform. For each question, you can see its phrasing, date posed, creator, prediction type, the distribution of predictions, and more.
The British Were Harvesting Soldiers’ Organs During WWI
Gaelic recordings made in Nova Scotia
Europe Free Online Historical Newspapers
The Ancestor Hunt has started this section. Nothing for the UK yet which is “under construction.”
Six recent discoveries that have changed how we think about human origins
Social media greenwashing by fossil fuel interests
Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Glenn Wright, Sylvia Smith, Teresa, and Unknown.
Have you been to the parish of Selbourne in Hampshire? It’s the focus of this week’s FMP additions. Over 2,500 additional baptisms bring the parish total to 4,636. There are now 2,123 marriage and 4,482 burial records, all transcripts.
Some of the early records were for services conducted by pioneering English naturalist, ecologist, and ornithologist Gilbert White (1720 – 1793), a sometime curate at Selbourne.
He is best known for his Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne. A visit to his house and gardens is worth the detour when in the area.
The Women’s Land Army was established to help the UK boost its wartime food production. Records in this collection consist of index cards to Second World War service records and are usually handwritten and are organised alphabetically by last name.
This collection of 91,069 cards includes the following details:
The example is picked at random. The majority of women employed by the WLA were young and likely unmarried at the time of their enrollment. If she married during the war search by both her maiden and married names.
Interesting that these Second World War era records are open but regular military records are not.
Canada, British Columbia, Vancouver Mountain View Cemetery
139,337 records.
This collection contains burial registration records dating from 1880 onwards and typically include the name of the deceased, the date and place of birth, the date and place of death, and the date and place of burial.
The cemetery, established in 1886, holds graves of 330 war dead of the First World War; 258 of the Second including 11 serving with UK forces.
Contents are licensed under the Open Government Licence – Vancouver and also available at https://covapp.vancouver.ca/burialindex/.
Over 1.6 Million records of the IR58 Valuation Record Offices records, between 1910 and 1915, are now available for all Greater London boroughs.
The records, indexed scans of the pages of the field books, document the type of property its size and state of repair, as well as the details of the house or land’s valuation.
The latest added, completing Greater London, are 118,437 records for Aveley, Banstead, Beddington, Bexley, Carshalton, Cheam, Chipstead & Kingswood,, Chislehurst, Church Street North, Church Street South, Cranham, Crayford, Epsom, Erith, Ewell & Cuddington, Hornchurch, Plaistow North, Plaistow South, Stratford, Sutton, Wallington, Walton-on-the-Hill, and Woodmansterne.
Find out much more in the feature article at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2022/snapshot-of-edwardian-london-revealed-in-land-tax-records-1616/
The conference starts a week from now, on 28 September, and the final two promo videos are posted — just in time.
Returning speaker Paul Milner introduces his presentation about Liverpool as a port through which migrants travelled in the days of ocean voyages. I did.
Gill Thomas, new to BIFHSGO, will speak on migration from Wales, both internally in the UK and overseas.
Conference details are at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/2022-BIFHSGO-Conference
The following, for your information, is promoting a free trial offer from the UK’s Family Tree magazine. It’s an extra feature added to the magazine subscription that includes access to a backlog of issues, “Club” advice on DNA, gadgets, and more.
Find out about it here.
