Month: November 2024

As usual, the issue offers several noteworthy articles for genealogists seeking to deepen their research. Three caught my attention.

Alan C. Smith’s Are We Related? Modelling Ancestry and Kinship explores ancestral connections with a scientific approach. Rich with charts and diagrams, the article presents a mathematical model to estimate the number of ancestors, factoring in pedigree collapse and population size. Smith bases his calculations on his own ancestry—an intriguing case study that raises the question: how representative are these figures for others?

Phil Isherwood’s Free Online Family History Books highlights valuable, accessible resources. The article features a table of 40 top family history sites, including links to Debrett’s/Burke’s Peerage, Poll Books, Electoral Registers, Gazetteers, Post Office Directories, Trade Directories, and Quarter Session Records—essential research tools.

Finally, David Annal from Family Tree Academy examines the vast but underutilized potential of Court of Chancery Records. He discusses the challenges genealogists face with these documents: access is limited to Kew reading rooms, the records are cumbersome, and navigating bundles can be daunting. Yet, the rewards for perseverant researchers could be significant.

This week has 8,161 records added for Middlesex, Greater London and Scotland.

Also added are 122,203 newspaper pages from the 19th and 20th centuries in two updated titles.

Greater London Burial Index
This week’s most significant update consists of 5,941 records for St Katherine’s Coleman Church in the parish of Aldgate East added to the Greater London burial records.

Scotland, Episcopalian Church Members
There are 1,834 new record transcriptions of the names of Scottish Episcopalian Church members between 1661 and 1861.

London and Middlesex baptisms, marriages and burials
From the Russian Orthodox Church, three different record sets covering from 1811 to 1921.

Over 100,000 new newspaper pages
This week pages were added for two existing newspapers from the 19th and 20th centuries. They are the Alnwick Guardian and County Advertiser, 1892-1894, and Daily Record, 1983.

The Family Histories Podcast (UK), free from wherever you get your podcasts, “aims to be a positive, conversational, fun show about family history and our family historians – the often un-sung heroes tirelessly breathing life back into our collective social history.”

Each episode features an interview by Andrew Martin with a genealogy-addicted guest, finding out about how they got hooked on family history, how they research, and their challenges and thoughts on the genealogy industry. The guest then shares a life story of one of the most fascinating relatives they’ve uncovered in their research before facing the dreaded brick wall – where they plea to listeners for help.

In the 8th series from November, there are four episodes available to view now:

‘The Marchioness’ with Bob Sorrentino
When a Marchioness takes charge and enriches the arts, and access to education for women.
Series Eight, Episode One. Released: 5th November 2024.

‘The Twin’ with Sylvia Valentine
When a twin’s traits echo throughout their siblings and their descendants.

‘The Collier’ with Adam Simpson-York
When a man goes from the danger of the mines to the horrors of the Death Railway.

‘The Nightingale’ with Danielle and Dr. Galeet Dardashti
When a man becomes a singing sensation during a power cut.

Three more episodes are coming in the series, and many more are in the archive.

 

This Saturday is Small Business Saturday, a day to shop locally and support the small businesses in our community or wherever you are. If you’re out shopping this weekend, consider showing one of our local businesses your patronage.
On Saturday and continuing on Sunday, 1 December, 613 Christmas Flea is at the Field House, Carleton University. Saturday 10 am – 6 pm and Sunday 10 am – 4 pm. 200 vendors!
Patricia McGregor will be there with an assortment of books, postcards, other ephemera, prints, posters and a variety of antiques and collectibles.

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Wednesday 27 November 2024, to contain 291,940,581 unique records, up from 291,727,471 a month ago.

The years with more than 10,000 additions are 1993-96 for births, 1994-95 for marriages and deaths.

As family historians, we wonder about the lived experiences of our ancestors – including the challenges they faced when travelling. When my ancestor Robert Reid moved from Longtown, in Northern Cumberland, to the London area in the mid to late 1840s, how long did it take, and what was the journey like?

I thought the University of Cambridge Travel in Times website would provide insight — it is with a certain hesitation I mention it,

According to the site’s About tab, its journey planer allows three choices:

Plan a journey around England and Wales on horseback c.1680.
Plan a journey around England and Wales by stagecoach c.1830.
Plan a journey around England and Wales by train, using a bicycle to get to the nearest train station.
(A fourth choice provides modern car-based routing, using OpenStreetMap, by way of comparison).

I found it hit or miss, often reverting to the Cambridge to London default journey rather than the one I wanted. It could be I misunderstood the procedure. It is a free site, so one can’t complain.

My query about the Longtown to London journey was informed by videos showing the evolution of the turnpike road, railway and navigable waterway networks. The availability of a train would depend on when he travelled in the later 1840s.

Was a family member a British merchant mariner? My father was for a while.

The National Sailors and Firemen’s Union (NSFU), founded in 1893 and renamed the National Union of Seamen (NUS) in 1926 published The Seaman. It records the activities and decisions of the Union, the Merchant Navy and its workforce. The Modern Records Centre of the University of Warwick has issues of The Seaman as part of its digitized collections of Labour movement newspapers and journals.

The June 1942 issue has a table showing wages of deck and engine room mariners had more than doubled from pre-war. My father would have appreciated that!

Read about the collection, with links to the digitized issues, at https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/unionjournals/seaman/. The corpus is not full-text searchable, so you must know the approximate year of interest.

A tip of the hat to Penny Allen, who mentioned this during Tuesday’s OGS Ottawa Branch drop-in.

Find many other Labour movement newspapers and journals in the University of Warwick collection at https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/unionjournals/.

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The National Archives (UK) holds Catalogue Week each November, mostly unnoticed in the family history community. I was fortunate to be at Kew for one year and attended presentations. Since COVID it has become an online event, bringing together a rich, varied selection of current or recently completed projects.

This year’s event features eight blog posts and recorded presentations covering an array of subjects and periods.

Catalogue Week 2024 had eight posts and recorded presentations. Here’s my selection of three blog posts of most significant family history interest.

Cataloguing WO 423: Army Other Ranks and Nurses service records
Jack Ord explains the processes and challenges of cataloguing The National Archives’ biggest-ever acquisition of military service personnel records, discusses some of the material in the files, and highlights the latest project milestones.

Cataloguing WO 399, nursing service records
A blog post on the work of a team of volunteers who are partway through 17,000 or so individual service files of women who served in two of the largest units of military nurses during the First World War, and it transpires, some way beyond.

Maritime Royal Artillery Gunners on Defensively Armed Merchant Ships
A recently completed project to catalogue by name all the ships appearing in the series WO 435, Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships (DEMS): Ships’ Cards.

As Black Friday gets even nearer, here are the latest DNA test discounts.

From Family Tree DNA
Big Y-700:  $379 USD discounted from $449USD
Y-111: $199 USD discounted from $249USD
Y-87: $79 USD discounted from $119USD
mtDNA: $119 USD discounted from $159 USD
FamilyFinder: $49 USD discounted from $79 USD
and discounts on bundles.

From Ancestry.ca
$69 Cdn discounted from $129 Cdn

From MyHeritage
$29 USD discounted from $89 USD

Choose from selected free online events today. All times are ET except as noted. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed. Find out about a few more, mainly US events, at Conference Keeper.

With the end of the month and US Thanksgiving, there’s little on offer this week 😢

It is a good week to catch up on the presentations you missed or would like to view again, perhaps those to which you have access because you paid for membership or through the RootsTech archive.

Tuesday, 26 November

10 am: Family History Research at the National Library (of Ireland), by Steven Skeldon for the National Library of Ireland.
https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/talk-family-history-research-at-the-national-library-tickets-1037736296197

2 pm: Ottawa Drop-in. OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/virtual-genealogy-drop-in-2-2024-11-26/

2:30 pm: Tracing Trades: Unearthing our Ancestors Occupations, by Kate McKenzie for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/12019394

7 pm: Researching Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Ancestors, by Laura Imrie for OGS Wellington County Branch.
https://wellington.ogs.on.ca/events/wellington-branch-researching-royal-canadian-air-force-rcaf-ancestors/

Wednesday, 27 November
Thursday, 28 November
Friday, 29 November
Saturday 30 November

 

 

Since I last looked at it on 12 November, over 149 million results have appeared. The US accounts for 138 million, and the UK and Ireland account for over 10 million. There are no Canadian additions.

The new UK total is 16,269,013, with England accounting for the lion’s share, 14,825,950. The remainder is Ireland (1,462), Isle of Man (1), Scotland (784,380), United Kingdom (207,772), and Wales (449,450).

The top ten counties are:

Lancashire 2,895,305
Middlesex 2,140,301, an additional 113,740 for London.
Norfolk 1,251,491
Cheshire 1,121,434
Sussex 775,127
Yorkshire 682,698
Durham 652,674
Cornwall 584,521
Devon 533,019
Essex 416,635

If you haven’t tried this experimental search I strongly recommend doing so. You do need a free FamilySearch account, 

Great Moments in Genealogy presentations are famous. Today,  Monday, 25 November, the Toronto Branch will hold a hybrid Great Moments meeting; all are invited. It will be in person at Lansing United Church and online.

Find information on speakers, topics and how to register at https://torontofamilyhistory.org/november-2024-meeting-great-moments/