Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
Ottawa Irish Famine Memorial Invitation
Time Travelling
“Wonderful stories shared by more than a dozen of the Ottawa area’s most engaging historians” have recently been produced by the Historical Society of Ottawa and Rogers TV. The first seven episodes are now available on YouTube.
Episode 1 – Paul Weber – “Go Exploring” https://youtu.be/4jbkQ1BVFEkhas the first
Episode 2 – Kevin Ballantyne – “Glimpses of ‘Forgotten Ottawa’” https://youtu.be/c4733IZ9yNE
Episode 3 – Rick Henderson – “Philemon Wright and his town” https://youtu.be/ueJn5cBM_yA
Episode 4 – Peter Atkinson, “Gord Atkinson: Ottawa’s Oldest Teenager” https://youtu.be/nPHqdAx0V7I
Episode 5 – Michael McBane – “Bytown 1847” https://youtu.be/mJEkeHB8ugg
Episode 6 – Jim Hurcomb “Ottawa’s Golden Age of Rock and Roll” https://youtu.be/dSuX48DwIUs
Episode 7 – Paul Couvrette “The Changing World of Photography” https://youtu.be/6EKCmDYS5zA
Tracing your Staffordshire Ancestors
New this month in the Pen and Sword Tracing Your Ancestors series
A Panorama of Victorian London
Exeter University’s story-map guides viewers through some of 1844 London’s most prominent landmarks.
New on Ancestry
Web: Caribbean, Aircrew in the RAF during World War II, 1939-1945
Just 467 records
UK, Navy Board and Predecessors Prisoner of War Registers, 1755-1831
Find 1,238,250 records.
Until 20 May 2025 at 11:59 p.m. ET, Ancestry is offering 40% off a 6‑month membership for new subscribers. That’s $50.99 for Canada Discovery Plus or $77.99 for World Deluxe.
Findmypast Updates
This week, updates have been made to Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire baptisms, Wiltshire Coroners Inquest Records and the National Burial Index. No details of how extensive these are, nor which additions were made to the newspaper collection, were provided.
Lucky Kentucky
Since RootsTech additions to FamilySearch Labs Full Text Search have focused on the US, with some for Columbia added in April. These seven collections became available this month
|
Collection Title
|
Records
|
Last Updated
|
|
|---|---|---|---|
| United States, Kentucky, Biographies, from 1736 to 1880 | 497,529 | 12 May 2025 | |
| United States, Kentucky, Births, from 1914 to 1916 | 909,526 | 12 May 2025 | |
| United States, Kentucky, Deaths, 1950 | 1,930,558 | 12 May 2025 | |
| United States, Kentucky, Legal, from 1910 to 1969 | 6,919,277 | 12 May 2025 | |
| United States, Kentucky, Marriages, 1892 | 2,263,638 | 12 May 2025 | |
| United States, Kentucky, Properties, from 1879 to 1918 | 861,028 | 12 May 2025 | |
| United States, Kentucky, Religious, from 1841 to 1857 | 50,714 | 12 May 2025 |
Significant Dates in 21st Century History
Did you know these
11 September 2001 — 9/11.
26 September 2006 — Facebook first became generally available.
9 January 2007 — Steve Jobs announces the iPhone (smartphone era).
15 September 2008 — Lehman Brothers files for Chapter 11 – global financial crisis.
3 March 2020 — WHO declares COVID-19 a global pandemic.
30 November 2022 — general availability of ChatGPT.
Thanks to the following for comments and tips: Anonymous, Teresa, and Unknown.