Month: July 2026

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, 14 July

2:00 PM: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, for OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

2:00 PM: Treasures Abound in OldNews by MyHeritage, by Dawn Carlile for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/treasures-abound-in-old-news-by-myheritage

2:30 PM: Our National Stacks: Maximize Tools and Records at the U.S.
National Archives Remotely and In Person, by Ryan Johnson for Allen County Public Library  Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/16670707

Wednesday, 15 July

1:00 PM: Contacting and Collaborating with Cousins, by Nicka Sewell-Smith for Ancestry.com.
www.ancestry.com/c/discover/education

2:00 PM: Advanced Topics in DNA 4 of 5: Advanced Clustering and Organizing, by Blaine Bettinger for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/advanced-topics-in-dna-4-of-5-advanced-clustering-and-organizing

Thursday, 16 July

Friday, 17 July

2:00 PM: Wills and Testaments in the Spanish Colonial Southwest, by Henrietta Martinez Christmas for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/wills-and-testaments-in-the-spanish-colonial-southwest

Saturday, 18 July

10:30 AM: Using Libraries in Your Family History Research, by Maureen Brady for the British Interest Group of Wisconsin and Illinois.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/XoZZbGhfTie6oaxtYzLKiw

Just announced:

• Sir Tom Devine, Professor Emeritus at Edinburgh University, will lead off with an overview of the socio-economic changes within Scotland from 1815-1914 that led to the emigration of so many;
• Graeme Morton, Professor of Modern History and Director of the Centre for Scottish Culture at the University of Dundee, will tell us how the forces of industrialization drove people in Scotland to move;
• Alison Spring, professional genealogist, will tell us how those who moved into cities lived, and how we can find them;
• Morag Peers, professional genealogist and Director of Scottish Studies at the International Institute for Genealogical Studies, will show us how to trace a ship’s passenger back to their Scottish home;
• Chris Fleet, Map Curator at the National Library of Scotland, will show the most useful maps for emigration and migration, and then give a website demonstration focused on newer tools and more advanced features of the NLS Maps website;
• Dr. Frances Wilkins, Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the Elphinstone Institute, University of Aberdeen, and a professional musician, will explore the musical and cultural traditions of Scottish communities in Scotland and Canada, examining what emigrants brought with them, what they left behind, and how their heritage evolved in new homes.
• Marjory Harper, Professor of History, Aberdeen University and Visiting Professor at the Centre for History, University of the Highlands and Islands, will speak about the effects of religious fragmentation in Scotland and how it drove internal and external migration.

Find out more at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/2026-conference

 

Catching up, a quick overview of feature articles in this issue:

Get the Most from Death Records
Nic­ola John­son briefly covers the resources; a death certificate, burial register, gravestone, coroner’s inquest, will, newspaper report, and occupational records.

Write a Memoir in Six Easy Steps
Helen Epstein briefly takes you through the process of penning the perfect account of a family member’s life.

The Birth of a Nation
Historian and author Jad Adams details the background to the 250th anniversary of the USA, and what the revolution would have meant for our ancestors.

Also

Sara Khan reveals how Assize records helped WDYTYA?  uncover the truth behind a shocking family story of British TV celebrity Amy Dowden.

Regular contributor Jonathan Scott looks at websites for researching Nelson’s Navy, while his continuing Around Britain series turns attention to West Sussex resources.

And much more.

Gwent, Wales, Electoral Registers, 1832-1969 – Now updated to 17,879,132 records. Gwent, formed in 1974, covers most of the historic county of Monmouthshire. Headers on records list the county as “Monmouth” or “Monmouthshire.”
Monmouthshire, Wales, Burial Registers, 1855-1970 – A new collection of 24,415 records from Abergavenny and Chepstow.

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

Using Fable 5 to Untangle a Tough Archiving Problem
A blog post from Mark Thompson recounting how he used Anthropic’s Claude AI models to rescue a stalled genealogy project—consolidating index records from 1870s Victoria, BC police charge books that volunteers had transcribed but never merged due to inconsistent spellings, drift in the original records, and broken links to renamed scanned images. Mark frames this as a lesson in using AI for tireless, verifiable work while always checking its output against source material, with human review and public publication still ahead.

Free Online Lecture Recording from IGRS
Lesser known sources for family history
The Great Famine eviction database
Leading the Way: Michael Leader’s transcripts of Church of Ireland parish registers
Virtual Treasury 101: Records, Resources and Research

“Wets” vs “Drys”: The Manitoba Prohibition Story

What’s Your Society Journal AI Policy?
From strict prohibition to constrained acceptance, journals are, or should be, adapting to a world where AI is often embedded in the tools researchers/authors rely on.

How do you feel about these guidelines from AIP Publishing?

The use of AI tools to prepare manuscripts or improve the readability of original content created by the authors is permitted and does not require disclosure.

AI use should be disclosed when it has the potential to affect the findings or conclusions of an article, including but not limited to:

Analysis of content, data, or images
Designing or conducting experiments
Extracting or synthesizing information.

Canadian Jigsaw Puzzles

Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Gail, Penny, Teresa, and Unknown.

London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company

This new collection consists of 13,788 railway records, spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. If a family member is in these records you’ll find Name, Year, Occupation, Birth date, Year of appointment, Appointment date, Last year, Archive and reference. The linked original image may reveal even more, such as: Wage rates, Resignation dates, Notes on their character, Medical examinations, and possibly Ship names

Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company

Covering 1818 to 1931, there are 80,813 records to discover.

The transcriptions will include: Name, Year, Occupation, Age, Birth year, Birth date, Residence, Station, Year of appointment, Last year, Last date, Archive and Reference. The images of the original records may provide you with even richer detail, such as: Career progression, Remarks on character, Salary, Illness, and Death date.

Newspapers

100,308 pages were added this week: five new titles and updates to 29 existing publications.

New titles:
Barking Gazette and South Essex Mercury, 1909-1910
Devonport Independent, 1864-1865, 1889, 1891
Irish Presbyterian, 1853-1858
Lichfield Mercury, Tamworth, Burton and Walsall Gazette, 1830-1833
Sunderland Herald, 1859, 1861, 1873, 1897

Updated titles:
Barrow Times, 1874-1875, 1878-1879
Billericay Gazette, 2000
Bootle Times, 2005
Bury Times, 1879
Crewe Chronicle, 2001
Dublin Mercantile Advertiser, 1847-1849
Eastern Daily Press, 1877
Eastwood & Kimberley Advertiser, 1983-2004
Edinburgh Evening News, 1958
Ellesmere Port Pioneer, 2000-2001
Glasgow Evening Times, 1881, 1888
Glasgow Weekly Mail, 1885, 1887
Hampshire Advertiser, 1860, 1908-1913
Harrogate Herald, 1859, 1874, 1952
Herapath’s Railway Journal, 1836
Hertford Mercury and Reformer, 2002
Hertfordshire Express, 1914, 1950
Hexham Courant, 1912
Liverpool Courier and Commercial Advertiser, 1877
London and China Telegraph, 1900
Paisley Daily Express, 1950
Rothesay Chronicle, 1903, 1910, 1912
Salford Weekly News, 1876, 1879, 1881, 1889
Salisbury and Winchester Journal, 1750, 1753-1755, 1761
Teignmouth Post and Gazette, 1916-1919
Widnes Weekly News and District Reporter, 2002
Willesden Chronicle, 1919
Worcestershire Chronicle, 1910
Wrexham Guardian and Denbighshire and Flintshire Advertiser, 1889, 1911

Over 650,000 UK doctoral theses records, EThOS (E-Theses Online Service), are available following British Library restoration work.

“EThOS is a metadata service which provides access to thousands of theses records, from the 1700s onwards. Many of these records will direct you to the awarding institution’s repository where you can access the full-text thesis.

All metadata records previously available on EThOS before the cyber-attack have now been restored, along with an additional 14,000 records added since the service was taken offline. We will continue to add records as part of our ongoing rolling programme of updates.

Around 65% of records include a link to the university repository. In many cases, the institution’s repository will provide access to the full-text thesis. Where a link does not provide access to the full-text thesis, you should contact the awarding university. If a record does not include a repository link, a digital full-text version of the thesis may not currently be available.”

Medicine & Health with 107,990 entries leads the subject category. History & Archaeology, with 19,876, has the 11th most frequent entries by subject.

The British Library still has a lot of catching up to do. The number of History & Archaeology theses in the collection increased to over 600 annually in 2014, dropped below 600 in 2020, down to 7 in 2023 with nothing since.

The range of topics is huge. As an example, a search for Canada in History and Archaeology yielded the following of Irish Interest.

• Nationalism, democracy, and state building among the Young Ireland diasporic generation, 1842-72
• Magdalene voices : epistemic injustice and knowledge production in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries.

Don’t miss out on the in-depth knowledge about a topic of interest to you in these often obscure theses.

Access EThOS at https://ethos.bl.uk/

The Summer 2026 issue from the National Library of Scotland is now online. Contents, proving that into each life a little rain must fall, include:

How you can help us preserve Scotland’s film heritage, and a new addition to our sound collections.

The last letter of Mary Queen of Scots and what it tells us about the monarch.

Sean Batty and Heather Reid on why our ‘Rain’ exhibition will be brolly good fun.

We’re going big on rules here in the Library thanks to artist Peter Liversidge.

Discover how a eureka moment at a train station led to the paperback revolution.

Our OUTWITH programme has been to Shetland – learn more about the
lives there of Hugh MacDiarmid and his wife Valda Trevlyn Grieve.

Discover what’s new in our refreshed ‘Treasures’ exhibition and what is on display in our new ‘Rain’ exhibition. Plus, learn more about our upcoming event

This latest book from Elizabeth Shown Mills, widely respected genealogical citations guru, has the sub-title The Briefcase Edition of Evidence Explained. It’s new in the collection of the Ottawa Public Library. A 2025 publication, copies just landed in the new acquisitions section at OPL’s Emerald Plaza (the one I borrowed), Beaverbrook, Rosemont and Orleans branches.

In 142 pages, a forward, two parts, two appendices and an index, it “offers a road map to help you avoid mistakes and guideposts to keep you safe as you explore new materials.”

Part 1, Fundamentals, has 13 guidelines for analysing evidence, 13 guidelines for documentation and single pages for abbreviations, stylistic and bibliographic tips.

Part 2, Constructing Citations, includes Construction Basics ( basically the 5 Ws) and 14 Universal (citation)Templates.  Template 1 is “Basic Publication (Book or Simple Website); Template 14 is “Gravestone (Viewed Personally)”. Each has building blocks (author/creator, title;, descriptor … etc.) with a US example filled in, followed by the corresponding text citation with all the bells and whistles (punctuation etc.).  

Produced by the Genealogical Publishing Company, in paperback or eBook, retailing for $19.50 – $27.50 US. Amazon.ca has the paperback for $52.43 Cdn, listed below.

Product details
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Genealogical Publishing Company
Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 7 2025
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 142 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0806321520
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0806321523
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 200 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.24 x 0.76 x 22.86 cm
Best Sellers Rank: #338,623 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#80 in Bibliographies & Indexes (Books)
Customer Reviews: 4.6 out of 5 stars (26).

This 200 g volume will likely meet the needs of those who would previously refer to the 1.3 Kg tome, Evidence Explained.  For those of us who look for a simpler solution for citations, AI can likely provide a serviceable, if not perfect, citation.

You won’t (yet?) find the book in the public libraries of Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Kingston or Halifax.

The AGM, delayed owing to a procedural error, took place on Zoom on Monday, 29 June 2026.

The OGS financial statement shows a significant recovery, narrowing the net annual deficiency from $56,107 down to $21,014. While a drop in income from membership fees and the conference reduced overall revenue, major operational cost-cutting in facility and office expenses, combined with surging donations and bequests, stabilized the society’s financial position.

Declining membership fee revenue (6%) and a lack of local volunteers, as reflected in the permanent closures of the Bruce & Grey and Waterloo Virtual branches, leave the Society wrestling with chronic challenges. OGS isn’t alone.

As OGS has $1,689,601 remaining in unrestricted net assets, it has an immense financial cushion to sustain operations, fund digital transitions, website revamps, and regional resource archiving for decades to come.

Awards announced at the AGM were:

Best Branch/SIG Websites
Best Bricks & Mortar Website
– Wellington County Branch, Webmaster Graham Burt
Honourable Mention – Ottawa Branch,
Webmaster Charles Godwin

                                               Best Virtual Website
– British Home Children Special Interest Group,
Webmaster Axina Tuerxun
Honourable Mention – Eastern Europe SIG
Webmasters Elaine Obreza and Eva Kujawa

Dr. Don Brearley Newsletter Awards
Best Branch/SIG Newsletter – Bricks & Mortar –
London & Middlesex Branch (Editor:  Brenda Vouvalidis)
Honourable Mention – Huron Branch (Editor: Kim Cooke);
Ottawa Branch (Editor:  Tyler Owens)

OGS Award of Merit – Grenville County Historical Society for its newspaper digitization project.

Citation of Recognition Awards

• Grace Lewis, Ottawa Branch
• Charles Godwin, Ottawa Branch
• Pat Brewer, Ottawa Branch
• Phyllis Embury Chapman, Irish Palatine Special Interest Group
• Bill Cookman, Kingston Branch
• Patti Mordasewicz, Leeds & Grenville Branch

Robert Crawford Community Service Award – Corrine Cline, Huron County Branch

The July OGS webinar, rescheduled owing to technical difficulties, is being streamed live this evening, 9 July at 7 PM EDT.

If you lose sleep over copyright, Andrea Lister aims to help with her presentation Permissions Made Simple: Copyright for Family Historians.

Find out more, and register for the free webinar, at https://ogs.on.ca/events/july-webinar-permissions-made-simple-copyright-for-family-historians-andrea-lister-2/