Anglo-Celtic Connections

The meetup will go ahead.

Forecasts for noon to 2 pm:

Environment Canada:  – Chance of showers (40%). Risk of thunderstorms.

The Weather Network: Partly Cloudy, 15%

AccuWeather:  Mostly Sunny, 47%.

A line of showers passed through this morning. As of 9:30 am, the weather radar shows no organized system approaching. Pop-up showers are always possible in an unstable aimass.

Be your own judge of the weather. I’ll be going to the Westboro Beach Cafe for noon, with a visitor.

Parking for Westboro Beach is on the south side of the Parkway on Kirchoffer Ave and adjacent streets.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Electricity Prices
A  recent Hydro-Québec report (April 1, 2024) compares electricity prices in major North American cities, Montréal, Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Ottawa were identified as the lowest cost Canadian cities for residential customers; Montréal was by far the lowest. Edmonton, Calgary, Halifax, and Charlottetown were among the highest.

Swimming with the Tide

US 19th Century Military Forts and Voluntary Observers Weather Database

Battling deepfakes: How AI threatens democracy and what we can do about it

Why wind farms attract so much misinformation and conspiracy theory.

Thanks to the following for comments and tips: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Bryan Cook, Christine Jackson, Gail, Kim Barnsdale, Teresa, and Unknown.

 

Norfolk, Churchyard Graves and Memorials
Added are 9,263 records covering the 1700s to 1900s. The information is from headstone photographs, so it depends on the original inscription and what remains legible. FMP’s catalogue shows three Norfolk titles for monumental inscriptions:
Norfolk, Churchyard Graves and Memorial Transcriptions with 327,650 records;
Norfolk, Churchyard Graves and Memorials Image Browse with 226,774 records;
Norfolk Monumental Inscriptions 1600-1900’s Image Browse with 14,120 records.

Southwark, Marshalsea Prison
Just 18 records added, for the years 1761 and 1813 as FMP goes further into its partnership with Southwark Archives. Marshalsea Prison is known as the setting for Charles Dickens’ novel ‘Little Dorrit. His own father was incarcerated in this notorious, 500-year-old prison, home to debtors, pirates, smugglers and others who fell afoul of the law.

Newspapers
This week’s largest addition is the Wetherby News, with over 38,000 pages, followed by Scotland on Sunday with almost 24,000 pages. Note the addition of three Irish papers: Londonderry Standard, Leinster Leader, Armagh Guardian. Le Follet is a French fashion magazine, but with pages in English. Here are the papers with more than 10,000 new pages.

Title	Date Range	Pages Added
Wetherby News	1990-1992, 1994-1996, 1998, 2002-2004	38,544
Scotland on Sunday	1997, 2000, 2002	23,912
Wiltshire News (NEW)	1914-1915, 1917, 1930-1937, 1946-1948, 1950, 1952-1955, 1957-1959, 1961	23,730
Bucks Standard	1923-1955	16,502
Londonderry Standard	1888-1900, 1921-1922, 1926, 1963-1964	16,402
Leinster Leader	1991-1999	15,134
Le Follet (NEW)	1846-1900	14,326
Armagh Guardian	1881, 1887-1889, 1900-1909, 1920-1930, 1941-1942, 1944, 1947-1949, 1960-1965	12,388

The forecast for Sunday in Ottawa hasn’t changed.

Sun, 24 Aug: Cloudy with 60 percent chance of showers. High 25.

UPDATE as of Satutday morning

Cloudy with 40 percent chance of showers. Risk of a thunderstorm in the afternoon. Wind becoming southwest 20 km/h in the morning. High 25. Humidex 31. UV index 5 or moderate.

Although my preference for a meetup remains Westboro Beach Cafe, I recognize that having an alternative in mind would be wise.  The Mill Street Brew Pub was suggested, where I’m told a reservation isn’t essential.

Let’s leave both as options. I’ll post a decision between 9 and 10 on Sunday morning after looking at the weather radar, and hope you can be adaptable.

In-person conferences have traditionally been popular among attendees, particularly for the networking and social connections they foster. However, the landscape has shifted significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, with many events either disappearing or moving online. In Ottawa, for instance, Gene-o-Rama is no longer operating, and the BIFHSGO conference has transitioned to a virtual format.

Several factors contribute to this trend:
Organizational challenges: Coordinating in-person events requires substantial time, effort, and human resources that many organizations struggle to maintain.
Speaker expenses: The financial burden of hiring external presenters, including their fees, travel costs, and accommodation, has become increasingly prohibitive.
Rising attendance costs: Travel and lodging expenses for out-of-town participants continue to escalate, potentially limiting participation.

Additionally, for conferences hosted in the United States, there’s a hesitancy to travel from Canada owing to a lack of respect.

These combined pressures make traditional conference formats increasingly challenging to sustain.

I’m pleased to give a shout-out to one forthcoming in-person event.

The Moose Jaw and Regina Branches of the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society are hosting a one-day, in-person conference at the Atlas Hotel, 4177 Albert Street in Regina on Saturday, 27 September 2025.

Presenters include Gordon McBean (Artificial Intelligence), Dave Obee (DNA – “Squiggly Lines and Spit”), Thomas MacEntee (“Genealogy Do Over”) and Tammy Vallee (“Uncovering Identity – The Role of Genealogy in Indigenous Ancestry”.

Registration forms are available on the SGS website at https://saskgenealogy.com – just click on the 2025 Conference button on the home page.

Early bird registration deadline has been extended to  29 August 2025. The regular registration deadline is 15 September 2025.

As Moose Jaw and Regina are about an 80-minute drive apart, I suspect many attendees will make it without needing the expense of overnight accommodation, perhaps even with carpooling to reduce costs further.

Anonymous posted a comment to my blog post “Recent FamilySearch Updates

” Is it not me? Or does Canada not have any full-text search collections?”

FamilySearch does indeed have Canadian titles in its full-text search. The first arrived on 8 August 2024; there are now 129 Canadian collection titles. The latest were added on 2 July 2025.

Here’s a breakdown of records by province/jurisdiction. You will notice that the titles are often misleading about the actual content. “Canada, Alberta, Military Service, from 1814 to 1832” shows a date range way before the province was established!  That’s not a major issue if you find a record through a search of the complete collection.

• Quebec: The combined collections for Quebec, Canada East, Lower Canada, and New France have a total of 13,959,625 records. The largest single collection is “Canada, Quebec, Legal, from 17 February 1920 to 10 November 1920” with over 13.5 million records.
• All Canada: The collections that are jurisdiction-wide across Canada (e.g., “Canada, Probate Records,” “Canada, Homestead Records”) contain a total of 22,236,762 records. “Canada, Probate Records, 1600-2020” and “Canada, Homestead Records, 1600-2011” are the two largest collections in this category with 14,226,803 and 8,313,535 records respectively.
• Ontario: The collections for Ontario and Upper Canada total 2,756,151 records. “Canada, Ontario, Properties, from 1800 to 1955” is the largest collection in this group with 1,891,971 records, followed by “Canada, Ontario, Legal, 1851” with 552,404 records.
• New Brunswick: The New Brunswick collections have 1,500,432 records. The “Canada, New Brunswick, Properties, 1786” collection is the largest with 1,342,450 records.
• Nova Scotia: The collections for Nova Scotia have a total of 1,300,750 records. “Canada, Nova Scotia, Properties, from 3 March 1983 to 4 March 1983” holds the majority of these with 965,858 records.
• Saskatchewan: The Saskatchewan collections total 3,955,607 records, with the “Canada, Saskatchewan, Legal, 2006” collection containing the vast majority at 3,829,143 records.
• British Columbia: British Columbia collections have 197,363 records. The largest is “Canada, British Columbia, Legal, from 1300 to 1987” with 119,321 records.
• Alberta: The Alberta collections have 33,306 records, with the largest being “Canada, Alberta, Military Service, from 1814 to 1832” at 16,128 records.
• Newfoundland and Labrador: Collections for Newfoundland and Labrador have a total of 499,313 records. “Canada, Newfoundland, Military Service, from 1913 to 1919” is the largest at 470,453 records.
• Manitoba: The collections for Manitoba total 36,135 records. The largest is “Canada, Manitoba, Military Service, from 1940 to 1947” with 10,925 records.
• Prince Edward Island: Prince Edward Island’s collections total 40,329 records. “Canada, Prince Edward Island, Legal, from 1786 to 1930” is the largest with 15,040 records.
• Northwest Territories: The Northwest Territories collections have 884 records, with the largest being “Canada, Northwest Territories, Properties, from 1799 to 1870” at 820 records.
• Yukon: The single Yukon collection, “Canada, Yukon, Migrations, from 1924 to 1956,” contains 7,106 records.

On 19 August 2025, FamilySearch updated England, Lancashire, Manchester, Electoral Registers, 1820-1939 to contain 26,636,223 records.

The following summarizes the full-text search collections updated since 15 August, covering a wide range of record types, including legal documents, biographies, military service records, education, and property records.

Nation	Number of Collections	Number of Records
United States	30	38,710,959
Spain	45	32,883,091
Philippines	100	7,656,666
Colombia	21	1,595,200
Ecuador	16	1,131,237
Mexico	5	938,243
Guatemala	10	801,003
Bolivia	7	268,958
Argentina	10	83,521
Puerto Rico	29	24,047
Uruguay	2	6,540
Chile	6	4,962
France	2	4,792
Central America	2	2,789
Costa Rica	3	2,449
Peru	2	1,401
El Salvador	1	1,353
Netherlands	1	815
Iceland	1	585
Dominican Republic	3	458
Venezuela	3	143
Cuba	1	89
Northern Mariana Islands	1	6

For those researching Bradford ancestry, a notable new title to the newspapers.com British collection this past month is the Yorkshire Evening Argus – 1892-1924, 44,044 pages. It was also known as Bradford Daily Argus.

Updated UK newspapers with content back to the 19th century:
The Guardian (1821-2025) – Originally the Manchester Guardian, one of the longest-running publications
The Herald (Glasgow ed.) (1820-2023) – Substantial Scottish coverage from the early 19th century
Telegraph and Argus (Bradford) (1868-2023) – Major regional paper from industrial Yorkshire
Lancashire Telegraph (1889-2023) – Late 19th-century industrial coverage
The Bolton News (1867-2023) – Industrial Lancashire from the mid-19th century
Southern Daily Echo (Southampton) (1888-2023) – Important southern England coverage
South Wales Argus (Newport) (1892-2023) – Major Welsh publication
Evening Times (Glasgow) (1879-2023) – Scottish evening paper
Daily Echo (Bournemouth) (1900-2023) – Begins at century’s end
The Mail (Millom and South Copeland ed.) (1900-2023) – Cumbrian coverage
Evening Standard (London) (1897-2025) – National evening paper
Isle of Wight County Press (1884-2023) – Island community coverage
Berrow’s Worcester Journal (1753-2023) – The oldest, dating to the mid-18th century
The Worcester Journal (1748-1753) and The Weekly Worcester Journal (1732-1747) – Among Britain’s earliest newspapers
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald (1860-2025) – Lake District coverage
The Greenock Telegraph (1857-2023) – Scottish maritime coverage
Bucks Free Press (1856-2023) – Buckinghamshire regional coverage

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 conferencekeeper.org.

Tuesday, 19 August

10 am: Family History Research at the National Library (of Ireland), by Steven Skeldon for the National Library of Ireland.
https://www.nli.ie/exhibitions-events/talk-family-history-research-national-library-1

2 pm: Ottawa Genealogy Drop-in, from Ottawa Branch of OGS
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/virtual-genealogy-drop-in-2-2025-08-19/

2:30 pm: Tracing Your Portuguese Roots: A Beginner’s Guide to
Portuguese Genealogy, from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/14084025

8 pm: From Statutes to Stories: Finding the Law for Family History, by Judy Russell for BCG and Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/from-statutes-to-stories-finding-the-law-for-family-history/

Wednesday 20 August

2 pm: Was Eleanor of Aquitaine My Ancestor? Applying the GPS across 30 Generations, by Yvette Hoitink for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/was-eleanor-of-aquitaine-my-ancestor-applying-the-gps-across-30-generations/

Thursday, 21 August

6:30 pm: An Introduction to DNA testing for Genealogy, by Sarah Fullem for the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/14083925

Friday, 22 August

2 pm:  AI Video Creation for Genealogy, by Johanne Gervais  for Legacy Family Tree Webinars
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/ai-video-creation-for-genealogy/

Saturday, 23 August

New records are now available to all Diamond subscribers at TheGenealogist.co.uk with nearly 200,000 names. Publications include:

• The Medical Register 1897; 1906; 1939.
• Medical Directory for Ireland 1856;
• Register of Nurses for Scotland 1947 and 1948

Among the most notable Canadian new titles in the past month are historic Ontario weeklies from Haldimand County. These include The Dunnville Gazette (1886), Haldimand Advocate (1885–1901), The Hagersville Times, News, and Blade (1884–1889), as well as the Cayuga Sachem (1853–1856) and the Caledonia Advertiser (1856).

The largest new addition is The Sachem of Caledonia, spanning 1856–2015 with nearly 47,000 pages. Smaller titles such as Pleasant Hours (Toronto, 1893) and The Selkirk Star (1908–1910) round out the new offerings.

In Western Canada, The Burnaby Post (1934–1937) has also been added.

Updates to Canada’s leading newspapers include The Toronto Star now extending through 2025 with almost 4 million pages, while The Globe and Mail now covers 1844–2017.

Regional dailies such as The Hamilton Spectator, Waterloo Region Record, Windsor Star, Ottawa Citizen, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, The Province, and Montreal’s The Gazette are not forgotten.

Look for updates to local and community titles from British Columbia, Alberta, and New Brunswick.