Author: John Reid

The 512,140 records in this collection, sourced from the Tyne and Wear Archives, are transcripts and images of congregation member lists, registers of baptisms, marriages, and burials from non-conformist churches — Congregational, Presbyterian, and United Reformed.

The majority, 361,715, are from member lists. The images in the samples I reviewed showed a residence address and an indication of attendance and remarks such as death.

Most of the records are from the last quarter of the 19th and first quarter of the 20th centuries.

Saturday’s presentation, starting at 1 pm,  is Canadian Records available on FamilySearch and Ancestry, by Lianne Kruger.

This session will review how to find what Canadian records are available, search for ancestors, view the documents and write source citations for both FamilySearch and Ancestry sites. The Canadian pages on the FamilySearch Wiki will also be explored, along with how to create a Table of Records.

Lianne Kruger is a professional genealogist and speaker specializing in Canada, homesteading for U.S. and Canada, video recording family history, and using technology in all aspects of genealogy such as Google Maps, Google Drive and Evernote. She is a member of the board for mitoYDNA.org,  on the Ancestry.ca advisory board and the webmaster, database and social media chair for Alberta Genealogical Society (AGS). She previously served six years as 1st VP of AGS and two years as President of Red Deer Branch. She earned the AGS President’s award in 2020. Lianne is a member of Associate of Professional Genealogists, AGS, Ontario Ancestors, and National Genealogical Society.

The meeting is hybrid, live in the City of Ottawa Archives, 100 Tallwood Drive (Room 115) and on Zoom.  Register in advance for the Zoom presentation at:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvdu2srT4uE9H46ySqmVcb2HaDTsriCBPf

Reminder: Gene-O-Rama will be held virtually on Saturday, 25 March 2023 with six sessions from four top-rated speakers. Ticket holders can view the recorded sessions until April 30, 2023. Details and Tickets at https://geneorama.ogs.on.ca/

The newspapers.com collection of digitized and full-text searchable English newspapers was augmented in 147 titles in the past month. Most were updates. The new papers are: Medway Standard (1993–1996), Fleet News (1987–1988), Fleet Mail (1987–1988), Farnham Mail (1990), Farnborough Mail (1987–1990), Hinckley Free Press and South-West Leicestershire Gazette (1897–1898), Camberley Mail (1987–1988), Hull Packet (1799–1804), Nottingham Daily Express (1897), Manchester Evening Chronicle (1897 – 1908), Grimsby Target (1986 – 1999), Reporter for the County Borough of Salford (1897), Payne’s Leicester and Midland Counties Advertiser, and Commercial Agricultural Report (1850), Cheshire Observer and General Advertiser for Cheshire and North Wales (1854 – 1863).

Also updated were 16 newspaper in Wales and 14 in Scotland. There were no additions in Ireland or Northern Ireland.

For Canada, with 376 papers in the collection, seven from the Publishers Extra collection have been updated in the past month with content from 2023. They are: The Province (Vancouver), Calgary Herald, Leader-Post (Regina), Edmonton Journal, Windsor Star, National Pest, Gazette (Montreal).

Inland Revenue Wills & Administrations 1828-1879.

The collection contains indexes for the years (1828-1879), with surviving registers for 1828-1839 that contain extracts from the original documents. Most original documents were destroyed in 1922 when the Irish Public Record Office was blown up.

The following is the information contained in the records. The first three appear in both the indexes and registers, but the registers include more information:

Name and address of deceased
Name and address of executor or administrator
Court where probate was granted
Date of death
Date of will
Relationship of executor/administrator to the deceased
Value of estate
Description/inventory of the estate (occasional)
Names of beneficiaries (occasional).

96 entries include the keyword Canada.

Ireland Calendars of Wills & Administration 1858-1965 is updated with a further 591,011 transcriptions for three northern registries of Armagh, Belfast and Londonderry (Derry) up to 1965.
The detail varies from will to will, you’ll normally find the name of the deceased and their death date, the names of any beneficiaries and the county.

922 entries include the keyword Canada, 24 the word Ottawa.

Hosted by FamilyTreeWebinars.com and MyHeritage, the free marathon will begin on Thursday, 13 April at 5pm EDT  and end on Friday, 14 April at 6pm EDT.

You may know some of the speakers — Michelle Leonard, Daniel Horowitz, Paul Milner, Janice Nickerson, Melvin J. Collier, Thomas MacEntee, Gena Philibert-Ortega, Michelle Patient, Fiona Brooker, Kinga Urbanska, Fran Kitto, Helen V. Smith, Shauna Hicks, Andrea Bentschneider, Zbigniew Stettner, Natalie Bodle, Judy G. Russell, Nicka Smith, Lisa A. Alzo, Jill Morelli, Ugo Perego, Michael D. Lacopo, J. Mark Lowe, Cyndi Ingle, Elizabeth Shown Mills.

More here.

A news release from FamilySearch confirms and adds a bit of detail.

On June 1, 2023, Canadians can expect to browse the digitized census images by geographic districts and sub-districts on the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website. Following the initial release, LAC will work collaboratively with Ancestry® and FamilySearch International to create an advanced searchable database for Canadians, and those with Canadian heritage who wish to look for their ancestors.

In this collaborative effort to increase access to the 1931 Census of Canada, LAC has digitized all 234,687 pages of the census and Ancestry will apply its state-of-the-art handwriting recognition technology to the digital images to create a full index of the entire census. FamilySearch will then review the computer-generated index to ensure a complete and accurate index of all fields at a level never achieved before. The images and indexes will be available and searchable online for free through Census Search, Library and Archives Canada’s new one-stop shop for national census records. The images and indexes will also be available on Ancestry.ca and FamilySearch.org.

Do you have a list of searches you’re itching to try? Where in Canada was that elusive relative? Who else was in the house? Who was living in your house in 1931?

A blog post “Historical thinking: using the census in primary teacher education” from Cheshire Archives and Local Studies has ideas on other activities the census can facilitate.

Apothecary— according to the OED “The earlier name for: One who prepared and sold drugs for medicinal purposes—the business now (since about 1800) conducted by a druggist or pharmaceutical chemist. ”

This collection of 41,984 entries contains registries of apothecaries in Ireland between the years 1736 and 1920. Sourced from the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, records may include the following information:

Name
Age
Address
City
County
Registration date

Most records are handwritten in ledgers, though newer records may be printed.

From 14 – 19 March, the MyHeritage Irish record collection is available to search for free, Apparently, it’s a celebration of a certain Saint — Patrick perhaps?

There are 13.6 million records in 110 titles in the Irish collection. The largest are the 1901 and 1911 censuses with more than 4.3 million records each; a marriage collection from 1609 to 1898 with nearly 1.5 million names, and Griffith’s Valuation, 1847-1864 with 1.25 million entries.

At the other end of the scale are 500 records from the Register of the Parish of St. Peter And S. Kevin, Dublin, 1669-1761.

If you’re starting researching Irish Ancestry, a site recommended by an experience local Irish researcher is https://www.irelandxo.com/ireland-xo/news/researching-your-irish-ancestry

The following is a press release on an announcement by Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez.

https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/minister-rodriguez-announces-reappointment-of-leslie-weir-as-librarian-and-archivist-of-canada-879902211.html

‘The North of Ireland Family History Society is collaborating with Wikitree for their latest
community Challenge.
Beginning on Thursday 16 March and running for one week, Wikitree users will get together to research seven notable people from the North of Ireland.
The objective is to add seven connections to each of the seven people, going in any direction.
William (Millar) Boyd (1931-1977)
Henry George Ferguson (1884-1960)
Seamus Justin Heaney (1939-2013)
John Wilson Kyle (1926-2014)
Robert William Moore (1952-2011)
William James Pirrie (1847-1924)
Ruby Florence Murray (1935-1996).

Anyone who is a registered Wikitree user can register to join the Challenge at https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1550711

Mags Gaulden, who will be speaking at OPL Genealogy Day on 1 May, will be a part of a WikiTree LiveCast as the North of Irland Family History Society does the WikiTree Challenge. The video will be available on the WikiTree You Tube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@WikiTreers/streams

As a past president of the Ontario Genealogical Society, and long-time Chair of its Niagara Peninsula Branch, Steve Fulton is intimately aware of the challenges facing genealogical societies.

In his first post on his new site, he introduces the term “Gold Dust” to describe the potential for small(ish) societies to thrive. It’s a term he picked up at RootsTech.

In coming posts, he will explore and share some thoughts on “Gold Dust” and how it will make and keep Societies relevant.

Welcome to the blogging community Steve.  I look forward to reading more details.