Author: John Reid

In this article on his EOGN blog Dick Eastman discusses the reasons why many genealogy societies are losing members and suggests what can be done about it. It’s food for thought for those in leadership positions willing to reexamine what they do.

Dick who would throw out the term society and replace it with organization, favours these services:

1. Education

2. Publishing (on paper as well as electronic publishing)

3. Travel services to local and distant repositories or even to “the old country”

4. Lobbying services

5. Sponsoring a cruise for members and others and offer seminars when at sea

6. Fraternal organization services, somewhat like the Elks or Lions or Masons or other fraternities and sororities, all working towards common public service goals

7. And perhaps the most important of all: offer entertainment.

Personally I’m not so sure about 5 and 6. although the social side is important. Time to ask “Who Do You Think You Are?”

“Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”

“The 19th century saw many new aspects in contemporary life, such as reading for leisure, faster transportation and compulsory education, all of which necessitated a high degree of visual acuity.”

Do you know which of your ancestors needed corrective lenses? Who needed them but didn’t wear them? Did any of them wear glasses, or spectacles, as a fashion statement?

From the Wellcome Collection, based on research by Gemma Almond, comes an online story on the history of spectacles.

I found the new issue of WDYTYA Magazine on Press Reader through my Ottawa Public Library subscription.

Editor Sarah Williams points to content in the issue for the experienced researcher; how to uncover ‘hidden’ records on FamilySearch; Methodist research; and three articles of interest to those with Scottish ancestry.

For everyone, there are articles on online resources
for finding military memorials and war graves (mentions Australian but not Canadian) and the newly digitised Second World War Index Cards from the Women’s Land Army.

You never know where you may find something of interest for your family history.

If you have Saskatchewan people in your family tree maybe one of more will appear within the 34 student publications from the University of Regina, representing approximately 3,000 pages of content, that have been added to the Canadiana collection.  The whole corpus is full-text searchable.

I didn’t find either of the two distant branches of my tree that lived in the province, but the places they lived were mentioned.

Included is the early student journal The College Register, which was published intermittently from 1914 to 1930. Issues contain news about faculty, staff, and students, as well as campus events, student literature, and local advertisements. There are also student yearbooks — The Freshman (1946–1962) and its successor The Tower (1962–1968).

 

Choose from selected free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Those in red are Canadian, bolded if local to Ottawa or recommended. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed. Additional mainly US events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual.

TUESDAY 7 FEBRUARY

1 pm: Slavery and the British Economy, by Martin Daunton for Gresham College.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/slavery-british

2 pm: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, by OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://meet.google.com/nvz-kftj-dax

2:30 pm: Preparing to Leave Europe, by Nicholas J. Evans for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/7834844

This is the first of three Tuesday presentations by Nicholas J. Evans, a Senior Lecturer in diaspora history at the University of Hull, under the series title “The Making of a Mosaic: European Migrant Journeys During the Age of Steam”

7:30pm: Doing Family Tree Research in Your Pajamas, by Ken McKinlay for OGS Durham Region Branch.
https://ogs.on.ca/events/durhams-february-2023-meeting-doing-family-tree-research-in-your-pajamas/

WEDNESDAY 8 FEBRUARY

***Not online*** 1 pm: Double Feature: Where did our Prime Minsters Live?, by Hagit Hadaya &  at 2 pm: The History of Street Art in Ottawa. by Emma Kent for the Ottawa Historical Society. At Ottawa Public Library Auditorium.
https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/90/16,17,19,21/double-feature-where-did-our-prime-minsters-live-the-history-of-street-art-in-ottawa

2 pm: Hints & Tips for solving Irish cases of Unknown Parentage, by Maurice Gleeson for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/hints-tips-for-solving-irish-cases-of-unknown-parentage/

2:30 pm: The Book That Changed My Life: Discovering the Archive behind the Gentleman’s Magazine, by Julian Pooley for the Guild of One Name Studies.
https://one-name.org/nichols/

THURSDAY 9 FEBRUARY

7 am: Les derniers outils et ressources sur MyHeritage, par Elisabeth Zetland pour Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/les-derniers-outils-et-ressources-sur-myheritage/

6:30 pm: Preserving the Past: Stories from the Records of
Philadelphia’s Historic Congregations, by Carol Smith for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/7898418

FRIDAY 10 FEBRUARY

SATURDAY 11 FEBRUARY

9 am: Census Records in the Virtual Treasury of Ireland, by Brian Gurrin for BIFHSGO.
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

10 am: Lust, Lucre and Lybell: An 18th Century Soap Opera, by Dianne Brydon for BIFHSGO.
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

1 pm: Genealogical Miracles, performed by Ken McKinlay for Ottawa Branch OGS. In person at the Ottawa City Archives and online.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/genealogical-miracles-ottawa/

The following additions are sourced from The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local studies and archives.

Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, Poor Law Records, 1695-1921, comprises 66,506 records, transcriptions and images, from:
Chelsea Institution: Workhouse Matrons Report Books (1924 – 1931)
Chelsea Parish Poor Rate, etc (1695 – 1707)
St Mary, Abbots: Examinations (1832 – 1835)
St Mary, Abbots: Overseers Poor Account Books (1734-1744, 1769-1774, 1774 1789, 1855-1864, 1864-1877)
St Mary, Abbots: Poor Law Examination Books (1791-1794, 1849-1853, 1857-1863, 1867-1873)

Kensington and Chelsea, Church of England Parish Chest Records, 1597-1950 comprises 50,756 records, transcriptions and images, from:
Kensington Cemetery, Chaplin’s Books (1921 – 1950)
Kensington Chapel, Baptisms (1865 – 1922)
St George, Campden Hill, Baptisms (1865 – 1922)
St Luke, Chelsea, Baptisms (1883 – 1911)
St Mary, Abbotts, 19 types of record

 

Sad to record the passing of Audrey Collins, long-time family history specialist at the UK National Archives, after a short illness.

UPDATE: There’s been an outpouring of affection and respect for Audrey since the news of her passing broke. I join the chorus.

Audrey spoke at the 2011 BIFHSGO annual conference on TNA records,  the Fleet Registers which recorded clandestine marriages performed, notably in the area of London’s Fleet prison, between 1667 and 1754, and the information available, online and free, from The London Gazette, published since 1665.

Audrey was on the BIFHSGO conference program again in 2019 when she spoke on The National Archives Catalogue , Behind the Scenes: UK Census Records, Behind the Scenes: Records of the General Register Office, and A Scottish Farmer’s Ride Through England, 1802 ―Mr. Blaikie’s Diary and His Remarkable Descendants.

She authored numerous publications, including Birth, Marriage and Death Records, co-authored with Dave Annal who spoke at the 2022 BIFHSGO conference.

Audrey, featured in several YouTube Videos including this one on the 1939 Register, leaves a big gap in the UK and international genealogy scene.

In this week’s episode of the History Extra Podcast, Railway history: everything you wanted to know, Christian Wolmar touches on their influence on warfare. There’s much more in this wide-ranging interview, including an amazing statistic on the average daily rate of railway construction over more than 80 years in the USA.

Everyone is welcome to an online presentation on Monday, 6 February at 7:00 pm, when Leeds & Grenville Branch hosts  Craig Stevenson on Rail History in Eastern Ontario and its relationship to local history and genealogy.

Craig will discuss a few areas where rail was most visible in local life through to about 1960: stations, agricultural and economic connections, impact on the geography of some communities, and where and how railways connect to social history.

Register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUof-iuqT8rHN2ksY97rGzXOij3sx0fxBkG

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Wonders of Street View

McLachlin Bros. Business Ledgers.
There’s a new blog post about indexes online to some of the names of employees and customers in ledgers of this local business at the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives.

Designing Ethical Self-Driving Cars

AI Generates Obits

Irish Family History Research Day
25 March 2023

Doors open at 8:15 a.m.– close at 4:30 p.m.
The Chamber, Ben Franklin Place, 101 Centrepointe Dr., Ottawa, Ontario

How Smart Organizations Miss The Obvious
Another excellent post from Dan Gardner at PastPresentFuture.

Meet the Black snowshoers who walked 1,000 kilometres across Canada in 1813

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, corlene Dwyer Taylor, Emma Carey, gail benjafield, Jane E MacNamara, Nancy, Nick Mcdonald, Patti Mordasewicz, Sheila Faure, Teresa, Unknown.

Most researchers of family history in the area now known as Ontario are aware of the existence of Township Papers, a massive collection of Crown Land records at the Archives of Ontario now available to browse at home with your free FamilySearch account. That’s if you can find them.

In two posts Jane MacNamara, on her Where the story takes me … blog provides a roadmap to their use. It removes a fair bit of the agony of identifying the most likely digital microfilm from FamilySearch.

There’s little point in me repeating her explanation in the two posts Untangling Ontario Township Papers and Ontario Township Papers: How to find them. The second contains a huge table that will take you from Township, Lot and Concession to which digital microfilm to start searching by eye – no index available. The one covering the area where I live contains about 1,000 images. I got close fairly quickly, then on to the painstaking image by image examination.

That huge table listing the 541 reels is a godsend. A big hand to Jane! A pity the title Saint Jane is already taken.

Plans for 100,000 sq ft of new space for the British Library, including new exhibition galleries, a bespoke new learning centre and additional event spaces recently moved forward with approval of plans by Camden Council’s Planning Committee.

https://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2023/january/british-library-extension-given-green-light-by-camden-council

Meanwhile, newspaper digitization through a partnership with substantial free content available continues.