Author: John Reid

Choose from 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.

Tuesday 14 Dec. 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 14 Dec, 2 pm: Looking Back & Peeking Ahead: 2021 at MyHeritage, by Daniel Horowitz for Legacy Family Tree Webinars,
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/a-myheritage-webinar-series-webinar/

Tuesday 14 Dec, 2:30 pm: Researching Ship Passenger Lists, by Andy McCarthy for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5834600

Tuesday 14 Dec. 7 pm: Understanding Wikitree, by Wikitree member Sarah for Lambton Branch OGS.
https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/calendar/lambton-branch-understanding-wikitree/

Wednesday 15 Dec. 2 pm: Navigating the NARA Website, by Julie Miller for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/navigating-the-nara-website/

Wednesday 15 Dec. 7 pm: Cundell Stables: The Last Stable in Lowertown, by Karen Bailey and Marc Aubin for Heritage Ottawa.
https://heritageottawa.org/events/cundell-stables-last-stable-lowertown

Thursday 16 Dec. 8 pm: Toronto Railway Museum Online Lecture: Christmas and the Railways, by the Museum’s historians.
https://ontariohistoricalsociety.ca/event/toronto-railway-museum-online-lecture-christmas-and-the-railways/

Friday 17 Dec, 2 pm: Effective Use of England’s National Archives Website, by Paul Milner for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/effective-use-of-englands-national-archives-website/

Posted on the Library and Archives Canada webpage.

Gradual increase in services to the public in Ottawa

Starting on January 4, 2022, Library and Archives Canada’s service offerings at our Ottawa service point will gradually increase to include the following:

All collections will now be accessible, including photos, art, maps and plans, audiovisual material, literary and music fonds, preservation collection, rare books, and photo index cards.
The Textual Consultation Room (3rd floor) will now be open four days a week (Tuesday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.).
The Special Collections Consultation Room (3rd floor) will be open on Wednesdays, from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Exceptionally, reservations to consult the collections and resources at 395 Wellington Street in Ottawa during the week of January 4, 2022, can be made as of December 13, 2021 (three weeks in advance, rather than the usual two).

Here are more details about the reservation schedule for the next few weeks:

Beginning on December 20, 2021, time slots will be available to reserve for the weeks of January 10 and 17, 2022.
Due to the holiday season, no new appointments will be available on the following two Mondays: December 27, 2021, and January 3, 2022.
The regular reservation schedule (two weeks in advance) will resume on January 10, 2022.
To save your seat, please consult the Book your visit in Ottawa web page.

Visit our Reopening Library and Archives Canada web page for a complete overview of services available and region-specific details.

Let’s hope this good news isn’t Omicronized!

In the past few days Find a Grave and newspaper indexes on Ancestry have been updated. Find a Grave added 140,432 index records (1.6%) for Canada since August while the UK and Ireland added 465.364 index records (3.5%).

Title	Records
U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current	873,029,013
U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current	165,897,753
Canada, Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current	31,483,712
UK and Ireland, Find a Grave Index, 1300s-Current	13,532,786
Global, Find a Grave Index for Burials at Sea and other Select Burial Locations, 1300s-Current	12,458,493
Australia and New Zealand, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current	9,528,642
Canada, Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current	8,669,083
Germany, Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current	1,675,784
Italy, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current	238,002
Norway, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current	194,340
Sweden, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current	141,007
Brazil, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current	130,541
Mexico, Find a Grave Index, 1800s-Current	48,771

Find a huge collection of articles and podcasts on the Second World War in this History Extra special from BBC History Magazine.

https://www.historyextra.com/period/second-world-war/

The topics are: Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, The Holocaust, Second World War battles, D-Day, Dunkirk, Winston Churchill, Pearl Harbor, VE Day, The Battle of Britain, The Blitz, Wartime Britain, The Battle of the Atlantic, The global war, The Eastern Front.

When information arrived in an email from Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage about 359 million additions in a French Historical Records collection I took a quick look for a third cousin twice removed. He was supposed to have been born in France. While I didn’t find him I noticed the records shown weren’t all French; they were in French.

The collection includes 58,114 births/baptisms, 211,983 marriages and 211,983 deaths/burials in Canada. While mostly for Quebec I spotted entries for Atlantic Canada too. There were also US events from Louisiana, Read more about the collection in this MyHeritage blog post.

Daniel also mentioned updates to Sweden, Household Examination Books, 1800–1947 with 13.2 million records added, and to Germany, North Rhine Westphalia (Arnsberg and Münster) Death Index, 1874–1938 with 4.8 million records added.

 

The British Newspaper Archive is currently working on digitizing Irish newspapers. Papers recently added are:

Kerry People 1902-1914, 1917-1922.
Dublin Weekly News: 1860, 1865, 1870, 1875, 1879-1888.
Lurgan Times: 1879-1885, 1887-1915.
County Tipperary Independent and Tipperary Free Press:1882-1896.
Irish Weekly and Ulster Examiner: 1891-1899, 1901-1926.
Cork Weekly News: 1883-1904, 1906-1907, 1910-1912, 1914-1923 + 1900, 1902 and 1920 coming soon.
Ulster Echo: 1874-1879, 1881-1890, 1897-1908 + 1881, 1886, 1890, 1902 coming soon.
Western People: 1889-1891, 1893-1912.

Additions have been made to Pue’s Occurrences: 1704-1706, 1714.

Findmypast will also have these in its newspaper collection.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Relax with the Jellyfish at Monterey Bay Aquarium

Genealogy After Death
An article from Canada’s History magazine by Paul Jones.

TONI @13 Million
The Ontario Name Index continues to grow. Check it out at https://ogs.on.ca/toni/.

Shade Map
An interactive map that allows you to view the location of shadows from the sun throughout the day.

A Digital Map of Historical New York Offers an Extraordinary Level of Detail

We’ve Living Through the ‘Boring Apocalypse’

Thanks to this week’s contributors.  Ann Burns, Anonymous., Brenda Turner, Gail Roger, John Gilbert, Nancy Frey, Pat Jeffs, Unknown.

Over 60,000 new owner and occupier records covering Edmonton, Enfield and Southgate are now added to TheGenealogist‘s exclusive Lloyd George Domesday Survey records.

This continues TheGenealogist’s project based on the IR58 Inland Revenue Valuation Office records which were taken between 1910 and 1915. Other recent London-area additions have included Richmond, Ealing, and Haringey.

London, Synagogue Seatholders 1904 consists of 6,474 names and addresses of seatholders and officeholders in various Synagogues in Aldgate, City Of London, Dalston, Hackney, Hammersmith, Hampstead, Islington, Marylebone, Paddington, Southwark, Stepney and Stoke Newington.

Asia, Far East Directories & Chronicles 1833-1941 compiled annually from multiple sources, including government agencies and Western companies in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, The Philippines, Indo-China, Malaysia, Siam, Borneo and The Dutch East Indies. Look for name, occupation and employer for Americans, Canadians, Australians, British and other Westerners as well as information likely to be of interest to residents in the chronicles.

This Saturday, 11 December 2021 enjoy two Ottawa events online and open to all.

At 9 am BIFHSGO’s Holiday Social and Great Moments in Genealogy get underway. Details are at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

At 1 pm OGS Ottawa Branch presentation is`They Came on Ships ~ Plotting a Course to Publishing Genealogical Research’, by David Walker. Register here.

In between, depending on where you live, you might be able to squeeze in a visit to a live event (!) the Friends of the Ottawa Public Library Mammoth Book Sale at the City of Ottawa Archives from 10 am to 2 pm. https://www.fopla-aabpo.ca/event/mammoth-book-sale/

On Wednesday four new items were added to Canadiana.

Title	Publication Date	Identifier
Department of Canadian Heritage, Canadian Parks Service : Park/subject classification system	1911-1968	T-11009
Department of Canadian Heritage, Canadian Parks Service : Park/subject classification system	1930-1968	T-11010
Department of Indian Affairs, Headquarters central registry system : thousand series	1893-1945	C-12081
James Hargrave and family fonds	1850-1854	C-77

The most interesting of these may well be the James Hargrave and family fonds. According to his entry in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Throughout his career Hargrave was a prodigious letter writer, corresponding with officers all over the HBC’s vast domains. His draft letter books, which give much detail about the logistics of the trade, reveal his assiduous attempts to satisfy the needs of every district with fairness and economy. His private letters, where he appears as esteemed friend and confidant, constitute the richest surviving record of life in western Canada during the first half of the 19th century. Besides providing valuable commentary on fur trade society with its blend of Indian, British, and French customs, these letters also contain much specific information about the personal lives of many of Hargrave’s contemporaries.

The period 1850-54 saw James Hargrave ending his assignment at York Factory and moving to Sault Ste Marie. Image 3 at Canadiana Héritage summarizes the scope of the contents. It mentions small handwriting and fading of the ink.

After a period with no new or updated records Ancestry follows on yesterday’s Glamorgan Calendar of Prisoners records with two new Australian collections from newspapers, for Hamilton (1860 – 1918), Melbourne (1854 – 2000) and Sydney (1831 – 2001).

Australia, Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-current: 672,360 records.
Australia, Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current: 5,756,110 records.