Anglo-Celtic Connections

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 30 May

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

2:30 pm: Uncover Your Family’s Story Using the Periodical Source, by Elizabeth Hodges for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/8367457

Wednesday 31 May

2 pm: Finding Chinese Railroad Worker Files in the U.S., by Grant Din for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/finding-chinese-railroad-worker-files-in-the-u-s/

6:30 pm: Finding the records for “impossible” genealogy: Lessons learned from a Chinese genealogist. by Linda Yip for Oakville Public Library.
https://attend.opl.on.ca/event/8492419.

7 pm: The Secret Murder of Country Constable John Morrison, by Ivan Tanner & Gerard Boyer for the Historical Society of Ottawa and the Cumberland Township Historical Society.
tinyurl.com/HSO-31-May-2023

Thursday 1 June

6:30 pm: What’s New with DNA at MyHeritage? by Daniel Horowitz for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/8624191

Friday 2 June

9 am: Sensation, scandal and shock:1963, by Mark Dunton for TNA.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sensation-scandal-and-shock1963-tickets-546205233557

2 pm: Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy, 1718-1820, by Nicka Smith for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/afro-louisiana-history-and-genealogy-1718-1820/

Saturday 3 June

10 am: Chippewas of the Thames First Nation – The Longwoods Treaties, by Brandon Graham for OGS London & Middlesex Branch.
https://londonmiddlesex.ogs.on.ca/events/london-middlesex-branch-chippewas-of-the-thames-first-nation-the-longwoods-treaties/

2 pm: Genealogical holdings of the Orillia Public Library, by Jayne Turvey for OGS Simcoe County Branch.
https://simcoe.ogs.on.ca/branch-meetings/

This collection of 567,773 records, People of Moray, contains individuals from or connected to the county, sometimes known as Elginshire, Scotland, from the year 1400 onwards. Records typically include the name of the individual, date and place of birth, date and place of marriage, date and place of death, and the names of the parents and the spouse.

These records are from The Moray Council and include local government archives from the 13th century to 1975, local newspapers, gravestone inscriptions, non-established church records to 1855, architectural plans, books, family histories and more. However, the nature of the source was not given in a few results I checked. Therefore, treat them as clues rather than sources.

He served his country in the Korean War as a member of the Canadian military despite suffering the indignities of the residential school system as a boy.

In doing so, he once told an interviewer, he was joining hands with the more than 8,000 Indigenous people who fought for Canada in the First and Second World Wars.

“It’s very important to do our bit for the country,” he said. “And we aboriginal people are forgiving people, and I forgave what they did to me at residential school to serve my country.”

Read the full Ottawa Citizen article at https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/obituary-james-eagle-served-in-the-canadian-military-after-suffering-residential-school

This joint report by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ (CARL) and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network’s (CRKN) documents strategic approaches and a rearticulation of the role of Canadian research and academic libraries.

As patrons of the product of academic research, but not partners, the genealogical community has an interest.

What specifically is in the action plan of interest. The initiatives are grouped under the headings:
1. Disseminate and preserve Canadian scholarly outputs
2. Improve the discovery and tracking of Canadian content
3. Fund international open scholarship research platforms, infrastructures, and services
4. Influence policy developments in Canada
5. Support innovation

While many are far into the academic weeds the following will be worth following to see if they are successful. Hopefully there will be periodic progress reports.

1.5. Enhance the Canadiana collections and infrastructure to support Canadian researchers and facilitate large-scale content growth. (Lead: CRKN)
4.5. Advocate for the expansion of digitization of heritage content, with other stakeholders across the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums)
sector (Lead: CRKN for CCDH with CARL)
5.3. Engage with local and disciplinary communities and funders and other academic stakeholders to help advance and support the adoption of open scholarship practices. (Co-leads: CARL, CRKN)
5.4. Transform CRKN’s Canadiana research infrastructure to embrace open standards and community-led development. (Lead: CRKN)
5.5. Explore the implications of artificial intelligence systems and quantum computing on the future of the open scholarship landscape (Lead: CARL)

Scandal, Slavery and Survival: More Tales from New France is the topic when Dawn Kelly and Carol Ufford speak to a hybrid meeting of OGS Toronto Branch at 7:30 pm on Monday, 29 May.
That is preceded by a shorter presentation The Saga of a Boy of the Third Class about her 4X Granduncle, an Australian pioneer settler, by Diana Thomson.
You can attend virtually via Zoom, register via
http://torontofamilyhistory.org/event/scandal-slavery-survival-new-france/

 

Here, belatedly as there was an unresolved issue with Ottawa Public Library’s feed, is the contents page for the June issue of the UK Family Tree magazine.

The collection added in late March has been updated with volumes from the Wellcome Library. It now has 994,038 entries, with the addition of volumes for 1882, 1915 and 1940.

Having announced its Manchester Rate Books release earlier in the week, Findmypast has now added complementary records.

A browseable version of these Manchester rate books fills in the gaps between the five-yearly indexed versions. Start at the first image of any given book, then use the ‘forward’ or ‘next’ arrow, to click through to the images, just as if you were browsing through the original volume. For example, for Stockport Council there are 32 browsable rate books between 1883 and 1923 complementing the indexed ones from 1886 to 1921.

Also released this week, Lancashire, Oldham Inquisitions 1905-1917, 749 files with an index and images of the original. If the John Smith included who died there in 1916 was yours, you may be interested to know the cause was shock while lighting a match.

This week’s newspaper additions include three new Manchester area titles.

Altrincham, Bowdon & Hale Guardian, 1871,
1874-1887, 1893-1894, 1898

Ashton Standard, 1858-1861, 1865, 1877, 1879,
1889, 1896-1897

Bolton Journal & Guardian, 1876-1877, 1879-1880,
1889, 1897, 1899, 1916-1918

 

In honour of US Memorial Day, MyHeritage is offering free access to all 83.1 million of their military records, from May 25–30, 2023. Explore the military records for free.

Updated data for the MyHeritage Theory of Family Relativity™ means millions of new theories, a 61% increase, have been developed to uncover new DNA Matches. Do you have your DNA data at MyHeritage? Even if you didn;t take a test with them you can transfer existing autosomal test data from another company and get the advantage of more tests for comparison.

Expect more next week …

 

Identifying the USS Arizona’s Fallen After 82 Years!, a post from Fishwrap, the newspapers.com blog, grabbed my attention.
As indicated here, the US Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) disinterred seven caskets containing approximately 55 individuals as part of the Enoura Maru Project. It’s not an isolated occurrence but part of an ongoing effort by the DPAA to disinter, transport, and identify missing POWs from World War II.
The Fishwrap blog post is publicizing Operation 85 , a civilian effort led by family members of the unrecovered from the Pearl Harbour raid to assist DPAA in acquiring DNA samples from living family members. They hope to identify the remains and provide them with a proper burial.
Perhaps like me you were unaware of this US military initiative involving disinterring unknown remains. That is not the policy of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which predates the possibility of identification through DNA analysis by decades. In the unlikely possibility that were to ever change,  I know of a grave with a good chance it contains the remains of my great uncle, a candidate for identification.

From The Society of Genealogists, a review comparing Family Historian 7, RootsMagic 9, Family Tree Maker 2019 and Legacy Family Tree 9, the most popular genealogy software options in the UK.

Read the review, which leans heavily on UK genealogists’ Twitter comments at https://www.sog.org.uk/our-collections/featured/family-history-software/.

A wide range of good-quality software is on the market. But, of course, all have their pros and cons. Just like ice cream, we all like it and all have favourite flavours, Does that mean we always choose vanilla and haven’t tried garlic?

99% of my needs are met by the family tree I keep online with Ancestry. I’ve tried all the others mentioned, some many years ago, but when I need to go back to Family Tree Maker. That’s what I started with.

Perhaps like the group in Ottawa, you prefer The Master Genealogist, or PAF, or one of the others lesser known and some no longer supported.

What’s your experience? Please let us know why.