Newspapers.com updates

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).

Findmypast Weekly Update

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.

Advance Notice: 4th Annual 24-Hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon

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.

More on the 1931 Census of Canada

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.

Ancestry adds Ireland, Apothecary Records, 1736-1920

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.

 

MyHeritage Opens Irish Records

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

Wikitree St Patrick’s Day Challenge

‘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

 

New website/blog from Steve Fulton

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.

A TOAST TO THOSE BEFORE

I oft look up upon my wall
where old photos hang
of my ancestors
who made the journey to the new world

what a decision it was
to leave their beloved
Ayrshire
for the new land called Canada

across to Belfast to set sail
in 1820
finding passage on an old
west India brig

eleven weeks of suffering
hunger, illness and stench
before the awaited cry
land ho

only to be driven
back out to sea
by a storm so violent
certain death seemed sure

passengers
ordered below
hatches closed
for three more weeks

at one point the captain
opened the hatch to shout
“Lord have mercy on your souls
for we are lost”

but survive they did
fortunate as well as brave
to work on the construction
of the rideau canal

some few years later
moved to Lower Canada
a township to be named West Templeton
across the river from Ottawa

with minimal basic tools
to clear the land
build a shelter
create a home

unimaginable hard labour
from dawn to dusk
with inadequate clothing and low shoes
in the depth of winter

four generations
would never leave
successful farmers
for more than a century

they all lie
in a small cemetery
at the foot of one of their farms
five generations now with my parents


I am proud to join them all
sometime soon
with my wife there now awaiting
me to come

often I lift my glass
to toast them
for allowing me
to share their brave blood

                                                                            Brian H McLatchie

Thanks to Brian and to Brenda Turner who made the connection.

Be careful what you ask for!

This post was stimulated by the appearance on Canadiana Héritage of 28 digital microfilms of indexes and registers of Orders-in-Council, from Confederation in 1867 to 1930. They are LAC microfilms C-2075 to C-2093, and C-4801 to C-4809. Information on the context is incomplete so I set about finding more about them and stumbled into something unexpected using LAC’s Collection Search.
For searches including quotes the counts, each of which is preceeded by >, for what one might think would be the same search are different depending on whether words are capitalize and hyphens are included.

Searching for the phrase with hyphens and without quotes gives the same results no matter the capitalization. But there is no consistancy with the results in the bar chart.

Most searches will include additional terms, like a name. There will be fewer results to wrestle with. If you don’t find what you expect try variations, especially if using phrases in quotes.

This Week’s Online Genealogy Events

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 14 March

2 pm: RootsTech Recap, by Daniel Horowitz for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/rootstech-recap/

6:30 pm: Dissecting the Documents: UK Censuses from 1801-Present, by Penny Walters for OGS Lambton Branch. https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/home/lambton-branch-monthly-meeting/

WEDNESDAY 15 March

2pm: Exhausting Research to Find an Impossible Immigrant!, by Warren Bittnerfor Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/exhausting-research-to-find-an-impossible-immigrant/

2: 30 pm: Historical Society of Michigan: Historical Writing and
Publishing, by Robert Myers for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/8056424

7 pm: A Genetic Journey, by Jan Murdoch for Lakeshore Genealogical Society.
Register at LGSregister@gmail.com

THURSDAY 16 March

1 pm: City Of Kawartha Lakes Records and Archives Centre, by Angela Fornelli for OGS Kawartha Branch.
https://kawartha.ogs.on.ca/Past-Events1/kawartha-branch-presents-city-of-kawartha-lakes-records-and-archives-centre/

6:30 pm: The Photo Angel: Reuniting Long Lost Photos with Families, by Kate Kelly for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/8056425

FRIDAY 17 March

7 pm: Paths to a Patent: Acquiring Crown Land in Upper Canada, by Jane MacNamara for OGS Niagara Peninsula Branch.
https://niagara.ogs.on.ca/events/niagara-peninsula-branch-monthly-webinar-series-2023-03-17/

SATURDAY 18 March

10 am: The Great Hunger – a Genealogist’s Perspective, by Melanie McLennan for OGS Kingston Branch/
Pre-registered at: 
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIvc-ihrzIqGNWez2D0Z-fuGnw3zrZbrKmC

1 pm: Canadian Records available on FamilySearch and Ancestry, by  Lianne Kruger for OGS Ottawa Branch
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYvdu2srT4uE9H46ySqmVcb2HaDTsriCBPf

1 pm: Peter Robinson Settlers, by Cheryl Levy for OGS Quinte Branch.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUucuirrDMuGNMQunoF2WNiZc1bws3GN9Pr