Anglo-Celtic Connections

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

The modern day dictionary of Shakespearean words: £400 encyclopedia reveals The Bard’s most weird and wonderful terms 

Stewards of an Intergenerational Project

BC updates BMDs
Now available — indexes to births (1854-1903), marriages (1871-1947), deaths (1872-2002), colonial marriages (1859-1872) and baptisms (1836-1888).

Scientists find the last remnants of the human genome that were missing in the Y chromosome

We’re talking about AI a lot right now – and it’s not a moment too soon

Did June 6, 1780 Presage January 6, 2021?

 

If you were poor in England, your official parish of settlement was responsible for your support. You could be removed there if you lived in another parish. This database contains Poor Law records relating to settlement and removals for the London unions of Bethnal Green (138,940), Hackney (43,397), Poplar (53,056), Shoreditch (223,940), and Stepney (4,396).

This example shows the transcription information for an order of removal

Name	Ann Beckett
Residence Age	60
Event Type	Orders of Removal
Birth Date	abt 1812
Residence Date	2 Jan 1872
Residence Poor Law Union	Bethnal Green
Residence	Greater London, England
Relative 4 Information	Name:
Relative 5 Information	Name:

And the additional information in the linked original.

Is Graham and Emma Maxwell’s Scottish Indexes a must-know resource, even if you don’t research ancestry in Scotland?
Yes.
Here’s something for everyone: a blog series from last year on genealogy mistakes to avoid. They are: don’t assume anything, not looking at the next page, not looking at a map, ignoring the occupation, and not keeping a research log. 

If you do have Scottish roots here’s a shout out to Scottish Indexes Conference XXI on Saturday 9 September 2023. The program is:
10:00 Introduction
10:15 ‘Scottish Tax Records for Genealogy and Local History’ by Robert Urquhart
11:15 ‘People Lie! How to unravel the truth when you are tracing your family history’ by
Emma Maxwell
12:15 ‘Crimes of an Heinous Nature’ by Margaret Fox
13:15 ‘The People of Cross House’ by Kate Keter
14:15 ‘Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors’ by Chris Paton
14:30 Genealogy Q & A hosted by Graham and Emma Maxwell
16:30 ‘“Like All These Country Folks Very Stupid”: Glasgow Highlanders in the Poor
Law Applications’ by Alison Spring
17:30 ‘What’s New on Scottish Indexes’ by Graham Maxwell

Wayne Shepheard, who has an article in this issue, reminds me I missed posting about the September issue which cam out on the 11th.

Wayne’s article, Peggy’s war: Women’s land army reflects on the WW1 military connections of Peggy Fisher’s wider family — several came to live in Canada. Wayne shares resources to help you research the WLA in both wars and in countries outside the UK.

Here’s a rundown on the rest ofthe issue:

Getting the best from Ancestry: user tips
Chris Paton shares his useful hacks & hints for using Ancestry.

Understanding genealogical sources & why it matters
Phil Isherwood has a useful approach to help you analyse how credible the clues that you come across are

DNA Workshop: How to prepare for your DNA test results
DNA advisor Karen Evans is here to help you get ready for your results

Slow down & plan your research
Fiona Brooker suggests you slow down and establish some great research practices that will stand you in good stead

Twiglets
Gill Shaw’s hopes are raised… then dashed, this month

How family history can provide children with life skills & resilience
Emma Jolly investigates, in part 2 of her family history & well-being series

Your stories with Storied
Katharine McKinnon reminds us of the importance of building trees out wide

Genealogy gadgets
Discover a meteorological history project and the new Reimagine tools & membership from MyHeritage. Wayne also contributes on the Little Ice Age and the Western University website – https://weather-extremes-in-englands-little-ice-age-westernu.hub.arcgis.com/apps/034ba3126de14032b6b7cb2433bd128a/explore
Also in this section Helen Tovey looks at MyHeritage’s Reimagine app, launched in 2023. ‘Reimagine: Scan & Enhance Pics’ allows you to:
• upload or scan in photos (you can scan an entire album page and the images will be automatically cropped and saved as individual files).
• colourise, enhance, animate and repair your photos
• add voice notes to your photos to ‘tell the story’ behind each
• add details of date and place, also making for easier searchability later
• and sort into albums, add to your MyHeritage family tree, and share with family.

Academy: Case Study
Family Tree Academy tutor David Annal looks at a life less ordinary — extraordinarily complex!

Spotlight on…
Philippa Jarvis tells us about Ryedale Family History Group

Books & co
Helen Tovey & Rachel Bellerby share views on a selection of recent family history reads and the Pharos Tutors’ new-look website

Photo corner
Jayne Shrimpton analyses a selection of pictures from the past

Diary Dates
Events to look forward to in September

Thoughts on…
Diane Lindsay celebrates upgrading her family history software at long last… and an ‘unmentionable birthday’!

Just out, the September issue features: –

• Sort your photos
  We give our verdict on the different online tools for organising and sharing family photographs
• The end of the census?
  We spoke to the ONS about their plans to modernise the census
• How to visit local archives
  What you need to know about visiting local archive services to research your family history
• The history of women’s education
  Discover how our female ancestors fought for the right to learn
• Family hero
  Terry Sheppard‘s ancestors fought in the English and American Civil Wars
• Caribbean ancestry
  How to research Caribbean family history online

Read it free online through an Overdrive Magazines subscription by many Canadian public libraries including OPL.

The post How should LAC meet budget cuts? prompted an email pointing to the National Accounts. They are online from 1995 to 2022. In thousands of dollars, the graph shows the LAC expenditure trend year-by-year, adjusted for inflation using the Bank of Canada CPI tool.

In real terms over the whole period LAC has lost an average $766,000 each year. It’s not easy to explain the fluctuations as specially-funded initiatives come and go. Most notable is the decrease from 2009 to 2016, the final years of the Harper government and during the disasterous tenure of Daniel Caron as Librarian and Archivist from 2009 to 2013.

The Heritage portfolio which is dominated by culture and sport concerns. Heritage is the poor cousin, I’m told LAC is often an afterthought. Only when problems arise, such as access to information and indigenous documents is much attention paid by oversight bodies like the Auditor General and Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

 

Volume 55, No. 2 of this OGS Ottawa Branch publication is out. Feature articles are:

*Journals added to the OBOGS Library: March 1, 2023 –
June 30, 2023 – by Pam Cooper
*Journals Held at the OBOGS Library, Part 2: The Rest of Ontario and Quebec, and Other Provinces – by Pam Cooper
*Life on Gardner Street, Part 1 – by Noreen Tyers.
Gardner Street she describes as a neighbourhood in Eastview that was considered, not the wrong side of the track, but almost.

Regular columns are:
*Electronic Notebook, by Mike More
*Interesting Web Sites, by Heather Oakley
*Here, There & Everywhere, by Heather Oakley.

Branch members need to log on to read the issue online.

You don’t need to be a branch member to attend the season’s first monthly meeting, a presentation “Restorations of Biblical Proportions” by Kyla Ubbink on Saturday, 16 September 2023 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. Be their in person 100 Tallwood or online https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/

On 18 August, Ancestry updated their Index to Find a Grave version to contain 233,352,264 records. That’s a median increase of 3.5%. Increases range from 54% for Sweden to 0. 78% for the US which represents three-quarters of the total entries.

Area	Records Aug 2023	Records May 2023
US	174,219,998	172,857,217
UK and Ireland	18,201,134	16,712,454*
Global	15,090,205	14,604,632
Australia and New Zealand	11,297,318	11,044,654
Canada	9,808,392	9,646,273
Germany	2,822,677	2,520,011
Sweden	1,110,094	719,305
Italy	329,383	318,700
Norway	220,413	216,182*
Brazil	186,642	165,727
Mexico	66,008	62,956

The previous figures for UK and Ireland and Norway are for the prior March 2023 update.

The actual Find A Grave site has additional entries.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission describes the played the major role Canadian Forces played in the First World War-winning Hundred Days Offensive.
https://www.cwgc.org/our-work/blog/canada-s-hundred-days-the-canadian-contribution-to-great-war-victory/

One project report progress among the Library and Archives Canada’s Co-Lab Challenges; 14 report no progress.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary is 27% complete, was 26% complete last month.

Expo67 remains 2 % complete.

Summiting Mount Logan in 1925: Fred Lambart’s personal account of the treacherous climb and descent of the highest peak in Canada remains 13% complete.

Women in the War remains 1% complete.

Arthur Lismer’s Children’s Art Classes remains 0% complete.

John Freemont Smith remains 93% complete.

Canadian National Land Settlement Association remains 98% complete.

Molly Lamb Bobak remains 94% complete.

Diary of François-Hyacinthe Séguin remains 99% complete.

George Mully: moments in Indigenous communities remains 0% complete.

Correspondence regarding First Nations veterans returning after the First World War remains 99% complete.

Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 remains 96% complete.

Legendary Train Robber and Prison Escapee Bill Miner remains 99% complete.

Japanese-Canadians: Second World War remains 3% complete.

The Call to Duty: Canada’s Nursing Sisters remains 93% complete.

Projects that remain 100% complete are no longer reported here.

Other unidentified Co-Lab activities not part of the Challenges have seen progress. There are currently 3,718 items in Collection Search identified as Co-Lab only contributions, an increase from 3,710 last month.