If you frequent a library or archives often enough, you’ve likely experienced noticing some special resources. They may not be the most popular or most relevant to you, but somehow they stand out. At Library and Archives Canada one such for me was the British Naval Biographical Dictionary, 1849.

Now there’s a database on Ancestry, UK, British Naval Biographical Dictionary, 1849 with 9,807 records. It’s available to browse or search; the search has numerous fields. Would you like to know who sailed on the Beagle with Robery Fitzroy and Charles Darwin (not mentioned as he was not a naval officer)? You can search the name of the ship.

Records in the collection are in a narrative format and the information may include:

Name
Title
Rank
Birth date
Enlistment date and place
Names of vessels
Lists of military promotions
Employment history
Accounts of military expeditions
Name of their commanding officer
Names and relationships of family members,

You don’t need Ancestry for this as the full text is on the Internet Archive here.

You may not want an ancestor to appear in this small collection, 12,214 records, obtained via the West Midlands Police Museum, which covers England and Wales, not just the West Midlands. If you do find someone you’ll know a lot more about them that typical for those who “kept their nose clean.”
Here’s an example of an original entry.

The first column is a reference to a photograph of the individual, collected in a rogues gallery on a page near the entry.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

English dialects make themselves heard in genes

Trudeau erasing Canadian history to achieve his post-national vision

Global warming is changing Canada’s boreal forest and tundra

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Brenda Turner, gail benjafield, Glenn Wright, Grace, Ken McKinlay, Michael Penzer, Nick Mcdonald, Sunday Thompson, Teresa, Unknown.

Gov. Gen. Mary Simon announced 85 appointments to the Order of Canada on Friday, including three companions, 22 officers and 60 members.

No genealogists this time, three of the appointees had mention of history in the citation.

Sarah Alexandra Carter, C.M.
Edmonton, Alberta
For her pioneering work on Indigenous history and women’s history in Western Canada, as a distinguished scholar, professor and mentor.

Beverly Janet Lemire, C.M.
Edmonton, Alberta
For her significant contributions to the study of material culture, notably through her seminal scholarship on the history of textiles.

Norman Kiyomitsu Takeuchi, C.M.
Ottawa, Ontario
For his enduring commitment to honouring, preserving and sharing the history and heritage of Japanese Canadians.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has published its semi-annual progress report documenting its efforts on access to information and privacy (ATIP).

The report is largely on the process, not much on what has been achieved for the client.

A newly created ATIP Branch consists of over 180 employees, compared to approximately 40 employees working on the same tasks 18 months ago.

It was shocking to read that only two employees were working on Canadian Armed Forces Personnel Records requests a year ago in the National Capital Region resulting in a huge backlog with the resulting damage to LAC’s reputation. Now 27 employees are actively addressing this backlog.

The document does mention that LAC saw a decrease of 12.5 percent in its overall number of active complaints. Also “Since February 2023, LAC has used this new process to review records related to 66 client requests. Of those requests, 25 have been closed (approximately 12,000 pages); in the past, LAC would have consulted on all 12,000 pages. The new process enables LAC to make informed decisions regarding the disclosure and/or release of 11,000 pages and consultation on only 1,000 pages (a reduction of nearly 92 percent). Prior to the introduction of the new process, the average extension on these types of records would have been 225 days, and it may have taken longer due to delays at OGDs. LAC was able to close the majority of these 25 cases within 45 days.”

Will LAC actually disclose how many ATIP requests are pending of the various types? How many are delivered within legislated timelines? How many are overdue and by how long? How many were delivered to the client satisfaction? How many where abandoned? These types of KPIs are needed to demonstrate if the promising initiatives mentioned actually improve service.

Findmypast doesn’t claim to be a leader when it comes to Canadian records. As if to prove it, a browse collection of the 1931 census has been added this week. That’s the same as available from Library and Archives Canada since the start of the month.

Also added this week is a book “Notes on Duels and Duelling (1855) which recorded almost 2,000 duels and challenges that took place in England, Ireland, the United States, as well some in Scotland and France. To bring Sabine’s research to life, we’ve made each entry fully searchable.” I didn’t find the search helpful. If you’re interested in the content I suggest skipping FMP and doing directly to a searchable version from Google at
https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=03E-AQAAMAAJ&pg=GBS.PP4&hl=en

MyHeritage is offering free access to all their Canadian records from June 29 to July 2, 2023! That includes 103,662,055 records — immigration documents, military records, census data, newspapers and more.

The 42 additions to Canadiana Serials this month are, as in the past, many mercifully short annual reports and the like. The four items listed below include a couple of directories, and one sample almanac.

The fourth is three volumes of Canadian criminal cases annotated, for 1998 to 1900. It’s “A Series of Reports of Important Declsions in Criminal and Quasi-
Criminal Cases in Canada under the Laws of the Dominion and of the Provinces thereof, with special reference to Decisions under the Criminal Code of Canada, 1892, Tn al the Provinces; with Annotations, a Table of Cases Cited
and a Digest of the Principal Matters.”
Nearly 700 pages each, it you like true crime it’s here.

United Kingdom, Royal Air Force Personnel
This collection contains 446,493 indexes to service records of the RAF, during World War I and between the years 1914 and 1928. Index records typically include the name of the person, date of birth, date of enlistment, and the service period.

The content in this collection originates from The National Archives and each index entry has a link to order the full record from TNA.

New to Ancestry on 27 June 2023:

Scotland, Postal Directories, 1825-1910,
These 20,083,919 transcription records (OCRd) are for major towns, some counties and a few specialist directories. They include links to the published page. Entries may include Name, Occupation, Street Address, Town. Year, and may also occasionally include: Employer Name, Employer Address, Occupation Title, Names of Coworkers.

Check out this WDYTYA Magazine article for further background and alternative sources.

Updated collections as of 27 June are

Prince Edward Island, Canada, Baptisms, Marriages, Burials, 1780-1982, 320,239 records

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Manifests of Chinese Arrivals, 1906-1912, 1929-1941, 28,508 records

1939 England and Wales Register, 45,915,113 records

Warrington, Cheshire, midway and a bit south of the M62, on a line from Liverpool to Manchester, has 116,092 records in this burial collection new to MyHeritage. The transcription records typically include the name of the deceased, date of death, age at death, date and place of burial.  Often named are others buried in the same plot.

Included are 40,477 burials at Warrington cemetery, which opened on 26 March 1857. It’s the burial place of George Formby (George Hoy Booth) who died in 1961.

The small Burtonwood Cemetery dates from 1901. It has 5 CWGC burials.

Hollinfare Cemetery, also known as Hollins Green Cemetery, dates from 1894. Just 2,317 burials are included in the MyHeritage database including 6 CWGC burials.

Fox Covert Cemetery has 9,616 burials dating from 1961.

The lion’s share of the database entries, 60,927, are for Walton Lea Crematorium, opened in 1964.