Sunday Sundries

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Cheese-rolling, straw bears and weird rituals galore: one man’s mission to record all of British folklore

There are now 25 million people in the AncestryDNA database.

On Monday evening at 7 pm OGS Oxford Branch welcomes Glenn Wright presenting “Proudly She Served – Canadian Women at War – 1885-1945.” Registration for Zoom attendance at https://oxford.ogs.on.ca/

U of S restoration helps honour memory of those who served in First World War.

AN ARMISTICE DAY THOUGHT
(from the Ottawa Citizen, 11 November 1919)

The German warlords submitted to the Armistice terms of the Allies one year ago today. They submitted while their armies were still in invaded territory, though they were hastening back to Cermany as fast as transportation facilities could carry them. The supreme warlord hid himself in Holland. The militarist dictator, Ludendorff, retired as far as Norway

Ludendorff’s memoirs seem to confirm the opinion held by some Canadian soldiers that the German people never actually rose to the same height of sacrifice as the English people. At the end of the war, the people at home in the British Isles were facing the winter practically without domestic coal to carry them through. They had rationed themselves to the bone on food supplies. They did this to keep their allies from suffering any worse plight and to spare all the ships needed to bring American troops over. When the Canadian troops entered Germany, they were often surprised to see how well-fed the people looked. The world had been led to regard the German nation as starving, but the British nation starved itself to win the war.

Earlier in the same memorable year, 1918, when the British armies, including the Canadian Army Corps, were being driven back on the Channel Ports, Sir Douglas Haig gave the order to the men not to give way another yard but rather to give their lives where they stood. Does anyone doubt that the British would have fought on to the last against whatever careening force the Germans had come on with? Can anyone imagine Sir Douglas Haig taking refuge across the channel? There would have been no armistice day dictated by Germany as long as the man at the head of the British army remained alive.

This is a good day to remember, with gratitude, the spirit of the men of the British Isles—where the Military Service Act applied to men up to the age of 55, married and single alike—and of the men of Canada, who served overseas for years without the remote possibility of seeing home even for one week’s leave. There is no warmer admirer of the British “Tommy” than the Canadian-born soldier, and nowhere is the Canadian more highly regarded than in the Motherland.

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Barbara May Di Mambro, Brenda Turner, Christine Jackson, Ellen, gail benjafield, Glenn Wright., Gretchen W Maixner, Leslie Still, Lynne Willoughby, Marian B. Wood, Teresa, Unknown.

LAC – 2023-2027 Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy

On Thursday, November 2, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) tabled its 2023–2027 Departmental Sustainable Development Strategy (DSDS) to Parliament.

LAC is committed to the following goals:

  • Advance reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and take action on inequality
  • Reduce waste and transition to zero-emission vehicles
  • Take action on climate change and its impacts

    I  expected hoped to see digitization initiatives that would mean clients would have less need to travel to an LAC site for research. Sadly, there’s no large-scale digitization initiative. No digitization on demand initiative. The closest it gets is:

    “While documents pertaining to residential schools have already been digitized, the current initiative concentrates on digitizing and creating culturally appropriate descriptions of millions of pages of documents pertaining to day schools.”

Opportunity lost.

Remembrance Day

Today, Remembrance Day, we acknowledge the sacrifices made by those who have fought for the freedom and democracy we enjoy.

In these troubled times, we also reflect on the cost and consequences of war and the hope for peace and justice.

 

Findmypast Weekly Update

Britain, First World War Campaign Medals

This week sees a new transcript collection of British First World War Campaign Medals, containing 6,527,684 detail-rich records.

The information recorded is similar to that contained within the existing Medal Roll Index. However, you can expect to find additional details to enrich your understanding of military service.

As well as a name, rank and service number, you can expect to learn a disembarkation date (when they arrived in a theatre of war), a regiment or unit, and the theatre of war that they fought in. This information is provided in the form of a code, for example, 1 is Western Europe, 1A is France and Belgium, and 1B is Italy. For the full list of theatre of war codes, be sure to consult the extra information on the search page.

Many of these records also contain extra information such as battalion, previous service details, and whether they were demobilised or killed in action. As personnel are listed under the unit that they were serving with when they received the medal, you may find multiple records for the same person.

Cheshire, Macclesfield WW1 Hospital Records

If your ancestor recovered at Macclesfield Infirmary between 1914 and 1918, then their name may just appear within this set’s 1,880 transcriptions.

Each record is a transcription of an original hospital record, held at the Cheshire Archives. Although an initial is often used in place of a first name, knowing an ancestors’ service record will allow you to pinpoint them within this collection with ease.

From these records, you’ll learn a name, a birth year, an age, an event date and a place, as well as details like rank, service number, regiment and unit or corps.

You’ll usually be given an admission date, as well as the date and year that a person was discharged from the hospital. In some cases, the name and address of a relative or friend is also listed – this rich information may help you to build your family tree.

Crimean War casualties 1853-1856

Added this week are 5,893 new transcriptions, which cover the span of the war (1853 to 1856).

These records are an index of casualties from the conflict. You can expect to learn a full name, a date, soldier number, rank and regiment, as well as a description of the casualty and details of the action it was caused by.

 

Irish Lives Remembered Magazine

The latest issue of Irish Lives Remembered is now available, free to enjoy! Articles are:

Elizabeth Cowan – “Her Faithful Comrade and Lifelong Friend”: Sapphic Revolutionaries of Twentieth Century Ireland
Christopher Fitz-Simon interview – Golden Gate: the Lifelong Love of Mícheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards
Fiona Fitzsimons – Lily’s Lineage: the Savage Irish Ancestry of Paul O’Grady
Brigit McCone – Seeking Self: The Transcendental and Transgender Journey of Michael Dillon
Katharine Simms – Gay Gaels in the Middle Ages: Medieval Irish Attitudes to Homosexuality
Caitlin Bain – Preserving History: interview with Orla Egan, founder of Cork LGBT Archive
Donna Rutherford – Size Matters when working with DNA Matches!
Eamonn P. Kelly – Tobar na Molt: Aspects of solar religion in the cult of St. Íta
Film Reviews – Wilde Irish Biopics: Remembering Gay Irish Lives on Film

Regular columns:
Dear Genie – Our Genealogists help you with your research block
Heritage Highlight – Cork Public Museum
Emerald Roots Interview – Caitlin Bain, co-host of the official IFHC podcast
The Four Courts Press Book Review & Excerpt – Edith Somerville: a biography by Gifford Lewis (2005)
The Genealogical Publishing Company Book Excerpt – A Guide to Irish Churches and Graveyards by Brian Mitchell (1990)

Read Issue 60 Here

Ancestry adds UK, Officers’ Birth Certificates, Wills and Personal Papers, 1755-1908

This collection of 104,288 items contains documents used to legally prove the pension claims of deceased or disabled officers in the British Military between 1755 and 1908.

A search returns the Name, Birth Date, Event Type, Event Date, Event Place, and Relatives, plus a link to an image of the original. Some of that information is commonly missing.

There were 18 entries for the last name Little. At least six of those were for Thomas Little — variously Thomas Sargent Little (2), Thos. S. Little, Thomas Gargert Little, Thos. Dargent Little (2). The indexing is from various types of records — registers, certificates, and sworn statements- and appears to be done by AI.

Original data is from WO 42 from The National Archives (UK).

 

Fold3 free access

Access to the records on Fold3® will be free until 12 Nov 2023 at 11:59 p.m. MT. Registration required. After the free access period ends, you can only view records using a paid Fold3® membership (until the next free access period, whenever that is!)

Findmypast free access

Free access to Findmypast runs until 10:00 GMT on Monday 13 November. Almost all of Findmypast’s family tree hints, newspapers and records are free to access. The 1921 Census of England and Wales and Tree Search are not included. To view any excluded resources during the free access period, you’ll need a valid subscription.

MyHeritage adds England, Lancashire, Lytham St. Annes Burials

Here’s another instance of MyHeritage finding a municipal burial collection online, this one with 111,798 records, and adding it to their service for free access.
This collection contains burial records from Lytham Park Cemetery and Crematorium from the year 1928 onwards. Records typically include the name of the deceased, age at the time of death, date of burial and information about the burial.

If you find an entry of interest, the original charming book of remembrance is worth a look at https://www.remembrance-books.com/lytham/book-of-remembrance.html

MyHeritage PhotoDater™

It’s now available on the MyHeritage and Reimagine mobile apps and mobile web browsers, as well as laptops and desktops where it has been available since August.

PhotoDater™ is a MyHeritage exclusive free feature that uses AI technology to estimate when historical photos were taken.

 

WDYTYA Magazine November 2023

I’ve been forgetting about British genealogy magazines lately. There’s some catching up to do, starting with WDYTYA Magazine for November.

Two of the issue’s three feature articles are written by women, and two are about female ancestors.

Tracing Female Lines
Laura Berry, researcher for the Who Do You Think You Are? TV program, describes the techniques used in discovering the stories of the women in celebrities’ family trees.

Parish Heros
Chloe O’Shea explains the history of Online Parish Clerks projects, some thriving, some moribund, and highlights some of the more successful.

New Women
Jad Adams explores the lives of our female ancestors who broke down barriers at the end of the 19th century. The major impetus he attribites to the Elementary Education Act of 1870.

In other articles:

Focus On
Else Churchill shares her advice for finding and using
the varied records left by guilds and livery companies.

Best Websites
Jonathan Scott picks the best online gems to help you
take your family back to the 17th century.

Record MASTERCLASS
Phil Tomaselli explains how to use online Army Lists to
research the British Army officers in your family tree,

and much more include a section on resources for Cambridgshire, Huntingdonshire and the Isle of Ely.

Ancestry Opens Global Wartime Collection

Information is posted by Family Tree Magazine (UK) about opening wartime records for seven days. The link below to the UK site appears to work from Canada.

The offer allows users unlimited record views and searches. Featured collections include:

  • British Army World War I service records
  • Royal Navy registers of seamen
  • UK World War I Women’s Army Military Corps

Explore for free at Ancestry. For full terms & conditions for this Ancestry offer, click here.

UPDATE

The same access is now available from the Canadian Ancestry site at https://www.ancestry.ca/c/remembrance/. Here is the list of all of the records collections that are free: https://www.ancestry.ca/search/categories/ca_remembrance_2023/?o_iid=130986&o_lid=130986&o_sch=Web+Property

It appears the UK free access stays available after the Canadian closes,

https://childthemewp.com