Anglo-Celtic Connections

If you registered for the BIFHSGO conference, the end of the month is the last time you can access the presentation recordings and handouts. Don’t miss the last opportunity.

Canada, McGill University Honour Roll, 1914-1918
The 3,078 entries list graduates and students from McGill who died due to service and those who served.  Many of the entries include photographs. The source is a publication available in original form from the Internet Archive.

Not at Findmypast but available at http://www.archives.mcgill.ca/public/exhibits/mcgillremembers/search.htm is a collection of index cards documenting the involvement of McGill faculty, students, alumni, and staff in the war effort (1939-1945).

Historical Society Of Pennsylvania, Births & Baptisms
Over 20,000 births and baptisms have been added to this collection from Indiana County.

Also, the regular updates to the British Newspaper Archive, available through Findmypast, will be included in the end of month update.

There’s 20% off subscriptions or upgrades to Findmypast until the end of the month.

If your family tree includes burials at Broadwater or Durrington Cemeteries in Worthing, Sussex, England, check out the 46,594 records in this MyHeritage collection from the year 1908 onwards.

Records include the name of the deceased, date and place of burial, and may include the year of birth and date of death.

Broadwater Cemetery, which is closed to further burials, includes 81 interments under the care of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, including two who served with Canadian forces.

Durrington Cemetery, which mostly dates from 1928, has 60 CWGC burials.

The Adur and Worthing Council provide a free website with the same information with that for the past 10 years withheld.

On Thursday, there were over 120 thousand additions to the deceasedonline.com collection:
Merridale Cemetery, 115,530 records from 1850 to 1993
Danescourt Cemetery, 4,628 records from 1959 to 1989
Beacon Hill Cemetery, 4,470 records from 1960 to 1992

The records comprise digital scans of the full burial and cremation registers up to 1989 and a mix of grave and index register scans thereafter, section maps showing the location of the grave for most records, and grave details for each of the graves and their occupants.

Merridale is called Wolverhampton Borough Cemetery in the CWGC records and has military war 200 burials, one Canadian.

Other records for the area coming soon to Deceased Online are

Bilston Cemetery, 64,600 records from 1855 to 1993
Bushbury Cemetery, 19,973 records from 1949 to 1994
Bushbury Crematorium, 75,023 records from 1954 to 1988

 

This MyHeritage addition contains British transportation registers which cover the full period of convict transportation to Australian territories from 1787 to 1867. Records for 123,888 convicts typically include the name of the prisoner, date of transportation, the ship’s name, and the date and place of conviction, if available.

The transcripts are sourced from the Digital Panopticon that links UK and Australian records, including for later periods.

The findings in the article Where Do Cultural Tastes Come From? Genes, Environments, or Experiences in the journal Sociological Science are:

“family background explains more than half of the total variance in cultural tastes and participation and in omnivorousness. Moreover, family background operates mainly via shared genes, with shared environments shaping cultural tastes to some extent, but not cultural participation.”

“MZ (monozygotic) twins are more similar than DZ (dizygotic) twins are with regard to cultural tastes, participation, and omnivorousness in music and reading.”

It’s the time of year again when those responsible for assembling society meetings look at blank spaces in their calendars. Who has a presentation topic that would appeal to the membership and is a good knowledgeable speaker?  Undiscovered talent is particularly welcome; so is the tried and true. Your presentation proposal could make the meeting organizer’s day!

ConferenceKeeper.org has a section for societies seeking speakers, some of them ongoing.

Kim Barnsdale for OGS/Ontario Ancestors is currently leading their process, accepting proposals for their monthly 2023 Webinar Series. Live webinars take place on the first Thursday of the month at 7pm ET using the Zoom platform.

Topics of Interest 
Proposals on a wide range of topics are sought. The top subjects from the 2023 Webinar Topic Survey are:

Land Records
Immigration
Genetic Genealogy
Research in Ancestor’s; County of Origin
Technology &Tools
Comparison of Genealogy Websites

Selected speakers need to be prepared to provide Ontario and/or Canadian specific examples in  their presentations as applicable.

Submissions
Speakers may submit up to 3 proposals for consideration. All submissions will be reviewed but only those who are chosen will be contacted. All submissions will be reviewed and only those who are selected will be contacted by December 1, 2022.   If you have any questions, please contact: Kim Barnsdale at webinar@ogs.on.ca

To submit your proposal please follow this link: https://ogs.on.ca/webinar-submissions/ DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS:  November 18, 2022 at 11:59pm ET

Compensation 
Those chosen speakers will receive an honorarium for their webinar presentation.

This bar chart shows the annual daily average Wikipedia page views for Genealogy since 2016. There was a gradual increase from 2016 to 2019, then a hit in 2020 and 2021, with a rebound in 2022 (so far).

I’ve more questions than answers! Was the initial increase due to more resources coming online, with genealogy a COVID-19 victim? 

In 2019 there were two days with more than 1,000-page counts, 16-17 October 2019. The only other days since 2017 with more than 1,000 visits were 15 February and 19 October 2017. What accounts for the peaks?

Rootstech in London, the best genealogy show I ever attended, came shortly after the October peak. Is there a link? Online genealogy resources were enhanced during the pandemic, with free access to Ancestry through many public libraries, and relaxation of other price barriers. In-person meetings could not be held. Could that lack of in-person events account for the dip, and the recovery, or some of it?

These statistics were produced using Search Gizmos by the amazing Tara Calishain of Research Buzz, one of my daily go to resources.

There are now 34,223,183 records in this updated collection from the Institut Généalogique Drouin via Ancestry. That’s up from 29,376,363 in July, when over 6 million were added.
Although the collection is largely for Catholic parishes, a large number of other denominations, even Jewish records, are included. Sadly there’s no mention of what has been added in this latest update.

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. Many additional events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/

Mardi 25 Octobre, 8 am: Confirmer les Smart Matches et Record Matches sur MyHeritage, par Elisabeth Zetland pour Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Confirmer les Smart Matches et Record Matches sur MyHeritage

Tuesday 25 October, 2:30 pm: The Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692: History and Sources, by John Beatty for Allen Country Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/7249198

Tuesday 25 October, 7 pm: Proudly She Served: Canadian Women at War, 1885-1945, by Glenn Wright for OGS Wellington County.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qd-qtrDMqEtU2IIZo92yHP7cV18dCXTvY

Tuesday 25 October, 7 pm: Performing Scottish Identity: the St Andrew’s Society of Montreal Ball, 1871-present, by Gillian Leach for the Ottawa Historical Association.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/performing-scottish-identity-the-st-andrews-society-of-montreal-ball-tickets-443870768417

Tuesday 25 October, 7 pm: How to Set Up a One-Name Study, by Fraser Dunford for OGS Kawartha Branch.
https://kawartha.ogs.on.ca/events1/dr-fraser-dunford-sources-of-free-english-and-welsh-genealogy-online-presentation-3/

Wednesday 26 October, 7 pm: Jimmy Carter: Chalk River and Beyond, by Arthur Milnes for the Historical Society of Ottawa.
https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/70/16,17,19,21/jimmy-carter-chalk-river-and-beyond 

Wednesday 26 October, 8 pm: Structuring a Family History – class 1 of 4, by Carol Baxter for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/structuring-a-family-history-class-1-of-4/

Thursday 27 October, 6:30 pm: What does that say? Deciphering Handwriting in Genealogical Documents, by Elizabeth Hodges for Allen Country Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/7249200

Thursday 27 October, 7 pm: How do they do it? Military historians discuss the evolution of research for the Canadian War Museum.
https://www.warmuseum.ca/event/research-revelations-20-years-of-scholarship/

Friday 28 October, 2 pm: Older Than Us: The Elders of the Trask 250, by Nicka Smith for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/older-than-us-the-elders-of-the-trask-250/

Saturday 29 October, 9 am: Writing and Publishing: The October Free Webinar Conference, by Carol Baxter for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/conference/

 

 

Digital Books
Helen Osborn reveals the essential free online reference
books; It starts with the half-million books at FamilySearch. Then the Internet Archives, Google Books, HathiTrust, jstor.org/ Moving on to the British Records Society, British History Online, and more.
Birth Certificates
WDYTYA? Magazine editor Sarah Williams shares her expert tips for saving both time and money when researching births in England and Wales
Soccer Story
As England hosts the Rugby League World Cup from
15 October, James Hoare revisits the sport’s origins
Focus On
Family historians shouldn’t overlook records of the Militia, and many have been digitized and are now available online, as Phil Tomaselli explains.
Best Websites
Jonathan Scott recommends sites where you can search
vast collections of historic audio and video recordings
Record Masterclass
Legal historian Rebecca Probert shares the secrets of
the clandestine irregular marriages of the 18th century
TechTips
Nick Peers reveals how to search, view and download
Australian newspapers using the free website Trove
Around Britain
Jonathan Scott explores the resources available if your
ancestors lived in the historic county of Gloucestershire
Gem From The Archive
Mark Pitchforth, assistant archivist at the History of
Advertising Trust at hatads shares an album of advertisements from Victorian and Edwardian magazines.

As always, there’s lots more.

Finally, and news to me, is that Tony Robinson is hosting a new programme, “Museum of Us,” where an expert team helps groups of residents explore their own street’s history as they unearth surprising stories and hidden treasures. The first episode, which aired in the UK on Monday on More4,  is about Bristol and the residents of Hebron Road who discover links to the chocolate and tobacco industries.  Other episodes will be on Birmingham, Aberystwyth, and Norwich.

 

Glenn Wright will present Proudly She Served: Canadian Women at War, 1885-1945 for Wellington County Branch of OGS at 7 pm on Tuesday evening.

Many women assisted and then served with our military forces from the War of 1812 through the Second World War. Glenn will discuss who these women were as well as the roles they played and the contributions they made. Wellington County examples will be included along with some unique research sources.

This event will be held virtually. Go to https://wellington.ogs.on.ca/upcoming-events/ for further details and to register (free).