Anglo-Celtic Connections

Here are the UK newspapers.com additions in the past month.

Newspaper	Change	Place	Pages	Years
Evening Standard	Updated	London, Greater London, England	2,365,163	1897–2022
The Guardian	Updated	London, Greater London, England	1,106,085	1821–2022
Leicester Mercury	Updated	Leicester, Leicestershire, England	710,195	1919–1996
Derby Evening Telegraph	Updated	Derby, Derbyshire, England	633,221	1933–1990
Herald Express	Updated	Torquay, Devon, England	560,430	1940–1999
Bristol Evening Post	Updated	Bristol, Avon, England	132,464	1939–1965
The Hinckley Times	Updated	Hinckley, Leicestershire, England	104,211	1925–1999
Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph	Updated	Scunthorpe, Humberside, England	103,842	1939–1999
Derby Daily Telegraph	Updated	Derby, Derbyshire, England	74,853	1881–1932
Walton and Weybridge Informer	Updated	Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England	37,806	1986–1995
Stanmore Observer	Updated	Harrow, London, England	37,332	1987–1994
The Ormskirk Advertiser, etc.	Updated	Ormskirk, Lancashire, England	36,633	1855–1995
Surrey Herald	Updated	Chertsey, Surrey, England	33,494	1986–1995
Horley Mirror: Incorporating Horley Advertiser and County Post	Updated	Horley, Surrey, England	21,523	1986–1995
Hertfordshire Mercury	Updated	Hertford, Hertfordshire, England	21,041	1991–1994
The Advertiser	Updated	Eccles, Greater Manchester, England	20,945	1987–1995
Belper Express	Updated	Belper, Derbyshire, England	20,750	1989–1996
Burntwood Mercury	Updated	Burntwood, Staffordshire, England	19,467	1990–1995
Surrey Mirror	Updated	Reigate, Surrey, England	18,708	1986–1995
Wellingborough and Rushden Herald and Post	Updated	Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England	17,603	1989–1995
The Harrow and Northwood Informer	Updated	Harrow, London, England	13,535	1986–1994
Evening Post	Updated	Bristol, Avon, England	10,715	1958–1999
The Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial and General Advertiser	Updated	Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England	10,086	1854–1881
Horncastle Target	Updated	Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England	8,678	1991–1994
Manchester Metro News	New	Manchester, Greater Manchester, England	7,941	1993–1994
Stockton and District Herald and Post	Updated	Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England	7,769	1992–1994
Blairgowrie Advisor and East Perthshire News-Rewview	Updated	Blairgowrie, Tayside, Scotland	7,401	1879-1994
Neath Guardian	Updated	Neath, Wales	5,489	1990-1994
Stanmore, Edgware Observer	New	Harrow, London, England	4,914	1994–1995
Axholme Herald	New	Epworth, Humberside, England	713	1992–1999
Oadby and Wigston News: Incorporating the ‘Oadby and Wigston Advertiser’	New	Oadby, Leicestershire, England	256	1984–1985
Loughborough News	New	Loughborough, Leicestershire, England	248	1984–1985
Leicester Advertiser	New	Leicester, Leicestershire, England	144	1984–1985

There were no additions for Ireland.

For Canada, The Abbotsford News was updated so there are now 126,033 pages for 1977–2008. There were also additions for several current paper’s issues for recent months.

On 7-8 October 2002, the National Library of Canada, the forerunner of Library and Archives Canada, held an event, “Canadian Newspapers Online: A National Consultation,” in the Auditorium at 395 Wellington Street.

What happened as a result? Twenty years of LAC inaction speak for themselves.

Here, for the record, is the agenda for that event, the last time LAC did anything along the lines of its supposed leadership role within the Decentralized Plan for Canadian Newspapers.

 

Several resources mentioned during the recent BIFHSGO conference are new to me.  The Underground Map was one. It’s not the familiar map of “The Tube.”

“The Underground Map is a project which is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying inside the M25.

In a series of maps from the 1750s until the 1950s, you can see how London grew from a city which only reached as far as Park Lane into the post war megapolis we know today. There are now over 85,000 articles on all variety of locations including roads, houses, schools, pubs and palaces.”

It’s a BIG project and there’s certainly no guarantee you’ll find a history for a street in your family history. I didn’t have much luck finding a history for streets of my interest although there were places nearby.

https://www.theundergroundmap.com/

 

Here are the new items “on the horizon” this month from Ancestry for the UK.

Post Mortem Examinations and Case Books

UK, British Air Force Lists, 1919-1945

Ireland, Royal College of Physicians Registers, 1667-1920

St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812

UK, World War II Photographs, 1939-1945

UK, World War II Records and Material, 1939-1945.

There will also be an update of UK, World War II Alien Internees, 1939-1945.

In the long international list is Niagara, Ontario, Canada, Niagara Indexes, 1783-1977.

 

On Tuesday, 4 October Ottawa’s Public Library Board announced that Sonia Bebbington will be the new CEO of OPL, effective 31 October.

Previously Director-General for Information and Document Resource Services of the Library of Parliament, she has a Master of Library & Information Science degree from The University of Western Ontario, Master of Arts in English Language and Literature/Letters from the University of Waterloo, and Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature/Letters from The University of Western Ontario.

 

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/

Tuesday 4 October, 2 pm: OGS Ottawa Branch Virtual Genealogy Drop-in.
https://meet.google.com/nvz-kftj-dax

Tuesday 4 October, 7:30 pm: Stop the Presses: Historic Newspaper Collections. by Jennifer Weymark for Durham Region Branch OGS. 
https://ogs.on.ca/events/durham-branch-october-4th-meeting-stop-the-presses-historic-newspaper-collections/

Tuesday 4 October,  9 pm: Encounters – Our Immigrant Ancestors (19th and 20th-century sources for arrival in New Zealand), by Fiona Brooker for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/encounters-our-immigrant-ancestors/

Wednesday 5 October, 2 pm: One Man, Multiple Names: A DNA-Based Case Study, by Dana Leeds for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/one-man-multiple-names-a-dna-based-case-study/

Wednesday 5 October, 7:30 pm: Court Records in Huron, by Sinead Cox for Huron County Branch OGS.
https://huron.ogs.on.ca/events/huron-branch-sinead-cox-court-records-in-huron/

Friday 7 October, 11:30 am: When Wrong is Actually Right: Constructing Proof Arguments for Counterintuitive Conflicts (a 2022 Reisinger lecture), by Meryl Schumacker for the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/when-wrong-is-actually-right-constructing-proof-arguments-for-counterintuitive-conflicts/

Friday 7 October, Peeling the Onion: Getting to the Original Sources (a 2022 Reisinger lecture), by Gary Ball-Kilbourne for for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/peeling-the-onion-getting-to-the-original-sources/

Friday 7 October, 2 pm: The Hub of the Wheel: How Tracing a Brother with no Children Connected Ten Siblings (a 2022 Reisinger lecture) by Mary Kircher Roddy for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/the-hub-of-the-wheel-how-tracing-a-brother-with-no-children-connected-ten-siblings/

Friday 7 October, 4 pm: Consult via…Explore with…Discover through…Literature Reviews (a 2022 Reisinger lecture) by Jan Joyce for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/consult-viaexplore-withdiscover-throughliterature-reviews/

Friday 7 October, 5:15 pm: Finding Henrietta: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence to Reveal a Woman’s Identity (a 2022 Reisinger lecture), by Nicole Gilkison LaRue for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/finding-henrietta-reconciling-conflicting-evidence-to-reveal-a-womans-identity/

Friday 7 October, 6:30 pm: Hidden Stories: Using Analysis to Explore the Unexpected in Family History (a 2022 Reisinger lecture). by Jennifer Zinck for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/hidden-stories-using-analysis-to-explore-the-unexpected-in-family-history/

Saturday 8 October, 9 am: From Derry to the Pontiac – A Publishing Journey, by Nancy Conroy for BIFHSGO (hybrid)
Saturday 8 October, 10 am: Alfred Guidal and his land occupancy maps of Ontario, by Bruce Elliott for BIFHSGO (hybrid)
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

 

How successful is commercial DNA testing in resolving British & Irish cases of unknown parentage? by Maurice Gleeson, Donna Rutherford, John Cleary, Michelle Leonard.

This study is the first to characterise the type of people trying to resolve unknown parentage cases in the UK and Ireland, and how successful their efforts are, using commercial DTC (direct-to-consumer) DNA tests.

Writing That Is Not Written: Clues, the Unconscious, the Indirect, and Traces; What Genealogy Can Learn from Microhistory. by Stephen B. Hatton

The article lists six characteristics of microhistory and argues that genealogy is not microhistory though the two share a focus on small scale groups or people.

The journal home page is: https://www.qualifiedgenealogists.org/ojs/index.php/JGFH

A British Library blog post The Haldimand Papers: The British Empire in North America makes for instructive reading.

“Whereas colonials sought to expand their settlements westward beyond the Appalachian Mountains at the expense of the Indigenous societies, British army officers strove to preserve Native lands for Native people. The reasons for this sentiment shifted over time, but it was a surprisingly consistent policy goal from the 1750s onward.”

The Haldiman Papers are online on 48 reels at Canadiana Heritage.

Rare is such a significant resource found.

It’s a large cache of unexplored records — tens of thousands of military personnel files, the majority of which deal with Canadian military service during the Great War. To be clear, these are not the “CEF Service Documents” that Library and Archives Canada (LAC) now has online under the title “Personnel Records of the First World War.”

Would you be particularly interested in a nursing sister who served?

If so, you’ll be delighted to learn of the article Hidden in Plain Sight: The Militia and Defence Headquarters Personnel File Series, 1903 to 1938, by Paul Marsden and Glenn Wright, published in Canadian Military History, Vol 31, No 2 (2022).

Many of the records are available as online images at Canadiana Heritage, and a large number have been name indexed and included in Collection Search on the Library and Archives Canada website. That’s particularly the case for the nursing sisters, except those with surname O and P whose records were lost. The search result will provide the microfilm number on Heritage and the range of images for that person.

If familiar with old microfilm records — and these files were filmed in 1948-49 — you won’t be surprised to “encounter pages which are all white or all black or documents which appear to have been moving when filmed. Occasionally, you will find a corrected image a couple of pages later, but that is the exception. With some effort and image editing software, we were able to make many of the illegible pages legible. Patience is a necessary virtue in using some of these files.”

The nursing sisters are just the tip of the iceberg. Over six thousand files are indexed; many more remain unindexed. Aside from First World War nurses, there are 626 files relating to members of the Canadians contingents and the South African Constabulary in the South African War.

 

 

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Italian cyclist Michael Guerra uses his knowledge of physics and aerodynamics to adopt a “plank” position and overtake his competitors. pic.twitter.com/EsRt16l2PT

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) September 27, 2022

Not the original words, what they should have been.

Unusual Holidays and Places to Stay in the UK

Polish Pilots and the Battle of Britain

Toronto Public Library Online Ontario Resources
Without a lot of fanfare, a bit more would be helpful, Digital Archive Ontario from the Toronto Public Library continues to be updated — including over 100,000 historical photos, maps, postcards & more from across Ontario

“Diaries were kept by units at all levels, from battalions to entire military branches. The format of the diaries vary, but generally include regular entries that provide information about the activities of a unit. Some diaries offer more narrative detail than others. Notes about new instructions and troop movements, assessments of troop strength, and requests for reinforcements are common diary entry topics.

Records in this collection may include the following information:

Commanding officer’s name and rank
Regiment or unit
Division
Diary entry date
Diary entry location”

The diaries included are:

British Forces, Middle East. 01 April 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 August 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 December 1940 – 31 July 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 December 1941 – 31 December 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 February 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1941 – 30 September 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1942 – 30 November 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1942 – 30 September 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1942 – 31 January 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 July 1940 – 28 February 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 July 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 June 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 March 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 May 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 November 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 October 1939 – 31 December 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 October 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 September 1942 – 31 December 1942
War Office: Army Medical Services: 149th Field Ambulance RAMC

October is Canadian Library Month when libraries and library partners across Canada raise awareness of the valuable role libraries play in Canadians’ lives.

The Ottawa Public Library is taking an approach focused on misinformation (if I’m not misinformed!)