Anglo-Celtic Connections

The AGM, delayed owing to a procedural error, took place on Zoom on Monday, 29 June 2026.

The OGS financial statement shows a significant recovery, narrowing the net annual deficiency from $56,107 down to $21,014. While a drop in income from membership fees and the conference reduced overall revenue, major operational cost-cutting in facility and office expenses, combined with surging donations and bequests, stabilized the society’s financial position.

Declining membership fee revenue (6%) and a lack of local volunteers, as reflected in the permanent closures of the Bruce & Grey and Waterloo Virtual branches, leave the Society wrestling with chronic challenges. OGS isn’t alone.

As OGS has $1,689,601 remaining in unrestricted net assets, it has an immense financial cushion to sustain operations, fund digital transitions, website revamps, and regional resource archiving for decades to come.

Awards announced at the AGM were:

Best Branch/SIG Websites
Best Bricks & Mortar Website
– Wellington County Branch, Webmaster Graham Burt
Honourable Mention – Ottawa Branch,
Webmaster Charles Godwin

                                               Best Virtual Website
– British Home Children Special Interest Group,
Webmaster Axina Tuerxun
Honourable Mention – Eastern Europe SIG
Webmasters Elaine Obreza and Eva Kujawa

Dr. Don Brearley Newsletter Awards
Best Branch/SIG Newsletter – Bricks & Mortar –
London & Middlesex Branch (Editor:  Brenda Vouvalidis)
Honourable Mention – Huron Branch (Editor: Kim Cooke);
Ottawa Branch (Editor:  Tyler Owens)

OGS Award of Merit – Grenville County Historical Society for its newspaper digitization project.

Citation of Recognition Awards

• Grace Lewis, Ottawa Branch
• Charles Godwin, Ottawa Branch
• Pat Brewer, Ottawa Branch
• Phyllis Embury Chapman, Irish Palatine Special Interest Group
• Bill Cookman, Kingston Branch
• Patti Mordasewicz, Leeds & Grenville Branch

Robert Crawford Community Service Award – Corrine Cline, Huron County Branch

The July OGS webinar, rescheduled owing to technical difficulties, is being streamed live this evening, 9 July at 7 PM EDT.

If you lose sleep over copyright, Andrea Lister aims to help with her presentation Permissions Made Simple: Copyright for Family Historians.

Find out more, and register for the free webinar, at https://ogs.on.ca/events/july-webinar-permissions-made-simple-copyright-for-family-historians-andrea-lister-2/

• June 2026 – ATIP action plan progress report
  In the past year there has been an increase in the number of ATIP requests for all three types or record: Military – former Canadian Armed Forces members and former public servants; GOC – Government of Canada archival records; and LAC – LAC operational records.

  Received during the reporting period	Military	GOC	LAC
  January 1 to March 31, 2026	2,687	1,213	32
  October 1 to December 31, 2025	2,965	545	10
  July 1 to September 30, 2025	1,717	657	20
  April 1 to June 30, 2025	1,750	586	13

  Despite this, the number of late responses (beyond the legislated timeframe) is significantly reduced from a year earlier. LAC’s focus on reducing the military backlog is evident. As of 31 March, there are more late Government of Canada archival records (2,186) than late military records (1,078).

• Co-Lab
  There are now 3,413 results found in LAC Collection Search as Co-Lab.  only. There appears to be no way to determine how many are recent additions. Sorting by most recent, the top five are:

1. Canadian Recording Artists [philatelic record] = Artistes canadiens de la chanson
2, Year of the tiger [philatelic record] = Année du tigre = [Title in Chinese characters]
3. Happy Thanksgiving Your Majesty!
4. THE LAW – LATIMER CASE
5. You are not gay! You are not!/ — Talk some sense into him!!!

• LAC Organization Chart
  Who’s Who at LAC? Keeping up with personnel movements can be a challenge. Here’s the top level of the organization.

Office of the Librarian and Archivist of Canada

• Librarian and Archivist of Canada – Leslie Weir
• Chief of Staff – Marilyne Lafortune
• Director, International Affairs and Stakeholder Relations – Francesco Manganiello

Collections Sector

• Assistant Deputy Minister – Jennifer Schofield
  • Director General, Government Record – Roxane Lafrenière
    • Director, Ministerial and Government Archives – Sarah Cook
    • Director, Government Records Initiatives & Services – Julie Bibaud
  • Director General, Private Archives and Published Heritage – Karen Linauskas
    • Director, Published Heritage – Julie Anne Richardson
    • Director, Private Archives – Sandy Ramos
    • Director, Coordination, Standards & Collections Systems – Rebecca Giesbrecht
  • Director General, Access to Information and Privacy – Kristina Lillico
    • Director, ATIP Requests – Georges Fattouche (acting)
    • Director, ATIP Strategy, Systems and Privacy – Boris Stipernitz

User Experience Sector

• Assistant Deputy Minister – Jasmine Bouchard
  • Director General, Digital Discovery and Access – Julie-Anne Lemire
    • Director, Digitization Services – Sophie Dazé
    • Director, Online Experience – Tina Grznar
    • Director, Research Support – Andrew Ross
  • Director General, Communications and Policy – Lisa Tremblay-Goodyer
    • Director, Communications – Zeina Harb
    • Director, Policy and Strategic Support – Marie-Mai Tourangeau
  • Director General, Visitor and Collection Care – Maryse Laflamme
    • Director, Programs – Gary Goodacre
    • Director, Client Services – Meghan Laidlaw (acting)
    • Director, Collections Management – Jean-Michel Smith

Corporate Services Sector

• Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer – Nancy Taillon
  • Director, Corporate Accountability, Results and Integration – Shélie Laforest
  • Strategic Advisor – Mireille Miniggio
  • Director General, Real Property – Jean Deschamps
    • Director, Special Projects – Mario Gasperetti
  • Director General, Financial Services, Procurement and Deputy Chief Financial Officer – Julie Charbonneau
  • Director General, Human Resources and Security Branch and Chief Security Officer – Jonathan Salois
  • Director, Workplace Management and Security – Marc Leduc

Digital Services Sector

• Chief Information Officer and Chief Data Officer, and Senior Director General, Digital Services – Wanito Bernadin
  • Director, Solutions, IT Solutions – Simon Pageot
  • Director, Operations, Infrastructure and IT Security – Patrick Lajoie
  • Director, Digital Collections Operations – Kyle Browness
  • Director, Innovation, Project & Data Management – Sylvain J. Richard

 

Sourced from Shropshire Archives, these records are from the property survey conducted between 1910 and 1915 under the Finance Act 1910, known as the Lloyd George Valuation.

The index gives you:
Name of occupier
Name of owner
Parish

The original linked record image adds more: the property’s description and street address, its value, acreage, number of buildings and machinery, fruit trees and timber, and the value of agricultural land; helpful for understanding an ancestor’s property and livelihood.

If a property isn’t where you expect, try searching nearby civil parishes whose names fall earlier in the alphabet, since that’s how tax parishes were grouped.

Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—please check the links to avoid disappointment. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/

Tuesday, 7 July

2:00 PM: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, for OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/virtual-genealogy-drop-in-2-2026-07-07/

2:30 PM: Finding Your Family’s Story at the Genealogy Center, by Elizabeth Hodges from Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/16750085

Wednesday, 8 July

2:00 PM: Only A Date? Five Things You May Be Missing in Kentucky and Virginia Marriages, by Gail Jackson Miller for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

Thursday, 9 July

Friday, 10 July

2:00 PM: Researching in Warwickshire, by Donna Rutherford for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/researching-in-warwickshire

Saturday, 11 July

Here’s what’s new at Findmypast for the week ending 3 July.

Philadelphia County, Civil Marriages, 1804-1895, 7,758 records
Philadelphia County, Civil Deaths, 1793-1918, 382,968 records

Women’s Land Army Service Cards, 1939-1950, 176,224 records
1939 Register, 36,688,004 results, although some officially closed records are not displayed.

Newspapers
A total of 207,356 new pages added, from 1833 to 2005. The Young Soldier, under its current title, Kid’s Alive, published by the Salvation Army, is the longest-running children’s periodical in continuous publication in the world.

New Titles

Updated Titles with Over 10,000 Pages Added

If you have Colonial America ancestors, a new collection of early American historical and genealogical books, bringing more than 200,000 names into the searchable records at TheGenealogist, may be of interest.

Among the records are settlers, soldiers, sailors, landowners, officials, prisoners, emigrants and ordinary families whose lives formed part of a much larger national story. The new release includes material from the Pennsylvania Archives, with records relating to the Revolutionary War, including British prisoners held in Pennsylvania, officers and men of the
Pennsylvania Navy, sick soldiers in Philadelphia in December 1776, and first-hand journals connected to the Battle of Long Island.
Also included are Passenger Lists to Boston and the Bay Colony 1620 to 1640, featuring a study of the settlers, alongside the New Jersey Index of Wills 1705-1901 and Genealogies of the Families and Descendants of the Early Settlers of Watertown, Massachusetts.

These resources are also available elsewhere, just Google.

Ancestry has been drawing on data collected by GreyPower Deceased Data, compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire, since 2019. The latest updates with a focus on recent years, are:

England and Wales, Death Index, 1989-2025, 8,575,941 records, about 80% of deaths in recent years.
Scotland and Northern Ireland, Death Index, 1989-2025, 1,002,447 records, about 45% of deaths in recent years.

Wiltshire, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1975
Electoral registers are great sources to fill in between census years, except for war years when registers were kept, and if the person of interest was entitled to vote. That’s 3,785,767 entries for a county which now has a population of a little over half a million. The original documents are held by the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England.

There have been no updates for Canada since June’s Find A Grave Index update.

 

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

Save the Dates
The 2026 BIFHSGO Annual Conference is scheduled for 17 & 18 October with the theme “Flittin’ Day: Forces That Moved Our Scottish Ancestors.”

Canadians at 1924 Empire Exhibition Wembley London

Irish Railway Stations 1834-2000

Ancestry adds over 14 million records in England and Wales, Tithe Maps and Apportionments, 1775-1936 collection.

YouTube: Flanders & Swann – Documentary by John Amis

Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Anonymous, Christine Jackson, Gail, Gail Roger, Helen, Julia, Nancy Cutway, Penny, Teresa, and Unknown.

I’m taking a break. There will be a Sunday Sundries tomorrow, otherwise expect limited posts, if any, resuming after the USA 250 celebrations.

 

The Office for National Statistics has tabulated the top 100 baby names in England and Wales over 13 years, from 1904 to 2024.

There are 287 unique boys’ names that appear at least once in the top 100, according to the ONS tabulation.

The Long-Lasting

James, William, Thomas, George, Edward

Except for Thomas, they are royal names. Edward, never in the top 10, was never lower than #52.

The Meteoric Rise and Fall

Mark, Michael, Christopher, Luke, Joshua

Mark appeared only in the second half of the 20th century, peaking at #2 in 1974.

The Rise

Mohammed, Oliver, Noah

Mohammed entered the top 100 in 1924 and, over the course of a century, rose to the top spot.

The Fall

John, Richard, Robert

John held one of the top two spots until 1954, then fell rapidly, clinging to a top 100 spot only at the start of the 21st century.

Migrations from NY to Canada on the Champlain and Erie Canals: Nineteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries is the topic of Pamela Vittorio’s presentation online at 7 PM on Thursday, 25 June.

The creation of the NYS Canal system in 1825 made many things possible–from moving people and cargo, to transporting language, religion, and ideas. Beyond the census, finding ancestors who did business alongside the canals, owned boats, or worked as labourers may seem like a challenging task. Many families from Canada migrated to New York to seek employment or transport cargo on the canals. Find out how to trace their most likely routes and pathways from Albany to Buffalo, from New York City, up the Hudson River, to the eastern part of NY State and on the Champlain Canal to Canada. Discover how families travelled on canal boat, and where they were likely to stop. Learn about the types of records you should look at, where to find the records, and how to analyze them.

All Ottawa Branch monthly presentations are open to the public at no charge. Register in advance for this Zoom presentation:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/wu1Or43PSXqkmaIEJGagVg