I’d really appreciate it if you’d take a quick survey, just six questions on your public library usage. It would help me in responding to a survey by the Ottawa Public Library. Thank you.
Military Monday: on this day
On this date, 1 August 1942, 80 years ago, for Canadian servicemen, the focus of war action was in the air.
35 men serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force lost their lives on the day. Of those 13 were aged 20 years, including the majority of those whose age is not recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. That they lived they would be centenarians this year. The oldest was 29.
Six have no known grave and are commemorated at the Runnymede Memorial. The others are buried in Belgium (7), Germany (12), Netherlands (10).
BLOOMER, GEORGE TAYLOR
LLOYD, CLARENCE FRANKLIN
McLEAN, DAVID GERALD
GIBSON, RODNEY DAVID
MARTIN, ALISTAIR BRUCE
ARMSTRONG, THOMAS JAMES
CLARKE, WILFRED VICTOR
McILVEEN, ARCHIBALD EDWARD
EGAN, EDWARD BYRON
JONES, EDWARD JAMES
HUNKING, ELWIN THOMAS
IRISH, JACK WILLIAM
HANNABY, JOHN
DONAHUE, WALTER VERNARD
VAUTOUR, ALBENI CAMILLE
SZUMLINSKI, CHARLES LEONARD
ANDERSON, EDWARD ALLISON
FORD, GEORGE EDWARD
LAXDAL, HUGH LAWRENCE
CAMPBELL, JAMES BERTRAM
HARVIE, LLOYD GORDON
PENNEY, WILLIAM FRANCIS
KURTZ, DENNIS HAIG
SIMONSON, VERNON LEROY
TREADWELL, WILLIAM HENRY
MURPHY, THOMAS FRANCIS
ROBERTSON, EUGENE GARLAND
WOOF, REGINALD
PRIME, PETER
STEWART, ROBERT REGINALD
HOLMES, WILLIAM EDWARD WALL
WILLOUGHBY, EDWIN BERTRAM
KAUFMAN, WILLIAM JOHN
FROST, WILLIAM DAVID
TAIT, JOHN
Three other Canadian servicemen died on that day.
McKISHNIE, FRANKLIN MURRAY
GREY, HARRY
GALBRAITH, CHARLES MACKINVEN
Ancestry adds Worcestershire Parish Records
A total of over 5.5 million Church of England Bishop’s Transcripts records now appear on Ancestry, sourced from Diocese of Worcester holdings at the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.
| Title | Records |
| Worcestershire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1600-1812 | 3,264,925 |
| Worcestershire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1812-1918 | 1,727,188 |
| Worcestershire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 | 120,628 |
| Worcestershire, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1918 | 432,453 |
Bishop’s transcripts are one-step removed from the parish records. It’s good practice to check both, where available, for consistancy and additional information. For availablity check the FamilySearch Wiki and/or GenUKI Worcestershire , or, of course, the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service
British Newspaper Archive July Additions
The British Newspaper Archive now has a total of 54,783,049 pages online (53,950,371 last month).
This month 104 papers had pages added (89 in the previous month). There were 16 (15) new titles. Dates range from 1741 to 1999.
The 20 newspapers with more than 10,000 pages added are:
| TITLE | DATE RANGE |
| Holloway Press | 1872-1962 |
| Hampstead News | 1882-1961 |
| Birmingham Weekly Mercury | 1924-1926, 1928-1945, 1947-1948, 1951-1955, 1957-1958, 1961-1962, 1964-1968, 1970, 1972, 1974, 1976-1979, 1983-1985, 1993-1999 |
| Herts and Essex Observer | 1987, 1998-1999 |
| Harrow Observer | 1996, 1998 |
| Ottawa Free Press | 1903, 1905, 1907-1908, 1910, 1912, 1914, 1916 |
| Bucks Advertiser & Aylesbury News | 1836-1837, 1839-1840, 1843-1852, 1856, 1863-1868, 1870-1871, 1873, 1875-1889, 1891-1895, 1898-1910, 1913-1919, 1922, 1925-1926, 1928, 1930, 1933, 1935, 1937, 1940, 1947-1953 |
| Kentish Express | 1855-1871, 1893-1895, 1898-1973 |
| Woodford Times | 1870-1881, 1896, 1899-1915 |
| West Kent Argus and Borough of Lewisham News | 1894-1931 |
| Aris’s Birmingham Gazette | 1741-1823 |
| Kent Messenger & Gravesend Telegraph | 1913, 1919-1930, 1948, 1950, 1966-1967, 1969 |
| Shields Daily Gazette | 1898, 1905, 1907-1909, 1912-1915, 1917-1918, 1920-1945, 1953-1955 |
| Sports Argus | 1980, 1983, 1985-1986, 1989, 1992, 1995-1996 |
| Lewisham Borough News | 1892-1962 |
| Barbados Agricultural Reporter | 1896-1922 |
| Black & White | 1891-1905 |
| Bromley Journal and West Kent Herald | 1869-1885, 1887-1912 |
| Bromley Chronicle | 1891-1896, 1898-1921 |
| Bromley and West Kent Telegraph | 1868-1872, 1886-1896, 1898-1913 |
Anniversary of the death of Edward Cohen
On this, the anniversary of the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) and the death of my Grand Uncle I’m reposting his story, as told via the MyHeritage DeepStory facility with my words, by my Grandfather.
Ancestry adds York Parish Records
A total of over 3.6 million Church of England parish register records have appeared on Ancestry. They are for the City and the local Yorkshire area, approximately 200 parishes.
| Title | Records |
| York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1936 | 621,551 |
| York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1995 | 251,658 |
| York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1920 | 1,105,422 |
| York, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1538-1812 | 1,629,646 |
Sourced from the Borthwick Institute for Archives – the University of York, there are indexes with names, dates and places, and links to the original register image.
Findmypast has a collection of other records for York, including for nonconformists.
Sunday Sundries
Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
One of several YouTube videos on London street names
BTW, Alan Ruston’s presentation Maps for Family Historians, at the BIFHSGO conference on Thursday 29 September came to mind as he puts some focus on London geography.
The 2022 Canadian Museum Crossword
The Toronto History Lecture will take place online on Wednesady 3 August 2022 at 7:30 pm. This year’s speaker will be Adam Bunch and his topic will be The Toronto Circus Riot: A True Tale of Sex, Violence. Corruption and Clowns. It’s free. For more information and advance registration at https://torontofamilyhistory.org/the-toronto-history-lecture-for-2022/
The Good Old Days (6th April 1973). Bernard Cribbins leads the audience in a rousing rendition of The Marrow Song.pic.twitter.com/eipSk82A6o
— Archivetvmusings (@archivetvmus71) July 28, 2022
Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Teresa, and Unknown.
Unrestricted access to Irish adoption records
Everyone born to parents within the Republic of Ireland and adopted at home or abroad will, from October, have access to their records previously withheld.
The legislation gives “legal entitlement to full and unrestricted access to birth certificates, birth, early life, care and medical information for any person who was adopted” or “boarded out.
Find out more from the Adoption Authority of Ireland.
Last Chance to View OGS 2022 Conference Recordings
Act now if you registered for the OGS conference but didn’t get to view all the sessions you intended to. They go away at the end of the month.
The Q&A from each session is also available. If you didn’t get the syllabus, it is also available for download.
Don’t miss the talk Canadian Wildflowers: A tale of pioneering women by Kyla Ubbink.
Findmypast weekly update
The focus this week is on the London area.
Over 18,000 additional Middlesex Baptism records have been added to this collection, from the parishes of New Brentford, Tottenham and Edmonton. The total collection now has 539,579 entries between 1538 and 1919.
A further 23,000 baptism transcripts have been added to Surrey Baptisms for the parishes of Lambeth, Stockwell, St Mary Magdalene Bermondsey and Walworth. The 1,846,249 in the collection stretch from 1530 to 1919.
Around 8,000 new records have been added to the Greater London Burial Index, mostly for Ealing which now accounts for 31.649 of the 2,084,920 records in the collection. There areentries as early as 1397, as late as 2004, with the bulk in the first half of the 19th century.
Truth and Fiction: Star Power
The latest post on The National Archives Blog looks at people with names you probably recognize, entertainers, born just in time to be in the 1921 census for England and Wales.
There’s a list of other prominent people born in the UK in 1921 here. Are there any in a field of interest to you and can you find them in that census? They would need to be born by census day — 19 June.
MyHeritage updates Canada, Quebec, Persons Incarcerated in 19th Century Prisons
This collection, sourced from BAnQ, contains 63,553 records from 1813 to 1864.
The transcription record typically includes name, year and place of birth, date and place of incarceration, offence, sentence, date of discharge, and age at the time of discharge. Many are for short periods, just a couple of days, petty crimes. Records for more extended imprisonment may include additional information.