Anglo-Celtic Connections

The government press release Canada welcomes the most immigrants in a single year in its history — Government reaches target of 401,000 new permanent residents in 2021 — is good news.

Being permanent residents, rather than the immigrants of 1913,  it could be even better news than “Surpassing the previous record from 1913, this is the most newcomers in a year in Canadian history” might imply.

Given political niceties, I’m not surprised to see “With the significant exception of Indigenous people, all Canadians originally come from somewhere else,” ignoring the widely accepted African origin of all homo sapiens.

A snazzy background created by wombo.art – artwork using the power of AI. Try it.

Christmas 1899 was the first my orphaned grandfather was at Chase Farm Schools in Enfield, North London. How was his day?
A post-Christmas column in the Middlesex Gazette through the years he was there reported much the same program, the articles a rewrite from the previous year with the numbers and names updated.

The issue for Saturday, December 29, 1900, under the heading Festivities at the Chase Farm Schools, started —

At these Poor Law Schools the Christmas season was observed in time-honoured fashion. While the Guardians granted special fare, private sources yielded many a delight for the nearly 400 children who receive a thoroughly sound all-round training at this institution. And nowhere do the staff of any similar schools enter more heartily into the spirit of the season than do those at Chase Farm; with the result that, as formerly, nearly every room presented quite a festive appearance; and it is pleasing to know that the little ones have realized the joys of a Happy Christmas.
Early astair on Christmas morning, they were furnished with an abundant breakfast, after which the children attended the service at St Michael’s Church, returning with hearty appetites for the great event – the Christmas dinner. That they were not stinted in this particular is shown by the fact that the viands placed before them included 12 stones weight of beef and 15 of roast pork, with potatoes, followed by 36 – 17 lb plum puddings! We can only hope that the medical officer has not been unduly taxed at the Schools since then. After the dinner each child received a parcel containing apples, oranges, dates, sweets, nuts, biscuits, etc. It was, indeed, a happy, if large, dinner party that assembled in the dining hall; and the proceedings were made the more gladsome by the strains of the Schools Band. The spacious apartment was quite a picture in its decorative glory. Gaudily-coloured paper chains cross and re-cross overhead; attractive devices brightened up the walls; and there smiled down upon the juvenile diners the wish, in large lettering, “The Happiest of Christmas Days, the Brightest of New Years to You”; while, in sequence, around the walls ran this kindly wish: –

“May the sunshine of success,
all our labours crown and bless;
and make bright the onward way
This, and every Christmas Day.”

The amounts work out to be for each child 6.7 oz of beef, 8.4 oz of pork, and 1.5 lb of plum pudding. Even allowing for feeding the staff and guardians in attendance the amount is generous, perhaps as well the 1910 report mentions that “The whole of the viands enumerated above were not consumed on Christmas Day. Enough is provided to ensure a special spread on New Year’s Day.”

Read the press release at https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2021/where-did-they-live–mapping-your-ancestors-home-in-1911-1513/

The 40 historic Canadian newspapers newly available on newspapers.com include the following nine with more than 5,000 pages.

The Berlin News Recnineord. Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, 21,498 pages, 1908–1916.

The Times. Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada, 7,193 pages, 1928–1973.

The Times, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada, 8,042 pages, 1895–1915.

Edmonton News-Plaindealer, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 5,292 pages, 1896–1912

The Red Deer News, Red Deer, Alberta, Canada, 8,171 pages, 1906–1926.

Nor’-west Farmer, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 18,923 pages, 1919–1990.

The North Shore Press, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 12,313 pages, 1913–1935,

Heimskringla, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, 11,109 pages, 1924–1951.

The Representative,  Leduc, Alberta, Canada, 11,984 pages, 1907–1939.

There are updates to many other Canadian newspapers, many editions from 2021. Newspapers with content after the First World War are usually available with the Publisher’s Extra subscription.

Thanks to Gloria Tubman and Ken McKinlay who passed along the information during the OGS Ottawa Branch weekly Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, every Tuesday at 2 pm ET.

Of Library and Archives Canada’s Co-Lab Challenges progress is reported on one project since last month.

Women in the War, with 70 images, remains 0% complete.

First World War Posters, with 140 images, is 91% complete, 83% last month.

Arthur Lismer’s Children’s Art Classes remains 0% complete.

John Freemont Smith remains 94% complete.

Canadian National Land Settlement Association remains 98% complete.

Molly Lamb Bobak remains 88% complete.

Diary of François-Hyacinthe Séguin remains 98% complete.

George Mully: moments in Indigenous communities remains 0% complete.

Correspondence regarding First Nations veterans returning after the First World War remains 99% complete.

Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 remains 96% complete.

Legendary Train Robber and Prison Escapee Bill Miner remains 99% complete.

Japanese-Canadians: Second World War, remains 3% complete.

The Call to Duty: Canada’s Nursing Sisters remains 92% complete.

Projects that remain 100% complete are no longer reported here.

Other Co-Lab activities not part of the Challenges may have happened; seemingly we’ll never know.