Anglo-Celtic Connections

A note from the OGS Quinte Branch reported that they continue to see an increase in visitors and website visitors, with the majority being US residents. The Bill C-3 legislation has seen an increase in requests across Ontario, as US residents are seeking baptism, marriage, and burial records to support their applications. It is approaching travel season, and many researchers have planned visits to our area and our Centre.

Ādisōke, a landmark co-location of Ottawa’s new Central Library and the main public space for Library and Archives Canada, is months away from opening. It’s one of the most significant developments in the National Capital Region in a generation. What does it mean for researchers?

For family historians, there’s a shared OPL/LAC genealogy space on Level 2 of Adisoke (let’s skip the accents), to be called the Family History Centre, staffed by both organizations and open to all. Both OPL and LAC databases will be accessible. Duplicate genealogy materials are to be weeded out. Whether to send them elsewhere is under review.

The Ottawa Room/Living Ottawa

The Ottawa Room at the current Main Branch has long been a quiet but valuable resource for local researchers. It’s a cramped space, more reminiscent of a storage room than a proper reading room, but it contains material hard to find elsewhere: City corporate records, including those for the OPL itself, dating back fifty years or more. The wide range of items is of genuine historical interest, even if their day-to-day demand is low.

When asked about plans for this material, OPL’s response was measured: the library is “currently reviewing which OPL corporate records will remain with Living Ottawa (a newly imagined Ottawa Room also on Level 2 of Adisoke) and which may be transferred to the City Archives at 100 Tallwood.” Some of what the Ottawa Room holds likely belongs in a proper archival setting rather than a public library. The City Archives is a logical home, but a concern is whether it’s adequately resourced to take on that role.

Worth noting, technology amenities, including a maker space, scanners and recording studios, are planned, so if you want to scan old family photo negatives or digitize an old home movie, the facility will be there.

LAC Research
If you’re concerned about consulting Canada’s vast documentary heritage, LAC’s Research Room, located on levels 3 and 4, is the place to go. It’s described as a bright, modern, and multifunctional space designed for In-depth exploration and study, with panoramic views in an environment that supports quiet work. You won’t get same-day access to archival resources; they will need to be transferred from off-site storage as at present.

The bigger picture

It is worth acknowledging that, with the Adisoke opening date still uncertain, it now looks to be in 2027; some decisions remain. Both organizations will be working through complex transitions.  Whether it be accessing locally significant historical material, the kind of thing you stumble upon in a cramped room at the present Main Branch, or having the space and equipment required for serious research in national records, the facilities look great. It is reasonable to keep asking questions to ensure the Adisoke facilities actually deliver the service we need and expect from these institutions after transitional glitches.

I’ll continue to follow developments and report back as the picture becomes clearer.

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

Reminder: OGS Virtual Conference 12-14 June 2026
From Steamships to Microchips

Two new videos showcasing Scotland’s People services

Newspaper Finder
Newspaper Finder is a catalog(ue) to find “every newspaper that has a digital copy anywhere on the internet.” This initiative by Mitchell Lewis is worth trying before my previous favourite, The Ancestor Hunt, which hasn’t updated its Ontario list since November 2024.

FamilySearch Full Text search records added

Doing presentations for a family history society is good preparation for taking on a eulogy.
From Persephony, a reflection after making a BIFHGO presentation!

OGS AGM Postponed
The meeting scheduled for Saturday 5 June was postponed at the last moment. I saw the announcement in the OGS eWeekly at 6 am that morning, and subsequently found an email from the previous evening in my spam folder.  Apparently members had not been given the full Auditor’s Report to consult ahead of the AGM.  The meeting is to be rescheduled in the fall.

Every Gyles Anecdote (So Far) | QI Compilation

Thanks to the following individuals for their comments and tips: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Dawn Kelly, Gail, Sylvia Smith, Teresa, and Unknown.

At a BIFHSGO conference at LAC many years ago, Helen Osborn, author of Genealogy: Essential Research Methods, mentioned the London Library in a talk on London resources. It’s a private, membership-only institution going back to the mid-19th century.

If there’s someone in your tree who might have used the Library, the new London Library Digital Archive could be useful. It gives access to more than 70,000 historical London Library membership records dating from 1841–1950.

Who’s Who has nothing on the Library membership: Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Fanny Cradock, Terence Rattigan.

There’s also Thomas Fairman Ordish, my relative, although not a direct-line ancestor. He appears from 1878 to 1903. I didn’t learn much I didn’t already know, just the name of a sponsor.

Scots Guards Memorials, 1779–1945

Findmypast has added 1,087 memorial records for the British Army’s Scots Guards for the 18th to 20th centuries. The collection covers men who fell in major conflicts including the World Wars, as well as those who served and died during peacetime deployments.

Military Service Memorial Collection, 1066–1946

Findmypast has also added 30,343 new records to its Military Service Memorial Collection, from 1066 to 1946. It now holds over 100,000 photographs and records drawn from more than 4,000 memorials across the UK, the former British Empire, and Allied nations.

You may be surprised at the detail, including name, rank, service number, campaign, death date, age, cause of death, burial place, residence, and parents’ names.

Newspapers 

This week’s newspaper update adds 312,589 pages across six new titles and updates to 31 existing publications.

New Titles

Updated Titles with Over 10,000 Pages Added

I highly recommend this compelling article in Active History. It follows Daniyal Elahi and Harris Elahi, two dedicated cadets with the Royal Canadian Army Cadets (337 Queen’s York Rangers in Toronto), as they uncover the forgotten story of Pte. Hasan Amat, a Great War casualty.

What makes this piece truly stand out is what happens after the archival file was closed. The cadets took their findings a step further, beautifully bringing to light the vital and often overlooked contributions of religious minorities in Canada’s military history.

On Saturday, June 6 and/or Sunday, June 7 some of Ottawa’s most
prestigious buildings welcome visitors. There are over 100, some require reservations. See the detailed list here.

The last Sunday Sundries included these Hampshire updates from Ancestry:

Hampshire, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-1921 now has
622,661 (304,643) records. Hampshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, 1536-1812 has 2,974,276 (1,999,963) records.

Ancestry hadn’t finished. Just updated are:

Hampshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1921, now with 968,461 (794,719) records. Hampshire, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1921 with 2,966,681 (1,586,354) records.

In brackets is the number of records available at the update in October 2023. Nearly 2.85 million new records have been added across these four Hampshire collections. The biggest jump is in the post-1813 Baptisms collection, which has nearly doubled.

Note that if you’re browsing for records for Oakley, they’re listed under Church Oakley.

1. I nearly missed it. To celebrate (US) Immigrant Heritage Month and the upcoming 250th anniversary of American independence, MyHeritage is offering free access to U.S. immigration records to June 5, 2026.

The free access includes 56 immigration collections with 206.1 million records covering passenger lists, arrivals, and naturalization documents from major gateways like Ellis Island and Castle Garden. In these records, researchers can discover the ship their ancestors travelled on, including those of Canadians travelling via the US, or records documenting their path to citizenship.

2. Until June 7, 2026, MyHeritage is offering free access to both Swedish and Danish historical records in celebration of Swedish National Day and Danish Constitution Day. The free access includes 261.9 million Swedish records across 53 collections and 127.4 million Danish records across 32 collections. These collections feature household examination books, church records, censuses, passenger lists, newspapers, and vital records that can help your followers trace ancestors across generations and uncover stories from Nordic communities and family life.

It’s Volunteers’ Week in the UK, and the Family History Federation has marked the occasion with a special edition of its Really Useful Bulletin: eighteen upbeat testimonials and a roundup of volunteer openings across member societies. Scroll through the listings, and the picture is alarming. Among 21 of the Federation’s 162 member societies profiled, four are hunting for a chair, four for a treasurer, five for a secretary, three for a membership secretary, and five more for help with social media or communications.

This is not unique to genealogy. It’s a feature of volunteer-run organizations everywhere, and it always has been. So what actually works? I put the question to AI, which summarised the research neatly: successful recruitment shifts away from mass appeals toward targeted, bite-sized, and relationship-driven invitations. Which will ring true to anyone who’s watched a newsletter plea vanish without a single reply.

Break the big roles into smaller ones. “Treasurer” frightens people. It conjures full financial responsibility, legal exposure, and hours of continuing commitment. But most treasurer roles are really a cluster of smaller tasks — processing payments, reconciling a spreadsheet, filing an annual return — that different people could share or rotate. The Webmaster role can almost always be split into a content updater, a social media poster, and someone handling back-end admin. Co-chairs and job-sharing work for the same reason: they halve the perceived burden and eliminate the fear of being stranded alone in a demanding post.

A try-before-you-commit offer also lowers the barrier to entry. Invite prospective volunteers to shadow a current officer for a couple of months or to attend two or three committee meetings, with no obligation to continue. Many people who would never respond to a general appeal will say yes to something that feels bounded and reversible. That’s no guarantee they’ll continue, but as in baseball, a .300 batting average is excellent

Ask specific people directly. General appeals are easy to ignore. Readers assume someone else will step up. A warm, personal conversation from a board member is far more effective, especially when the ask is tailored: “We noticed how well you organized the seminar last autumn — would you be willing to help coordinate registrations for the next one?”

When members join or renew, include a short optional checklist of their professional backgrounds: accounting, IT, project management, copyediting, design. Not a generic “tick here to volunteer” box, but a skills inventory. It lets you make private, targeted approaches later, which feel flattering rather than desperate.

Make the personal rewards concrete. Altruism gets people through the door, but it rarely keeps them. What does it is the realization that volunteering delivers tangible benefits: friendships with people who share an obsession, the mental engagement of learning new tools, the satisfaction of being genuinely useful to a community you care about. For genealogical societies, there is a specific and powerful hook: indexing records, proofreading transcriptions, or running a helpdesk keeps volunteers in direct contact with archival material, and regularly produces breakthroughs in their own personal research.

Make geography irrelevant. Many capable potential volunteers live nowhere near the physical headquarters. Committee meetings on Zoom, clearly advertised as such, open the field enormously. Roles like journal editor, database manager, or webmaster have no geographic requirement, but many societies still advertise them as though they do.

Asynchronous tasks are equally worth promoting: transcription, indexing, proofreading, work that can be done at midnight in a different time zone or fitted around a full-time job or caring responsibilities. It won’t fill the chair vacancy, but it builds a pool of engaged people from which future officers tend to emerge.

The gap between knowing these and applying them systematically and year-round, rather than just during Volunteers’ Week or in the run-up to the AGM, is where societies often stall.