The April branch meeting, open to all, will take place on Monday, 22 April, at 7:30 p.m. Alison Lau, Ancestry’s General Manager in Canada, will be in person at Lansing United Church to provide an overview of how Ancestry developed Handwriting Technology to help researchers find their ancestors in the 1931 Census of Canada. Alison and her team will also provide updates on other products and services from Ancestry Canada.

As a prelude, Marian Press will explain how two treasured pieces of family memorabilia provided clues for her family history research.

https://torontofamilyhistory.org/april-2024-meeting/

Soon after I posted about the outage, ODW services & digital collection sites were restored on 15 April. That includes Our Ontario, VITA TOOLKIT, Community Newspapers and Government Documents back in service,

The outage was caused by a ransomware attack on 25 February. Around that time, Jess Posgate of ODW gave an online presentation that I’ve had time to forget. Unfortunately, there’s no up-to-date video on ODW on YouTube to refresh my memory.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Revealing images that seemed lost forever

Who gets the most federal research funding? Danielle Smith might be surprised by what the data shows

Caring about the Past: Engaging with Historical Empathy
The 2024 Canada’s History Forum
Online Event, Thursday, April 25, 2024, 6pm – 9pm Eastern
Free to attend, but pre-registration is required.

These Words Make it Obvious That Your Text is Written By AI

Artificial Intelligence Startup Launches Ever-Expanding Library of Free Stock Photos and Music

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, David Madeley, Empty Branches on the Family Tree, Nick Mcdonald, Sunday Thompson, Teresa, Unknown.

Although the end year in the title is 1949, there are now deaths for 1950 in the database. That’s 43,453 death registrations added. a couple of hundred fewer than the 43,641 deaths in 1949.

The number of deaths in this Ancestry database totals 4,200,698.

The Archives of Ontario holds death registrations to 1952.

This week’s FMP focus is new transcript records for Kiddington and Chadlington in Oxfordshire sourced from FamilySearch.

Oxfordshire Baptisms
Over 6,200 new baptism records, bringing the total to 260,211. The top three in the collection by record count are:

Oxfordshire Marriages
The newest marriage and banns records span from 1576 to 1930, totalling 72,782.T he top three in the collection by record count are:

Oxfordshire Burials
Dating from 1576-1948, there are now a total of 41,327 records. The top three in the collection by record count are”

Find the year range and record count for each parish at Oxfordshire Parish Lists.

My email inbox on Thursday contained the latest issue of “The Ottawa Genealogist.”  It’s full of locally relevant genealogical content and more.

I’d normally overlook the item Malta, Monumental Inscriptions. Mike More included it in his regular selection of items from Dick Eastman’s newsletter. Having just booked a vacation there, it attracted my attention. Searching the CWGC and LAC WW2 Service files websites, I found four RCAF casualties memorialized on the Malta Memorial in Floriana, Valletta, with associated Ottawa addresses: 113 Henderson, 54 Balsam, 960 Gladstone,  and 114 Driveway. 

This is a reminder that Kyla Ubbink will present Restorations of Biblical Proportions for the branch on Saturday at 1 p.m., a hybrid meeting.

Kyla discusses the challenges conserving family Bibles. “Covers have become detached, the glues are failing, the pages are loose, and sometimes even the leather is rotting away, but family bibles can be saved. Old glues can be replaced with new glues, the pages secured, and tears repaired. Bindings are restored by inserting new material beneath the original leather, and dyes and leather dressings return luster and beauty. It takes technical knowledge, patience, an aptitude for meticulous work, and on occasion leads to uttering under your breath to an all-knowing deity.”

https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/restorations-of-biblical-proportions-ottawa-2/

Here’s something different.

In 2022-23, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded a total of $16.3M to 182 people in its postdoctoral fellowships program. There were 650 total applicants.
Leaving aside stop words, this word cloud shows the terms most often found in the award titles.

Here, as a service to the academic community, are five titles for post-doctorate fellowship applications, produced by Microsoft’s Copilot AI facility, most likely to be successful, based on the terms in the word cloud:

“Exploring the Role of Women in Contemporary Canadian Politics: A Comparative Study”

“Toward Understanding the Social Context of Digital Healthcare in Canada: An Analysis of Care Models”

“Examining the Intersection of Culture and Mental Health in Indigenous Communities: A Transformative Approach”

“The Effect of Climate Change on Community Participation in Sustainable Development: A Case Study from Columbia”

“Gender, Violence, and Decision Making in Modern Democratic Systems: A Comparative Analysis”

According to the AI, “these titles incorporate the most popular terms and related terms, and address a variety of academic fields. They are likely to be successful given their relevance to current research trends and societal issues. Naturally the success of an application also heavily depends on the quality and novelty of the proposed research, not just the title.”

The Coalition for Canadian Digital Heritage has issued Year in Review 2023. Here are the main points.

1. Strategic Framework: CCDH finalized and published its strategic framework in the first half of 2023. This was a collaborative effort undertaken by committee members and stakeholders.
2. Working Groups Formation: In the second half of 2023, CCDH shifted its focus to actualizing strategic priorities. This was done through the formation of working groups that correspond to the three primary strategic priorities established in the framework.
3. Community Growth: CCDH aspires to grow its community into a diverse and highly representative coalition of practitioners across memory organizations in Canada.
4. Re-envisioning of the National Heritage Digitization Strategy: Emerging from an extensive national, multi-sectoral consultation and strategic planning process in 2022-2023, CCDH is a re-envisioning of the National Heritage Digitization Strategy.
5. Enhancing Digital Presence of Canada’s Cultural Heritage: CCDH aims to bring diverse people and organizations together to leverage collective knowledge, infrastructure, and resources to enhance the digital presence of Canada’s cultural heritage.

It would appear no actual material was digitized through the initiative in 2023. Will that happen in 2024?

FamilySearch has now added three new collections to the FamilySearch Labs facility which uses handwriting recognition technology. They add to the  U.S. Land and Probate Records 1630-1975 and Mexico, Notarial Records, 1600-1909 introduced at Rootsech.

The additions are:

US Plantation Records cs. 1700s-1865
Victoria, Australia Probates 1853-1976
Auckland, New Zealand Wills and Probates 1834-1997

A quick look at the New Zealand Wills and Probates for a post-WW1 will found that, while the document in question was largely typewritten, not surprising for the period, handwritten information inserted was well interpreted. That was true for a document handwritten in exceptionally clear writing from the same period.

The website invites us to “Check back regularly as new collections will be added.” Canada and UK please!

https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text

Here are the major articles I browsed in the new issue.

MAPPING THE DEVELOPMENT OF A
PLACE THROUGH TIME
Discover how more specialist records can add context to a
family history, enabling you to research the locations your ancestors once lived and worked, with Chris Paton,

Chris uses his Scottish weaver ancestors as a case study. The article concludes with a nine-step guide to systematically learning about the locality and community in which your ancestors once lived.

HOW SHOULD WE DEAL WITH FAMILY SECRETS?
All families have mysteries, secrets and even scandals, but how do we deal with them. Charlotte Soares reflects on this sensitive subject detailing some of the circumstances that were kepy secret. She concludes that time turns what was once a shuddering scandal to gold dust for more removed generations of family historians.

FAMILY HISTORY & Al
Fiona Brooker explores how Artificial Intelligence is being used in family history. In five pages gives a nice summary. Toward the end she recommends joining the Facebook Genealogy and Artificial Intelligence group (https:// www.facebook.com/groups/genealogyandai/) to see how genealogists are using the tools.

BOGUS COATS OF ARMS
Richard Morgan makes a cool appraisal of the historic
record of heraldry and the enduring popularity of bogus coats of arms

YOUR DNA TEST COMPARISON GUIDE
Karen Evans guides us through the pros and cons of the autosomal DNA tests currently on the market. There’s good advice, including wait for the sales. With DNA day coming yo later this month the sales are already being advertised.

FAMILY TREE ACADEMY: CENSUS CASE STUDY
David Annal responds to a reader query about a man who had at least five children, but left little in the way of baptism records, or proof of marriage.