Anglo-Celtic Connections

A 30-minute Q/A session at https://www.agra.org.uk/podcasts#202112

Registration for the 2022 edition of RootsTech, the largest family history event in the world,  is now open. RootsTech 2022 will be a virtual-only experience, 3 – 5 March 2022, with some enhancements and improvements.

Find out more and register for free at www.rootstech.org. 

Don’t plan on doing research at Library and Archives Canada over the Christmas – New Year period. Here’s the notice.

Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) public service points located in Ottawa, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Halifax will be closed to the public from December 24, 2021 to January 3, 2022, inclusive. Remote reference and genealogy services remain available during this period, Monday to Friday except for December 27 and 28, and January 3.

Contact us by using our Ask Us a Question or Ask Us a Genealogy Question forms, or by calling 1-866-578-7777 (option 8; toll-free in Canada and the United States).

Please note that after the holidays, a gradual increase in our services is planned. Visit our Reopening Library and Archives Canada web page for an overview of services available and region-specific details.

Here are the contents of the next issue, to be available on 10 December.

COVER: Who’s Your Daddy: A Durham DNA Puzzle!
Michelle Dennis offers advice as well as rich resources on searching for ancestors in Durham, England.

Freedman’s Savings Bank
Diane L. Richard examines these short-lived, but invaluable records for family historians.

The Winter of Their Discomfort: Coping With the Cold
Sue Lisk looks at how our ancestors coped with the cold before the dawn of the thermostat.

A Yuletide Genealogical Resource: “Dear Santa” Letters
David A. Norris looks at online newspapers and how ancestors’ letters to Santa may shine some light on their holiday wishes.

The Historical Marker Database
Jean King looks at a database project that currently holds over a half-million photos of historical markers in the US, Canada and several other countries.

Death by Waterpik, Or In Search of the Cause of Your Ancestor’s Passing
Sue Lisk looks at sources that may help in revealing the cause of death of an ancestor.

Principles of Relativity
Robbie Gorr looks at correctly identifying family relationships and connections.

Online Repository Assistant (ORA)
Diane L. Richard looks at software designed to help genealogists be more efficient, effective, and diligent with their research.

Jewish Genealogy In New York City: Discovering The Early 1900s TB Epidemic
Michael Chaplan shares his journey to learn about his grandfather’s life and death in the early 1900s.

Finding Heirs for Your Family History
Marian B. Wood looks at how to prepare a succession plan for your valuable genealogical items.

NetNotes
Internet Genealogy looks at websites and related news that are sure to be of interest.

Advice From the Pros:Truth or Troll? Surviving Speaker Evaluations
Lisa A. Alzo discusses how to survive feedback on conference evaluations.

Back Page: Check and Re-Check Your Matches!
Dave Obee says be vigilant about checking your own work, and the work of other genealogists.

Find out more, including access to preview the first page of longer articles and subscription information, at https://www.internet-genealogy.com/index.shtml

I’ve been wondering what Rick and Sandra Roberts have in the Global Heritage Press pipeline.

Here it is, a 450-page tomb billed as the first complete and comprehensive nominal Index of Audit Office 13 (AO13) claims & documents, a book that most libraries with a reference section and interest in Loyalists will want in their collection. Individuals wondering why they can’t find their Loyalist ancestor(s) on Ancestry will want the more affordable pdf.

Index to Monetary Claims by American Loyalists – A New Index to Audit Office 13
By William Bruce Antliff
Published by Global Heritage Press, Ottawa, 2021
ISBN 9781772401882 (hardcover)

The documents, archived at TNA as AO13, were collected and produced by a number of British commissions that examined monetary claims by American colonists who claimed to remain loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution (United Empire Loyalists).

Although the documents in AO13 are available at Ancestry, “comparing the results of using this New Index versus using the AO13 search box results in Ancestry, showed that Ancestry’s indexing of AO13 is very incomplete.”

William Bruce Antliff, now well into his 90s, has published on Loyalists since the 1980s,

https://globalgenealogy.com/countries/canada/loyalist/resources/101041.htm

 

The last additions to Ancestry were on 19 November, an unusually large gap. There are often updates at the end of the month or at the beginning of the new month.

A note from Ancestry alerts to a new exclusive collection “on the horizon”,

Glamorgan, Wales, Calendar of Prisoners, 1850-1890,  34,072 records.

Also,

Devon Parish Indexes, 8,151,467 records.

Outside the UK there are no Canadian records to be added. Otherwise, look for the following new records

Web: Greece, Census Indexes, 1724-1879

South Australia School Admissions Registers, 1876-1989
South Australia Police Inquest Registers, 1885-1953

Texas, U.S., Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio Sacramental Records, 1700-1940
Wisconsin, Death Records, 1907-2013
Wisconsin, Marriage Records, 1907-2015

Dorothy Pauline Meyerhof (neé Ostrom) passed on 24 November 2021. She had a long-standing interest in genealogy, was an active member of several genealogical organizations, especially the Sir Guy Carleton Branch of the United Empire Loyalist’s Association of Canada where she served as the librarian.

She also had an interest in history and almost completed writing an extensive history of her local neighbourhood, Honey Gables in Gloucester, to be published posthumously. She authored a long list of scientific publications in the field of radiation protection.

Dorothy is survived by her husband of 48 years, Thomas (Tom).

Dorothy, author of “Threads in the Tapestry of Canada: Some Loyalist Descendants Buried in Beechwood Cemetery,” will be laid to rest at Beechwood alongside other Ostrom UEL relatives.

The British Newspaper Archive now has a total of 46,334,622 pages online (45,747,098 last month).

This month 172 papers had pages added (88 in the previous month). There were 37 (45) new titles. Dates range from 1731 to 1999.

Spalding (Lincolnshire) and Wisbeach (Cambridgeshire) in Eastern England had more than 40,000 pages added. Journals with more than 10,000 pages added are:

Journal	Years
Spalding Guardian	1893-1903, 1921, 1931, 1935-1943, 1947, 1953-1956, 1965-1977, 1979-1981, 1983-1984, 1995, 1998-1999
Fenland Citizen	1975-1985, 1993-1999
Newark Advertiser	1859-1878, 1892-1909, 1911, 1913-1930, 1958-1968, 1992-1993
Grantham Journal	1968-1971, 1976-1980, 1984-1985, 1997-1999
Weekly Review (London)	1862, 1864-1881
Birmingham Mail	1875-1876, 1885-1886, 1888-1889, 1899, 1902-1903, 1907-1911, 1913
Herald Cymraeg	1858-1900, 1902, 1904-1911, 1913-1916
Porthcawl Guardian	1933-1961
Stamford Mercury	1920-1921, 1923-1925, 1927, 1930, 1937, 1946-1954, 1969, 1975, 1977, 1983, 1985
Saffron Walden Weekly News	1985-1989, 1993, 1998-1999
Law Chronicle, Commercial and Bankruptcy Register	1813-1819, 1821-1847
West Ham and South Essex Mail	1888-1900, 1916-1941
Liverpool Daily Post	1886, 1892, 1896, 1902-1903
Folkestone Chronicle	1855-1857, 1859-1869, 1871-1872, 1875-1877, 1879, 1886-1892, 1897
Bury Free Press	1998-1999
East Kent Times and Mail	1872, 1874, 1892, 1933-1934, 1936, 1941, 1944-1945, 1949, 1953-1955
Caerphilly Journal	1914-1943
Beckenham Journal	1890-1911, 1913-1914

Choose from free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Those in red are Canadian, bolded if local to Ottawa or recommended

Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed.

Tuesday 30 Nov. 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 30 Nov. 2:30 pm: Intergenerational Storytelling and Family History Activities, by Chelsea Johnson for Allen County Public Library.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5769480

Tuesday 30 Nov. 7 pm: Using mitochondrial DNA to Confirm Family Connections, by Mags Gaulden for Bruce Grey Branch OPL.
https://brucegrey.ogs.on.ca/3069-2/

Wednesday 1 Dec, 2 pm: The Top Ten DNA Do’s and Don’ts!, by Michelle Leonard for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/the-top-ten-dna-dos-and-donts/

Thursday 2 Dec. 8 am: Attacks on Knowledge from Ashurbanipal to Trump, by
Richard Ovenden for Gresham College,
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ashurbanipal-trump

Thursday 2 Dec, 6:30 pm: Which DNA Test Should I Order?, by Sara Allen for Allen County Public Library.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5833585

Thursday 2 Dec. 7 pm: Scrapbooks – A Genealogist Gold Mine!, by Melissa Barker for OGS.
https://ogs.on.ca/zoom-meetings/december-webinar-melissa-barker/

Saturday 4 Dec. 10 am: The Passengers and Victims of the Capsizing of Victoria – Tuesday, May 24, 1881: Not all the Victoria Day Disaster Victims were on board the Victoria, by Dan Brock for London and Middlesex Branch OGS.
https://londonmiddlesex.ogs.on.ca/events/not-all-the-victoria-day-disaster-victims-were-on-board-the-victoria/

Royal Navy Officer Patrol Service Cards, dated 1904-1970 are the latest addition to Fold3, sourced from microfilm held at The National Archives, with the original paper records located at the Imperial War Museum.UK Royal Navy Records.

The RNPS operated a flotilla of small auxiliary vessels, primarily along the British coast. Two cards per record, they are organized alphabetically by name and include additional information such as:

Birthdate
Birthplace
Name of parents
Physical description
Service dates
Names of the vessels
Additional details and remarks.

Here is the latest survey of top tweeters for #genealogy and #familyhistory in the past few days.

As previously in April and July, FamilyTreeTips2 retains the top spot. It promotes items from familytreetips.co.uk which appears to be out of Brighton, England. Remaining in second place is Heirs2U, a genealogist out of Cramlington, UK (near Newcastle Upon Tyne).

New entries in the top 20 include:

thecoadb, a US-based business that “provides access to hundreds of thousands of coats of arms, surname histories, genealogy research, and much more.”

lissity, “Genealogist knitting my tree together.”

WandaWyporska, recently appointed CEO at the Society of Genealogists.

21DayConnect, tweets for The 21 Day Family Connections Experiment, a family history project, invites individuals to increase their connections with family past and present for a consecutive 21 days. Measuring the results with both a pre-experiment and post-experiment survey.

Here’s the seasonal sale I’ve been waiting for, Legacy Family Tree Webinars at half price, the best deal in genealogy.

The offer expires on Friday 3 December. As my membership expires on 30 November I’m hoping I might qualify as new before the sale ends. (UPDATE – I did!)

A reminder of the Ontario Genealogical Society 50% off membership offer for existing members who match with a new member — they both get 50% off. I have a long list of members looking for a match but so far only matched two with new members. If you’re looking to join, or rejoin after dropping out for a year, let me know.