Anglo-Celtic Connections

Unprovoked actions by Russian forces are a violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.  We react emotionally to such aggression, as we would if our territory were violated.

In this fluid situation, with much information and misinformation circulating — the fog of war — it’s not easy to know the true situation.

The Red Cross Canada has a Ukraine Humanitarian Crisis Appeal and the Government of Canada will match all eligible tax deductable donations—not exceeding $100,000—made by individual Canadians  between February 24, 2022 and March 18, 2022, up to a maximum of $10 million.

On to genealogy.

I was pulled up short by Saturday morning’s OGS eWeekly stating that “Canada is home to the third-largest Ukrainian population in the world, largely responsible for early settlement of our Prairie provinces.”

I knew many Ukrainians settled on the Prairies. Were they”largely responsible for early settlement”?

A little Googling found an article Explainer: Why the Ukrainian diaspora settled in the Canadian Prairies in Pique news magazine out of Whistler, BC. It includes the “facts”

• In 2016, there were 1.36 million people in Canada that said they had Ukrainian ancestry (verified at StatsCan), about four percent of the population.
• Of those, almost 700,000 live in the three Prairie provinces (verified at StatsCan), where they make up around 11 percent of the population. (More than half are in Alberta)
• According to official sources, the first Ukrainian settlers to come to Canada were Ivan Pylypiw and Wasyl Eleniak in 1891.

That first Ukranian arrival was in the fall of 1891. The 1891 census showed a population of 67,000 in The Territories (the Prairies);48,000 Canadian-born; 12,000 UK and Ireland-born.

The Explainer states 150,000 immigrants came from the area of present-day Ukraine pre WW1. Data from the 1921 census show the majority came in the early 20th century just before the Great War.

So it’s stretching the truth a bit to claim Ukrainians were responsible for early settlement of our Prairie provinces.

Another 70,000 arrived post WW1; 34,000 between 1947 and 1954; 40,015 from 2001 to 2016.  Those stats give a total Ukranian immigration to Canada of nearly 300,000.

The 1,36 million in 2016 is probably an underestimate. People who only have one quarter or one-eighth Ukranian ancestry. particularly those living away from Ukrainian settlement areas, may well not report it as an ethnicity.

 

 

 

Time to check Ancestry for elusive Essex ancestors

Essex, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1921,
4,072,316 records.

Essex, England, Church of England Marriages, 1754-1937,
2,003,102 records.

Essex, England, Church of England Deaths and Burials, 1813-1996,
730,465 records.

Findmypast also has a substantial Essex BMD collection.

100% Virtual, 100% Free.
3–5 March 2022.
more than 1,500 sessions on 185 topics in over 30 languages.

A huge event makes it easy to get lost. What is there of interest to your family history?

There are nine keynote presentations and 20 speakers who will present live. The diversity is evident in that I only recognize two of those names. Those presentations go on almost around the clock reflecting the needs of a global audience.

Most presentations are recorded and they’re not the conventional 50 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. Instead, 20 minutes is more typical, some less.

The presenters I recognize from the UK and Ireland include Dave Annal, Else Churchill, Myko Clelland, Gerald Corcoran, Jackie Depelle, Brian Donovan, Beryl Evans, Janet Few, Stephen Gill, Caroline Gurney, Gillian Hunt, Debbie Kennett, Michelle Leonard, Paul Nixon, Aoife O Connor, Alison Spring, and Penny Walters. I checked a few and they were already available to play. Go to www.familysearch.org/rootstech/home, click on the menu at the top right, select speakers and scroll or search for the speaker of interest.

There’s more than presentations. Details will come on the website. Expect announcements from the major sponsors so you’ll need to attend live to catch the latest, and perhaps find out about specials.

 

 

 

 

This week FMP adds 96,820 memorial inscriptions from 255 places to the burgeoning Norfolk coverage. Dates range from 1680 to 2012.

I didn’t have any luck finding the unusually named February Backlog, or any of the Backlog family, as their parish of Shipdham is not included. For perspective, 98,820 entries are less than the total number of deaths in Norfolk in the 1850s.

The National Burial Index on FMP, with 143,845 entries for Norfolk, includes 17 for Backlog, most in Shipdham.

Ancestry’s collection Global, Gravestone Photograph Index, 1265-2014 has one entry for a Backlog in Norfolk. Ancestry also has England, Norfolk Monumental Inscriptions, 1600-1900’s with 31 pages of unindexed MI transcripts with no Backlogs recorded.

FamilySearch and TheGenealogist have no MIs for Shipdham.

This week also sees US Census 1860, Slave Schedule Browse added to FMP, and an incredible 89 new and updated newspapers.

 

On Saturday at 1 pm ET Penny Allen will talk about researching in The National Archives, the London Metropolitan Archives, The Society of Genealogists, and some lesser-known London archives.

It’s a Zoom presentation organized by Ottawa Branch OGS.

Penny, a Canadian and a genealogist, has been researching off and on for more than 30 years, with kids, family, uni and work taking up time in between. She currently lives and works in the UK. Find out more at her blog UK to Canada Genealogy.

Register in advance for this meeting at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcof-2opzovHNDjuYkJRu0L3k_Wh5GgDgTS

Tuesday afternoon is prime time for online genealogy events. There were three conflicts this week, not counting AncestryHour.

I choose a presentation by Curt Witcher from the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center on finding articles for a geographic area on the Periodical Source Index. The presentation should come to the ACPL Genealogy Center YouTube channel soon. In the meantime, the handout is available at https://acpl.libnet.info/frontend-images/pdfs/acpl/Genealogy/PERSI_Finding_Articles_Geographic_Area_2022.pdf

Do you find yourself wondering which of the Big Four large databases, Ancestry, FamilySearch,  Findmypast, MyHeritage, is best for the search you need?

In this post we’ll look at electoral registers. They help fill gaps between censuses, especially when a person moved house. Or they may not have moved, no longer appearing can be a clue they died.

Check out the table below that compiles data from the Big Four for the countries of the UK and Ireland to see where you might find anything to help your research.

Title	Records	Company
UNITED KINGDOM
UK Electoral Registers & Companies House Directors (1998-2021)	121,561,368	Findmypast
UK, Electoral Registers, 2003-2010	65,218,347	Ancestry
UK, Poll Books and Electoral Registers, 1538-1893	4,677,818	Ancestry
ENGLAND & WALES
London, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965	179,071,659	Ancestry
England & Wales, Electoral Registers 1910-1932	157,221,851	Findmypast
West Yorkshire, England, Electoral Registers, 1840-1962	46,743,829	Ancestry
Surrey, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1962	36,618,572	Ancestry
Glamorganshire, Wales, Electoral Registers, 1832-1978	35,226,372	Ancestry
Liverpool, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1970	32,578,653	Ancestry
Bedfordshire, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1986	17,982,265	Ancestry
Berkshire, England, Electoral Registers, 1840-1965	12,738,603	Ancestry
Gloucestershire, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1974	11,544,708	Ancestry
Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Electoral Registers, 1741-1974	10,239,239	Ancestry
Midlands, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1965	9,182,437	Ancestry
Worcestershire, England, Electoral Registers, 1837-1974	7,887,267	Ancestry
England & Wales, Electoral Registers 1832-1932	6,735,615	Findmypast
England & Wales, Electoral Registers 1832-1932 Image Browse	6,692,787	Findmypast
Cambridgeshire, England, Electoral Registers, Burgess Rolls and Poll Books, 1722-1966	6,234,037	Ancestry
Swansea and Surrounding Area, Wales, Electoral Registers, 1839-1966	5,918,713	Ancestry
Kent Electoral Registers 1570-1907	4,678,563	Findmypast
Norfolk Electoral Registers 1832-1915	4,557,907	Findmypast
England, Norfolk Register of Electors, 1844-1952 Images	4,557,906	MyHeritage
Sutton, Surrey, England, Electoral Registers, 1931-1970	3,823,324	Ancestry
Cheshire Electoral Registers (1832-1900)	3,784,694	Findmypast
Bexley, Kent, England, Electoral Registers, 1734-1965	3,753,187	Ancestry
Pembrokeshire, Wales, Electoral Registers, 1740-1978	3,432,144	Ancestry
Lancashire, England, Electoral Registers, 1832-1935	3,146,854	Ancestry
Glamorganshire, West Glamorgan Electoral Registers 1839-1925	1,643,483	Findmypast
Anglesey, Wales, Electoral Registers, 1832-1977	1,602,837	Ancestry
Dorset, England, Electoral Registers, 1839-1922	1,584,958	Ancestry
Hampshire, Portsmouth Electoral Registers 1835-1873	198,310	Findmypast
Norfolk, Electoral Registers 1832-1915 Image Browse	161,799	Findmypast
Leicestershire Electoral Registers 1836-1970 Browse	115,295	Findmypast
Devon, Plymouth & West Devon Electoral Registers 1780-1973	74,093	Findmypast
England, Devon, Plymouth, Electoral Rolls, 1781-1973	57,142	FamilySearch
Wales, Monmouthshire Electoral Registers 1832-1889	54,032	Findmypast
Somerset Electoral Registers, 1832-1914	31,783	Findmypast
Manchester Electoral Registers Browse 1832-1900	23,298	Findmypast
Britain, Absent Voters Lists 1918-1921	22,827	Findmypast
Britain, Absent Voters Lists 1918-1921 Browse	19,311	Findmypast
Wales, Monmouthshire Electoral Registers 1832-1889 Image Browse	13,126	Findmypast
Kent, Bromley Absent Voters List 1918	9,165	Findmypast
SCOTLAND
Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Scotland, Electoral Registers, 1857-1962	30,247,020	Ancestry
Edinburgh, Scotland, Electoral Registers, 1832-1966	19,784,218	Ancestry
Aberdeen City and Former Counties of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Electoral Registers, 1832-1976	14,346,425	Ancestry
Fife, Scotland, Electoral Registers, 1914-1966	5,594,960	Ancestry
Scotland, Dundee & Forfarshire (Angus) Electoral Registers 1857-1939	3,750,727	Findmypast
Perth and Kinross, Scotland, Electoral Registers, 1832-1961	2,477,867	Ancestry
Scotland, Linlithgowshire (West Lothian), Electoral Registers 1864-1931	1,050,793	Findmypast
North Lanarkshire, Scotland, Electoral Registers, 1847-1969	714,769	Ancestry
Scotland, Linlithgowshire (West Lothian), Electoral Registers 1864-1931 Image Browse	23,469	Findmypast
Scotland, Ayrshire, Kilmarnock Voters Lists 1837-1852	2,110	Findmypast
IRELAND
Dublin Electoral Rolls	427,974	Findmypast
Ireland, Clare Electoral Registers	311,080	Findmypast
Ireland Electoral Registers, 1832 – 1838 Images	52,630	MyHeritage
Ireland, Electoral Registers 1885-1886	3,253	Findmypast
Ireland, Electoral Registers 1885-1886 Browse	3,253	Findmypast

Looking at the totals, Ancestry has 709 million records, but nothing for Ireland. Findmypast has 328 million including the 122 million records in the recent past UK Electoral Registers & Companies House Directors (1998-2021) collection. MyHeritage has 4.6 million, and it seems electoral registers are not a thing for FamilySearch.

TheGenealogist has many small databases for specific towns and single years.

If the online databases don’t help you’ve just confirmed that everything isn’t online.

 

Up until the early 1970s there’s a good chance someone in the family travelling to Canada transited through the port of Liverpool. I did. Knowing the ship, you don’t forget the name of the ship, and approximate date, you may only remember it approximately, records of the movement of ships in and out of the port in local newspapers will likely add detail about the journey.  

The major Liverpool newspapers available through the British Newspaper Archive, and on Findmypast, are

Title	Issues	Years
Liverpool Echo	35887	1879 – 1999
Liverpool Journal of Commerce	21610	1861-1862, 1864-1867, 1869-1887, 1889-1892, 1894, 1896-1897, 1899-1940
Liverpool Daily Post	17262	1855-1873, 1875-1877, 1881-1883, 1885-1890, 1892, 1894-1897, 1899-1920, 1939-1945
Liverpool Mercury	15294	1811-1835, 1837-1871, 1873-1897, 1899-1900

The Post and Mercury are also digitized on newspapers.com. Check both, I found the OCR of one was different from the other.

From 1958 there’s a regular column Merseyside Shipping in the Liverpool Echo listing the name of the ship, whether it left or leaves (L), arrived (A), due (D), called (C), berthed (B), for (F), passed (P) or sailed (S), the port and the date. I found L and D entries for the ship I sailed on along with an article about a local Liverpool person, a widow leaving for Ontario to live with her daughter. It mentioned there were 1,000 passengers. From memory, it didn’t seem like that many.

Liverpool newspapers are good sources for maritime news in general; the Liverpool Journal of Commerce is especially strong.

Here’s one I’ve been waiting for, 5.8 million records from 28 historical record collections of Jewish historical records as detailed in this blog post.

For the UK, there’s an index of death and burial records from 1733 to 2012 totalling 78,904 records.  I already discovered the burial of a g-g-uncle and verified others.

For Ireland, there’s a birth index with 61,503 records.

The single largest part of the collection is BMD records for Hungary, 2,266,404 records.

 

Filae Family Trees is a collection containing 269,472,549 records, new and the 11th largest database on MyHeritage. It’s a compilation of lineage-linked trees submitted by Filae.com users. The content comes from further afield than France.

Records typically include first and last names, dates and places of births, marriages, and deaths. Individuals in this collection are linked to parents, spouse(s), siblings, and children and each record links back to the same individual on Filae.

The collection is living, not that information on living people is displayed, but it’s updated automatically to reflect changes made to the original trees by their respective submitters.

What’s not in France? A search for death place Canada yields 1,295,060 results. Search for death place England and find 731,292 results. 

There’s a lesson there that bears preaching more often — don’t judge the relevance of a database by its title.

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 22 Feb. 9 am: Top Level Tips: Using Discovery, by Sarah Castagnetti for The  (UK) National Archives. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/top-level-tips-using-discovery-tickets-221292099627

Tuesday 22 Feb. 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 22 Feb. 2 pm: Printing Charts and Books on MyHeritage, by Uri Gonen for Legacy Family Tree Webinars and MyHeritage. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/printing-charts-and-books-on-myheritage/

Tuesday 22 Feb. 2:30 pm: Finding Periodical Articles about Your Geographic
Area of Interest Using PERSI, by Curt Witcher for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6137001

Wednesday 23 Feb. 10 am: Maps for Family History, by The National Library of Scotland. https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/maps-for-family-and-local-history-tickets-265046550367

Wednesday 23 Feb, 2 pm: From Piles to Files: Organize Your Genealogy, by Teresa Steinkamp McMillin for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/from-piles-to-files-organize-your-genealogy/

Wednesday 23 Feb, 7 pm: The Barber Family: Our Proud Place in Ottawa’s History, by Thomas Barber for Historical Society of Ottawa. https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/59/16,17,19,21/the-barber-family-our-proud-place-in-ottawa-s-history

Wednesday 23 Feb, 7 pm: Pluriverse Rising: Ingenious Design, by Wanda Dalla Costa for Heritage Ottawa. https://heritageottawa.org/events/phillips-memorial-lecture-pluriverse-rising-indigenous-design

Thursday 24 Feb. 6:30 pm: The Voice of the People: African Americans in the Early 20th Century, by Tim Pinnick for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6110940

Thursday 24 Feb. 7 pm: The 1921 Census of England and Wales, by Jen Baldwin for New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. https://www.newyorkfamilyhistory.org/events/1921-census-england-and-wales

Saturday 26 Feb, 1 pm: How to Research from a Distance, by Penny Allen for Ottawa Branch OGS. https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcof-2opzovHNDjuYkJRu0L3k_Wh5GgDgTS

 

Reminder. RootsTech is coming. 3–5 March 2022. https://www.familysearch.org/rootstech/next/registration

Here are the feature articles in the new issue available on PressReader.

Witch-hunters Marion Gibson considers whether sadism was the prime motivator behind the terrifying witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Nixon in China Rana Mitter reveals how the US leader’s diplomatic mission 50 years ago augured China’s entrance onto the global stage.

Lodging with Mozart Gillian Williamson chronicles the craze for renting rooms in Georgian London.

Digging for victory John Martin charts Britain’s battle to stave off starvation in the Second World War.

Secrets of Stonehenge Mike Pitts answers the biggest questions on the construction of this astonishing Neolithic monument.
A most interesting article addressing the questions, where on Earth did the stomes come from; how were the stones transported to their current site; how did the sarcens get their distinctive shape; how did Neolithis engineers erect these huge stones; how long did Stonehenge stake to build?

Captivating children In thethird part of ourseries on the BBC’s history, David Hendy recalls how Blue Peter captured children’s hearts in the 1960s and 70s.

A space menagerie Stephen Walker tells the story of the animals sent into space to pave the way for human exploration beyond Earth.

HistoryExtra has a variety of themed newsletters you might enjoy — www.historyextra.com/newsletters/