Anglo-Celtic Connections

Many of us will be busy on Saturday.

At 9 am Ken McKinlay and Glenn Wright for BIFHSGO will be sharing tips for finding UK military records.
The session continues at 10 am with  “At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them”  — Military Moments with Sandra Adams, Gil Croome, Gillian Leitch, Nigel Lloyd, Bill Rasmus, and John Reid.

Meanwhile, there’s the Family History Federation’s Really Useful Show which actually starts with a free session today (Friday). See the full program at https://www.fhf-reallyuseful.com/

 

Here are the FMP additions this week,

Indian Army Service Records, 1900-1947
These newly-released Indian Army records of service store detailed information for 12,760 military servicemen and women. From captains to conductors, colonels to cooks, these documents provide invaluable insights into the lives of those that served.

Dotted throughout the Indian Army Service Records are the few female privates that served in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps, India. Formed in 1942, these women relieved service personnel in the Army, Navy, and Air Forces, providing invaluable support throughout the war.

Greater Burnley Roll of Honour
This focused 4,100 item collection details those from the Greater Burnley area of Lancashire that lost their lives during the First World War.

Though most of these records specify everything from regiment to home address, some entries go as far as to note the nature of a soldier’s death or even pay homage to his honours and awards.

Tipperary Studies has launched a new website with a database of Irish servicemen and servicewomen who died in the Great War.

There are 31,384 entries in the database, which is the work of military historian Tom Burnell.  Included are contemporary press reports and death certificate information, where available.

Searching “Canadian” finds 1,153 entries, “Canada” finds 421 entries.

www.irelandsgreatwardead.ie

FREE ACCESS to Fold3 military records through 14 November..

FREE ACCESS to Findmypast ‘Military, Armed Forces & Conflict’ records to 10 am on 15 November.  – 100 million records.

FREE ACCESS to First and Second World War records on Ancestry until 12 November – 2 billion records.

FREE ACCESS to military records at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Library and Archives Canada, every day of the year.

 

 

Just in time for Remembrance Day, Library and Archives Canada has added two military Challenges.

Women in the War challenge invites you to identify servicewomen and nursing sisters who served in Canada and abroad between 1942 and 1945. The selected photographs depict them at work and play, on ships, in kitchens and libraries, playing sports and dancing. In many cases, the word “unidentified” is part of the title of the image. A start has been made on the 70 images, 6% need review, none are complete.

First World War Posters challenge invites you to transcribe, tag, translate and describe these 125 images selected from 4,000 posters collected during and immediately after the Great War. Transcription is 55% complete; a further 26% need review.

 

The National Library of Scotland is actively adding Ordnance Survey town plans for England and Wales online dating from the 1840s to 1890s. Presently with over 400 town coverage, these are high resolution 1:500 scale — one inch on the map represents 42 feet. You can select a town or use a zoomable map to home in on the exact area of interest.

NLS is extending coverage in November and December 2021 and stitching them together overlayed on a Google map so you don’t struggle with the Iron Law of Maps – the area of interest is always at the intersection of two or more maps.

Naturally, NLS has a wide assortment of maps for Scotland. Access the complete collection from https://maps.nls.uk/os/

The locally published book History of Port Albert suggests it’s of the Lake Huron shoreline community interest. But as indicated by the image on the cover with the words “Air Navigation School” and “Royal Air Force” the focus is limited to the period of the Second World War when the community welcomed airmen in training. These were the days of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

From the middle of October 1940 to 17 February 1945 when the base closed a total of about 1,200  navigators from allied countries descended on Port Albert.

The book details the development of the base, the training, the community during the war and its subsequent remembrance of the period. There are many illustrations including photos — one included the father of a friend as a member of a football team.

Page 60 lists airmen killed while stationed at Port Albert, 12 with no known grave. Of the 35 named 33 can be identified in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission database. Flight Sergeant R Brown and Leading Aircraftsman C T Jones could not be recognized. There were spelling differences in others. Byers, instead of Buyers, Chantler not Chandler,  Chilvers not Chivers, Dawes not Daws, Hughes not Hughs.

Anyone researching someone who trained at, or served in a civilian capacity at No 31 ANS, will find lots of interesting background in writing a family history.

UPDATE

The Daily Diary for the accident that killed Flight Sergeant R Brown has the notation against his name “Fighting French.” The diary also shows the number of Free French at Port Arthur number 2 at the start of the month and 1 at the end.  It’s strange to have someone named Brown as French — possibly another spelling problem.

C T Jones is actually C T James!

Check out the addresses of the homes where your ancestors lived on Google Street View. Is it still the same house? Was it bombed, or demolished? What kind of neighbourhood?

As explained by Roz McCutcneon in her BIFHSGO conference talk, and her handout, the Registry of Deeds is a vast archive, which covers the whole island of Ireland. As of the date of her talk, there were 436,699 names indexed at www.irishdeedsindex.net  drawn from 45,975 deeds. The latest update is 452,604 index records from 47,489 deeds. That’s as of 7 November.

These and the subsidiary indexes are fully searchable for free at https://irishdeedsindex.net/search/search.php/.

They provide an entree to the 2686 free-to-view films from the beginning of the Registry in 1708, up to 1929 at: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/185720?availability=Family%20History%20Library.

 

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

Tuesday 9 Nov. 2 pm: An overview of the massive new record collection from France, by Elisabeth Zetland from MyHeritage for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/a-myheritage-webinar-series-webinar-2/

Wednesday 10 Nov. 3 pm: Processing LAC’s Largest Private Digital Record Donation (Stephen Harper), by Nicole Welsh for ARMA Vancouver Chapter.
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/processing-lacs-largest-private-digital-record-donation-tickets-195216807727?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Wednesday, 10 Nov. 7 pm: Mapping Ottawa’s Indigenous Trails by Peter Stockdale and Barb Sarazin for Historical Society of Ottawa.
https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/50/16,17,19,21/mapping-ottawa-s-indigenous-trails

Thursday 11 Nov. 7 pm: British War Brides, by Sheila Hewett for Lambton County Branch OGS.
https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/home/lambton-branch-monthly-meeting/

Saturday 13 Nov. 9 am: Finding UK Military Records: What, Where and How, by Glenn Wright and Ken McKinlay for BIFHSGO.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItdOyqrjsvE9LhKUSYohc-576ujjERiphW

Saturday 13 Nov. 10 am: “At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them” Military Moments, by Sandra Adams, Gil Croome, Gillian Leitch, Nigel Lloyd, Bill Rasmus, and John D Reid for BIFHSGO.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItdOyqrjsvE9LhKUSYohc-576ujjERiphW

 

The (UK) Family History Federation now has podcasts.  Termed “Really Useful Podcast”, two are available.

Series 1 Episode 1: Occupations
In this episode series host Joe Saunders is joined by Mish Holman, professional genealogist who is particularly interested in theatre ancestors and census enumerators, Mike Esbester, academic historian and co-lead on the Railway Work Life and Death Project and Judith Batchelor, professional genealogist, writer and tutor at IHGS.
Work affected our ancestors and shaped their fortunes. Occupational records can be used to research your family history and give a fuller picture of their lives. Among other things our speakers touch upon the need to think about women’s work, what drew people to certain occupations and offer some top tips for researching.

Series 1 Episode 2: Young People
Joe Saunders is joined by Janet Few, historical researcher, writer, speaker and President of the Family History Federation, Margaret Roberts, editor of the Playing Pasts online sports history magazine and Publicity Officer for the FHS of Cheshire and Daniel Loftus, Gen-Z Genealogist and founding member of The Hidden Branch group for young family historians.

Young people aren’t just the future of family history but the present. We discuss some of the problems young people face and how older genealogists and organisations can best interact with them for the massive benefit of all.

Find out how “really useful” these really are at https://www.familyhistoryfederation.com/podcast

The war memorial in Victoria, BC, has a plaque added for the war in Afghanistan.

158 Canadian soldiers and 7 Canadian civilians died in that war.