Anglo-Celtic Connections

On Tuesday, 4 October Ottawa’s Public Library Board announced that Sonia Bebbington will be the new CEO of OPL, effective 31 October.

Previously Director-General for Information and Document Resource Services of the Library of Parliament, she has a Master of Library & Information Science degree from The University of Western Ontario, Master of Arts in English Language and Literature/Letters from the University of Waterloo, and Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature/Letters from The University of Western Ontario.

 

Choose from selected 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. Many additional events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/

Tuesday 4 October, 2 pm: OGS Ottawa Branch Virtual Genealogy Drop-in.
https://meet.google.com/nvz-kftj-dax

Tuesday 4 October, 7:30 pm: Stop the Presses: Historic Newspaper Collections. by Jennifer Weymark for Durham Region Branch OGS. 
https://ogs.on.ca/events/durham-branch-october-4th-meeting-stop-the-presses-historic-newspaper-collections/

Tuesday 4 October,  9 pm: Encounters – Our Immigrant Ancestors (19th and 20th-century sources for arrival in New Zealand), by Fiona Brooker for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/encounters-our-immigrant-ancestors/

Wednesday 5 October, 2 pm: One Man, Multiple Names: A DNA-Based Case Study, by Dana Leeds for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/one-man-multiple-names-a-dna-based-case-study/

Wednesday 5 October, 7:30 pm: Court Records in Huron, by Sinead Cox for Huron County Branch OGS.
https://huron.ogs.on.ca/events/huron-branch-sinead-cox-court-records-in-huron/

Friday 7 October, 11:30 am: When Wrong is Actually Right: Constructing Proof Arguments for Counterintuitive Conflicts (a 2022 Reisinger lecture), by Meryl Schumacker for the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/when-wrong-is-actually-right-constructing-proof-arguments-for-counterintuitive-conflicts/

Friday 7 October, Peeling the Onion: Getting to the Original Sources (a 2022 Reisinger lecture), by Gary Ball-Kilbourne for for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/peeling-the-onion-getting-to-the-original-sources/

Friday 7 October, 2 pm: The Hub of the Wheel: How Tracing a Brother with no Children Connected Ten Siblings (a 2022 Reisinger lecture) by Mary Kircher Roddy for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/the-hub-of-the-wheel-how-tracing-a-brother-with-no-children-connected-ten-siblings/

Friday 7 October, 4 pm: Consult via…Explore with…Discover through…Literature Reviews (a 2022 Reisinger lecture) by Jan Joyce for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/consult-viaexplore-withdiscover-throughliterature-reviews/

Friday 7 October, 5:15 pm: Finding Henrietta: Reconciling Conflicting Evidence to Reveal a Woman’s Identity (a 2022 Reisinger lecture), by Nicole Gilkison LaRue for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/finding-henrietta-reconciling-conflicting-evidence-to-reveal-a-womans-identity/

Friday 7 October, 6:30 pm: Hidden Stories: Using Analysis to Explore the Unexpected in Family History (a 2022 Reisinger lecture). by Jennifer Zinck for BCG via Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/hidden-stories-using-analysis-to-explore-the-unexpected-in-family-history/

Saturday 8 October, 9 am: From Derry to the Pontiac – A Publishing Journey, by Nancy Conroy for BIFHSGO (hybrid)
Saturday 8 October, 10 am: Alfred Guidal and his land occupancy maps of Ontario, by Bruce Elliott for BIFHSGO (hybrid)
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

 

How successful is commercial DNA testing in resolving British & Irish cases of unknown parentage? by Maurice Gleeson, Donna Rutherford, John Cleary, Michelle Leonard.

This study is the first to characterise the type of people trying to resolve unknown parentage cases in the UK and Ireland, and how successful their efforts are, using commercial DTC (direct-to-consumer) DNA tests.

Writing That Is Not Written: Clues, the Unconscious, the Indirect, and Traces; What Genealogy Can Learn from Microhistory. by Stephen B. Hatton

The article lists six characteristics of microhistory and argues that genealogy is not microhistory though the two share a focus on small scale groups or people.

The journal home page is: https://www.qualifiedgenealogists.org/ojs/index.php/JGFH

A British Library blog post The Haldimand Papers: The British Empire in North America makes for instructive reading.

“Whereas colonials sought to expand their settlements westward beyond the Appalachian Mountains at the expense of the Indigenous societies, British army officers strove to preserve Native lands for Native people. The reasons for this sentiment shifted over time, but it was a surprisingly consistent policy goal from the 1750s onward.”

The Haldiman Papers are online on 48 reels at Canadiana Heritage.

Rare is such a significant resource found.

It’s a large cache of unexplored records — tens of thousands of military personnel files, the majority of which deal with Canadian military service during the Great War. To be clear, these are not the “CEF Service Documents” that Library and Archives Canada (LAC) now has online under the title “Personnel Records of the First World War.”

Would you be particularly interested in a nursing sister who served?

If so, you’ll be delighted to learn of the article Hidden in Plain Sight: The Militia and Defence Headquarters Personnel File Series, 1903 to 1938, by Paul Marsden and Glenn Wright, published in Canadian Military History, Vol 31, No 2 (2022).

Many of the records are available as online images at Canadiana Heritage, and a large number have been name indexed and included in Collection Search on the Library and Archives Canada website. That’s particularly the case for the nursing sisters, except those with surname O and P whose records were lost. The search result will provide the microfilm number on Heritage and the range of images for that person.

If familiar with old microfilm records — and these files were filmed in 1948-49 — you won’t be surprised to “encounter pages which are all white or all black or documents which appear to have been moving when filmed. Occasionally, you will find a corrected image a couple of pages later, but that is the exception. With some effort and image editing software, we were able to make many of the illegible pages legible. Patience is a necessary virtue in using some of these files.”

The nursing sisters are just the tip of the iceberg. Over six thousand files are indexed; many more remain unindexed. Aside from First World War nurses, there are 626 files relating to members of the Canadians contingents and the South African Constabulary in the South African War.

 

 

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Italian cyclist Michael Guerra uses his knowledge of physics and aerodynamics to adopt a “plank” position and overtake his competitors. pic.twitter.com/EsRt16l2PT

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) September 27, 2022

Not the original words, what they should have been.

Unusual Holidays and Places to Stay in the UK

Polish Pilots and the Battle of Britain

Toronto Public Library Online Ontario Resources
Without a lot of fanfare, a bit more would be helpful, Digital Archive Ontario from the Toronto Public Library continues to be updated — including over 100,000 historical photos, maps, postcards & more from across Ontario

“Diaries were kept by units at all levels, from battalions to entire military branches. The format of the diaries vary, but generally include regular entries that provide information about the activities of a unit. Some diaries offer more narrative detail than others. Notes about new instructions and troop movements, assessments of troop strength, and requests for reinforcements are common diary entry topics.

Records in this collection may include the following information:

Commanding officer’s name and rank
Regiment or unit
Division
Diary entry date
Diary entry location”

The diaries included are:

British Forces, Middle East. 01 April 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 August 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 December 1940 – 31 July 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 December 1941 – 31 December 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 February 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1941 – 30 September 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1942 – 30 November 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1942 – 30 September 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 January 1942 – 31 January 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 July 1940 – 28 February 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 July 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 June 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 March 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 May 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 November 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 October 1939 – 31 December 1943
British Forces, Middle East. 01 October 1942 – 31 December 1942
British Forces, Middle East. 01 September 1942 – 31 December 1942
War Office: Army Medical Services: 149th Field Ambulance RAMC

October is Canadian Library Month when libraries and library partners across Canada raise awareness of the valuable role libraries play in Canadians’ lives.

The Ottawa Public Library is taking an approach focused on misinformation (if I’m not misinformed!)

 

A modest addition of records coming out of the privacy embargo.

Norfolk: Baptisms
Nearly 4,000 records for the year 1922, including original images, for the parishes of King’s Lynn, St Margaret
with St Nicholas, Cromer, Diss, Great Snoring and Holt.

Norfolk: Banns & Marriages
Records for the year 1938, cover South Lynn (All Saints), Lowestoft (Suffolk), Wells Next the Sea, Norwich and Brundall. Around 3,500 marriages and around 4,400 banns.

Norfolk: Burials
290 additional records for 1997 for the parishes of Edgefield, Middleton, Wilby, Fring and Twyford.

 

Today, 30 September, is St. Jerome’s Day.

Who was St Jerome, the patron saint of librarians and libraries, translators, Biblical scholars, archaeologists, encyclopaedists, archivists, and – by extension – genealogists?

Find out here.

The British Newspaper Archive now has a total of 57,484,010  pages online (an increase from 56,359,584 last month).

This month 87 papers had pages added (243 in the previous month). There were 22 (34) new titles. Dates range from 1816 to 1999.

The 19 newspapers with more than 10,000 pages added are:

Leicester Daily Mercury	1874, 1878, 1880-1888, 1891-1897, 1899-1910, 1912-1925, 1928-1930, 1932-1938, 1940-1949, 1951-1953, 1957-1959, 1962-1980, 1982-1988, 1990-1992, 1994-1995
Torbay Express and South Devon Echo	1921-1923, 1925, 1940, 1946, 1954, 1968, 1974-1976, 1979, 1981-1982, 1984-1985, 1987-1993, 1995-1999
Sandwell Evening Mail	1975-1984
Building News	1854-1855, 1862, 1869-1891
Birmingham Mail	1963, 1967, 1979, 1982, 1984-1985
West Briton and Cornwall Advertiser	1816-1861, 1863-1864, 1866-1869, 1871-1872, 1875-1876, 1878, 1880-1888, 1892-1896, 1898-1899, 1904-1906, 1909, 1911, 1913-1914, 1917-1919, 1921-1922, 1924-1929, 1931-1938, 1941-1949
Nottingham Evening Post	1996, 1999
Richmond Herald	1885-1896, 1898-1950
East End News and London Shipping Chronicle	1869-1962
Staffordshire Sentinel	1865-1866, 1871-1872, 1882, 1888, 1893-1896, 1902, 1950-1952, 1955, 1957-1958, 1960, 1963-1974, 1976-1980
Christian World	1857-1890
Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph	1991, 1995, 1998
Hornsey & Finsbury Park Journal	1879-1915
Kerry Reporter	1883-1920
Birmingham Daily Post	1999
Church & State Gazette (London)	1842-1856
Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser	1979-1985
Burton Daily Mail	1999
Irish Christian Advocate	1885-1896

On order at the Ottawa Public Library, destined for the Blackburn Hamlet branch, this topic appears to be a bit of a departure for Lynne Butler, who “has worked in estate planning and law for over 25 years. She is a frequent speaker on will and estate matters, and has been a Learning Group facilitator for the Wills and Estates module of the bar admission course in Alberta.”

Perhaps not so much of a departure, as the book is more focused than the title suggests.

“Build Your Family Tree explains how a will or probate record can offer a much more robust image of lives lived and legacies left. Wills are underused in genealogy research. This may be because many family genealogists use primarily online sources for research and most wills are not found online; it could also be because the documents are usually in old, unfamiliar, handwritten script and are not easy to read. With a little work, you could uncover some surprises or a treasure trove of information. Even genealogy enthusiasts who are willing to look for wills may not fully appreciate just how useful probate and related records can be. In this book you will find an explanation of what sorts of probate records exist and where to find them.”

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Self-Counsel Press; 1st edition (November 15, 2022)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1770403469
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1770403468
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 0.035 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.5 x 9 inches

While the book is not on the Self-Counsel Press website, it’s listed on Amazon at $49.95 for the paperback!