Anglo-Celtic Connections

The Periodical Source Index, produced by the Allen County Public Library Genealogy Centre and billed as the largest subject index to genealogy and local history periodical articles in the world, is being brought home. Here is a summary based on an information session I attended on Tuesday afternoon.

In recent years PERSI has been available through Findmypast.  That’s ending. Now it’s available FREE at https://genealogycenter.info/persi/.

It’s not a full-text article search. Neither does it search authors’ names. What it does do is surface articles classified by subject — a surname, location or other subjects. Information returned is the article title, periodical, year published and publisher. There is no link to the actual article, something Findmypast did do for a limited number of articles for which they had access.

If you find an article of interest you may find it at a convenient source, online, or you can order a copy, for a fee, from the ACPL Genealogy Centre.

ACPL folks are still working on the site which is expected to officially launch at the end of the month. Suggestions for improvements already include wildcard and Boolean search capabilities.

PERSI started in 1986. It contains retrospective material and continues to be updated, the work of two full-time cataloguers. Over the years the way subjects are chosen has changed so be flexible in the search terms you use.

Look out for webinars and other communications on PERSI over the next few months.

 

 

On this date in 1918 a firedamp explosion at the Minnie Pit Mine at Halmer End, near Newcastle-under-Lyme, killed 155 miners and one rescuer, 44 were under age 16. It was England’s worst wartime mining disaster.

The 14 October 1913 explosion at the Universal Colliery in Senghenydd, near Caerphilly, Glamorgan, Wales, that killed 439 miners and a rescuer is the worst mining accident in the United Kingdom.

The Coalmining History Resource Centre, “the UK’s largest and most comprehensive website concerning the history of coal mining”, includes a searchable database of over 164,000 recorded accidents and deaths.

Over 1,500 were killed, in what is believed to be the worst mining disaster in history, on April 26, 1942, at the Benxihu (Honkeiko) coal mine in Liaoning Province, China.

 

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

Tuesday 11 Jan. 2 pm: DNA Labels, by Ran Shir for MyHeritage and Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/dna-labels/

Tuesday 11 Jan. 2:30 pm: Welcome to the New, FREE, Periodical Source Index (PERSI) – an informal first look, by Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center staff. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6009522  

Wednesday 12 Jan. 11 am: 1921 census Q/A, with Jen Baldwin, Myko Clelland and Paul Nixon for Findmypast. www.facebook.com/findmypast.

Thursday 13 Jan, 11 am: Conservation Tean Discoveries, with Ellie Overthrow-Jones and guests. www.facebook.com/findmypast.

Saturday 15 Jan. 10 am: Exploring Ontario Records at familysearch.org, by Stephen Young for Kingston Branch OGS. https://kingston.ogs.on.ca/

Saturday 15 Jan. 1 pm: A 19th Century Ontario Enigma (case study), by Janice Nickerson for Quinte Branch OGS. https://quinte.ogs.on.ca/2022/01/08/january-15-a-19th-century-ontario-enigma/

 

 

Just out of copyright and now online, 2,332 Ordnance Survey maps at 1:10,000 scale from 1971 for the areas coloured orange. The maps are black and white with contour lines at 5 metre intervals in brown.

The Ancestry Card Catalog entry for this addition is: UK, Royal Air Force Operations Record Books, 1911-1963, Military, 758,658 records. The original data source is AIR 27 Air Ministry and successors: Operations Record Books, Squadrons Record books 1911-1993 at the National Archives, Kew.

Although you can search by name the roster is far from complete. If you know the squadron and date you may find a complete crew list and description of the flight as I did for the accident that killed my uncle. Knowing that I was able to scroll back and find some earlier flights on which he served.

Contrary to Ancestry’s title, the collection is not just for the RAF. Australian, Canadian, Indian, Malayan, New Zealand, Rhodesian, South African, even Yugoslav OPBs are included.

Squadrons 400 to 443, and 162, 664 to 666 are Canadian, 450 to 467 are Australian, 485 to 490 New Zealand. There were crews of mixed nationalities.

As with battalion diaries, ORBs commonly mention officers by name, only counts of other ranks.

Findmypast and TheGenealogist have similar collections.

 

 

 

If you plan a visit to a public library, or any other GLAM facility, do check on its situation before you leave.  Here’s the current situation at Ottawa, Toronto and Brampton.

Ottawa Public Library is reducing opening hours as of Monday 10 January “to avoid the need for sudden closures to respond to fluctuating staffing levels. Weekday hours of operation for most branches and Infoservice will be:

Monday: 10 am – 6 pm
Tuesday: 1 pm – 8 pm
Wednesday: 10 am – 6 pm
Thursday: 1 pm – 8 pm

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday hours remain the same.

Some services are suspended: seating, study carrels and lounge areas; Chromebook-lending; In-branch use of newspaper and magazines; Creation spaces.

The Toronto Public Library is temporarily closing 44 branches due to COVID-19 related staffing shortages. Fifty-two of TPL’s largest and most-used library branches remain open.

Seven of eight branches at Brampton Library continue with the usual hours although in-branch services are reduced.

 

 

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

River Runner Global allows you to virtually drop a raindrop anywhere in the world to visualize its journey to the sea with an animated map journey.

Queen’s University Archives Transcription Project
Kingston Branch OGS is working in collaboration with Queen’s University Archives (QUA) to transcribe a digitized collection of licenses to marry without publication of bans, marriage certificates and affidavits of marriage, 1804-1881.

National Treasures: Saving the Nation’s Art in World War II, by Caroline Shenton.
A book review by Adrian Tinniswood in The London Historians’ Blog.

The English Census of 1921
An article published in December 1922 by US author Edith Abbott included a population comparison of the impact of the Civil War in the US to the First World War in England (and Wales.) As the census was taken on 19 June 1921 you may find someone enumerated while on holiday and not at their normal residence. That should be evident from the work address given.

10 amazing finds and faces in the 1921 Census
A blog post on census oddities from Findmypast.

Scientists Settled a Century-Old Family Drama Using DNA From Postcards

Ordnance Survey Ireland National Townland and Historic Map Viewer.

Proud to be peculiar: The little-known story of the Archives Museum, by Geneviève Morin, Senior Archivist for Documentary Art, Objects and Photography, Government Archives Division at LAC illuminates how much we owe to the vision of Sir Arthur Doughty.

Thanks to this week’s contributors. Ann Burns, Anonymous, Beverly A. Craig, gail benjafield, Glenn Wright, Jan Hatcher Roberts, Teresa, Unknown.

Now we’re past the 12 days of Christmas and looking ahead with optimism to an active 2022, a reminder about the opportunity to speak at The Ontario Ancestors  (OGS) Virtual Conference to be held June 24- 26, 2022.

The conference theme, The Past, The Present, and The Future, provides plenty of scope for creativity.

Could you be a speaker for one or more 40 minute live presentations?

The deadline for the submission of lecture proposals is Sunday, 30 January 2022 at 11:59 PM EST.

Find out more and how to apply at https://conference2022.ogs.on.ca/

The new year brings the annual BMD update to the ScotlandsPeople website.

145,602 birth entries for 1921.
54,630 marriage entries for 1946.
62,746 death entries for 1971.

Read ScotlandsPeoples’ posts on some of the exceptional births, marriages and deaths.

This Saturday, 8 January, BIFHSGO offers a full online program, a 9 a.m. “education” talk and 10 a.m. main presentation.

Kirk Session Records for Family Historians at  9 a.m.

The Kirk Sessions of the Established Church of Scotland were responsible for the administration of their parish; they looked after the welfare of their parishioners as well as their discipline—in both spiritual and moral matters. The members of the Session—the minister and the elders—met regularly and their deliberations were recorded, often in great detail. So, whether your ancestor was a clergyman, a church elder, a poor man or woman seeking financial assistance or a woman with an illegitimate child there is a chance they will appear in the minutes and these can often provide information on ancestors that cannot be found anywhere else.

Branching Out at 10 a.m.

We often focus our research on what we believe to be the “key” people in our direct line of ancestors; those who have a “story to tell,” or who take our research back even further. As a result, we can miss out on some fascinating information about our extended family. This talk will look at members of one family whose histories were overlooked in the initial research. Their stories add depth and breadth to our understanding of this family and its history, of the wider context in which they lived and of their impact, if any, on society at the time.

Both talks will be given by Kate Keter BSc MSc QG. Kate has been researching family trees for over 30 years. What started as a hobby, soon became an obsession and ultimately led her to complete an MSc in Genealogical, Palaeographic and Heraldic Studies from the University of Strathclyde in 2016. Since then, she has worked as a professional genealogist based in Linlithgow, a small town to the west of Edinburgh, and is also a tutor on the Post-Graduate Genealogy and the Family History short courses at Strathclyde University. She is a member of the Register of Qualified Genealogists (RQG) and the Association of Scottish Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (ASGRA).

To attend, it’s free, you must register at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

When it’s midnight in London it’s 7 pm in Ottawa. So unlike my UK friends I didn’t have to burn the midnight oil to try the 1921 census of England and Wales newly released on Findmypast.

I was impressed. Remembering the disaster that was the release of the 1901 census online (Findmypast was not involved) I expected hiccups. Although a few were reported the vast majority, like me, found the search quick and very efficient.

Even without paying, you’re returned enough information from the free search that you can be reasonably certain you have the right person.

As a search for my mother came up empty I tried her brother, Cedric

Mousing over the right-hand icons gave the additional information that in the household were Maurice, Sara as well as Cedric and five others. I then searched with the last name and parish, Wembley, and my mother was found with her second name rather than the first. Maurice and Sara were her grandparents. Knowing the family I was able to verify four of the five others without making a payment. But her parents were not there. Possibly they were in Scotland where he had previously worked as a musician.

My father I found easily with his parents, although not in Carmarthen but the parish of Llangendeirne, Carmarthenshire. That contains the mining community where I’d previously found his father.

I will be purchasing the images of these two original records, mainly to find workplaces, as well as that for a stray cousin I’ve been following.

The database has almost 37.8 million records for people living in England & Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man or serving in the British armed forces overseas on 19th June 1921.  Searching with the “Advanced Options” finds 280,661 born in Ireland, 33,676 in Scotland, 25,876 in the United States, 19,272 in Canada, 17,134 in Australia, and 2,841 in New Zealand, 

 

Table of Contents

Queen of spies
Victoria’s intelligence networks helped her defy her enemies – and her own governments – as Rory Cormac and Richard J Aldrich explain

A king of fire and light
Louis IX embodied both the horror and beauty of medieval Europe, write Matthew Gabriele and David M Perry

1921: a brave new world?
The release of the 1921 census leads Sarah Hellawell to consider whether Britain really did “roar” in the 1920s

The BBC at 100
In the first in a new series on the BBC’s history, David Hendy revisits the corporation’s earliest broadcasts

Enemies of the state
Mark Cornwall on 10 infamous treason cases and what they said about the power of the state in Britain

Captive of the revolution
Monica Whitlock meets Kim Gordon, who spent two years imprisoned in a Beijing hotel room during China’s Cultural Revolution

Actress, writer and rebel
Helen Batten charts the amazing life of Emily Soldene, a star of the Victorian stage.

COMMENT

New books are regularly announced in the magazine. Insulin: The Crooked Timber by Kersten T Hall, from Oxford University Press, is one a noted owing to the history of diabetes in my family. “Derived from an observation by Immanuel Kant- “out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made” this book ‘s subtitle highlights its focus on the complex, at times unsympathetic, scientists who discovered insulin a century ago. The creation of medication from that hormone transformed the lives of people with diabetes and this vivid take puts that milestone into its wider context. 

There’s also news of a film I might well want to see Operation Mincemeat starring Colin Firth, Kelly Macdonald and Matthew Macfadyen .  “It’s an espionage story that almost defies belief. In 1943 the Allies were preparing t0 invade southern Europe but were, for good reason, woried they would face heavy resistance. But what if the Axis could be tricked into believing that an invasion would be coming via Greece and Sardinia rather than Sicily? It was preciselythis subterfuge that was perpetuated by British intelligence operatives Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley. They oversaw a cunning plan to place misleading papers on the body of a recently deceased man and drop it off the coast of Spain, hoping the information would be passed on to the Nazis.”
Opening in UK cinemas this week, Operation Mincemeat will stream on Netflix in North America.