Anglo-Celtic Connections

It’s easy to overlook additions to FamilySearch collections. In March 206 indexed collections were added or had additions. For Canada, there were additions to a register of Chinese Immigration.  For England, additions were made to parish and Non-Conformist church records; Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988 now has over 5.7 million entries. Three Irish titles have additions.

COLLECTION TITLE	RECORDS	LAST UPDATE
Canada, Registers of Chinese Immigration to Canada, 1885-1949	12,244	14-Mar-22
England and Wales Census, 1871	Browse Images	16-Mar-22
England, Gloucestershire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1642-1996	137,933	29-Mar-22
England, Herefordshire Bishop’s Transcripts, 1583-1898	1,603,017	28-Mar-22
England, Lancashire Non-Conformist Church Records, 1647-1996	686,640	31-Mar-22
England, Lincolnshire, Marriage Bonds and Allegations, 1574-1885	117,807	31-Mar-22
England, Middlesex Parish Registers, 1539-1988	5,761,662	23-Mar-22
England, Northumberland Non-Conformist Church Records, 1613-1920	411,621	31-Mar-22
England, Somerset, Church Records, 1501-1999	4,781,848	04-Mar-22
Ireland Census, 1841	15,850	28-Mar-22
Ireland Census, 1901	4,379,702	11-Mar-22
Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1740-1900	653,835	17-Mar-22

Those are not the only additions.

Go to https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/ and you’ll see a counter ticking up. Just since 17 March, there are 39 image collections added for England, 322 for Scotland, 3 for Ireland. None for Wales or Canada.

The Research Wiki was updated on 23 March.

This long-awaited paperback by English professional genealogist Celia Heritage was published this month by Pen and Sword. It provides a microscope and macroscope for the topic in space and time that will open your eyes to unappreciated possibilities. Case studies, many from her own family research, bring life to the presentation. There’s also practical advice for getting the most out of exploring a graveyard or cemetery, and related resources, where an ancestor is waiting for you to find them and elements of their story.

Chapter 1, A Brief History of Death and Burial, starts with the story of  Celia’s lucky find of a memorial to great-grandparents and their children. The chapter covers the history of the way people’s bodies were disposed of, not only burial (inhumation) from 10,000 years ago to the present day, including the influence of religion.
Chapter 2, The Parish Churchyard, notes that the origins and early history of parish churchyards are undocumented. Celia advises that even though you assume your ancestor was poor, not to ignore memorials in the church and intramural burial, beneath the church floor and in crypts. Placement in a churchyard may indicate prominence in the community, depending on the era. She uses the case of the burial of a relative at Westminster’s St Martin-in-the-Fields church to suggest resources to explore to find your own long-deceased ancestor.
Chapter 3, Ex-Parochial Graveyards, explores a wide range of burial sites: Nonconformist, foreign church, Roman Catholic, Jewish, private, armed forces, institutional, prison, workhouse, hospital, asylum and plague pits. Also covered is locating defunct burial grounds.
Chapter 4, Cemeteries and Crematoria – the Nineteenth Century and Onwards, explores cemeteries as a gateway to many topics of interest aside from genealogy and history, including horticulture, nature conservation and architecture and their development.
Chapter 5, Gravestones and Gravesites, covers graves, gravestones and memorial markers. There’s helpful coverage of the evolution of styles, hints on reading eroded inscriptions and cleaning (and not cleaning). Mentioned in passing is a memorial said to be at St Paul’s Church (Cathedral) in London, Ontario. It refers to an article in the London Illustrated News and a memorial to those who died at the Battle of Alma in the Crimean War, not at the Alamo!
The final chapters rehearse the records, from those you immediately think of, like burial registers and newspapers, to records of undertakers and monumental masons, and websites.
Two appendices are followed by notes, a resource list and an index.

Cemeteries and Graveyards (Paperback)
A Guide for Local and Family Historians in England and Wales
By Celia Heritage
Imprint: Pen & Sword Family History
Series: Tracing Your Ancestors
Pages: 248
Illustrations: 30 black and white illustrations
ISBN: 9781526702371
Published: 17th March 2022

https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Cemeteries-and-Graveyards-Paperback/p/20462

Another amazing month for the British Newspaper Archive, now with a total of 49,829,385 pages online (48,548,902 last month).

This month 240 papers had pages added (186 in the previous month). There were 54 (75) new titles. Dates range from 1804 to 2008.

The 22 newspapers with more than 10,000 pages added are

TITLE	YEARS
Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser	1982-1985, 1987-1988
Birmingham News	1988, 1990-1991
Birmingham Weekly Mercury	1987, 1989, 1991-1992
Burton Daily Mail	1912, 1988-1989, 1992
Civil & Military Gazette (Lahore)	1845, 1847-1876, 1913-1928, 1930-1934, 1962
Constitution	1827
Daily Record	1989-1991
Essex Weekly News	1862-1881, 1883, 1885-1915
Frontier Sentinel	1904-1960
Grimsby Daily Telegraph	1991
Harlow Star	1986-1987, 1989
Herapath’s Railway Journal	1844-1848, 1852-1903
Hertford Mercury and Reformer	1990-1992
Herts and Essex Observer	1983, 1990-1991
Hoddesdon and Broxbourne Mercury	1990-1992
Huddersfield Daily Examiner	1911-1913, 1989, 1991-1992
Ireland’s Saturday Night	1874, 1895-1922, 1924-1929, 1931-2008
Lynn Advertiser	1946-1949, 1958-1962, 1964-1966
North Star (Darlington)	1887-1896, 1901-1910, 1912-1914, 1917-1918, 1921-1923
Nottingham Evening Post	1985-1986, 1989-1991
Nuneaton Chronicle	1911-1912, 1921-1943
Walsall Observer	1912-1913, 1919-1924, 1934-1938, 1946-1948, 1950-1952, 1954, 1956-1957

Announcing Nearly 35 Million Pages of Canadian Newspapers!

A blog post from newspapers.com announces the addition of millions of new pages of Canadian content — papers from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec,  Saskatchewan, and the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Many of the papers are available only with an extra cost Publishers Extra subscription, especially for many post-WW1 issues.

The papers added are not named. I think the Montreal Star is one of them.

Here’s the complete list of papers with more than 20-year runs

Province	Newspaper	Year Range
NS	The (Halifax) Evening Mail	1894 – 1930
NS	The Halifax Herald	1880 – 1905
QC	Montreal Gazette	1785 – 1866
QC	The (Montreal) Gazette	1857 – 2022
QC	The Montreal Star	1869 – 1979
ON	Aurora Banner	1900 – 1925
ON	The Brantford Daily Expositor	1880 – 1917
ON	The Brantford Weekly Expositor	1850- 1916
ON	The (Brantford) Expositor	1918 – 2005
ON	The Hamilton Spectator	1850 – 1900
ON	The (Kemptville) Weekly Advance	1907 – 1933
ON	The Kingston Daily News	1851 – 1901
ON	The Kingston Whig-Standard	1849 – 2014
ON	The Weekly (Kingston) British Whig	1861 – 1924
ON	The Lanark Era	1895 – 1919
ON	The (Niagara) Times	1895 – 1915
ON	North Bay Nugget	1909 – 2014
ON	Ottawa Daily Citizen	1846 – 1897
ON	The Ottawa Citizen	1896 – 2022
ON	The Ottawa Journal	1885 – 1980
ON	Owen Sound Sun	1897 – 1918
ON	The (Owen Sound) Sun-Times	1927 – 2014
ON	(Owen Sound) Times	1871 – 1919
ON	The Sault Star	1901 – 1930
ON	St Catherines Standard	1891 – 1916
ON	National Post	1907 – 2022
ON	Magyar Elet Hungarian Life (Weston)	1957 – 1992
ON	(Weston) Times and Guide	1890 – 1935
ON	The Windsor Star	1892 – 2022
MB	(Winnipeg) Free Press Prairie Farmer	1892 – 1931
MB	Heimskringla	1924 – 1951
MB	Manitoba Free Press	1874 – 1920
MB	The Winnipeg Sun	1980 – 2007
MB	The Winnipeg Tribune	1890 – 1949
SK	Regina Sun	1986 – 2014
SK	The (Regina) Leader-Post	1883 – 2022
SK	(Saskatoon) Star-Phoenix	1902 – 2022
AB	Calgary Herald	1888 – 2022
AB	The Calgary Albertan	1906- 1980
AB	Weekly Albertan	1895 – 1920
AB	Claresholm Local Press	1926 – 1968
AB	Didsbury Pioneer	1903 – 1958
AB	(Didsbury) Mail	1968 – 2015
AB	(Edmonton) Boyle-McCauley News	1979 – 2020
AB	Edmonton Journal	1903 – 2022
AB	The Edmonton Bulletin	1903 – 1951
AB	Fort McMurray Today	1974 – 2014
AB	The (Grand Prairie) Daily Herald-Tribune	1964 – 2015
AB	Irma Times	1922 – 1968
AB	The (Leduc) Representative	1907 – 1939
AB	The Lethbriage Herald	1905 – 1983
AB	The Lloydminster Times	1907 – 1968
AB	Red Deer Advocate	1904 – 2014
BC	100 Mile House Free Press	1968 – 2008
BC	The Abbotsford News	1977 – 2008
BC	Alberni Valley Times	1967 – 1992
BC	(Burns Lake) Lake District News	1975 – 2010
BC	The Chilliwack Progress	1891 – 2007
BC	The (Grand Forks) Gazette	1905 – 1970
BC	Hope Standard	1958 – 1994
BC	Houston Today	1969 – 2007
BC	Ladysmith-Chemainus Chronicle	1957 – 1991
BC	Langley Advance	1931 – 2009
BC	Nanaimo Daily News	1874 – 2009
BC	(New Westminster) The North Shore Press	1913 – 1935
BC	Quesnel Cariboo Observer	1908 – 2017
BC	Richmond Review	1932 – 2008
BC	Salmon Arm Observer	1976 – 2007
BC	The Eagle Valley News (Sicamous)	1979 – 2007
BC	The Interior News (Smithers)	1910 – 2007
BC	Surrey Leader	1929 – 2006
BC	Terrace Standard	1988 – 2010
BC	(Vancouver) Daily News Advertiser	1890 -1917
BC	The (Vancouver) Province	1894 – 2022
BC	The Vancouver Sun	1912 – 2022
BC	The (Vancouver) Weekly News-Advertiser	1888 -1911
BC	Vancouver Daily World	1888 -1924
BC	Vernon News	1891 – 1916
BC	The Victoria Daily Times	1884 – 1952
BC	(Victoria) Times Colonist	1885 – 2013
BC	The (Williams Lake) Tribune	1983 – 2006
YK	Whitehorse Daily Star	1901 – 2021

New to MyHeritage, from Scottish Indexes, a collection of High Court Precognitions and Trial Papers from 1800 to 1916.

“This collection (of 138,934 index records) consists of three sets held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh, precognitions (AD14 and AD15) and trial papers (JC26) of the High Court of Justiciary, which is the highest criminal court in Scotland. Records may contain the full name of the individual, age, residence, date and place of the event, name of the court, and various information related to the proceeding.”

Find more about these records in the Scottish Indexers Learning Zone.

Australia, Queensland Funeral Home and Burial Records is a collection of 633,015 records from the 19th and 20th centuries. Look for the full name of the deceased, age at death, burial date, burial place, and various notes such as whether the record is from a funeral home or a cemetery. These are also available on FamilySearch, Findmypast and Ancestry.

I occasionally find people complaining about the subscription genealogy companies adding collections available elsewhere, especially if they are free at the other source.  It’s a matter of convenience. Rather than hunt around various sites, some of which you may not know about or be ones you wouldn’t think to be relevant, you get an integrated search capability. That’s worth something. It’s why I know where a direct line ancestor, one who disappeared from English records, ended his days an ocean away from his birthplace.

 

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.T

Tuesday 29 Mar. 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/

Tuesday 29 Mar. 2:30 pm: Even More New Treasures: The Genealogy Center’s Digital Collections! by The Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6235930

Wednesday 30 Mar. 11 am: Railway History for Ukraine. 30-minute presentations as a fundraiser for the British Red Cross Society’s DEC Ukrainian Humanitarian Appeal. https://historyforukraine.co/railway-history-for-ukraine/

Wednesday 30 Mar. 2 pm: Family Stories in 30 Minutes or Less, by Brenda Hudson for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/family-stories-in-30-minutes-or-less/

Wednesday 30 Mar. 7 pm: Maud Lampman: First Woman Appointed to Work on Parliament Hill, by Dianne Brydon for the Historical Society of Ottawa. https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/62/16,17,19,21/maud-lampman-first-woman-appointed-to-work-on-parliament-hill

Thursday 31 Mar. 7:15 am: Launch of Demonised: ‘The Islandmagee Witches, 1711‘, with Dr. Andrew Sneddon, and Dr. Victoria McCollum. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/launch-of-demonised-the-islandmagee-witches-1711-tickets-260101078327

Thursday 31 Mar. 6 pm: Don’t Let Your Memories Fade, by Rick Voight for The Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/6415678

Friday 1 Apr. 2 pm: “We Were Supposed To Be Neals:“ Reconstructing an Enslaved Family Using DNA, by Renate Yarborough Sanders for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/we-were-supposed-to-be-neals-reconstructing-an-enslaved-family-using-dna/

Saturday 2 Apr. 7 am: The Lusitania Disaster 7th May 1915, with over 1000 casualties – including Suffolk Outcomes, by Colin Chapman for Suffolk Family History Society. https://www.familyhistoryfederation.com/event-suffolk-family-history-society-suffolk-family-history-society-virtual-branch-meeting-2022-04-02

A quick shoutout for the first of three “The Genealogy Show” events scheduled this year starting on Friday. Find out more here.

 

I hope like me you enjoyed some of the presentations made this weekend as part of the History for Ukraine fundraiser.
If you’re quick you may still have the opportunity to view them in replay on YouTube. They are divided into four parts, see the list below. You’ll have to judge where within you’ll find the presentation of interest. They are mostly in the order given although it was occasionally disrupted. The ones I’ve watched and enjoyed are highlighted — that’s no slight on the others, just my choice at the times available to me.

PART 1

Earl Charles Spencer: The White Ship
Phillipa Gregory: The Quiet 600 Years
Charlotte Gauthier: Resistance to Ottoman Expansion in the 15th Century Balkans and Central Europe
Susie Lennox: Body Snatching
Dr. Cat Jarman: The Viking Age Origins of the Rus
Dr. Janina Ramirez: Finding Women Then; Empowering Women Now
Dr. Saul David: ‘SBS: Silent Warriors’, the formation and early missions of the Special Boat Service in World War II (starts at 2:16)
Katherine Carter: Churchill at Chartwell
Dr. Kirsteen Mackenzie: Mythbusting the Jacobites
Annette Burke Lyttle: Finding American Quaker Records
Dr. Miranda Kaufmann: The story of Edward Swarthye, a BlackTudor
Sarah Wise: Streets Coloured Black and Blue: Charles Booth’s Notebooks and the Revelation of London Poverty (starts at 4:53)
Dr. Catherine Flinn: Urban Trauma & Recovery
Dr. Blaine Bettinger: DNA?? I’m so Lost!
Julia Laite: Trafficking in Times of Conflict
Rebecca Rideal: Killer Women
Nick Barratt: The seige of Saucy Castle
Vadim Aristov: Russian historical myths about Kyivan Rus
Dr. Gabrielle Storey: Ruling Sexualities: A History of the ‘Other’ in Royal Families

PART 2

Professor Suzannah Lipscomb: How Can We Recover The Lost Lives of Women
Cat Irving: Surgery Hall
Dr. Caroline Dodds Pennock: Indigenous American Discovery of Europe
Professor Kate Williams: Mary Queen of Scots
Dr. Kate Lister: Victorian Vibrators
Dr. Nicola Tallis: Crown of Blood: the Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey
D. Joshua Taylor: The Power of Family History: Why Studying Your Past Matters Worldwide
Jen Baldwin: Ethnic Organizations in the US: Preserving our Ancestor’s Heritage in the New World

PART 3

Judy G Russell: The Rest of the Story
Cheri Hudson Passey: Where in the World? How to Tackle a New to You Research Location
Michelle Chubenko: Digital Genealogy in Ukraine
Fiona Brooker: With a Grain of Salt: (Dis)Proving Family Stories
Helen Good: The Globe Theatre and Star Chamber
Amy Johnson Crow: Finding Ancestors without Going in Circles: The WANDER Research Method
Maureen Taylor: Photos of Immigration
Dr. Jayne Persian: A Ukrainian Family History: War and Resettlement
Kelly Cornwell: Transportation to Tasmania
Margaret Roberts: Lottie Dod, the world’s first female sporting superstar
Helen Shields: Auntie Kate talks about her life and photo album
Rachel Croucher: German Ancestry
Professor Elaine Chaus: Ukraine and Canada (problem with slides)
Professor Tanya Evans: Importance of Family History in Australia

PART 4

Shauna Hicks: A Look at Ukrainian People in Australia
Dave Annal: Fact From Fiction: What the great 19th century novels can tell us about our ancestors
Michelle Patient: A Stitch Through Time
Professor Deborah Sugg Ryan: Feeding Minds as Well as Bodies: The Design of Communal ‘British Restaurants’ in World War 2
Nathen Armin: Princes in the Tower Mystery
Dr. Kate Strasdin: Lost Voices
Helen Carr: John of Gaunt: The Red Prince
Else Churchill: 20th Century Genealogy Research in England and Wales
Dr. Wanda Wyporska: Dancing with the Devil: Tales from Polish witchcraft trials
Tracy Borman: Crown & Sceptre: 1,000 Years of Kings and Queens
Dr. Caroline Shenton: National Treasures: Saving the Nation’s Art in World War II
Dr. Fern Riddell: It’s a Bit Queer Here: LGBTAQ+ History
Simon Radchenko: Lessons taken from pre-Historic art of Ukraine.

If you have trouble connecting try the Facebook links from https://historyforukraine.co/

If you do enjoy one or more please consider making a donation, I suggest at this time to the Canadian Red Cross Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

24 London Hills

A different perspective on global climate change
Watch to the end

UK’s rainfall records rescued by volunteer army
16 days to key in 5.4 million individual rainfall observations, each keyed four times for quality control purposes. What’s the lesson for LAC Co-Lab Challenges?

Statues have their own history

Find a Grave Index Updates
With the March update, Ancestry now has 214,754,024 index records in their Find a Grave collection. Over 109,000 are added for the UK and Ireland and over 39,000 for Canada.

Nobody does it better

History Slam 207: Navigating Online (Mis)Information

Thanks to this week’s contributors. Ann Burns, Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Don Ross, Gloria Tubman, Lynne Willoughby, Rick Roberts, Teresa, Toni, Unknown.

On 30 March 2022 from 11 am to 5 pm EDT (4 pm to 10 pm Uk time), as a fundraiser for the British Red Cross Society’s DEC Ukrainian Humanitarian Appeal. railway historians will live stream a series of 30-minute presentations. There’s a UK focus. Find the schedule at:

https://historyforukraine.co/railway-history-for-ukraine/

 

 

Middlesex Monumental Inscriptions
Nearly 4,000 transcript and image records are added to this collection from: Ealing, St Mary; Fulham, St Thomas of Canterbury; Isleworth, Quaker Meeting House; Littleton, St Mary Magdalene; Sunbury, Old Burial Ground; Teddington, St Mary; The Walled Garden, Sunbury. There are now 69,134 MIs in the collection.

Military Nurses 1856-1994
Nearly 9,000 transcript records are added to this collection. These mainly focus on military nurses who served in the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service, the Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve) and the Territorial Force Nursing Service during the First World War.

The information varies considerably. Those I checked were quite sparse. The collection now totals 19,731 records.

Indian Navy Records Of Service 1840-1947
This transcript set, 1,802 records sourced from the British Library, complements the Indian Army Records Of Service 1900-1947. You may possibly be able to discover crucial information such as rank, regiment, and time served.