Project Civil War Bluejackets: Race, Class and Ethnicity in the United States Navy, 1861-1865 will include the creation of newly digitized muster rolls – registers of the officers and men on Union Naval vessels.
118,000 or so common sailors served in the US Civil War for the Union; 30 percent were British or Irish, and 15 percent were African Americans.
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 7 Dec. 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.
Wednesday 8 Dec. 7 pm: Ottawa’s Power : An Energy History of the National Capital Region, by The Bytown Museum.
https://bytownmuseum.com/get-engaged/whats-happening/
Wednesday 8 Dec. 8 pm: Documenting Families or Communities Lost in the Holocaust by Bullets, by Ellen Kowitt for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/documenting-families-or-communities-lost-in-the-holocaust-by-bullets/
Thursday 9 Dec. 1 pm: Christmas Carols and Nostalgia, by Jeremy Summerly for Gresham College.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/carols-nostalgia
Saturday 11 Dec. 9 am: Holiday Social and Great Moments in Genealogy, by BIFHSGO members.
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events
Saturday 11 Dec. 1 pm: They Came on Ships ~ Plotting a Course to Publishing Genealogical Research, by David Walker for OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/they-came-on-ships-ottawa/
Advance Notice
Monday 13 Dec. 7 pm: Ontario Records at Family Search, by Stephen Young for OGS Leeds and Grenville Branch.
In his book Wings for Victory, the late Spencer Dunmore recounts the following.
Jake Gaudaur, a former football player and later Commissioner of the Canadian Football League, was a flying instructor at Number 2 SFTS, Ottawa (part of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.) On night flying exercises, he was fond of zooming low over the southern part of the city, where his wife lived, to tell her that he would shortly be home. Approaching the apartment building, he would slip the propeller of the Harvard into fine pitch, producing an ear-splitting howl. When an editorial appeared in the local paper about the antics of the airmen from the Uplands airfield, he decided it might be more prudent to phone.
Gaudaur was at Uplands as a pilot instructor and is mentioned many times in the Citizen and Journal playing football. The newspapers have mentions of the noise of railcar shunting, car horns, frogs, milkman’s carts — and bagpipes, but no such editorial that I can find.
Is this a story too good to be questioning its veracity? Dunmore had a love of a good story, as well as aviation.
THE Genealogy Show and The Scottish Indexes Conference are just ended, although you may still be able to view replays. That’s the end of the conference season for the year, one that saw everything online. Perhaps you attended The FHF Really Useful Family History Show, RootsTech, BIFHSGO, OGS or any another online genealogy conference in 2021. If you attended one or more please take this quick survey.
Thank you for completing the survey.
Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.
Church of Ireland Gazette
Claire Santry at IrishGenealogyNews reports that the Church of Ireland Gazette, 1856-2010, will remain free online until 2033.
Compare the Climate and Weather Between Two+ Cities Worldwide
Unboxing the Archives (of Ontario)
Simpson’s Paradox in vaccination data
Thanks to this week’s contributors. Ann Burns, Anonymous, Gail B., Judith H., Mike More, Toni, Unknown.
The Bread and Butter of Genealogy and The Secret Button are two blog posts by Ph. D. professional genealogist Sadie McMullon.
Specializing in research for Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire and Bedfordshire, she has a particular interest in placing ancestors in context. That’s illustrated by those blog posts linked from her Genealogy Lantern website.
You may also be interested in reading her 2019 University of Leicester Ph.D. thesis Migration to Fletton, 1841-1911 : an exploration of family migration, the creation of community and social mobility through marriage
Following up on a previous post, the National Library of Scotland now has online old maps and town plans for more than 380 English and Welsh towns (all those with more than 4,000 people) at the highly detailed scale of 1:500.
NLS is georeferencing these maps so they can be easily compared to the present day, or to other historical dates (for example Leeds in 1840s compared to the 1880s).
Browse a list of all the towns with links to view maps
Browse a clickable map of England and Wales
OS Town Plans of England and Wales home page
This week the focus is on Kent, the Garden of England.
Kent electoral registers, 1570-1907
Documenting both parliamentary and local voters, the collection contains 4,678,563 transcripts with the name, address, nature of the qualification to vote, and the period during which each individual is entitled to vote. The record types transcribed include oath rolls, burgess rolls, freeman certificates, and jury service lists as well as voters registers
The original registers are held at the Kent History and Library Centre in Maidstone and have been available at FamilySearch for some years.
Kent Burials
The additions to this expansive Kent Burials collection, now 3,032,823 records, are information on 16,013 burials that took place in Watling Street Cemetery in Dartford. They cover the period 1855 to 1934.
Sadly none of the three Reids included are in the branch of my Reid family that lived in the area.
The transcriptions were by the North West Kent Family History Society.
Findmypast has nearly 15 million Kent records in 16 titles, plus over 16 million articles in Kent newspapers. Ancestry has 6.6 million Kent records.
A 30-minute Q/A session at https://www.agra.org.uk/podcasts#202112
Registration for the 2022 edition of RootsTech, the largest family history event in the world, is now open. RootsTech 2022 will be a virtual-only experience, 3 – 5 March 2022, with some enhancements and improvements.
Find out more and register for free at www.rootstech.org.
Don’t plan on doing research at Library and Archives Canada over the Christmas – New Year period. Here’s the notice.
Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) public service points located in Ottawa, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Halifax will be closed to the public from December 24, 2021 to January 3, 2022, inclusive. Remote reference and genealogy services remain available during this period, Monday to Friday except for December 27 and 28, and January 3.
Contact us by using our Ask Us a Question or Ask Us a Genealogy Question forms, or by calling 1-866-578-7777 (option 8; toll-free in Canada and the United States).
Please note that after the holidays, a gradual increase in our services is planned. Visit our Reopening Library and Archives Canada web page for an overview of services available and region-specific details.
Here are the contents of the next issue, to be available on 10 December.
COVER: Who’s Your Daddy: A Durham DNA Puzzle!
Michelle Dennis offers advice as well as rich resources on searching for ancestors in Durham, England.
Freedman’s Savings Bank
Diane L. Richard examines these short-lived, but invaluable records for family historians.
The Winter of Their Discomfort: Coping With the Cold
Sue Lisk looks at how our ancestors coped with the cold before the dawn of the thermostat.
A Yuletide Genealogical Resource: “Dear Santa” Letters
David A. Norris looks at online newspapers and how ancestors’ letters to Santa may shine some light on their holiday wishes.
The Historical Marker Database
Jean King looks at a database project that currently holds over a half-million photos of historical markers in the US, Canada and several other countries.
Death by Waterpik, Or In Search of the Cause of Your Ancestor’s Passing
Sue Lisk looks at sources that may help in revealing the cause of death of an ancestor.
Principles of Relativity
Robbie Gorr looks at correctly identifying family relationships and connections.
Online Repository Assistant (ORA)
Diane L. Richard looks at software designed to help genealogists be more efficient, effective, and diligent with their research.
Jewish Genealogy In New York City: Discovering The Early 1900s TB Epidemic
Michael Chaplan shares his journey to learn about his grandfather’s life and death in the early 1900s.
Finding Heirs for Your Family History
Marian B. Wood looks at how to prepare a succession plan for your valuable genealogical items.
NetNotes
Internet Genealogy looks at websites and related news that are sure to be of interest.
Advice From the Pros:Truth or Troll? Surviving Speaker Evaluations
Lisa A. Alzo discusses how to survive feedback on conference evaluations.
Back Page: Check and Re-Check Your Matches!
Dave Obee says be vigilant about checking your own work, and the work of other genealogists.
Find out more, including access to preview the first page of longer articles and subscription information, at https://www.internet-genealogy.com/index.shtml
