Anglo-Celtic Connections

Here’s a report on Library and Archives Canada’s Co-Lab Challenges since last month.  As mentioned previously, there are two new challenges.

Women in the War, with 70 images, is 0% complete.

First World War Posters, with 140 images, is 83% complete.

There has been no progress on continuing Challenges:

Arthur Lismer’s Children’s Art Classes remains 0% complete.

John Freemont Smith remains 94% complete.

Canadian National Land Settlement Association remains 98% complete.

Molly Lamb Bobak remains 88% complete.

Diary of François-Hyacinthe Séguin remains 98% complete.

George Mully: moments in Indigenous communities remains 0% complete.

Correspondence regarding First Nations veterans returning after the First World War remains 99% complete.

Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 remains 96% complete.

Legendary Train Robber and Prison Escapee Bill Miner remains 99% complete.

Japanese-Canadians: Second World War, remains 3% complete.

The Call to Duty: Canada’s Nursing Sisters remains 92% complete.

Projects that remain 100% complete are no longer reported here.

Other Co-Lab activities not part of the Challenges may have happened; seemingly we’ll never know.

MyHeritage has just introduced labels for DNA Matches, aomething some find to be a convenient way of organizing DNA Matches into customized groups.

You can assign colour-coded labels to represent different groups of interest, such as different family lines, descendants of a specific ancestor, matches of high interest, matches that you haven’t had a chance to investigate yet, or matches that require a closer look when you have the chance.

There’s a very short video showing how it works. You can read in detail about it here.

 

Tis’ the season for sales. There are times when an autosomal DNA test won’t do. If you’ve been waiting for a sale on a Y-DNA test, it follows a man’s male line back, or a mitochondrial test that follows the maternal line now is the time. Family Tree DNA has these specialist tests as well as their autosomal test on sale.

Note that prices are in US currency and do not include shipping.

On 15 November Jasmine Bouchard, previously head of services to the public at the city of Gatineau’s library, joined Library and Archives Canada as Assistant Deputy Minister, User Experience and Engagement.

The announcement is at https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/news/Pages/2021/welcome-new-adm-novembre21.aspx

I’m sure we all wish Ms. Bouchard well in taking up this challenging role. A good step would be to ask users, and potential users, for advice about the service improvements and services they want?

With Scotland’s People carefully guarding access to official BMDs and BMBs, and giving to information I could find on how many records are in the database(s), we look for alternatives

Ancestry has just updated the Select databases

Scotland, Select Marriages, 1561-1910, 4,298,852 records.
Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950, 27,121,897 records.

The source they cite is FamilySearch which lists:

Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910. 2,007,372 records, updated 11 March 2020
Scotland Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950.  8,151,224 records, updated 19 June 2020.

How can Ancestry get so many more records from the same source?

Findmypast‘s catalogue lists
Scotland, Parish Marriages & Banns 1561-1893. 5,875,752 records
Scotland, Parish Births & Baptisms 1564-1929.  10,543,847 records

Their sources are “compiled from a variety of different sources”, mainly family history societies.

MyHeritage lists
Scotland, Marriages, 1561-1910. 4,281,188 records updated 21 Dec 2013
Scotland, Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950. 26,765,821 records updated 21 Dec 2013

FreeReg does not provide information on the totals for Scottish records

Many Frith photos have been checked and upgraded from the ‘Reference Only’ category meaning they are now available in a wider range of products. This release covers Norfolk, Hampshire and a number of other places, including a total of 658 British cities, towns and villages.

https://www.francisfrith.com/releases/november-2021

 

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

Tuesday 16 Nov. 2:30 pm: Saving Your Story: Preservation 101 for the Family Historian, by Annie Halliday for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5769131

Tuesday 16 Nov. 8 pm: Planning Research, by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson for Legacy Family Tree Webinars
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/planning-research/

Wednesday 17 Nov. 1 pm: Holocaust History Under Siege, by Jan Grabowski for Gresham College.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/holocaust-history

Wednesday 17 Nov. 2 pm: Reeling ‘Em in with Cousin Bait—10 Ways to Connect with Family, by Cheri Hudson Passey for Legacy Family Tree Webinars
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/10-ways-to-connect-with-family/

Wednesday 16 Nov. 7 pm: Remembering Our Military Heritage, by John Grants for Sudbury Branch OGS.
https://www.sudburyogs.com/

Thursday 18 Nov. 6:30 pm: Social History of Early Massachusetts, by Seema Kenney for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5769152

Friday 19 Nov. 9 am: Victory and Loss: Britain after the First World War, by William Butler for the UK National Archives.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/victory-and-loss-britain-after-the-first-world-war-tickets-176952739407

Friday 19 Nov. 2 pm: Finding Your Scottish Ancestors in Canada, by Christine Woodcock for Legacy Family Tree Webinars
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/finding-your-scottish-ancestors-in-canada/

Saturday 20 Nov. 10 am: Remembering My Cousin and His Family: Bomber Command in WWII, by Paul Van Nest for Kingston Branch OGS. 
https://kingston.ogs.on.ca/

Saturday 20 Nov. 1 pm: Great Moments, by Wayne Wickson, Ian McKelvie, Ruth James-Morrow, Julie Hinton.
https://quinte.ogs.on.ca/2021/11/08/november-20-great-moments/

Kingston & District Branch, United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada will hold its Annual General Meeting on Saturday, November 27 at 2:00 pm EST on Zoom.

The guest speaker will be Dr. Tim Compeau of the Department of History at Huron College, Western University speaking on “The Triumph of Villainy: The Loyalist Search for Honour in Defeat.”

All are welcome to attend: visit www.uelac.org/Kingston-Branch for the link to pre-register for the Zoom meeting, or email kingston.uelac@gmail.com to request the link.

Tim Compeau is co-editor of the book Seeing the Past with Computers. If you have a few minutes I recommend chapter 10, Tecumseh Returns: A History Game in Alternate Reality, Augmented Reality, and Reality of which he is the lead author.

James F. S. Thomson will present Finding World War II Records for Oxford County OGS Branch today, Monday, 15 November at 7 pm.

“James will provide an information-packed introduction to a broad range of resources now widely available for Second World War research, or which (as with additional service records) are likely to become more accessible. Adopting the perspective of a distance researcher, our survey encompasses and compares Canadian and British military records and selected further sources relating to war brides, the merchant navy and the home front.”

https://oxford.ogs.on.ca/

Tim Cook, serving as a military expert during the CBC TV coverage of the ceremonies at the National War Memorial on 11 November, mentioned twice that there are about 20,000 Second World War veterans still living. He didn’t mention a source.

According to Library and Archives Canada, 1,159,000 Canadians and Newfoundlands served. About 61,000 died leaving 1.1 million alive at the end of the war in 1945. That’s 1.8 percent of those alive in 1945 still living.

Applying the same percentage to the 43,454 war brides who came to Canada after the Second World War that would be 782 war bride survivours.

A previous estimate for living war brides in 2020 was 1,000 to 1,800. Applying the death stats from life tables the range at the end of 2021 would be 640 to 1,152. It’s a happy day when two estimates are in the same range.

Monday 15 Nov 2021 at 2 pm via Zoom.
Film, poetry and conversation on childhood.
https://www.bl.uk/events/speaking-volumes-on-childhood-memories

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Time to ban fossil fuel advertising. Tobacco, alcohol and cannabis advertising are banned. When will GHG spewing vehicle advertising be banned? Look for measures such as that in the Speech from the Throne — or recognize the government isn’t sufficiently serious.

I’ve been hoping the BBC WDYTYA episode with Pixie Lott would become available on YouTube. Not yet. In the meantime.

Free Irish Genealogy eBooks

GBNames maps surname distribution from historical census data and modern consumer registers.

The “Dating Apps” of Victorian England

1000 Men, 1000 Stories: Canadians in Combined Operations, WW2. Eyewitness Accounts.

BCATP 1943 Canada
Following on the post on The History of Port Albert: No. 31 ANS,  Roy Cook recalls his early training days with the RAF Meteorology Office in Port Albert.

Thanks to this week’s contributors. Ann Burns, Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Christine Jackson, Jane MacNamara, Judith H., Nancy Frey, Unknown.