Anglo-Celtic Connections

For some while, I’ve been suggesting making back issues of Anglo-Celtic Roots, BIFHSGO’s quarterly chronicle, full text searchable as a corpus. You can do that on individual issues posted on the BIFHSGO website as pdfs, but not across the whole collection. If you remember something mentioned in an article, but can’t recall the issue it’s a hard slog finding what you recall.

When I mentioned this in reviewing the new BIFHSGO website I received a pointed email from a Director about the need for volunteers.

I thought I might have a workaround to make the search possible. Paper to HTML Converter is “an experimental prototype that aims to render scientific papers in HTML so they can be more easily read by screen readers or on mobile devices. Because of our reliance on statistical machine learning techniques, some errors are inevitable. ”

To try it I downloaded an issue to my computer desktop and submitted it. A minute or so later I got the message “The page isn’t working.” Trying a second earlier issue broke the system.

It isn’t surprising, the system was designed for individual scientific papers, not whole issues. This does show it’s an area of active research.

Suggestions for other (affordable) approaches that would enhance the functionality of the back issues of ACR would be welcome via a comment.

14:00 – 15:30     Exhibitor Connect          

An opportunity for participants to visit breakout rooms hosted by conference exhibitors to learn more about their products and services.

16:00 – 17:30      Rentals as a Source for Irish Family History
with Dr. Jim Ryan

Rentals are the records kept by landlords or their agents; they may include information on tenants’ names, rental income and payments, property, and dates, though they are hugely variable in their format. They exist from the 1600s to the 1900s and are important in Ireland, where land ownership was legally and economically restricted and tenancy was the norm for the vast majority. This talk will review the history, formats and availability of surviving rentals and what they offer as family history sources. Jim will outline the historical reasons for most land-occupiers being tenants; the 300-year evolution of the estate system and of landlord-tenant relations, along with their effects on the nature and survival of rental records; the nature and range of rentals, their formats and content; and where they are to be found. The talk is fully illustrated with examples of records and their content, along with the consequent difficulties presented for scanning and on- line availability.

18:00 – 19:30      The Secret Lives of Women: Research Female Ancestors Using the Sources They Left Behind
with Gena Philibert-Ortega

Why is finding a female ancestor so difficult? One reason is the way we research their lives. Successful research must combine familiar genealogical sources and sources that women left behind. In this lecture we look at the women-specific sources including signature quilts, community cookbooks, and diaries.

20:00 – 21:30      Jumping the Pond to Northern Ireland
with Mags Gaulden

Genealogy and genetic genealogy can team up to help a family discover its way to Ireland; not an easy feat when the family believes itself to be Scottish, having lost the knowledge of its origins. Follow along as Mags, using this case study, reveals how discoveries turned a North American family’s beliefs into an exceptionally large leap onto a small Northern Irish peninsula in the Irish Sea. Ireland is a place where records have burned and insights are hard to come by. But recent discoveries, using DNA and DNA group projects, have focused the research and placed the family’s origins across the pond and squarely on a specific point in Northern Ireland. Mags will explain how answers to genealogy questions in the face of the lack of available documentation can identify specific locations. Jumping the pond is possible.

www.bifhsgo2021.ca

The following is a 21 September release from FamilySearch.

It is a milestone 83 years in the making. Today FamilySearch International announced the completion of a massive project to digitize its collection of millions of rolls of microfilm containing billions of family history records from around the world. The archive containing information on more than 11.5 billion individuals is now freely available to the public on FamilySearch.org.

… more

Kim Barnsdale, OGS’s amazing Webinar Coordinator, drew this presentation opportunity, or rather opportunities, to my attention.

Ontario Ancestors is currently accepting proposals for our monthly 2022 Webinar Series. Our live webinars take place the first Thursday of the month at 7pm ET using the Zoom platform.

In addition, Ontario Ancestors is also looking for guest speakers who are interested in presenting for our new online quarterly mini-conference learning opportunities in 2022.

All submissions will be considered for both unless otherwise indicated on the submission.

Find further information and the form for sending proposals at https://ogs.on.ca/webinar-submissions/

The deadline for submissions is Thursday 30 September 2021 at 11:59 pm.

This is BIFHSGO Conference week. See the schedule at www.bifhsgo2021.ca.

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

Tuesday 21 Sept, 7 pm: Discovering Sudbury District, for Sudbury Branch OGS. https://www.sudburyogs.com/

Wednesday, 22 Sept, 7 pm: The Alexander Bridge: its construction. its significance, its future, by David Jeanes and John Zvonar for Heritage Ottawa.
https://heritageottawa.org/events/alexandra-bridge-its-construction-its-significance-its-future

Wednesday, 22 Sept, 8 pm: Cluster Research: Using Groups of People to Find Your People, by Robyn Smith for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/cluster-research-using-groups-of-people-to-find-your-people/

Thursday 23 Sept, 6:30 pm: Fireside Chat: The Importance of Social History in Genealogy, by Allison Singleton and Elizabeth Hodges for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center. https://acpl.libnet.info/event/5546606

Friday 24 Sept, 8 am: Continuation of Webtember from Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/webtember-all-genealogy-all-september-long/

Looking Ahead

Monday 27 September, 3 pm: The Canadian Corps in the Hundred Days, by Tim Cook and Bill Stewart for the Western Front Association https://www.facebook.com/westernfrontassociation/

This post is delayed.

The In From The Cold Project exists to research and identify all servicemen and women missing from the official Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) list of casualties from the First and Second World Wars.

As of 4 September, 6,569 cases had. been submitted and accepted for commemoration by CWGC. They include 18 Canadian Merchant Navy, 9 Canadian Infantry, and one each for the Canadian Engineers,  Canadian Mounted Rifles, Canadian Pioneers, and Royal Canadian Naval Air Service.

The most recent cases accepted by the CWGC are at http://www.infromthecold.org/news.asp

A further 1,205 cases had been submitted and awaiting determination.

First, I hope you enjoyed Sunday’s three presentations on the first day of the BIFHSGO conference as much as I did. I’m glad there’s a chance to view them again as some of the information came quickly.

Today, Monday, the presentations are:

16:00 – 17:30 Towards a Genetic-genealogy-driven Irish Reference Genome with Gerard Corcoran

18:00 – 19:30 Finding Molly Johnson: The Search for Irish Famine Orphans in Canada, 1847-1848 with Mark McGowan

20:00 – 21:30 Working Wildflowers: How Three Generations of Women Turned CP Traill’s Field Notes into a Best Seller with Kyla Ubbink.

Maybe the hosts of the sessions, as well as reading the list of things attendees can’t, do might be allowed to mention things they can, like smoking, bringing in food and drink, and keeping cellphone ringers active. Style of dress is optional!

Now for the incentive.

BIFHSGO is offering 10% off for new 2022 memberships and for membership renewals during the conference.  If you choose the $50 option that saves $5 (higher math!).

Going further with the math, the Society gets your money 3 months early so, if you count your pennies, you could earn interest of 13 cents (at 1% per annum) meaning you actually save $4.87. To earn interest of that amount in 3 months on $50 would require an annual interest rate of nearly 40% – tax-free! If you know of another legal way to earn that interest rate please let me know!

BIFHSGO has announced it will no longer accept membership payments by cheque as it imposes too much of an administrative burden on volunteers, directors and others. That may mean a loss of a few members of long-standing who choose not to make payments online.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

WDYTYA UK Podcast
An audio version of the original BBC TV WDYTYA episodes for Bill Oddie, Colin Jackson, Jeremy Clarkson, Clare Balding, Sheila Hancock, Stephen Fry, Davina McCall, Alexander Armstrong.
via Chris Paton’s Scottish GENES blog

Ancestry has made the monthly update to Find a Grave.

Ireland during World War II

Spending $50 to Collect $5. Canada’s Absurd Access to Information Rules

TNA essential website maintenance
On Friday TNA posted about “migrating our website to new servers” and alerted users that “It is possible that some things may not look or work exactly the same as they did before.”  Notice they don’t anticipate the site being unavailable for hours on end. LAC please note.

Thanks to this week’s contributors. Anonymous, Barbara Di Mambro, Barbara Tose, Carolyn Lumsden, Judith Hilliker, Lynne W., Lesley Anderson, Margaret Anne Sterling, Michael More, rob bennie, Sheila, Unknown.

Here’s a report on progress with Library and Archives Canada’s Co-Lab Challenges since last month. One project was completed, two others reported progress.

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

John Freemont Smith is 92% complete (89% complete last month.)

War Diaries of the First World War: No. 2 Construction Battalion is 100% complete (99% complete last month.)

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 is 96% complete (95% complete last month.)

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 is 92% complete (93% complete last month.)

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.

Global Heritage Press has just released the latest book from Gavin K Watts.

The publisher’s blurb is:

Watt’s previous works have concentrated on the events of the American Revolutionary War in lower Quebec, upstate New York and Vermont. In this new book, he ventures west and south to examine the conflict out of Detroit across western Pennsylvania and the Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky territories that was hugely complicated by the colonists’ incessant encroachment onto First Nations’ lands.

Treaties & Treacheries examines the war’s first four years when political control of the northwest region remained uncertain. Thereafter, the United States dominated, as Britain abandoned attempts to rule the region and withdrew support of her many Indigenous allies. At war’s end, many of the region’s anglo-loyalists settled in western Ontario, while the Indigenous inhabitants and the majority of the Canadiens — many of whom had supported the Crown – accepted United States’ ascendancy and remained in their pre-war settlements.

More book description and Index etc for Treaties and Treacheries – The Early Years of the Revolutionary War on America’s Western Frontiers, 1775-1778 are at: https://globalgenealogy.com/countries/canada/loyalist/resources/101040.htm

Ancestry®, has named former Amazon and Facebook executives to its leadership team.

Brian Donnelly, formerly head of Diagnostics and Genomics at Amazon, has been named Senior Vice President and General Manager of AncestryDNA.

Ashish Nayyar, Facebook’s Senior Director of Data Science, has been appointed Chief Data Officer.

Heather Friedland, who joined Ancestry in 2019 and most recently served as Senior Vice President, New Products & Growth, has been promoted to Chief Product Officer.

Find the press release here.