Here are the feature articles in the September issue of BBC History magazine. It’s available through PressReader.

Hellish workhouses?
Peter Higginbotham asks if these residences for the poor merit the nightmarish reputations. (Spoiler: He explodes some myths)

Romans and fascists
Catherine Harloe explores the far right’s enduring fascination with ancient Greece and Rome.

The Man in the Iron Mask
What was the real-life identity of this celebrated prisoner? Josephine Wilkinson puts forward her theory.

Supersized Georgians
Freya Gowrley lifts the lid on satarists’ obsession with the issue of fatness in the 18th century.

Middle East Holocaust
Greshom Groenberg chronicles the little-known brutalization of Jewish people from Morocco to Iraq in the Second World War.

The Salem Witch Trials
Why did two girls’ accusations of dark magic send 19 people to the gallows in 1692? Ellie Cawthorne investigates.

Walter Scott’s genius
Annika Bautz argues that Scotland’s International image has been partly shaped by the brilliance of this nineteenth-century novelist.

Our next-door neighbours when I was a teen later moved to Australia to be with their daughter. They were following in the footsteps of many other Norfolk-born and bred, except their “10-pound pom” move was voluntary.

Between 1787 and 1868 approximately 4,000 Norfolk citizens were transported to Australia. This recent blog post from the Norfolk Record Office recounts their typical experience.

Ancestry is adding later records — now over 55 million Church of England London parish records in its collection. Each is linked to an image of the original.

	Title		Records
London	Church of England Births and Baptisms	1813-1920	22,100,365
London	Church of England Deaths and Burials	1813-2003	2,733,952
London	Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials	1538-1812	17,102,883
London	Church of England Marriages and Banns	1754-1936	13,526,095

Again, there’s lots of good reading in the latest Internet Genealogy issue. Something for everyone, beginner to specialist interest.

Here are my top three odd-ball picks from this issue

Stranger Than Fiction: Bathing Machines, by Sue Lisk
None of today’s skimpy bikinis. In the eighteenth, nineteenth
and early years of the twentieth-century sea bathing demanded modesty. The bathing machine allowed seaside bathers, particularly women, to change in and out of their swimming attire inside the vans pulled by horses in and out of the water.  The article gives websites to consult to learn about these strange contraptions your ancestors might have used.

Divining for the Dead, by Robbie Gorr
Explores a debatable method of locating unrecorded, unmarked or forgotten graves of our ancestors. Divining, more often used to find water, is a less expensive and more accessible alternative to using ground-penetrating radar, the method chosen to find residential school graves. I’m highly skeptical, the article explains the technique and gives links to YouTube videos.

AI, Genealogy and You: A Perfect Match? by Tony Bandy
Looks at the integration of artificial intelligence in family history. Tony points to uses in websites commonly used for family history that you may not have thought of as AI.

There’s much more, including Dave Obee’s Back Page column: If My Memory Serves Me Correctly…

See the contents, with links to the first page of underlined articles, at https://www.internet-genealogy.com/issue_contents.htm

On this date in 1966, 55 years ago Ottawa’s most deadly construction accident occurred. The Heron Road Bridge, properly the Heron Road Workers Memorial Bridge, under construction collapsed owing to inadequate bracing.

Leonard Baird, 55, of 1203 Meadowlands Drive, came to Ottawa a year previous from Toronto and was a resident engineer at the project. The Bairds had no children.

Clarence Beattie, 31, of Cornwall, was the father of five children aged 3 to 9. A foreman. he had worked on the bridge since the start of construction.

Jean Paul Guerin, 35, of Hawkesbury, had recently started working on the bridge. He had six children, aged one to 11.

Omar Lamadeleine, 51, of Embrun, had 12 children, one of whom, a daughter, was to marry the following Saturday. He had been in construction work most of his life. He is interred at Saint Jacques Roman Catholic Cemetery in Embrun.

Edmund Newton, 50, of Almonte. was a part-time farmer and experienced high-rigger. A labourer, he had six children.

Dominic Romano, 36, worked in construction after coming to Canada in 1958. He had two children, aged nine months and two years. His body was returned to Italy.

Raymond Tremblay, 22. a laborer, came to Ottawa two months previous from Jonquierc, Que. and lived in Orleans. He planned to be married in the fall.

Joao Vicgas, 32, of 79 Sweetland Ave., was a Portuguese immigrant whose wife was in Portugal. His body was returned to Portugal.

If you like to know more there’s a recent article by James Powell for the Historical Society of Ottawa.

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.

Coming

19 – 26 September 2021: BIFHSGO Conference. Irish Lines and Female Finds: Exploring Irish records, female ancestors and genetic genealogy. www.bifhsgo2021.ca/.

 

In partnership with the British Library, Findmypast now has over a million newspaper pages free to search and view, with more than 2.7 million additional free pages to come over the next four years.

There are currently 158 free newspapers on offer, dating from 1720 to 1880 and covering a diverse array of histories, locations, and topics.

Highlights from the collection include:

Barbadian (1822-1861) – a fascinating Caribbean publication that covers the transition of Barbados from the colonial, pre-modern to the modern era, including the Emancipation (1834), and the end of the apprenticeship system (1838)
British Emancipator (1837-1840) – an anti-slavery newspaper that fought for the abolition of the system of apprenticeship, which was put into place after slavery was abolished in the British Colonies
British Miner and General Newsman (1862-1867) – a journal devoted to working miners, which went through a number of titles including The Miner, The Workman’s Advocate, and The Commonwealth
Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register (1803-1836) – a famous and hugely information-rich vehicle for the ideas and opinions of the great nineteenth-century radical William Cobbett
The Examiner (1808-1880) – a leading radical weekly, edited by Leigh Hunt, with contributors including William Hazlitt, John Keats, and Percy Shelley
Illustrated Sporting News and Theatrical and Musical Review (1862-1870) – a lively, visually rich newspaper covering a wide range of sports and theatrical events, with many fine illustrations
Royal Gazette of Jamaica (1779-1840) – a West Indies newspaper notorious for its slavery advertisements
Lady’s Newspaper and Pictorial Times (1847-1863) – one of the earliest newspapers produced for an exclusively female audience
Morning Herald (1800-1869) – founded in 1780, a national daily that for a number of years rivalled The Times in importance
Poor Man’s Guardian (1831-1835) – the most successful and influential of the radical unstamped (and thus illegal) newspapers of the early 1830s
Sun (1801-1871) – a daily evening national newspaper, founded in 1792, originally with pro-government and anti-French revolutionary stance, before changing to advocate liberal and free trade principles.

Find out more at https://www.findmypast.com/blog/new/free-newspapers

Findmypast tweeted about a live “Tour of the Free Newspapers” presentation by Mary McKee today, 9 August at 11 am ET.  Find it at www.facebook.com/findmypast or possibly www.facebook.com/findmypast/live/.

A week ago I mentioned the South Staffordshire FHS is adding information on soldiers on local war memorials, now comprising 1065 records. They include the following who served with Canadian forces, likely being commemorated on their original home memorial.

Rank:	Number:	First:	Last:	Regiment:	Died:	Place:	SWFHS Memorial:
Pvt	463806	Frederick	PANTER	Canadian Infantry	Wednesday, June 28, 1916	France	Alcester
Pvt	443145	William Barton	BOARDMAN	Canadian Light Infantry	Tuesday, September 11, 1917	France	Alderminster
Pvt	426874	William	SALT	Canadian Infantry	Wednesday, July 26, 1916	France	Alveston
Pvt	451949	Francis Price	TAYLOR	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, June 13, 1916	France	Arrow
Pvt	405761	Frank	HOUGHTON	Canadian Mounted Rifles	Friday, June 2, 1916	France	Arrow
Tpr	15646	Lord Edward Beauchamp	SEYMOUR	Lord Strathcona’s Horse	Wednesday, December 5, 1917	France	Arrow
Pvt	721235	Aubrey J	KIRBY	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, October 30, 1917	France	Berkswell
Pvt	171589	John	BEESLEY	Canadian Infantry	Friday, September 29, 1916	France	Bishops Itchington
Sgt	63235	Gerald	COLLARD	Canadian Infantry	Thursday, October 12, 1916	Home	Claverdon
Pvt	472605	Harold	ROBERTS	Canadian Infantry	Friday, October 26, 1917	France	Claverdon
Pvt	430157	William Sutton	FINDON	Canadian Infantry	Wednesday, July 4, 1917	France	Henley in Arden
L/Cpl	633789	Francis William	PORTER	Canadian Infantry	Friday, October 11, 1918	France	Preston on Stour
Pvt	77303	William	TIMMS	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, May 18, 1915	France	Snitterfield
Pvt	426686	Arthur	WHITE	Canadian Machine Gun Corps	Wednesday, December 12, 1917	France	Snitterfield
Pvt	654	Edmund Fenning	PARKE	Canadian Light Infantry	Saturday, May 8, 1915	France	Wellesbourne
Pvt	443115	William Victor	WYLDES	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, September 26, 1916	France & Flanders	Ettington
Cpl	136492	George	MALIN	Canadian Infantry	Monday, May 7, 1917	France & Flanders	Rowington
Pvt	148456	William Henry	HAYNES	Canadian Infantry	Tuesday, November 21, 1916	France & Flanders	Warmington

The database includes other mentions of Canada, some who had spent time there, who died in a Canadian-staffed hospital or were relieving Canadians at the front.

http://www.swfhs.org.uk/

I’ve previously mentioned another instance, the first CWGC burial at Beechwood Cemetery. Thomas William Hardingham is also on the war memorial in Great Yarmouth. There must be many more.

Information from the seven volumes of  Directory of Scottish Settlers in North America, 1625-1825, by David Dobson, published by the Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore, Maryland, is now on Ancestry. It comprises 26,157 entries.
Searches return, where available, name, birth date, residence year, residence place, ship,  relatives and a link to the publication image.
A search for Canada residence returns 777 items, many in Eastern Ontario, 40 in Perth.
Data in the volumes were collected from “a range of Scottish newspapers and magazines in national, regional and local circulation.”

Born 28 July 1887 in Frankford, Ontario, his father, Rev John George Hooper, died in 1906. His mother was Jennie Harriett nee Greaves.

He attested on 15 May 1918 at Barriefield (Kingston), Ont., Service Number: 3059938, while living at his mother’s residence at 413 Elgin Street, Ottawa.

Before enlistment, he was a traveller for a drug company which may account for his service being with the Canadian Army Medical Corps where he was a Quartermaster Sergeant.

However, he became ill and was hospitalized shortly after enlistment. The cause of death was tuberculosis of the liver and bladder predating enlistment.

He died on 8 August 1921 and is buried in Sec. 19. Lot 133. North-East. 1. at Beechwood Cemetery.

This is the last of 100 posts made on the centennial of the deaths of servicemen and women interred at Beechwood Cemetery.  The first was Thomas William Hardinghan who died in a machine gun training accident on 21 September 1914. Along the way, I was able to find a burial not commemorated and was pleased to attend the dedication of the headstone, a rare joint one with the colleague who drowned at the same time.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Archive Jigsaws
Great seal    The quill

The Proms
The 2021 season of  “the world’s greatest music festival” is underway until 11 September.  On Saturday I enjoyed Beethoven’s Eroica, but missed the first half of the prom. BBC Radio 3 streams each concert from the link above, just recall the times are BST, five hours ahead of EDT.

What You Can Do Today to Revitalize Your Productivity

The Trial of Agnes Waterhouse – Witchcraft in Essex, 1566

The lost history of the electric car – and what it tells us about the future of transport

The “Unremembered”
Gail B wrote that the August issue of BBC HIstory magazine has a fascinating story about the “many Indian, Egyptian and African troops” who have been ‘Unremembered’ by the CWGC.” She asks did this happen for Canadian visible minority deaths? Reading the CWGC response to a report on historical inequalities in commemoration here. I’m not aware Canada had any troops in the areas mentioned.

Genealogy News: a perspective from Down Under

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Gail B., Unknown.