Anglo-Celtic Connections

Updated, now with 628,011 records, Bedfordshire, England, Workhouse and Poor Law Records, 1835-1914 was originally published by Ancestry in August 2020.

Searching returns a transcript with headings: Name, Age, Birth Date, Residence Date, Residence Place, Poor Law Union, and Description of the instrument. Additional information is given in the linked image such as family information and the nature of the relief granted.

The records, sourced from the Bedfordshire Archives, cover the Poor Law Unions of Ampthill, Bedford, Biggleswade, Leighton Buzzard and Luton.

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. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed.

Tuesday 8 June, 2 pm: Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, from Ottawa Branch of OGS and The Ottawa Public Library. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/.

Tuesday 8 June, 2 pm: New breakthroughs in MyHeritage’s photo tools, by Tal Erlichman for MyHeritage Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar_details.php?webinar_id=1694

Tuesday 8 June, 7 pm: The Power of DNA, by Mags Gaulden for Lambton Branch OGS.
https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/calendar/lambton-june-zoom-meeting-with-mags-gaulden-the-power-of-dna/

Tuesday 8 June, 2:30 pm: The (US) 1940 Census and Preparing for the 1950 Census, by Alison Singleton for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIoduCoqDosG9Y8UW4QQ0PF1hskXClpl6sy

Wednesday 9 June, 2:30 pm: Reflections of Alan Turing with Dermot Turing, The (UK) National Archives.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/reflections-of-alan-turing-tickets-152682917717?aff=wowp

Wednesday 9 June, 7:15 pm: Doing Family Tree Research in Your Pajamas, by Ken McKinlay for York Branch OGS.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEsd-GurDItGNWy8R2WuUF5OJCA-jdlZRB1

Thursday 10 June, 6:30 pm: Fireside Chat: Migration. Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZwpdOCvqzkjHNyvwWdjaMmQNX_vR4vcUMyY

Friday 11 June, 7 pm: Memories of Merlin, by Julie Magerka for Kent Branch OGS.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZckdeCrqzouEtaNgiyIQstL_ice-ozyajLl

Saturday 12 June, 9 am: BIFHSGO AGM and Great Moments in Genealogy. 
https://bifhsgo.ca/eventListings.php?nm=127#er561

Saturday 12 June, 2 pm: Squiggly and Splt: How SNA Changed Family History Research, by Dave Obee for Simcoe Branch OGS.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0rcOuqrjovGNGbUgTjWpsVCYuAoo-PCdkj

LOOKING AHEAD

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

In an obscure corner of the LAC website is a document Transition 2019 – E-binder. Leslie Weir, Librarian and Archivist of Canada, August 30, 2019. It provides a nearly two years old snapshot of the organization, its scope and a base on which to view subsequent developments.

The Operations Sector is of most interest for researcher clients. An organization chart at the time is here.

I looked particularly at the mention of newspapers.

The Newspaper Strategy section mentions a strategy  not found on the LAC  website.  The considerations section is:

• Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has a strong retrospective collection of selected Canadian dailies, community newspapers, Indigenous and ethno-cultural papers in print and microfilm; print newspapers do not fall under Legal Deposit (LD) and have not been actively collected, aside from first and last copies, since 2007. LAC purchases microfilm, when it is available, to fill collection gaps. Electronic newspapers fall under LD and have been collected sporadically; this will become more routine once Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) is implemented.
• The Newspaper Strategy focusses primarily on publications; stakeholder response suggests it should be broadened to include news archives.
• A newspaper summit is under consideration at LAC. A decision whether to hold a summit, and its format, will be made in the third quarter of 2019-2020.
• No resource(s) at LAC are dedicated specifically to this file.
• If decided that newspapers become an area of emphasis, the file will need at least one Full time equivalent (FTE).
• Digital ingest, access and preservation standards vary amongst multiple stakeholders and communities nationwide.
• There are many community-based projects underway with their own access points; LAC is working with Ontario Library Association, Archives of Ontario and others, together with TorStar and PostMedia, to provide access to 36 shuttered Ontario community newspapers.

No newspaper summit was held. Apparently little has changed at LAC since this document was written.

The section Digitization mentions

The division is currently composed of 43 indeterminate positions, which are not always fully funded. As a result, it is difficult to plan long-term projects and commit to the Preservation Plan for purposes of long-term digitization.

• In 2018-2019, DSD produced 5 million digital images from analog surrogates.
• In 2019-2020, while continuing to serve internal and external clients, digitization efforts are supporting the Indigenous initiatives, litigation cases, the conversion of reference collections into digital format as well as other LAC priorities that may arise.

LAC is conducting less digitization!

A section OPL Collection Preparation and Move mentions that RFID technology will be employed to secure the collection after the move and that “Four Library and Archives Canada (LAC) collections will be featured in the new OPL-LAC joint facility set to open in 2024: Genealogy, Reference, Curated, and Lowy collections. Approximately 150,000 items will be relocated to OPL-LAC’s joint facility.”

A separate section OPL-LAC Service Transition includes in a list of seven projects to be undertaken “Digitization of reference materials: To save space and to enhance access to LAC reference materials in Ottawa and across Canada, LAC is digitizing finding aids, directories, newspapers and other materials.”

Smith, then Brown and then Wilson saw the most Canadian military fatalities in both wars. according to Commonwealth War Graves Commission records. For the population as a whole, for more than a century, Smith has been the most common surname in Canada, the next most common being Brown, Tremblay and Martin. 

The table below shows the most frequent surnames from CWGC records of Canadians who died in the two world wars.

SURNAME	FWW	SWW
SMITH (1)	1	1
BROWN (4)	2	2
WILSON (7)	3	3
JONES (2)	4	10
TAYLOR (6)	5	6
CAMPBELL (53)	6	5
McDONALD (-)	7	22
MacDONALD (-)	8	4
ANDERSON (19)	9	7
STEWART (-)	10	13
JOHNSON (5)	11	8
SCOTT (35)	12	19
WHITE (11)	13	15
WILLIAMS (3)	14	17
THOMPSON (12)	15	11
MARTIN (15)	16	9
WALKER (17)	17	25
MOORE (14)	18	18
MILLER (8)	19	12
CLARK (18)	20	16
YOUNG (36)	21	30
ROSS (-)	22	35
ROBERTSON (-)	23	27
REID (-)	24	21
WRIGHT (22)	25	24

Tremblay ranked 530th in the FWW and 180th in the Second.

The number against the name in the first column is the rank given at https://www.findmypast.co.uk/surname/. Scots names are more prominent among the Canadian war dead.

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Friday 4 June to contain 280,520,033 unique records (280,104,498 at the previous update). Years with major additions of more than 10,000 records are, for births 1986-88 and 1990-91, and for marriages and deaths 1986-90. Also over 7,000 marriages were added for 1969.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

An “Epidemic” of Fake News a Century Ago

Archives ‘replace hands that have vanished and lips that are sealed’

Europeana – Seven tips for digital storytelling with cultural heritage

Technology in the Service of Remembrance: Yad Vashem’s Search for the Six Million Victims’ Names

Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions
Conservatives are less able to distinguish truths and falsehoods than liberals, and the information environment helps explain why.

OGS News
At Saturday’s AGM, which was very efficiently run, it was announced the 2022 conference will be hosted by Ottawa Branch and run as an in-person and online hybrid.  An award was given to Patti Mordasewicz and the award for the best branch website went to Ottawa Branch.

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Gail B., Judy Humphries, Sheila F., Unknown — and thankful for my second Pfizer shot on Saturday.

New at Ancestry, Worcestershire, England, Electoral Registers, 1837-1974  has 7,306,656 records. Electorial registers are great for helping bridge gaps between censuses.

The bar chart shows the major increase when women got the vote. The other variation likely just reflects the availability of registers.

The index, created using text recognition software, is subject to error. In searching the name Northwood I found four instances in 50 with the continuation of an entry to a second line not recognized and a separate record added. There never was a person Northwood Halt! Always check the linked image of the original.

You will also find cases where a business address is given — not a different person — just a separate entry from that for a home address that may not be in the county.

The originals are from the Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service.

Last week FMP opening a poll on which records to add next. With three choices Yorkshire Memorial Inscriptions was the most favoured. This week there are 43,824 additions to that collection, now totalling 297,613 items. 17,593 of the additions are from Halifax with entries from 1614 to 2003. 

 

Here’s the complete list of additions from 18 communities.

Riding	Place	Year from	Year to	Records
North	Haxby	1784	1994	437
North	Newton on Ouse	1735	1994	877
North	Rufforth	1726	1992	307
North	Slingsby Cemetery	1889	1992	312
North	Sutton on the Forest	1689	2001	154
North	Sutton on the Forest	1852	2012	941
North	Thormanby	1798	1991	174
North	Thorp Arch	1280	2016	585
North	Welburn	1806	2007	428
West	Cotton Stones	1833	1994	1574
West	Halifax	1614	2003	17593
West	Heptonstall	1897	2016	1511
West	Heptonstall	1607	2008	6503
West	Southowram	1806	2005	1953
West	Sowerby	1658	2018	8345
West	Soyland	1819	2000	637
Ainsty & City of York	Copmanthorpe	1740	2008	497
Ainsty & City of York	Dringhouses	1798	1992	996

Exclusive to Findmypast, a huge collection of Roman Catholic records, mainly from the Glasgow area.

Over 307,000 new Scotland Roman Catholic Parish Baptisms.
Over 158,000 new Scotland Roman Catholic Parish Marriages.
Over 15,000 new Scotland Roman Catholic Parish Burials.
Over 164,000 new Scotland Roman Catholic Parish Congregational Records.

From the Glasgow region there are 255,329 baptisms for 24 parishes, typically from 1855 to 1921; 130,771 marriages ty[ically from 1869 to 1946; 9,642 burials for 14 parishes typically from 1923 to 1959; and 138,678 congregational records typically from 1891 to 1935 for 22 parishes.

The complete list of parishes with detailed information on coverage is at https://www.findmypast.com/articles/scotland-roman-catholic-parish-list

On Wednesday at the Canadian Historical Association Annual Conference I was able to catch some of three presentations in a session on Epidemics, Pandemics, and Public Health Responses. Interrupted several times, one of the disadvantages of being online at home meant I didn’t get the full benefit.

A presentation by Caroline Michaud : “Plague in the Public Eye: English Reactions to the Marseille Plague of 1720-1723” leant heavily on her August 2020 Master’s thesis Public Health and Public Discourse: Contesting the London Bills of Mortality, c. 1603-1836 at Dalhousie University.  I need to find more time to read the thesis. Bills of Mortality I’ve wanted to investigate more. They were widely read. I’d also like to know why we don’t routinely get this type of current statistics today. It can be done as we’ve seen for COVID reporting.

Another presentation, “Households Large and Small: The Prominence of
Women’s Work in Edmonton’s Conceptualisation of the 1918 Influenza
Pandemic” by Suzanna Wagner drew heavily on newspaper reports in the Edmonton Bulletin.

During the question period, I asked about the value of digitized newspapers for the research. Both of those presenters said they couldn’t have done the studies they did without them. The third presenter, Adama Aly Pam spoke in French about yellow fever experience in Senegal. That limited my ability to understand. He agreed that digitized newspapers are vital. LAC please note.

 

Here are the new and updated collections expected from Ancestry this month.

Canada, Western Canada, Land Grants, 1870-1930, and Upper and Lower Canada Land Petitions, 1870-1930 (NEW)

Montreal, Québec, Canada, Property Tax Evaluations, 1847-1987 (NEW)

Canada, Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current (UPDATE)

Westminster, London, England, Cemetery Registers, 1855-1990 (NEW)
Exclusive to Ancestry
281,988 records total
58,147 images

Worcestershire, England, Electoral Registers, 1837-1974 (NEW)
7,306,656 records total
87,364 images

Web: UK and Allied Countries, Index of International Bomber Command Losses, 1936-1968 (NEW)
58,440 records total

Ireland, Casey Collection Indexes, 1545-1960 (NEW)
541,915 records total
13,884 images

Web: Dundee, Scotland, Poor Law Indexes, 1854-1878 (NEW)
14,263 records total

Bedfordshire, England, Workhouse and Poor Law Records, 1830-1920 (UPDATE)
Exclusive to Ancestry
305,293 records being added

340 new serial publications since the start of May, 74 of them this month. COVID is now no match for Canadiana.

Prominent, as shown by the wordcloud, are annual reports and various directories for Ontario and Quebec.

There were eight titles placed online yesterday, 2 June:

Case’s directory of Fort William, Port Arthur and district of Thunder Bay for 1894
Chatham directory for 1876-77
Contractors’ and builders directory, embracing an alphabetical list of all architects, contractors, builders 1890-91
County of Brant gazetteer and directory for 1869-70
County of Perth gazetteer and directory for 1882-6
County of York gazetteer and directory 1881
Nova Scotia temperance almanack for the year of our Lord 1835

See what’s new and of interest for your family history at https://www.crkn-rcdr.ca/en/whats-new-canadiana-collections/ or https://www.canadiana.ca/collection-serials