Anglo-Celtic Connections

Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—please check the links to avoid disappointment. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/

Tuesday, 8 September

2:30 PM: Getting Started With FamilySearch, by Allison DePrey for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/17132339

7:00 PM: INK2 – The Reboot, by Art Rhyno for OGS Essex Branch. https://essex.ogs.on.ca/meetings/

7:00 PM: Start, Search, Discover: Genealogical Essentials for All Explorers, by Christine Hayes for OGS Lambton County Branch (Zoom, online only). https://lambton.ogs.on.ca/

7:30 PM: Using DNA to Answer Geography Questions, by Dave Obee for OGS Durham Region Branch. https://durham.ogs.on.ca/

Wednesday, 9 September

The following are Legacy Family Tree Webinars Webtember presentations.

10:00 AM: Novel NYC Records, by Alec Ferretti for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/

11:30 AM: 5 Ways Tax Lists Can Assist Your Pennsylvania Research, by Katy Bodenhorn Barnes for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/

1:00 PM: 10 New Tools for Pennsylvania Research, by Kory L. Meyerink, MLS, AG, FUGA, for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/

2:30 PM: Top 10 Websites for Ohio Genealogy, by Dana Palmer, CG®, CGL®, for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/

Wednesday, 9 September

7:00 PM: Ottawa Then and Now, by Catherine Willis-O’Connor for the Historical Society of Ottawa
https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/208/16,17,18,19,20,21,22/ottawa-then-and-now

Thursday, 10 September

Friday, 11 September

9:00 AM Researching your (UK) local history, by Jessamy Carlson for the National Archives (UK).
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/whats-on/events/researching-your-local-history/

2:00 PM: Researching in Middlesex, by Dr Nick Barratt for Legacy Family Tree Webinars. https://familytreewebinars.com/upcoming-webinars/

7:00 PM: My Journey of Discovery – Truth About my British Home Child Grandmother, by Colleen Glassford for OGS Kent Branch. https://kent.ogs.on.ca/

Saturday, 12 September

9:00 AM BIFHSGO Monthly Meeting
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

RootsIreland is the coordinating body for 34 local genealogy centres dedicated to preserving and sharing Ireland’s ancestral records.

Presently, a 25% discount is being offerred on an annual account which gives instant access to more than 23 million Irish records.

But go to https://www.rootsireland.ie/ifhf/subscribe.php to see an even greater discount on a 6-month subscription. 

I see no end date for the discount. It could end anytime.

Miscellaneous items I found interesting this week.

Congratulations to David Rajotte on publishing Vol 20, No 1 of Documentary Heritage News.

A New Season of Talks from Gresham College
Providing outstanding educational lectures, talks and events for the public free of charge. Usually at 1 pm ET.

A Practical Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Family History Research
Linda Hammond penned this article in the July issue of the Family History Federation Really Useful Bulletin.

The Findmypast focus switches to New York this week, specifically the Trinity Episcopal Church.

Baptisms: 37,052 records for 1749 to 1885.
Marriages 28,988 records for 1746 to 1886.
Burials, 47,326 records for 1746 to 1958

Also, 6,239  additions to the United States Military, Gallantry Awards 1917-1919.

Newspaper additions are;

New titles:

• Bath and Cheltenham Gazette, 1854, 1877–1879, 1889
• Dartford Chronicle, 1877, 1879, 1889
• Evening Post (Exeter), 1901–1902
• Hindoo Patriot, 1903–1911, 1913–1920
• Oldham Evening Chronicle, 1880–1882
• Tipton & Great Bridge Times, 1889

Updated titles:

• Aberdare Times, 1871
• Anfield & Walton Star, 2000
• Belfast Weekly News, 1884
• Brighton Times, 1869, 1883, 1887, 1891–1892
• Burton Evening Gazette, 1890–1892, 1894–1895, 1897
• Carlow Post, 1874–1876, 1878
• Catholic Times and Catholic Opinion, 1899
• Colchester Gazette, 1911
• County Express; Brierley Hill, Stourbridge, Kidderminster, and Dudley News, 1873
• Coventry Evening Telegraph, 2002
• Derby Daily Telegraph, 2003
• East Anglian Daily Times, 1919
• Enniskillen Chronicle and Erne Packet, 1883
• Evening Star, 1890–1891, 1918–1919
• Fairplay, 1918
• Financial Reformer, 1859, 1870, 1874–1879, 1887
• Garstang Courier, 2005
• Ilford Recorder, 1919
• Jersey Independent and Daily Telegraph, 1887
• Linlithgow Advertiser, 1998, 2005
• Ossett Observer, 1868, 1873, 1889, 1897, 1912
• Roscommon Herald, 1907
• Sandwell Evening Mail, 2000–2001, 2004
• Saunders’s News-Letter, 1798
• Seren (Bala, Wales), 1889–1890, 1894–1907
• Solihull News, 2000–2002
• Solihull Times, 2000, 2002
• Southall Gazette, 2001–2003
• Sporting Chronicle, 1931, 1946
• Suffolk Chronicle, 1898
• Thame Gazette, 2005
• The Record, 1891–1894, 1896–1897, 1899
• West Sussex County Times, 2005
• Whitby Gazette, 2005
• Whitby Times, 1881, 1888–1889
• Wolverhampton Express and Star, 2005

Six of the ten August additions to Canadiana are Streetsville/Port Credit newspapers, covering substantial runs from 1890 through 1923. Further issues, to 1927, are listed as coming soon.
Both communities are now within the City of Mississauga.

After an extended quiet period 19 additions were made to the Héritage collection at CKRN on 3 September 2026.

The records cover several categories:

• Land and Settlement: Includes central registry subject files from the Dominion Lands Branch (1873-1947), Upper Canada Land Petitions (1797-1811), and multiple Western Land Grants from the early 20th century.

• Indigenous and Departmental Records: Extensive files from the Department of Indian Affairs Headquarters central registry system (such as the “red series” and “thousand series” spanning from the late 19th to mid-20th centuries), Indian Affairs Annuity Paylists, and the Indian Affairs Black Series.

• Transportation and Immigration: Features Department of Transport civil aircraft files and a specific passenger list for Halifax (1925-1935).

• Military: Includes nominal rolls and paylists for the Volunteer Militia from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Curious about how artificial intelligence is changing family history? 

Wednesday, the first day for Legacy Tree  Webinars Webtember series,  streamed three back-to-back sessions, tackling AI from different angles — transcription, land records, and locality research.

For non-subscribers they are available for playback for a week.

Using AI to Answer the Big Three: What, Where, and Why of Ancestor Locations — Diana Elder, AG, AGL

Diana Elder, focused on locality research — arguably one of the most time-consuming parts of genealogy — and how AI tools can speed up the process of identifying what records exist for a place, where to find them, and why an ancestor might have settled there in the first place.

Top 5 AI Tools for Transcribing Handwritten Historical Documents — Nicole Elder Dyer

Deciphering old, faded, and unfamiliar handwriting is a familiar challenge for the family historian.. Her webinar was notable for evaluating the Large Language Models — ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude in their various flavours, giving comparative results on character and word recognition rates. She then sumarizes her explorations some lesser-known tools, including Archive Studio, a Canadian model.

Using AI to Analyze Land Records and Reconstruct Family Narratives — Thomas MacEntee

Rounding out the day, Thomas MacEntee’s session covered how AI can help interpret dense legal language in deeds and court records, map family migrations across property transactions, and turn raw record data into a coherent narrative about an ancestor’s life. US oriented.

None of the speakers suggest AI replaces the researcher — accuracy checks and source verification are still for your due diligence, especially for challenging names and dates. Recent improvements are impressive — each shows a concrete way to fold these tools into your existing research process to save time and, in some cases, spot connections you might otherwise miss.

• How Do You See LAC’s Role?

Here are some ideas from Gemini.

• Challenges for LAC

ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude were asked about the organization’s top three challenges.
ChatGPT
1. Making the enormous collection accessible
2. ATIP backlog and delays
3. Resources for modernization.
Gemini
1. Severe Access to Information (ATIP) and Declassification Backlogs
2. Digital Transformation, Digitization Scale, and Search Discovery
3. Resource Constraints and Institutional Dual-Mandate (Archives/Library) Friction.
Claude
1. Access-to-information backlogs
2. Chronic underfunding and budget cuts
3. Digital preservation and record-keeping in the digital era.

ChatGPT commented: “The ATIP problem gets more attention because it involves a statutory obligation and measurable backlogs, but the much bigger long-term issue for researchers is the huge quantity of material that remains undigitized, inadequately described or difficult to discover. LAC’s own 2024–25 user survey identified more digitization, better search, and richer collections among the principal areas users wanted improved.”

• Should LAC Have An Advisory Council?
  The Library and Archives of Canada Act S.C. 2004, c. 11 has a provision that “The Minister may establish an Advisory Council to advise the Librarian and Archivist with regard to making the documentary heritage known to Canadians and to anyone with an interest in Canada and facilitating access to it.”  Would LAC benefit from arm’s length advice? Yes, if it is committed to taking, or being required to take, independent advice seriously, including advice that challenges its assumptions. Otherwise, the organization judges the advisors don’t appreciate the full picture, and the advisors feel like they’re pushing on wet noodles.A good first step would be for the Minister to seek arm’- length advice on the need for an Advisory Council from respected experts, selected and convened by, say, the Royal Society of Canada.
• Ādisōke
  Did progress come to a halt? After posting updates in May and June, and two in April, nothing has been reported for two months.

I registered. The conference program is too good to miss, even though I don’t have much in the way of confirmed Scottish ancestry. It could be hidden. Ancestry DNA finds I’m 20% Central Scotland & Northern Ireland; MyHeritage 36.3% Scottish and Welsh.

Register here. If you’re a BIFHSGO  member, sign in first to see the member’s rate. For full information about the online event go to https://www.bifhsgo.ca/2026-conference .

To save aggravation with payment, check out the instructions. That’s what I should have done!

I saw this ad on Facebook. If you want to subscribe, I hope you can find way in. As usual, its not good for existing subscribers.

Moving into September, the selection of events is picking up.

Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—please check the links to avoid disappointment. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual/ .

Tuesday, 1 September

2:00 PM: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, by OGS Ottawa Branch. https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/genealogy-drop-in-live/

2:30 PM: Genealogical Myths: Legends, Lies, and Lineage, by Michael Traynor for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/17120821

Wednesday, 2 September

3:00 AM: Top 5 Free Websites for Western Australia Family History, by Shauna Hicks for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/top-5-free-websites-for-western-australia-family-history

10:00 AM: Using AI to Answer the Big Three: What, Where, and Why of Ancestor Locations, by Diana Elder, for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/using-ai-to-answer-the-big-three-what-where-and-why-of-ancestor-locations

11:30 AM: Top 5 AI Tools for Transcribing Handwritten Historical Documents, by Nicole Elder Dyer for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/top-5-ai-tools-for-transcribing-handwritten-historical-documents

1:00 PM: Using AI to Analyze Land Records and Reconstruct Family Narratives, by Thomas MacEntee for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/using-ai-to-analyze-land-records-and-reconstruct-family-narratives

7:30 PM: Gothic Huron: Heroes, Rogues, Murders, Daring, Bawdy Houses and Other Tales, by David Yates for OGS Huron Branch. https://huron.ogs.on.ca/events/huron-branch-gothic-huron-heroes-rogues-murders-daring-bawdy-houses-and-other-tales-david-yates/

Thursday, 3 September

7:00 PM: FNMI: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada, by Lianne Kruger for OGS Monthly Webinar.
https://ogs.on.ca/september-webinar-fnmi-the-indigenous-peoples-of-canada-lianne-kruger/

Friday, 4 September

2:00 PM: U.S. Great Lakes Region Accreditation: A Genealogical Treasure Trove, by Kaye Ford, for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/u-s-great-lakes-region-accreditation-a-genealogical-treasure-trove

Saturday, 5 September

10:00 AM: Tips, Tricks & Tools for Historical House Research, by Eleanor J. Rath for OGS London and Middlesex Branch.
https://londonmiddlesex.ogs.on.ca/events/london-and-middlesex-branch-tips-tricks-tools-for-historical-house-research/

The FreeBMD database was updated on Thursday, 27 August to contain 296,256,811 unique records, up from 296,061,731 last month.

Years with more than 10,000 additions are: 1994-96 for births, 1995-96 for marriages, 1994 and  1996-97 for deaths.

Over 400 unique birth records were added for 1894 and 1910.

Ancestry updated the Sheffield and Rotherham, Yorkshire, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1950 collection on 20 August, now with 1,868,708 records.