Is it time to update your newspaper obit searches? On Monday, Ancestry added to the data on these Newspapers.com obituary indexes

Place	Records
Canada	47,187,373
Australia and New Zealand	5,842,149
UK and Ireland	32,051,053

 

This is to mark the founding of the United Church of Canada, inaugurated on 10 June  1925 in Toronto, Ontario. The Methodist Church, Canada, the Congregational Union of Canada, and 70 percent of The Presbyterian Church in Canada entered into a union. Also joining was the small General Council of Union Churches, centred largely in Western Canada.

Find more about the United Church’s history at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Church_of_Canada

Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration may be required in advance—check the links so you’re not disappointed. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit conferencekeeper.

The British National Meteorological Office Library and Archives (NMLA) holds many ship weather reports. Included are a few Atlantic crossings to Quebec between 1869 and 1871, the early steamship era. They give an idea of how challenging the voyage might have been for landlubbers.

There are weather observations from vessels of the Allen Line, nine vessels across 36 separate voyages. The ships, with arrival dates at Quebec, are:

AUSTRIAN – Four voyages documented: June 6, July 18, August, and October 9, 1870

EUROPEAN – Three crossings available: July 25 and September 10, 1870; April 27 and June 20, 1871

HIBERNIAN – Four 1869 arrivals: May 24, July 5, August 16, and September 29

MORAVIAN – Seven voyages spanning two years: Five arrivals in 1869 (May 17, June 28, August 8, September 19) and three in 1870 (August 21, October 3 [two separate entries], November 13)

NESTORIAN – Five 1869 crossings: April 26, June 7, July 19, August 28, and October 10

OTTAWA – Four 1870 voyages: June 9, July 19, August, and October 12

PERUVIAN – Eight documented arrivals: Five in 1869 (May 31, July 10, August 23, October 4, November 16) and three in 1870 (August, September 26, November 9)

Find more details by searching ships meteorological log Quebec at https://library.metoffice.gov.uk/Portal/Default/en-GB/Search/SimpleSearch. The NMLA will send an image of the original records by email on request.

Manage your expectations — as shown by the extract below, the handwritten material can be faint and challenging to interpret. You should be able to discern from the winds, reported in the third column from the right on the Beaufort Scale, whether a voyage encountered rough weather.

Aside from the Peruvian, these ships were all of less than 2,500 tons, so passengers would have a hard time in heavy weather; that was my experience in a ship ten times the size.

I’d been hoping to be able to profile data from Global marine surface meteorological variables from 1851 to 2010 from comprehensive in-situ observations. However, for the past few days, there’s been a warning notice “Download form temporarily closed due to temporary issues reaching the data provider’s servers.” Could that data provider be affected by US government actions?

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Wildfire Smoke Forecasts and here.

UK Railway Work, Life & Death Project
On 5 June 69,000 records of railway staff accidents were added into the Railway Work, Life & Death project database – freely available as a spreadsheet at https://www.railwayaccidents.port.ac.uk/?sdm_process_download=1&download_id=429

Documentary Heritage Communities Program Awards 2025-26
In the recent round $1.425 million total was awarded to 37 projects
Three projects in the Atlantic provinces
Nine projects in Quebec
Six projects in Ontario
Five projects in the Prairie provinces
Twelve projects in British Columbia
Two projects in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon

In Ontario, the Grenville County Historical Society was awarded $48,933 for the Grenville County Newspaper Digitization Project.

Persephone is blogging this month.
https://postitnotesfromhades.blogspot.com/

Thanks to the following for comments and tips: Anonymous, Gail B, Glenn Wright, Nick Mcdonald, Teresa, and Unknown.

Under the headline Broken Records, Charlotte Grey has an opinion piece in Saturday’s Globe and Mail in which she laments that “The study of Canada’s recent past has become almost impossible. … Will a new national archives change things for the better?”

The article portrays LAC as an underfunded and understaffed institution whose core mission of providing access to the nation’s documentary heritage is being severely hampered by bureaucratic delays, restrictive legislation, and slow progress on digitization.

That was underlined by the notice on the LAC website in response to a collection search query I first experienced on Friday:

403 – Forbidden: Access is denied.
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

Elsewhere, there’s a notice

“You may experience technical difficulties accessing online records. We are working to resolve the problem.”

Scotland, People of the Black Isle, Ross and Cromarty
Transcripts for 1338-1850 provide name, parish and notes for a total 7,239 records. Parishes included are Avoch, Cromarty, Killearnan, Knockbain, Rosemarkie, and Urquhart & Wester Logie.

Scotland, Poor Law & Poor Lists
Find 739 pages added to the collection, now totalling 138,726 entries. Years covered are 1821-1933. Each record includes a transcript and original printed record, where available. The records usually include a combination of: name, age, occupation, marital status, year, date of minute of parochial board authorising brief, place, denomination, residence, county, wholly or partially destitute, wholly or partially disabled, description of disablement, earnings, name and age of wife and children, name, age and weekly earnings of husband, children, amount and description of relief, nature of settlement, and register notes.

Newspapers
Among recent additions, the standout is the Weekly Times & Echo (London) from 1847 to 1912.

OGS President Christine Woodcock sent a message about new resources from the Ontario Genealogical Society of interest to those with Ontario roots.
The digitization team has been busy over the past few months getting records ready for upload to the Society website to be shared with our members. The first batch of records is now available. The plan is to release new records every month for the rest of 2025.

Here’s what’s available in this first tranche.

The Heritage Society Applications
These include applications for OGS heritage certificates: First World War Society, War of 1812 Society, 1837 Rebellion Society, Upper Canada Society, Honouring Our Heroes Society, Fathers of Confederation Society and the Centenary Society. For OGS members only. Mostly these are original documents, presented in alphabetical order by surname, with privacy redactions.

Parliamentary Divorces 1867-1930

For members only, this is a reproduction of a 2001 publication by
J. Brian Gilchrist and Nancy J. Duffy. Find the names of the parties, the locations mentioned and the years of marriage and divorce.

Overseas Deaths of Ontario Servicemen and Servicewomen. 

Open to all, this index is to the over 15,000 men and women who lived in Ontario just before they went overseas, and who died in the service of their country during and just after World War II. Seeing page after page is eye-opening, including 47 men named REID. Be sure to check the service file online from Ancestry or Library and Archives Canada (although it was not responding when I tried on Friday).

 

The Allen Collection of Ship Photos
I stumbled across this British collection of about six thousand photos of ships over a period of 60 years. It’s in the Ships and Docks section of the unlikely-named Benjidog Historical Research Resources website.

The photo collection was by Mr. W. Allen and his son Frank, “now saved for posterity by a group of dedicated volunteers, who wanted to make it available to everyone with an interest in Merchant Navy history, is told on the Background to Collection page.”

If your family history includes a voyage in the period, there’s a good chance you’ll find a photo, and perhaps more. I searched for the Empress of Canada. Three ships carried that name for CP Ships. Along with the photo was basic information about the ship and its history.

Some of that information may be from Gery and Sue Swiggum’s late lamented “The Ships List”, now resurrected in the Ships and Docs section, as well as being available through the Internet Archive.

Hidden in the Newsprint: UK Edition
You likely didn’t get up for 5 am on Wednesday for this Legacy Family Tree Webinars Down Under series presentation. Mia Bennett is a favourite speaker, so you may want to take the time to review the presentation. It’s free to view until 10 June.

CBC reports Ottawa’s new central library Ᾱdisōke could face delays

The Old Farmer’s Almanac for April
This May, the mean temperature in Ottawa was 13.3C; the OFA prediction was 12C
FAIL

Choose from these selected free online events. All times are Eastern Time, unless otherwise noted. Registration is assumed to be required in advance—check the links so you’re not disappointed. For many more events, mainly in the U.S., visit Conference Keeper.

As of 30 May, the following additions are available from CKRN

Canadiana serials collection.

Title	Publication Date	URL
Canada museum, und allgemeine Zeitung	August 27, 1835-October 20, 1836	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00765
Das Canada museum	22 December, 1838-December 18, 1840	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00766
Freie presse (Kitchener, Ont.)	6. August 1886-5. August 1887	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00770
Germania (Winnipeg, Man.)	22 September 1904-21 November 1907; 12 Dezember 1907-6 April 1911	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00762
Le moniteur Acadien	[4 août 1871-7 janvier 1926]	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00761
Leifur	5 mai 1883-4 júní 1886	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00764
Science dimension	Vol. 1, No. 1 (April-avril 1969)-Volume 16, No. 6 (1984)	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oon.00001
The Dawn of tomorrow	[April 6, 1934-Easter [April] 1972]	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00229
Tuttugasta öldin	26 marz 1909-25 júní 1909	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00763
Voröld	[12 febrúar, 1918-4 maí 1920]	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00768
Öldin	3 sept. 1891-24 febrúar 1892	https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.N_00769

Science Dimension was a bimonthly publication of the National Research Council of Canada, containing scientific stories to “enable the Council to keep readers better informed of its other activities, comprising laboratory
research and research support of universities and industries.

The Dawn of Tomorrow was “The National Negro Weekly: Devoted to the Interests of the Darker Races”. It was published in London, ON.

Héritage archival collection

Title	Publication Date	LAC Microfilm Identifier	Series	URL
Census returns for the 1881 Canadian census	1881	C-13284	MIKAN 142122	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c13284/1
Census returns for the 1881 Canadian census	1881	C-13285	MIKAN 142122	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c13285/1
Census returns for the 1901 Canadian census	1901	T-6428	MIKAN 142133	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t6428/1
Census returns for the 1901 Canadian census	1901	T-6429	MIKAN 142133	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t6429/1
Census returns for the 1901 Canadian census	1901	T-6430	MIKAN 142133	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t6430/1
Census returns for the 1901 Canadian census	1901	T-6431	MIKAN 142133	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t6431/1
Department of Indian Affairs : Cowichan Agency	1909-1918	C-13918	MIKAN 158937	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c13918/1
Department of Indian Affairs : Northwest Territories and Yukon Branch, Central Registry files	1912-1952	T-13362	MIKAN 135006	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t13362/1
Land submissions to the Executive Council : Upper Canada Land Petitions “S” bundle	1831-1833	C-2817	MIKAN 205131	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c2817/1
Nominal rolls and paylists for the Volunteer Militia 1855-1914	1864-1914	T-16550	MIKAN 194987	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t16550/1
Preliminary voters’ lists : Québec, 1984	1984	T-22061	MIKAN 135160	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t22061/1
Preliminary voters’ lists : Québec, 1984	1984	T-22062	MIKAN 135160	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t22062/1
Preliminary voters’ lists : Québec, 1984	1984	T-22063	MIKAN 135160	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t22063/1
Preliminary voters’ lists : Québec, 1984	1984	T-22064	MIKAN 135160	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t22064/1
Preliminary voters’ lists : Québec, 1984	1984	T-22065	MIKAN 135160	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t22065/1
War Diaries of the First World War	1916-01-01 – 1919-03-31	T-10742	MIKAN 133530	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t10742/1
Western land grants	1923	C-6700	Mikan 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6700/1
Western Land Grants	1893-06-06 – 1893-07-21	C-6004	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6004/1
Western Land Grants	1902-01-09 – 1902-07-16	C-6062	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6062/1
Western Land Grants	1917-02-12 – 1918-09-14	C-6522	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6522/1
Western Land Grants	1908-04-03 : 1908-05-09	C-6185	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6185/1
Western Land Grants	1909-04-13 : 1909-04-20	C-6223	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6223/1
Western Land Grants	1909-04-20 : 1909-06-29	C-6224	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6224/1
Western Land Grants	1909-04-30 : 1910-11-07	C-6226	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6226/1
Western Land Grants	1910-06-17 : 1910-06-30	C-6270	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6270/1
Western Land Grants	1910-09-15 : 1910-09-26	C-6277	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6277/1
Western Land Grants	1910-11-28 : 1910-12-06	C-6285	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6285/1
Western Land Grants	1912-01-30 : 1912-02-07	C-6322	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6322/1
Western Land Grants	1914-03-12 : 1914-03-16	C-6414	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6414/1
Western Land Grants	1921-05-10 : 1921-05-27	C-6662	MIKAN 156853	https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c6662/1

The largest share is Western Land Grant certificates showing who became the owner of what parcel(s) of land, and when.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Welcome to June
It’s that month again, AGM season.
The OGS Toronto Branch AGM will begin online at 7 p.m. on Monday, 2  June 2025.
The OGS AGM  is online at 11 a.m. on Saturday, 7 June 2025
The BIFHSGO AGM is hybrid at 9 am on Saturday, 14 June 2025.

No AGM is scheduled for OGS Ottawa Branch, meaning no opportunity for all the anxious volunteers to put their names forward!!!!!

Talks from the Irish Genealogical Research Society
Three recent talks from the IGRS have freely available recordings

Leading the Way, about Michael Leader’s Transcripts of County Cork Church of Ireland Parishes.

Virtual Treasury 101, an update about the growth of surrogates (in all their myriad forms) for original material destroyed by the fire which consumed the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922.

The Great Famine eviction database, focusing on data from almost 2,000 eviction sites, gives insights into the story of eviction during the Famine and how it can be used for genealogical purposes.
https://www.irishancestors.ie/lecture-recordings-2

Doors Open Ottawa
From June 7-8, 100+ different buildings to check out, including embassies, religious and arts buildings.

Ottawa’s Antiquarian Book Fair Returns
We can look forward to 25-26 October when this lately much-lamented event returns, under new management. The new venue will be St Paul’s University, at 223 Main Street.

Discover London’s Hidden Gems and Iconic Spots

Another Ancestry DNA Sale
Until 15 June 2025 at 11:59 p.m. ET, Ancestry is offering its basic DNA test for $79 Cdn, and $10 additional if you want access to 75+ personal traits, including wellness, sensory and appearance. In the small print, it mentions that some DNA features may require an Ancestry® subscription. Taxes and shipping extra.

Thanks to the following for comments and tips: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Brenda Turner, Gail B, Patricia McGregor, Teresa, and Unknown.