Two Ancestry databases were updated on 10 June.

UK and Allied Countries, World War II Liberated Prisoner of War Questionnaires, 1945-1946
129,525 entries

Records in this collection may include: Name, Rank, Service number, Ship name, Unit name, Birth date, Enlistment date, Capture date and place, Escape attempt details.

The information in the questionnaires can be used to verify where and when captured during the Second World War. You also may discover information on serious illnesses during captivity, and any courageous acts by fellow prisoners of war. Authorities were interested in attempted escapes, evasive activities and any people who helped them during an escape attempt.

Canada, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1865-1935
8,306,700 entries

Despite the “About” information showing the collection containing records for Quebec Ports (May 1865–Jun 1908, Jun 1919–Jul 1921, Apr 1925–Nov 1935), there are entries from 1908 to 1919 as well as the seperate database Canada, Ocean Arrivals (Form 30A), 1919-1924.

L’s mother requested her husband’s war record three years ago. It’s just been received 18 months after she died.

Regrettably, L’s request for his uncle’s records, sent six months after the first, is still awaiting a response … frustration. 

The backlog could be significantly shortened, leading to more timely responses. A collaboration with LAC to digitize all WW2 service files, ensuring that only those beyond the 110-year after-birth or 20 years after-death embargo period are released online, could be a mutually beneficial solution. LAC has previously worked with FamilySearch, Ancestry and perhaps others to make records available. Why not again?

Legacy Family Tree is one of the leading pieces of genealogical software in North America, along with Family Tree Maker and RootsMagic.

The learning curve is sufficiently steep with any of these that changing software is not to be done lightly.

With the new Legacy Family Tree 10 for Windows, would FREE be enough to get you to at least download it and try it? I have and was quickly able to transfer one of my databases via Gedcom. I do need to spend more time with it.

Be your own judge, Start here with an introduction to the new version, links to download it and to helpful videos.

I’ve been known to wake up from a nightmare when I was informed that my efforts didn’t pass muster despite sweating blood over the “proper” formatting of citations.

I must have been quite a sight!

Did I leave an extra space? Does the “authority” specify that part should be in italics? Is the date in the approved order mm-dd-yyyy or dd-mm-yyyy or yyyy-mm-dd, or with the month spelled out? Commas, periods or semi-colons?

You’d think the major genealogy resource sites would make it easy. Some do go part way. For example, here’s how the entry for William Northwood in the 1901 Canadian is cited.

In Ancestry: Year: 1901; Census Place: Ottawa (City/Cité) St George (Ward/Quartier), Ottawa (City/Cité), Ontario; Page: 16; Family No: 156

In FamilySearch: “Canada Census, 1901”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KHLB-Q5S : Fri Mar 08 10:44:32 UTC 2024), Entry for William Northwood and Margaret Northwood, 1901.

MyHeritage, Find My Past, Library and Archives Canada, and Automated Genealogy provide no suggested citation. All do provide basic information needed to format it. How to go the extra step, granting us the benefit of a good night’s sleep?

Of late there’s been buzz on social media about Cite-Builder. Specifically designed for genealogists, there’s free access to a limited selection of common citation sources in multiple styles including Evidence Explained, Chicago, Harvard, WikiTree, Strathclyde and more. Here’s how Cite Builder renders 1901 William Northwood citation given the information from LAC.

Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments.

You can go a long way with the free version of Cite Builder which is all I’ve tried. Check out the videos on the site that illustrate the extra facility with the premium version. It costs AUD 30/year, about $27 and change Canadian. Get a 20% discount with code GTV.

A citation guru I consuted did find a few errors.

It occurred to me to try the citation with ChatGPT. So I prompted it with:

You are an expert genealogist skilled at writing citations in the style of Evidence Explained. Use the following information about William Northwood from the 1901 Census of Canada, as provided by Library and Archives Canada at https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?app=census&IdNumber=36482278&ecopy=z000091557 to format a citation
Month of birth: August
Year of birth: 1844
Marital status: Married
Relationship: Head
Place of birth: England
Year of immigration: 1870
Nationality: Canadian
Ethnic origin: English
Religion: Church of England
Occupation: Merchant
Province: Ontario
District name: Ottawa (City)
District number: 100
Sub-district name: St. George Ward
Sub-district number: E
Reference: RG31 – Statistics Canada
Division: 8
Page number: 16
Family number: 156
Microfilm reel number: T-6488
Image number: z000091557

ChatGPT’s response was:

Certainly! Here is the citation in the style of Evidence Explained:

Library and Archives Canada, “1901 Census of Canada,” digital image, Library and Archives Canada (https://recherche-collection-search.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Home/Record?app=census&IdNumber=36482278&ecopy=z000091557 : accessed 9 June 2024), William Northwood, St. George Ward, Ottawa (City), Ontario, district number 100, sub-district E, division 8, page 16, family number 156, microfilm reel T-6488, image number z000091557; citing RG31, Statistics Canada.

Interestingly, the family number quoted in all of the above, 156, is not that on the image which is 154.

Would you use ChatGPT rather than Cite-Builder, or something else?

BIFHSGO’s Virtual Conference, A Celebration of Irish Family History, to be held 26-27 October 2024, was announced at Saturday’s meeting by co-Chairs Marianne Rasmus and Mary-Lou Simac.
Here are the expert speakers:

Find out about their presentations at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/2024-program

Want to learn more? Both Marianne and Mary-Lou will be at the OGS Conference in Toronto. Stop by the BIFHSGO table .

World War 2 Allies Collection
Now enhanced with over 566,000 additional records released in the past three years, this collection features enlistments, casualty lists, rolls of honour and more. It includes soldiers, nurses and Home Front civilians.

The 15,811,779 member collection includes 36,666 Canadian records from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and Canada, Military Honours and Awards Citation Cards.

British Army, Royal York Rangers

Formed in 1807, this unique regiment served in the West Indies before disbanding in 1819. This index collection of 2,941 records is compiled from TNA collections:

WO25: Returns of service, pension records, and miscellaneous documents.
ADM337: Admiralty documents related to naval personnel.
WO116: Chelsea Pensioners’ records.
HO9: Home Office records concerning prisoners and penal establishments.
ADM37: Ships’ muster books and pay lists.

Yorkshire, Leeds City Police 1899-1939

This collection charts the lives and careers of 513 officers who kept law and order in Yorkshire’s largest city. Find:

• Name
• Birth date
• Birthplace
• Police appointment date
• 1911 Census address or the address from the 1918 absent voters’ list
• Police rank in 1914
• 1921 census address
• 1939 register address
• Division
• Date joined reserve

Newspapers added in the past week with issues from over a century ago are the Belper News, 1922-1923, 1925, 1932; and Crawley and District Observer, 1889, 1982-1984, 1986-1989, 1995.

Patricia Roberts-Pichette wields the cake-knife at Saturday’s meeting kicking off the celebration of the Society 30th anniversary. Her handiwork is being admired by others who were are the first Society meeting and re-elected BIFHSGO President Dianne Brydon on the right.

Here’s a challenge. Can you name the others?

UPDATE: They are, mostly hidden behind Patricia, Bob Lamoureau, Doug Hoddinott, and Kathleen Mitchell.

The newest member of the BIFHSGO Hall of Fame, announced at the meeting, is Ken McKinlay.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Would the Children be better off on a Canadian Farm?
“A major sea port, Liverpool had a high level of crime throughout the nineteenth century and was particularly infamous for its sex trade. In 1836, there were some 300 brothels, with 1,200 sex workers, who mixed with more than a thousand known male thieves throughout the city. More than 1,200 street children were also engaged in pilfering.”
https://visitvictorianengland.com/2019/10/01/victorian-detectives-in-liverpool/

A Visitor’s Guide to Victorian England

Sunken Ships of the Second World War

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Anonymous, Paul Milner, Robert Halfyard, Sunday Thompson, Teresa, and Unknown.

Ancestry now has an index that allows you to search by name in English newspapers that are available on Newspapers.com™. That follows the release of similar collections for the rest of the UK and Ireland,

From the 1800s to the present, there are 964,449,912 entries. That places it in the top ten of all Ancestry databases by number of entries.

The index entry shown is linked to a thumbnail of the article. To read the article you do need a newspapers.com subscription.

In this case only the lower part of the highlighted area is relevant, one of two entries found for him mentioned in a will.

On the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Prime Minister Trudeau gave a poignant speech at Juno Beach. He paid tribute to the valiant contributions of those who served. In honouring their memory, he even named a few.

Yet, 79 years after the end of the Second World War, we lack access to basic information online naming those who served Canada.

According to Article 17 of the Third Geneva Convention, “Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information.”

Establishing a publicly accessible list or database with such basic information for those who served would aid future generations in connecting with their legacy and perhaps even discovering familial ties.

Will the Federal Government help Canadians remember and honour these heroes, Lest We Forget?

Three times further back than D-Day, an event this weekend, June 7-9, celebrates the arrival of Loyalist settlers in 1784 in the area around Cornwall and the Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry (SDG). The celebration, presented by the SDG Historical Society, is free and open to all. Here’s a press release.

Step Back in Time

What do Jane Fonda and the founder of the Chrysler Motor Corporation have in common? Both are descendants of Loyalist settlers who came to Canada in 1784 as refugees from the American Revolution. Both families settled in what is now Dundas County where many German Loyalists found homes. Other Loyalist settlers took land spreading from Lancaster to the Bay of Quinte.

This year on June 6th, it will be 240 years since John Johnson’s loyalist refugees from the American Revolution brought their boats ashore in a wilderness area that was to be their new homes. The settlers named their settlement New Johnstown and they spread from here to other sites along the river that were called the Royal Townships. Today these names are more familiar to us as Cornwall and the Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry.

On June 7 to 9th, step back into the past and rediscover the beginning of Cornwall and the SDG Counties when for three days Lamoureux Park will transform to what life was like when these new settlers arrived. In the park by the St. Lawrence River, a tented village will spring up replicating New Johnstown as it was in 1784. Visit the encampment to learn how these early settlers survived their arrival and flourished to build today’s vibrant city and counties and eventually led to the establishment of the Province of Ontario.

This area of the province is steeped in history and to display that history, many of the region’s historical and heritage groups will be presenting exhibits, presentations and demonstrations in a large tent along Water Street. For music lovers, concerts will be held on Friday and Saturday evenings presenting French, Celtic and Akwesasne entertainers. The Cornwall Community Museum will be open for tours and will introduce its new exhibit on “1784”. In addition, the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada will be hosting their national conference in Cornwall. This celebration of our past is presented by the SDG Historical Society and is a free event open to all.

It’s not often that you can revisit history or see how your ancestors lived and coped, but June 7-9th will provide that unique experience and also be a time to celebrate the 240th anniversary of Cornwall and the SDG Counties. For more information, check out the event website at 1784.ca.