Anglo-Celtic Connections

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

The Coffer Illusion

Amazon Charts
The top 20 most-sold & most-read non-fiction books of the week. Some have been on the list for time immemorial! With less than 100 weeks on the chart, two of which I read (or started) are Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari, Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, Outlive by Peter Attia & Bill Gifford (my recommendation), How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes, and Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson (not my recommendation.)

AI for Family History
Legacy Family Tree Webinars will let non-subscribers view Steve Little’s webinar Top Ten AI Genealogy Breakthroughs of 2024 for a few more days.
Some of the same material is also covered in episode 18 of Mark Thompson and Steve’s Family History AI Show podcast. If time is limited, start at 19:20 —  Free AI Tools: How To Get Premium AI Results For Free.

Finding Your Ancestors in Historical Newspapers
Kenneth R Marks, whose website The Ancestor Hunt is THE go-to place to find what historical newspapers exist online in the US, Canada and further afield,  has just published a new book titled “Finding Your Ancestors in Historical Newspapers: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Online Newspaper Research Results.” It’s available from Amazon.ca in paperback ( 131 pages) for $27.97 Cdn or Kindle for $9.99 Cdn.

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Continuing MyHeritage’s photo initiatives, there’s a new one just released, LiveMemory.™

Available exclusively to subscribers on the MyHeritage mobile app, LiveMemory™ uses AI to turn any still photo into a short video clip. It animates the scene in the photo, “reimagining it as if you had travelled back in time to watch it live. It’s the ultimate way to reminisce.”

If you already have the MyHeritage mobile app, make sure you are using the latest version by visiting the app on the App Store or Google Play and tapping Update.

See the blog for more information and to see LiveMemory™ in action.

I tried it on a photo taken by a street photographer of my father and two friends in Sydney in 1941. Their movement was quite realistic in the resulting movie, returned by email in less than 10 minutes. A background addition showed a vehicle, not in the original, looking like it was about to collide with a pedestrian! Creative!

A quick summary of this week’s additions.

British Empire Awards & Medals (1917-2023)

• Contains over 320,000 award recipients
• Includes 6,134 Canadian recipients
• Sourced from the London Gazette
• Provides details like name, rank, honour awarded, and additional context

British Army Officer Promotions (1800-1815)

• 182,000 military promotion records
• Transcripts from The London Gazette
• Includes information such as name, rank, unit, and promotion details

British Army Service Records

• 8,025 new service records added
• Covers Scots Guards, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, and York Light Infantry
• 1,007 entries for individuals born in Canada
• Comprehensive details, including birth information, service number, regiment, and personal details
• Accompanying images provide additional context

Newspaper Collection

• 5,396 pages of West Lancashire Evening Gazette from 1999 onward added

 

Below are the stats for the change in the number of entries for the year ending November 2024. The US continues to have the largest number of entries. Canada saw the largest percentage increase, at 10.64%.

Jurisdiction	Nov 2023 Entries	Nov 2024 Entries	Percent Change
United States	1,129,742,602	1,210,247,798	+7.13%
Canada	42,320,060	46,822,811	+10.64%
UK & Ireland	30,053,253	31,400,111	+4.48%
Australia & New Zealand	5,738,512	5,764,394	+0.45%

The figures reflect Ancestry’s commercial interest. For the US, there are 356 entries per 100 population, for Canada 115, for the UK 43, and for Australia and New Zealand 18.

The November 2024 Appeal for Relatives is out from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission with 27 military graves and commemorations that require new headstones or memorials. The casualties are for dates of death ranging from 1916 to 1947, and represent various branches of the British military including the Royal Army Service Corps, Border Regiment, Royal Navy, Royal Marines, and the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. There are no Canadians this month. The records show diverse military ranks from Private to Lieutenant Colonel, and notably includes one female service member.

I took a closer look at the three burials in Enfield Lavender Hill Cemetery. It happens to be adjacent to the Chase Farm School where my grandfather lived. All had the notation “Recent research has shown that (insert rank and name) is buried here. The Commission is in the process of producing a headstone to mark his grave.”

The In From the Cold Project  shows its value as 19 of the 27 had similar notation, including all three at the Enfield cemetery.

Two of the Enfield Lavender Hill Cemetery were named Frost, probably brothers.

Pte. Richard Frost served with the Army Veterinary Corps and died post-discharge of tuberculosis on 2 August 1916.

Pte. Frank Arthur Frost (63276) served with the Royal Fusiliers, 13th Batallion and died of a gunshot wound to the leg on 5 May 1917.

Also at the cemetery is Lieutenant Colonel John Beville Pym of the Royal Marine Light Infantry, who died of heart disease on 27 December 1916.

 

Lucille H. Campey is well known for her series of books on British and Irish immigration to Canada. Her latest, “Quebec and Acadia’s French Pioneers: The Best of France to New France,” switches gears with the story of individuals who transformed the Canadian landscape in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Published on 15 November, I’ve not yet had a chance to read it. I look forward to that. The book looks at how these settlers in the St. Lawrence Valley and Atlantic Canada overcame obstacles that must, at times, have seemed insurmountable to create new lives in a wilderness far from their origins.

The book is available from Amazon in paperback (202 pages) at $25 and in Kindle for $9.

Find out more at https://www.amazon.ca/Quebec-Acadias-French-Pioneers-France/dp/B0DNB232DJ/

From MyHeritage, the United States Civil War Draft Registration, 1863-1865 collection contains records of men eligible for the Union Army draft during the U.S. Civil War. Records typically include names, age, marital status, place of birth, residence and registration details.

The records are based on the 1863 Enrollment Act, also called the Civil War Military Draft Act. Under this act, U.S. male citizens and immigrants who had applied for citizenship between ages 20 and 45 were to enroll, with exemptions. Would those include heel bone spurs?

Here are stats for the birthplace.

Germany -307,545
Ireland – 283,124
England – 79,080
Canada – 35,103
Scotland -17,453
Wales – 8,364
France – 14,831
Norway- 9,495
Switzerland -5,459
Netherlands – 4,787
Sweden – 4,412
Italy- 1,641
Belgium – 1,423
Denmark – 1,370
Austria – 709
Portugal – 522
Spain -351
Mexico – 207

There are currently 4,092 items in LAC’s Collection Search identified as Co-Lab-only contributions, up from 3,989 in September!

Here is the progress on the challenges since September. Two challenges show progress.

Games of the XXI Olympiad, Montréal 1976 is 80.8% complete, up from 79.5% complete.

Treaty 9, with 27 images, remains 3.7% complete.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary is 50% complete, up from 47%.

Expo67 remains 6.7% complete.

Summiting Mount Logan in 1925: Fred Lambart’s personal account of the treacherous climb and descent of the highest peak in Canada remains 13.4% complete.

Women in the War remains 1.4% complete.

Arthur Lismer’s Children’s Art Classes remains <1% complete.

John Freemont Smith, RG10, Volume number: 4079 remains 88.5% complete.

Molly Lamb Bobak remains 94.7% complete.

Diary of François-Hyacinthe Séguin remains 99% complete.

George Mully: moments in Indigenous communities remains 0% complete.

Correspondence regarding First Nations veterans returning after the First World War remains 98.5% complete.

Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 remains 94.7% complete.

Legendary Train Robber and Prison Escapee Bill Miner remains 99% complete.

Japanese-Canadians: Second World War remains 2.8% complete.

Projects that remain 100% complete are no longer reported here.

 

The new UK and Ireland, The Royal National Lifeboat Institution Records, 1824-1989, with 58,227 records, is one I wasted no time checking out — and I mean that in a positive sense — https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/12/28/lose-no-time/.

A search returns Name, Record Type, Residence Date, Station, Occupation, and Description. There are links to the original record image from RNLI Records. Poole, Dorset, England.

Here’s the story of how I found the collection useful.

Until age 9, I grew up near the RNLI lifeboat station in Gorleston, Norfolk. Our neighbours were the Harris family. I knew Ellery Harris was a lifeboat crew member, although I recall nothing else about him. FreeBMD has only 70 Ellery birth records for that memorable name.

I found Ellery Harris in the RNLI database with entries in 1909 and 1922. It was a surprise the years were so early. I’d always thought he must be the same generation as my parents, but 1909 was before they were born!

A FreeBMD and Ancestry search showed only one Ellery Harris, born in 1871 and dying in 1930. Who was the Ellery next door? I’m now into the latest rabbit hole.

Ellery Harris married Priscilla Benns in the December quarter of 1895. In the census of 1901, there was a daughter, Ellen, age 4, and a son, Edward. In 1911, there was a son, Ellery, age 6. He didn’t appear in my FreeBMD search, as Ellery was his middle name. He was born Albert Ellery, it’s the right person as a GRO search shows the mother’s maiden name as Benns. He, too, appears in the RNLI records.

Using a middle name is always liable to lead to a rabbit hole. Thanks to the online records we now have, scrambling out of this one was relatively straightforward. Without them, I likely wouldn’t have bothered to explore this puzzle and forever have remained (mildly) ignorant!

 

Choose from selected free online events in the next five days. All times are ET except as noted. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed. Find out about many more, mainly US events, at Conference Keeper.

Tuesday, 19 November

2 pm: Dear Me: Writing Research Reports to Yourself, by Yvette Hoitink for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/dear-me-writing-research-reports-to-yourself/

2:30 pm: Pathways to the Past: Making the Most of The Genealogy Center’s Resources, by Kate McKenzie for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/12284968

Wednesday, 20 November

1 pm: Saints and Liars: The Untold Stories of Americans Who Saved Endangered People from the Nazis, by Debórah Dwork for Gresham College.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/saints-and-liars-untold-stories-americans-who-saved-endangered-people-nazis

2 pm: Top Ten AI Genealogy Breakthroughs of 2024. by Steve Little for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/top-ten-ai-genealogy-breakthroughs-of-2024/

2:30 pm: Family history from military records, by Chris Baker for Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire FHS
https://www.chfhs.org.uk/family-history-from-military-records-with-chris-baker-455

7 pm: Debt, Drunk & Disordely, Vagrancy, Prostitution, Theft, Assault, Insanity: Are You Sure Your Ancestors Were Never In Jail? by Janice Nickerson for Thunder Bay District Branch.
https://thunderbay.ogs.on.ca/events/thunder-bay-debt-drunk-disordely-vagrancy-prostitution-theft-assault-insanity-are-you-sure-your-ancestors-were-never-in-jail/

Thursday, 21 November

6:30 pm: Practical Use of DNA in Genealogy – Using DNA to answer the question of what happened to William Palmer Gore? by Julie Tonseth Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/12019193

7 pm: The Wedge Family’s Truth and Lore, by Beth Adams for OGS Hamilton Branch.
https://hamilton.ogs.on.ca/events/hamilton-branch-the-wedge-familys-truth-and-lore-beth-adams/

Friday, 22 November

Saturday 23 November

9:15 am: Hertfordshire Sources – The Obvious and the Unexpected, by Felicity Brimblecombe for Hertfordshire FHS
https://hertfordshirefamilyhistorysociety.eventbrite.com

It’s not just DNA tests.

30% off at Newspapers.com. Ends 25 Nov 2024. Terms apply.

Save up to 50% on Personal Historian 3, Family Atlas, and NEW RootsMagic 10 – from https://rootsmagic.com/Friday/.

30% off the Findmypast most popular subscriptions until 21 November (new subscribers). BTW – annual subscribers get a 15% loyalty discount on renewal each year.

Two presentations from OGS branches will be given today, Monday, 18 November, at 7 p.m.

Sudbury District Branch is hosting Ken McKinlay, who is presenting World War II.
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tdOyvrjoqHta5RnLfLzuwLnh9xvaGbRdE

Oxford County Branch hosts Grant Maltman presenting Sir Frederick Banting: The Man You Thought You Knew.
https://oxford.ogs.on.ca/events/sir-frederick-banting-the-man-you-thought-you-knew/