Anglo-Celtic Connections

This UK company is offering a monthly series on Air Force history, and its free. The next is on Wednesday 22 February at 2 pm EST. See the series information at https://www.alliedairforceresearch.com/webinars

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Mysteries of Venacular
26 short videos (A – Z) on the origins of English words and expressions.

OpenBenches
A map of 26,684 memorial benches – you can contribute.

Data bombing and dead cats – how PR uses practices of secrecy to influence media and society

Loopholes wide enough to ‘drive a diesel truck through’ – how to tell if a business is really net zero

Greater London Burial Index
Records from 22 churches dating from 1540 to 1849 are in this update of 52,883 records. Some have associated images.
Well over half the new records are from two parishes, 19,683 records for Isleworth, All Saints 1566-1838  and 19, 113 records for Hammersmith, St Paul 1666-1837.

Kent, Folkestone District Monumental Inscriptions
An additional 6,000 records now in this collection are from six churches in the area. The full collection is for the burial grounds of: Cheriton, St Martin; Folkestone, Bradstone Road Burial Ground; Folkestone, Cheriton Road Cemetery’ Folkestone, St Mary & St Eanswythe; Hawkinge, St Michael; Lympne, St Stephen; Newington next Hythe, St Nicholas.

 

The following is from a press release by TheGenealogist.

TheGenealogist.co.uk has just added over 342,500 new records to the 1939 Register for England and Wales. Researchers can now see all people born in 1922 opened under the 100-year rule along with those who have passed away since the last release.
TheGenealogist’s version of the 1939 Register is matched to its powerful mapping tool, Map Explorer™ so that researchers can see more accurately where their ancestor’s house was situated on maps down to house, street or parish level, giving more detail than ever before. With its SmartSearch family historians can discover even more from the records in the 1939 Register not just where their ancestors were living as the Second World War began in Britain, but potential birth and death records.

It’s one of those Saturdays when BIFHSGO and OGS Ottawa Branch both have monthly meetings. Both are free online and all are welcome, from sea to sea to sea and beyond.

Starting at 9 am, online-only, the BIFHSGO Education Talk is Census Records in the Virtual Treasury of Ireland, presented by Brian Gurrin, census specialist on the Beyond 2022 project.

Continuing online, at 10 am, BIFHSGO President Dianne Brydon steps into the spotlight to inform and entertain with Lust, Lucre and Lybell: An 18th Century Soap Opera. Dianne has previously been voted as giving the best talk of the year by a BIFHSGO member.

Find out more and register at https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events.

Take a break for lunch, then come back online for 1 pm, or venture out for the in-person experience to 100 Tallwood, Nepean, the Ottawa City Archives building, for the OGS Ottawa Branch presentation.

BIFHSGO Director Ken McKinlay, a very knowledgeable and popular Ontario speaker, will perform Genealogical Miracles. Let’s hope that’s preceded with a meteorological miracle — avoiding stormy weather. The weather forecast is promising; you might enjoy getting out to witness the miracles, and enjoy the coffee, cookies and company beforehand.

Ken will be “taking a sometimes humorous look at some of the very interesting gaffs and errors that can be found in family trees such as “Resurrection”, “The well preserved”, and “Time travellers”. At the same time we will cover how to hopefully prevent those pesky mistakes in our own trees.”

Find further information at https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/genealogical-miracles-ottawa/.

In this article on his EOGN blog Dick Eastman discusses the reasons why many genealogy societies are losing members and suggests what can be done about it. It’s food for thought for those in leadership positions willing to reexamine what they do.

Dick who would throw out the term society and replace it with organization, favours these services:

1. Education

2. Publishing (on paper as well as electronic publishing)

3. Travel services to local and distant repositories or even to “the old country”

4. Lobbying services

5. Sponsoring a cruise for members and others and offer seminars when at sea

6. Fraternal organization services, somewhat like the Elks or Lions or Masons or other fraternities and sororities, all working towards common public service goals

7. And perhaps the most important of all: offer entertainment.

Personally I’m not so sure about 5 and 6. although the social side is important. Time to ask “Who Do You Think You Are?”

“Men don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses”

“The 19th century saw many new aspects in contemporary life, such as reading for leisure, faster transportation and compulsory education, all of which necessitated a high degree of visual acuity.”

Do you know which of your ancestors needed corrective lenses? Who needed them but didn’t wear them? Did any of them wear glasses, or spectacles, as a fashion statement?

From the Wellcome Collection, based on research by Gemma Almond, comes an online story on the history of spectacles.

I found the new issue of WDYTYA Magazine on Press Reader through my Ottawa Public Library subscription.

Editor Sarah Williams points to content in the issue for the experienced researcher; how to uncover ‘hidden’ records on FamilySearch; Methodist research; and three articles of interest to those with Scottish ancestry.

For everyone, there are articles on online resources
for finding military memorials and war graves (mentions Australian but not Canadian) and the newly digitised Second World War Index Cards from the Women’s Land Army.

You never know where you may find something of interest for your family history.

If you have Saskatchewan people in your family tree maybe one of more will appear within the 34 student publications from the University of Regina, representing approximately 3,000 pages of content, that have been added to the Canadiana collection.  The whole corpus is full-text searchable.

I didn’t find either of the two distant branches of my tree that lived in the province, but the places they lived were mentioned.

Included is the early student journal The College Register, which was published intermittently from 1914 to 1930. Issues contain news about faculty, staff, and students, as well as campus events, student literature, and local advertisements. There are also student yearbooks — The Freshman (1946–1962) and its successor The Tower (1962–1968).

 

Choose from selected 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 or recommended. Assume registration in advance is required; check so you’re not disappointed. Additional mainly US events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual.

TUESDAY 7 FEBRUARY

1 pm: Slavery and the British Economy, by Martin Daunton for Gresham College.
https://www.gresham.ac.uk/whats-on/slavery-british

2 pm: Ottawa Virtual Genealogy Drop-In, by OGS Ottawa Branch.
https://meet.google.com/nvz-kftj-dax

2:30 pm: Preparing to Leave Europe, by Nicholas J. Evans for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/7834844

This is the first of three Tuesday presentations by Nicholas J. Evans, a Senior Lecturer in diaspora history at the University of Hull, under the series title “The Making of a Mosaic: European Migrant Journeys During the Age of Steam”

7:30pm: Doing Family Tree Research in Your Pajamas, by Ken McKinlay for OGS Durham Region Branch.
https://ogs.on.ca/events/durhams-february-2023-meeting-doing-family-tree-research-in-your-pajamas/

WEDNESDAY 8 FEBRUARY

***Not online*** 1 pm: Double Feature: Where did our Prime Minsters Live?, by Hagit Hadaya &  at 2 pm: The History of Street Art in Ottawa. by Emma Kent for the Ottawa Historical Society. At Ottawa Public Library Auditorium.
https://www.historicalsocietyottawa.ca/activities/events/eventdetail/90/16,17,19,21/double-feature-where-did-our-prime-minsters-live-the-history-of-street-art-in-ottawa

2 pm: Hints & Tips for solving Irish cases of Unknown Parentage, by Maurice Gleeson for Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/hints-tips-for-solving-irish-cases-of-unknown-parentage/

2:30 pm: The Book That Changed My Life: Discovering the Archive behind the Gentleman’s Magazine, by Julian Pooley for the Guild of One Name Studies.
https://one-name.org/nichols/

THURSDAY 9 FEBRUARY

7 am: Les derniers outils et ressources sur MyHeritage, par Elisabeth Zetland pour Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/les-derniers-outils-et-ressources-sur-myheritage/

6:30 pm: Preserving the Past: Stories from the Records of
Philadelphia’s Historic Congregations, by Carol Smith for Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center.
https://acpl.libnet.info/event/7898418

FRIDAY 10 FEBRUARY

SATURDAY 11 FEBRUARY

9 am: Census Records in the Virtual Treasury of Ireland, by Brian Gurrin for BIFHSGO.
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

10 am: Lust, Lucre and Lybell: An 18th Century Soap Opera, by Dianne Brydon for BIFHSGO.
https://www.bifhsgo.ca/events

1 pm: Genealogical Miracles, performed by Ken McKinlay for Ottawa Branch OGS. In person at the Ottawa City Archives and online.
https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/events/genealogical-miracles-ottawa/

The following additions are sourced from The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea: Local studies and archives.

Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, Poor Law Records, 1695-1921, comprises 66,506 records, transcriptions and images, from:
Chelsea Institution: Workhouse Matrons Report Books (1924 – 1931)
Chelsea Parish Poor Rate, etc (1695 – 1707)
St Mary, Abbots: Examinations (1832 – 1835)
St Mary, Abbots: Overseers Poor Account Books (1734-1744, 1769-1774, 1774 1789, 1855-1864, 1864-1877)
St Mary, Abbots: Poor Law Examination Books (1791-1794, 1849-1853, 1857-1863, 1867-1873)

Kensington and Chelsea, Church of England Parish Chest Records, 1597-1950 comprises 50,756 records, transcriptions and images, from:
Kensington Cemetery, Chaplin’s Books (1921 – 1950)
Kensington Chapel, Baptisms (1865 – 1922)
St George, Campden Hill, Baptisms (1865 – 1922)
St Luke, Chelsea, Baptisms (1883 – 1911)
St Mary, Abbotts, 19 types of record

 

Sad to record the passing of Audrey Collins, long-time family history specialist at the UK National Archives, after a short illness.

UPDATE: There’s been an outpouring of affection and respect for Audrey since the news of her passing broke. I join the chorus.

Audrey spoke at the 2011 BIFHSGO annual conference on TNA records,  the Fleet Registers which recorded clandestine marriages performed, notably in the area of London’s Fleet prison, between 1667 and 1754, and the information available, online and free, from The London Gazette, published since 1665.

Audrey was on the BIFHSGO conference program again in 2019 when she spoke on The National Archives Catalogue , Behind the Scenes: UK Census Records, Behind the Scenes: Records of the General Register Office, and A Scottish Farmer’s Ride Through England, 1802 ―Mr. Blaikie’s Diary and His Remarkable Descendants.

She authored numerous publications, including Birth, Marriage and Death Records, co-authored with Dave Annal who spoke at the 2022 BIFHSGO conference.

Audrey, featured in several YouTube Videos including this one on the 1939 Register, leaves a big gap in the UK and international genealogy scene.