Anglo-Celtic Connections

Could this be why Reader’s Digest will no longer be published in Canada?

130 Funniest Christmas Jokes for a Humor-Filled Holiday

There have been 33 additions in November, the same as last month. The earliest is for 1844.

The collection now totals 73,140,981 pages, up from 72,474,029 in the November update. Five new titles have been added. Those with more than 10,000 pages added are:

For the year as a whole 11,039,434 pages were added.

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

Historic Places That Have Made Doctor Who

RuralHistoria
Hayricks,  Lychgate, Market Cross, Milestones, Motte-and-Bailey Castle, and much more.

Crossness Pumping Station: A Victorian Gem In London, England

The Top 7 Graves Associated with Dickens

Thanks to this week’s contributors: Ann Burns, Anonymous, Barbara May Di Mambro, Bonnie, Brenda Turner,  gail benjafield, Joseph Denis Wayne Laverdure, Judy Thamas, Kim, Maureen, Nick Mcdonald, Sunday Thompson, Teresa, Unknown.

Not THAT Ancestry!

Just published by the Oxford University Press, Selling Ancestry, by Stéphane Jettot, explores the emergence and development of commercial family directories, like Debrett’s and Burke’s, that provided genealogical information about the British elites, starting in the eighteenth century. It examines how they were created, published, and used by those who contributed to and shaped the historical narrative of Britain through their personal and political stories. If the history of genealogy and how it evolved and influenced the social and cultural changes in Britain during this period interests you put it on your reading list.

In hardcopy at 416 pages, with 16 black and white figures/illustrations. ISBN: 9780192865960 it’s listed at $130 US.

I found an ebook edition, still at over $110 US via Google with a generous preview.

These three new collections appeared in MyHeritage on 27 December with Funeral Notices and Obituaries in the title.

Records typically include the name of the deceased, last and former residences, the date and place the obituary was published and the name of the newspaper where the original obituary was published.

The source appears to be https://funeral-notices.co.uk/ where you can search over 5,061,465 notices. The newspapers included in the collections are listed here.

The Ottawa Public Library has posted lists of the most borrowed books in various categories. For Adult Books (English)

1. 1. Spare by Prince Harry
   2. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
   3. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
   4. Happy Place by Emily Henry
   5. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
   6. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
   7. The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese
   8. Ducks by Kate Beaton
   9. Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune
   10. Everyone Here is Lying by Shari LaPena

See comments and the other lists at https://biblioottawalibrary.ca/en/blogs/ottawa-public-library%E2%80%99s-most-popular-books-2023

The items bolded are recommendation from the Halifax Public Library staff.

Here’s the list from the Vancouver Public Library

1. 1. 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think by Brianna Wiest
   2. Spare by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex
   3. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
   4. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
   5. The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté
   6. A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny
   7. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
   8. Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
   9. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
   10. It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover

Item in red are also on the Ottawa list, one is on the Halifax staff list, none are on all three.

Want another opinion? Here are lists of the “best” books of 2023 from the New York Times and the Telegraph.

Which book would you put at number one? Are there any outstanding books from 2023 missed out?

Joe Lycett’s Parking Ticket Story

The FreeBMD Database was updated on Friday, 22 December 2023, to contain 289,764,153 unique entries, up from 289,525,246 on 22 November.

Years with more than 10,000 new entries are for births, 1992-1994; for marriages, 1991 – 1993; and for deaths, 1993 – 1995.

Looking back over the year. the bulk of the updates were for 1991 to 1994, with other additions for deaths for 1987 and 1990.

Think innovation in family history and you think MyHeritage.  Only there can you animate photos, have a life story narrated with DeepStory, and see an ancestor as they might have been with AI Time Machine™.

Just released in BETA, MyHeritage introduces AI Record Finder™ and Ai Biography™

AI Record Finder™ searches historical records using a chat interface. It starts by asking for basic information “Please provide the first and last name of the person you are looking for, along with any additional details to help locate relevant genealogy records.” It will show sources for records that might be relevant, such as MyHeritage Family Tree, FamilySearch Family Tree, England & Wales, Birth Index, 1837-2005, or Famous People Throughout History. It then requests further input “To narrow down these results and provide more precise information, please specify any additional details such as the names of his spouse or children, specific dates of events, or locations where he may have lived or worked.” It keeps asking for further information.

You will then be ready to try AI Biography™ which uses data from MyHeritage and content generated by OpenAI. There are several parts to the biography report starting with a listing of birth, death, marriage, parents, siblings, spouse, children. That’s followed by a biography text, historical context, last name origins, consistency issues and citations.

I had the opportunity to test it using a person I’ve researched in depth, Ezekiel Stone Wiggins.  The text reads well, just don’t expect the exact truth. I found OpenAI hallucinations —  added were a government appointment, a distortion of his interests and a child. It even gave her a name — Lillian Maude

Such flights of fancy are common with OpenAI. Get around it by conversing — asking for the evidence, “what is the evidence that he had a child?”. The reply “The records do not explicitly mention children for Ezekiel Stone Wiggins.” It then advises on how to search for this (mythical) child.

It’s worth experimenting. While the cup is more than half full the contents are not to be swallowed whole.

Read more on this MyHeritage blog post and give it a try.