Anglo-Celtic Connections

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. Are you looking for more options? Additional mainly US events are listed at https://conferencekeeper.org/virtual.

Conference 2024 has added another marquee speaker.

Diahan Southard, author, instructor and founder of Your DNA Guide. With more than 20 years of experience in genetic genealogy, Diahan’s goal is to make it more accessible to others. She’ll deliver a special plenary talk, and lead workshops on how to not only incorporate DNA in your genealogy research, but have fun in the process.

With genetic genealogy experts Blaine Bettinger and Jonny Perl already booked the conference will be not to miss for anyone who has taken, or is thinking of taking a DNA test.

I hope to see you in Toronto, 14 – 16 June 2024.

https://conference2024.ogs.on.ca/

 

“Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology is now a mature machine learning tool, becoming integrated in the digitisation processes of libraries and archives speeding up the transcription of primary sources and facilitating full text searching and analysis of historic texts at scale.”

That’s a quote from the 2022 journal article Understanding the application of handwritten text recognition technology in heritage contexts: a systematic review of Transkribus in published research.

If there was any doubt, the successful partial indexing of the 1931 census of Canada by Ancestry, using Library and Archives Canada images, as well as their earlier indexing of the 1950 US census, confirms the capability.

What are LAC’s plans? I turned to the recently published Vision 2030: Discover. Understand. Connect — A strategic plan to 2030.

“While the collections remain at the centre of LAC’s identity, the ability of Canadians to discover, understand and connect with the collections frames our vision of service. Vision 2030 will aim to provide access to the collections to anyone and from anywhere, as well as a framework to identify and respond quickly to users’ needs.”

What is the reality of “provide access?” Does that mean online? Why “a framework” and not “a system”?

Vision 2023 includes one mention of AI

“LAC will benefit from work being conducted in other domains, such as the digital humanities and ethical artificial intelligence.”

Am I alone in reading this as LAC having no plans to implement the mature machine learning tool of  Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) technology in its own operations to facilitate easy access to documentary heritage, as with the 1931 census, and why not?

 

 

Discover judges, barristers and other court officials in Lawyer lists from 1780 to 1911 at TheGenealogist.

These book records can reveal authoritative facts:

● addresses of ancestors in the legal profession
● confirm or unearth relevant dates
● some biographical entries will even give names of other family members
● schools and universities that forebears attended
● the qualifications that an ancestor had gained
● details of judges and lawyers involved in an ancestor’s cases

Read TheGenealogist’s article, An Ancestor Bar None:
https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/an-ancestor-bar-none-4119/

SPECIAL OFFER: Better Than Half Price TheGenealogist Diamond Package for £78.95 – offer expires on 1st September! https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/emailnews.php?issue=email_news_aug23_tg_offer_late&id=10327800&source=tg&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegenealogist.co.uk%2FENTGAUGL23&link_host=fb1de737e000

 

Miscellaneous items I found of interest during the week.

The modern day dictionary of Shakespearean words: £400 encyclopedia reveals The Bard’s most weird and wonderful terms 

Stewards of an Intergenerational Project

BC updates BMDs
Now available — indexes to births (1854-1903), marriages (1871-1947), deaths (1872-2002), colonial marriages (1859-1872) and baptisms (1836-1888).

Scientists find the last remnants of the human genome that were missing in the Y chromosome

We’re talking about AI a lot right now – and it’s not a moment too soon

Did June 6, 1780 Presage January 6, 2021?

 

If you were poor in England, your official parish of settlement was responsible for your support. You could be removed there if you lived in another parish. This database contains Poor Law records relating to settlement and removals for the London unions of Bethnal Green (138,940), Hackney (43,397), Poplar (53,056), Shoreditch (223,940), and Stepney (4,396).

This example shows the transcription information for an order of removal

Name	Ann Beckett
Residence Age	60
Event Type	Orders of Removal
Birth Date	abt 1812
Residence Date	2 Jan 1872
Residence Poor Law Union	Bethnal Green
Residence	Greater London, England
Relative 4 Information	Name:
Relative 5 Information	Name:

And the additional information in the linked original.

Is Graham and Emma Maxwell’s Scottish Indexes a must-know resource, even if you don’t research ancestry in Scotland?
Yes.
Here’s something for everyone: a blog series from last year on genealogy mistakes to avoid. They are: don’t assume anything, not looking at the next page, not looking at a map, ignoring the occupation, and not keeping a research log. 

If you do have Scottish roots here’s a shout out to Scottish Indexes Conference XXI on Saturday 9 September 2023. The program is:
10:00 Introduction
10:15 ‘Scottish Tax Records for Genealogy and Local History’ by Robert Urquhart
11:15 ‘People Lie! How to unravel the truth when you are tracing your family history’ by
Emma Maxwell
12:15 ‘Crimes of an Heinous Nature’ by Margaret Fox
13:15 ‘The People of Cross House’ by Kate Keter
14:15 ‘Tracing Your Belfast Ancestors’ by Chris Paton
14:30 Genealogy Q & A hosted by Graham and Emma Maxwell
16:30 ‘“Like All These Country Folks Very Stupid”: Glasgow Highlanders in the Poor
Law Applications’ by Alison Spring
17:30 ‘What’s New on Scottish Indexes’ by Graham Maxwell

Wayne Shepheard, who has an article in this issue, reminds me I missed posting about the September issue which cam out on the 11th.

Wayne’s article, Peggy’s war: Women’s land army reflects on the WW1 military connections of Peggy Fisher’s wider family — several came to live in Canada. Wayne shares resources to help you research the WLA in both wars and in countries outside the UK.

Here’s a rundown on the rest ofthe issue:

Getting the best from Ancestry: user tips
Chris Paton shares his useful hacks & hints for using Ancestry.

Understanding genealogical sources & why it matters
Phil Isherwood has a useful approach to help you analyse how credible the clues that you come across are

DNA Workshop: How to prepare for your DNA test results
DNA advisor Karen Evans is here to help you get ready for your results

Slow down & plan your research
Fiona Brooker suggests you slow down and establish some great research practices that will stand you in good stead

Twiglets
Gill Shaw’s hopes are raised… then dashed, this month

How family history can provide children with life skills & resilience
Emma Jolly investigates, in part 2 of her family history & well-being series

Your stories with Storied
Katharine McKinnon reminds us of the importance of building trees out wide

Genealogy gadgets
Discover a meteorological history project and the new Reimagine tools & membership from MyHeritage. Wayne also contributes on the Little Ice Age and the Western University website – https://weather-extremes-in-englands-little-ice-age-westernu.hub.arcgis.com/apps/034ba3126de14032b6b7cb2433bd128a/explore
Also in this section Helen Tovey looks at MyHeritage’s Reimagine app, launched in 2023. ‘Reimagine: Scan & Enhance Pics’ allows you to:
• upload or scan in photos (you can scan an entire album page and the images will be automatically cropped and saved as individual files).
• colourise, enhance, animate and repair your photos
• add voice notes to your photos to ‘tell the story’ behind each
• add details of date and place, also making for easier searchability later
• and sort into albums, add to your MyHeritage family tree, and share with family.

Academy: Case Study
Family Tree Academy tutor David Annal looks at a life less ordinary — extraordinarily complex!

Spotlight on…
Philippa Jarvis tells us about Ryedale Family History Group

Books & co
Helen Tovey & Rachel Bellerby share views on a selection of recent family history reads and the Pharos Tutors’ new-look website

Photo corner
Jayne Shrimpton analyses a selection of pictures from the past

Diary Dates
Events to look forward to in September

Thoughts on…
Diane Lindsay celebrates upgrading her family history software at long last… and an ‘unmentionable birthday’!

Just out, the September issue features: –

• Sort your photos
  We give our verdict on the different online tools for organising and sharing family photographs
• The end of the census?
  We spoke to the ONS about their plans to modernise the census
• How to visit local archives
  What you need to know about visiting local archive services to research your family history
• The history of women’s education
  Discover how our female ancestors fought for the right to learn
• Family hero
  Terry Sheppard‘s ancestors fought in the English and American Civil Wars
• Caribbean ancestry
  How to research Caribbean family history online

Read it free online through an Overdrive Magazines subscription by many Canadian public libraries including OPL.

The post How should LAC meet budget cuts? prompted an email pointing to the National Accounts. They are online from 1995 to 2022. In thousands of dollars, the graph shows the LAC expenditure trend year-by-year, adjusted for inflation using the Bank of Canada CPI tool.

In real terms over the whole period LAC has lost an average $766,000 each year. It’s not easy to explain the fluctuations as specially-funded initiatives come and go. Most notable is the decrease from 2009 to 2016, the final years of the Harper government and during the disasterous tenure of Daniel Caron as Librarian and Archivist from 2009 to 2013.

The Heritage portfolio which is dominated by culture and sport concerns. Heritage is the poor cousin, I’m told LAC is often an afterthought. Only when problems arise, such as access to information and indigenous documents is much attention paid by oversight bodies like the Auditor General and Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.

 

Volume 55, No. 2 of this OGS Ottawa Branch publication is out. Feature articles are:

*Journals added to the OBOGS Library: March 1, 2023 –
June 30, 2023 – by Pam Cooper
*Journals Held at the OBOGS Library, Part 2: The Rest of Ontario and Quebec, and Other Provinces – by Pam Cooper
*Life on Gardner Street, Part 1 – by Noreen Tyers.
Gardner Street she describes as a neighbourhood in Eastview that was considered, not the wrong side of the track, but almost.

Regular columns are:
*Electronic Notebook, by Mike More
*Interesting Web Sites, by Heather Oakley
*Here, There & Everywhere, by Heather Oakley.

Branch members need to log on to read the issue online.

You don’t need to be a branch member to attend the season’s first monthly meeting, a presentation “Restorations of Biblical Proportions” by Kyla Ubbink on Saturday, 16 September 2023 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. Be their in person 100 Tallwood or online https://ottawa.ogs.on.ca/