Travels with My Aunt: Adventures in Europe 1914

The British Isles Family history Society of Great Ottawa in Ottawa, Ontario will hold its monthly meeting on Saturday February the 8th.

The following is the schedule of the meeting -

9:00 a.m. — Before BIFHSGO Education Talk — Bob McDonald will discuss Gaelic naming customs and their relation to the Gaelic language, the oldest literary language in Northern Europe and once widely spoken in Canada.

9:30 a.m. — Browse our Discovery Tables for WWI and Merchant Marine items, hosted by Barbara Tose.

10:00 a.m. — Travels with My Aunt: Adventures in Europe 1914 —Barbara Tose marks the 100th anniversary of her great-grand aunt Nellie Miller's 30-page letter to her brother that is a fascinating tale of events, society, and adventure in 1914. Nellie was a nurse superintendent at the Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay, Ontario, who joined the J.L. Hughes party for a tour of Britain and Europe.

I have heard Barbara talk before, and she is an engaging speaker.

If you would like to listen to an interview with her about her talk, go to http://www.bifhsgo.ca/cpage.php?pt=106

The meeting takes place at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa. Free parking is available in the lots east of the building only on Saturday and Sunday. Do not use the lot west of the building.

Open to members and visitors. Free admission.

The website is http://www.bifhsgo.ca/

Anglo-Celtic Roots Summer 2011

The Summer 2011 edition of Anglo-Celtic Roots has just been issued, and it contains the 2010 Reports which were given at the AGM in June meeting as well as papers written by various members.

For instance, An Introduction to Researching Your Roots in Northern Ireland by William Roulston talks about such records as Census Records, Church Records, Irish Family History Foundation, and gives a very good examples of Administrative Divisions – Barony, County, Parish, Poor Law Union, Province, and Township.

The second article is He Wore His Buttons Well by Barbara Tose in which she relates the true story of the SS Antinoe, a freighter which was carrying wheat from New York to Ireland when she ran into a storm in the Atlantic off of the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The story in interesting because her great-uncle Harry Tose was the captain of the ship.

The last paper in this issue is Harry Gray's Pub by Brenda Turner in which she talks about finding out the story behind a pub that her uncle Harry used to own in London during the Second World War. She describes the help she got from the Guildhall, and the experiences her uncle witnessed during the war.

One item I found interesting to read was Stars of the 2011 BIFHSGO Conference by John D. Reid in which he talks about some of the people who will be presenting at the Conference this fall in Stars of the 2011 BIFGSGO Conference. People like Audrey Collins, Sherry Irvine, Helen Osborn, Linda Reid, and Gary Schroder have their bios in this issue of the journal.

You may contact BIFHSGO by going to http://www.bifhsgo.ca/