Annual Accrual of Historical Vital Statistics Now Available

My father (Harold Arthur Barclay) and myself (Elizabeth Anne Barclay) in the Public Gardens in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was a favorite place to go on Sunday afternoons. 

I have been reminded by one of my readers that the Nova Scotia Archives has put on an additional 25,589 historical vital statistics on www.novascotiagenealogy.com! 

These records were released on 31 December 2013 and since then have been digitized, fully indexed, and checked for quality control. This year's accruals include 14,974 births (1913), 4,233 marriages (1938), and 6,382 deaths (1963). As usual, the birth records include some 'delayed' entries for individuals born in 1913 (or earlier) but not registered until a later date.

My surnames of interest are -

BARCLAY - Shelburne County and Yarmouth County  

BLADES - Shelburne County and Yarmouth County 

WEBSTER - Kings County

Guild of One-Name Studies

The Guild of One-Name Studies (GONS) was started in England a number of years ago, and has steadily grown to where it is today - "the researching of all occurrences of a surname, as opposed to a particular pedigree (ancestors of one person) or descendancy (descendants of one person or couple)".

This can be the surnames that are derived from a geographical area, or from an occupation, or a patronymic-type surname, such as Johnson.

On their website, they have 7850 surnames which you can check to see if your name is there, a Member's Room which you can use when you become a member, and a webpage on which the members can give the surname that interested them, the variants of the surname, origin of the surname, the frequency of the name, data (in what countries the surname appears), DNA project, and the contact details if you want to contact them.

In Ottawa, we are are very fortunate to have a good genealogist in Elizabeth Kipp, who is the Eastern Canada Regional Representative for the Guild of One-Name Studies.

She has the latest knowledge about the one-name studies, has been to England on countless occasions, and if you have ever had the opportunity to read about her research trips to Salt Lake City, and other research facilities throughout Canada, the US and the UK, like myself, you would have to agree that she has a complete understanding of an organization such as the Guild of One-Name Studies and how they can help you to understand where your surname originated.

Elizabeth's email is kippeeb@rogers.com. She also has her own website on the Blakes at www.one-name.org/profiles/blake.html as well as a blog, English Research from Canada, at http://kippeeb.blogspot.com.

I guess I will have to rectify the omission of my two surnames in the study because they are not in the database – BARCLAY of Scotland, and BLADES of England.

The website of the Guild of One-Name Studies is http://www.one-name.org

Tomorrow's Post - New/Improved Canadian Websites and Blogs Week 14

Happy Thanksgiving!

This weekend, Canada celebrates Thanksgiving!

A holiday in which we give thanks for the year we have had, and in traditional terms - for the harvest of the field.

It is always on the second Monday of the month of October - having been decided in 1931. Before that, it had been observed on the same day as Armistice Day - both being on November 11th.

This weekend has been nice, sunny and warm. A lot different from that Thanksgiving in 1993 when it snowed and snowed, followed by the coldest winter that had been seen in these parts in years. I remember it well because it was the first year in our new house, and to see the grounds covered in snow was more like Christmas than Thanksgiving.

It has always been a family holiday with turkey, dressing, and all of those roots vegetables - potatoes, carrots, turnips, and a pumpkin or apple pie.

The dinner was usually eaten on Sunday or Monday (it was always on Sunday in my house), and the drive on Monday to my maternal grandparents (Blades) house, and to see my maternal aunts and uncles and cousins who all lived in the town of Barrington Passage, Nova Scotia.

Today, I am staying home to proof an article I have coming out on Chinese-Canadian Immigration in the early 1880s to 1900s, and then tomorrow I will go for a drive to the beautiful Gatineau Hills - which are so colourful this time of year.

So whichever way you celebrate your Thanksgiving weekend, may it be a pleasant one!

And to our American cousins, we wish you the same, just a bit earlier. Enjoy the playoffs!

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Ancestry.ca Launches Online the "Canadian Passenger Lists 1865-1935"

At 10 o'clock this morning (on Tuesday, September 16, 2008), Josh Hanna — Ancestry.com's Senior Vice-President — announced in Toronto that it has put the Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 online at <http://landing.ancestry.ca/intl/canada/passenger/lists.aspx> in both French and English (simply click the language link at the top of the page).

I have been on the site (even though all of my ancestors came to Canada pre-1865) to see what it is all about, and there is 1,441 BARCLAYs who came to Canada and 178 BLADES. (To those who don't know - my father's line is through the surname of BARCLAY, and my mother's name was BLADES - both of them descendent from United Empire Loyalists who came to Canada in 1783 and 1784, respectivly, from the United States.)

The passenger lists covers the provinces and cities of Quebec (Quebec Ports, May 1865-June 1908, June 1919-July 1921, April 1925-November 1935); Montreal (April 1925-November 1935); Halifax, Nova Scotia (1881-October 1922, 1925-1935); North Sydney, Nova Scotia (November 1906, August 1908-August 1922, 1925-1935); Saint John, New Brunswick ( 1900-September 1922, 1925-1935); Vancouver, British Columbia (1905-September 1922, 1925-1935); Victoria, British Columbia and Pacific Ports (April 1905-September 1922, 1925-1935) and some eastern U.S. Ports (July 1905-1919, 1925-1928) and New York City, which covers 1906 to 1921.

When you put the name into the search engine you may get their estimated year of birth, their birth country (although many of the immigrants did not mention their country of birth), date of arrival, name of the vessel, and port of departure. You can then view the image from which the information was taken.

It appears that the partnership that was forged between Ancestry.com and the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) in May, 2007 was not adhered to in this instance because nowhere is the LAC mentioned in the Ancestry.com press release.*

But it may be worth checking the LAC site <www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/immigrants> because they have some of the passenger lists onsite, too. They also have the Moving Here, Staying Here. The Canadian Immigrant Experience online, and it's worth looking at it because it can give you the background behind immigration.

This past August, Sylvie Tremblay, Chief Project Manager of the Canada Genealogy Centre, said that the LAC has embarked on a three to five year project where they hope to develop a family history site where you will go to get the "story behind the headlines". They will make the connections for you between the databases, and the history in family history, and they are looking towards wikis to do this - so watch for that.

In the meantime, you can look up your ancestor on Ancestry.ca, and decide if you want to spend the money to do a deeper search. Remember, you can also get a 14-day trial at <www.ancestry.ca>.

*The LAC is mentioned in the CNW News Release. It refers to the LAC in that the LAC holds the official records on microfilm.

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Releases Second World War Service Files

I have been waiting patiently for the LAC to release the Second World War Service Files of the Canadian Armed War (1939-1945) Dead.

I first found out about the database in the spring of this year, and last week, Sylvie Tremblay, Chief Project Head of the Canada Genealogy Centre, said that they were finally on the website.

Of the 1,159,000 men and women who served in the war, 44,093 died.

If you go to the site at <www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/war-dead/index-e.html> and put in a last name, you will get the date of birth, date on death, and the service number of the member.

If that is not enough information, you can press on the name and — in addition to the information already given — also get their rank, the unit in which they served, what force they were in (army, navy, air force), and the reference and volume numbers of the reference.

There has been some criticism of the database because you won't see the person's address on the record - so if there are two people with the same name, you will need to know the date of death of the person you are researching.

I had two uncles on my father's side (BARCLAY) who were in the war. Luckily, they made it through. My father did go to the depot in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to join, but was refused because of his knees, and so didn't go to war.

John (Johnnie) was in the Canadian Navy and sailed on the convoy ships during the war, and Perley was in the Canadian Army and fought in Sicily.

I also had two brothers on my mother's side (BLADES) who were in the war. Walter and Arthur were in the Canadian Army in Europe.