PEI Diaries, Family Histories, and Memoirs

The Island Register, a newsletter from Dave Hunter of Prince Edward Island, has put on Diaries, Family Histories, and Memoirs on his online site.

Some of them are -
1939 Travel Diary of John Winsloe - diary of an 80 year old Guernsey Cove man's ten thousand mile trip"

J. Henri Gaudet's series, Tignish Tellings - a history of the town and people of Tignish posted with the permission of his brother, Charlie Gaudet

The Murder of Robert C. Cudmore

The Yorston Family of PEI

A Northport Kitchen Table Interview: Reg MacLellan and Wilf Gaudin on Alberton and Rumrunning Times - taped interview transcribed by Faye Pound.

History Of Greenwich, P.E.I. - by Beverly Sanderson

History Of The Myers Family In Hampton, P.E.I. - by Raymond Myers in about 1972

The Lauretta Brooks Diaries - Summaries from 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, and 1935

1900 Trip to Europe From P.E.I. - Albert Prowse, Merchant, Murray Harbour

My Connections to the Andrews, Day, and Smith Families - Eda Pearl (Nicholson) Pursey

There is an additional 20+ interviews, and family histories on this particular web site.

Go to http://www.islandregister.com/diaryindex.html

Saltwater Heritage: The History and Conservation of Our Coastal Architecture:

The Institute for Architectural Studies and Conservation, in association with Beaconsfield Historic House, in Charlottetown, PEI, invites you to join them for the annual January lecture series. The theme for 2013 is Saltwater Heritage: The History and Conservation of Our Coastal Architecture.

The Institute has assembled a group of specialists to explore stories of the connections with Prince Edward Island shores.

January 7, 2013 – “Weeping Saltwater Tears: Charlottetown’s Disappearing Maritime Heritage” by Harry Holman. He is a sailor and former Provincial Archivist, and the Director of Culture, Heritage and Libraries, and he will draw on is extensive knowledge of the local waters and present an illustrated lecture using historical and contemporary images to reveal the changes to waterfront and maritime architecture and institutions.

January 14, 2013 - Carol Livingstone, President, PEI Lighthouse Society and Josh Silver, Red Seal Carpenter and Learning Manager, Heritage Retrofit Carpentry program at Holland College, will present “Lighting the Way: History, Form and Function in Lighthouse Conservation of PEI”. Together, they will explore these iconic forms of coastal architecture and the close relationships between their architectural features and their varied designs.

January 21, 2013 - Historian, Dr. Monica MacDonald, will be there to give a talk on one of the most stately seaside summer residences of PEI, and national historic site, in her illustrated presentation, “Dalvay-by-the-Sea: A Historical Overview”. She will look into the many lives of this former retreat of American industrialist, Alexander McDonald.

January 28, 2013 - Boyde Beck, popular historian, author, and Curator of History, PEI Museum and Heritage Foundation will speak on the fascinating story of Green Park and Beaconsfield, the former houses of shipbuilders, James Yeo (Jr.), and James Peake (Jr.), and the industry that made them in his talk, “Green Park and Beaconsfield — Two Shipbuilding Stories".

The talks start at 7 pm, at the Beaconsfield’s Carriage House in Charlottetown. Admission is open to the public by donation. Storm dates to be announced via local media.

For more information, please go to their website at http://iascpei.wordpress.com

2012 PEI Highland Games

The Caledonian Club of Prince Edward Island was formed on June 2, 1864, and on August 4th and 5th, they will present The PEI Highland Games at the Lord Selkirk Provincial Park, Eldon, PEI.

The Highland Dancing Competitions will be held on August the 4th at 8:30 a.m., as well as the junior heavy and track and field competitions (under 16). At 1 pm the ladies heavy competitions, and at 2 p.m. there will be men's heavy Scottish competitions.

Lots of food and entertainment including three Mass Bands on August the 4th, step-dancing competitions at 2 p.m. on August the 5th, followed by afternoon concert in the park with fiddler Richard Wood accompanied by Gordon Belsher.

There will also be a Gathering of the Clans Maclean and Ramsay where you can ask questions, and find out about Scottish enigration to PEI.

The website is www.caledonianclubofpei.ca

Life of an Island House

A press release came out this morning -

On Tuesday September 13 at 7.30 pm in the Carriage House at Beaconsfield, Prince Edward Island, Doug Sobey, a research associate of the Institute of Island Studies of UPEI, will give an illustrated talk telling the story of a 200-year old frame house which still stands on the cliffs near Sea Cow Head overlooking Bedeque Bay.

The title of the talk will be "Two Hundred Years in the Life of an Island House: The Story of 'Melrose Farm' and 'Windswept'".

The talk will also cover the legacy of one of the Bedeque Bay* area's Loyalist settlers, Alexander Anderson, a disbanded Revolutionary War soldier, who built the house (naming it 'Melrose Farm') shortly after arriving in the area in 1797 (after a sojourn at Rustico), and who died in the house in 1852, at the age of 106!

From him descend a number of Island families, including the MacFarlanes of Fernwood, the Godfreys of North Wiltshire and the Cairns of Freetown. In 1948 the house was saved from destruction by Eleanor Wheler, who had come from Ontario to work as a public health nurse, and who converted it to a summer
home, naming it 'Windswept'.

Its most recent occupant was the well-known Island artist and poet Elaine Harrison.

Because of a rich archive of photographic and other material preserved by descendants of Anderson, as well as by other owners of the house, the talk will be well illustrated throughout.

There will be a $5 admission charge.

The lecture will be held under the auspices of the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation.

*My husband's family lived in Bedeque when they lived “on the island”. Although the Lapointe family was originally from Quebec City, they spent many a weekend driving around PEI taking in the history of the place, and at every turn in the road they saw a fantastic view of the beauty of the land and the sea.

Death Notice in the "Island Register"

Dave Hunter keeps a website at http://www.islandregister.com/ about Prince Edward Island genealogy. As part of the website, he also issues a weekly free e-newsletter called the Island Register for over ten years. To subscribe, go to http://www.islandregister.com/whatsnew.html#newsletter

Since 2005, Eldon Sentner has put weekly obits on the newsletter, and you can read them at
http://www.islandregister.com/2005obits.html. His email is daleandeldon@eastlink.ca

There is also "Centenarians in the Death Notices Listings" at http://www.islandregister.com/eldoncentenarians.html

Transfer of Vital Statistics to PEI Archives

In May of this year, Royal Assent was given to a bill allowing amendments to the Vital Statistics Act which permitted the transfer of records after certain time restrictions have passed www.gov.pe.ca/cca/baptismal

There are time restrictions on the Vital Statistics, as follows -

Birth Records - restricted for 120 years after date of birth

Marriage Records - restricted for 75 years after the date of marriage


Death Records - restricted for 50 years after the date of death. The cause of death remains restricted regardless of when the death occurred.

Baptismal Records - All records in the post-1886 Baptismal Records Index now have been posted.

Simply place the surname you are looking for in the search box and you will receive the Child's Full Name, the Birth Date, the Baptism Date, the Mother's Name, the Father's Name, the Birth Place, and the Baptism Place.

At the present time, baptismal records are from 1777 to 1923. There are 93,000 records.

Canadian Census - 2006

There has been talk the last couple days in the media about the 2006 Canadian Census not counting nearly a million people that they should have counted.

It's true! If you check Wikipedia <en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_2006_Census>, you will see that the population count in 2006 was 31,612,897 and that was lower than actual count in 2006 - 32,623,490 people.

That is over a million short - someone didn't fill out their census return!

This is made even more odd by the fact that this was the first year that the form were offered online and you could fill it there. It will be interesting to see what Census Canada does with this problem!

Meanwhile, Question 53 is still up in the air and hasn't been resolved, according to genealogists. Statistics Canada agrees to release the Census information after 92 years, but it will only be information by those people who have checked the box.

The statistics show that there was a "yes" reponse by 55.50% of the population - the highest being in PEI, with 64.50%.

If you have't read the blog of Nov 16th where I talk about Ancestry.ca and FamilySearch partnering on indexing and digitizing the census from 1851 to 1916, go to the blog <http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2008/11/joint-initiative-provides-online-access.html> and take a look - it's interesting.

The Island Register

I first came across "The Island Register" when I originally started to research the United Empire Loyalists, and had found a number going from Nova Scotia over to Prince Edward Island to settle in 1783 onward.

It is an email newsletter sent out every Friday by Dave Hunter from Prince Edward Island, and he started it in 2001 when he found that so many people could trace their ancestry back to the island.

About a couple of years ago he added the "Death Notices From Local Newspapers and Other Source" ending for the week, and he gives the link to them onsite.

He also gives the weather for the week just ending, and the "News on the Island Register" which is always an interesting read, and letters from his readers.

I was particularly interested in the article on "Michael Ambrose McInnis and 'The Maple Leaf'" because I have relatives in California, and I am sure that they are in the publication. Now all I have to do is find the "Maple Leaf" which has just become easier because the article was written by his granddaughter - so there is my first lead in a long and anxious trail looking for 'The Maple Leaf'.

He also has the "Phone Report" in his newsletter and a weekly report on the phone museum on his property and "Laptops for Kids" where he pick up laptops on the Island for less than fortunate children. He has fixed and given away 20 laptops so far.

If you want to sign up for this particular newsletter, the address is <dhunter@islandregister.com>.