Showing posts with label family history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family history. Show all posts

Saturday, June 22, 2013

UPDATE: TONI (The Ontario Name Index)


Since last reporting on TONI (The Ontario Name Index) earlier this spring, nearly 2 ½ million entries have been added.

TONI, as an index, is FREE for everyone the world over. In order to access information found in the databases you must pay a small fee. All proceeds from those fees support Ontario's heritage community.


Go to www.ogs.on.ca/integrated/toni_database1.php to read more about TONI, and to see if the name who are researching, is there.

IRISH COMMUNITY SUMMER PARTY

The Federation of Irish Societies invites you to a Cross Community Get Together and the Special Guest will be Dr. Ray Bassett, Ambassador of Ireland to Canada

Bring your friends and meet new ones. There will be traditional Irish music and it will be provided by SIAMSA. Happy hour prices and complimentary finger food.

It will take place on Tuesday, June 25 at 5:30 p.m. at the The Irish Embassy Pub & Grill, 1234 Bishop Street, Montreal (on the back patio).

The website of the United Irish Societies of Montreal is www.montrealirishparade.com/gallery/index.php


Friday, June 14, 2013

Automotive Heritage Month in Nova Scotia


Did you know Nova Scotia manufactured its own car, the MacKay Touring Car, in   Kentville and later in Amherst, in 1911?

Or that the first Toyotas assembled in Canada was at Point Edward, Cape Breton?

It’s easy to see that “the automobile has had a significant impact on the Province of Nova Scotia over the last century”.

To celebrate this impact, the Provincial Government of Nova Scotia has proclaimed July as Automotive Heritage Month.

Hobby car clubs across the province will be celebrating during the month at show and shines across the area.

To see what the National Association of Automobile Clubs of Canada does, go to their website www.naacc.ca/home.html

To see a picture and short history of the McKay 7-seat touring car, go to

History of Automobiles: The Early Days in Nova Scotia: 1899-1949

Thursday, June 13, 2013

New Heritage Minute

Remember the Heritage Minutes that we use to see on TV back in the 1990s? They were sixty second shots about important moments in Canadian history.
  
Heritage Minutes have returned to our televisions this year, and for the month of June, "First Nations warriors who were instrumental in the Battle of Queenston Heights, a crucial fight in the War of 1812, has been released to mark National Aboriginal History Month".

To view the Heritage Minute, go to Your Community Blog at the CBC


If you want to read about the history of Heritage Minutes, go to  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritage_Minute

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

UPDATE: Canada GenWeb Updates Cemeteries

The following cemeteries have been updated in Alberta, Manitoba, and Prince Edward Island -

ALBERTA

Beaver:
- Kinsella God's Acre Cemetery

Edmonton:
- Westlawn Memorial Gardens & Edmonton Crematorium

Smoky Lake:
- Victoria Park Cemetery

MANITOBA

Armstrong RM:
- Immaculate Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Cemetery

Emerson Town:
- Emerson Cemetery

Franklin RM:
- Friedensthal Lutheran Cemetery
- Ridgeville / South Ridge Cemetery

Rhineland RM:
- Rosenfeld Village & District Community Cemetery

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

Queen's County:
- North Wiltshire United Cemetery

All on the cemeteries on Canada GenWeb have been indexed and photographed by volunteers.

Pass along your thanks to Patricia Green & Marilyn Whiting for their help indexing. And to Olga Steinke, Cheyenne Kepke, Patricia Green, Marilyn Whiting, Jim Spence, and Elizabeth Warwick for their photographs.


Tuesday, June 11, 2013

UPDATE: FamilySearch adds more images

FamilySearch has added more images to the British Columbia, Crown Land Pre-emption Registers, 1860-1971.

Pre-emptions are purchased land that has not been fully surveyed. The pre-emption registers summarize the information from the pre-emption certificates. The pre-emptions are listed in registration number order, with an alphabetical index in the back of each volume.


And they have added more images to the Quebec, Notarial Records, 1800-1900.

You can go to the Wiki at https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Quebec_Notarial_Records_(FamilySearch_Historical_Records) to get a full description of the records.

These records are made available because of the work by thousands of volunteers from around the world. These volunteers transcribe (index) information from digital copies of handwritten records to make them easily searchable online.

Thanks to the volunteers!


Heritage Minister not happy with the cuts at the LAC

It appears that the Federal Heritage Minister James Moore isn’t too happy with the way that the layoffs at the Library and Archives Canada has turned out.

One impact that the cuts have had is that the digitization program has been severely cut as the staff has been cut – and the digitization of records was suppose to take the place of inter-library loans, for example.

All of this is in a story carried by the Huffington Post this morning. The online newspaper says that “The heritage minister says speeding up the digitization of records will be a priority for the new head of Library and Archives”.


Read the full report at the Huffington post is at www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/06/10/heritage-minister-conside_n_3414200.html

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Tracking down Francophones across America

The Morrin Centre will host Professor Dean Louder as he presents his first bilingual talk in which he will discuss the traces of French-Canadian settlements across the continent. 

Reading from his book and sharing photos from his travels, Louder will tell the stories of these little-known communities while illustrating the fact that Francophones here in Quebec are not the only French speakers to whom their roots, history and heritage are important in an ever-growing global society.

This presentation will take place on Wednesday, June 19 at 7 p.m., at the
Morrin Centre, 44 Chaussée des Écossais, Quebec City, Quebec.

Admission is free. To reserve, please contact us at 418-694-9147 or info@morrin.org.



Friday, June 7, 2013

Quinte OGS Branch Meeting

On 15 Jun 2013 at 1:00 pm, the Quinte OGS Branch will present the talk Why Can't I Find It Online? Other Resources to Help with Your Search. The talk will be presented by Ruth Blair, from The Passionate Genealogist blog.

A good deal of research can be done online, and many believe this is all we need, but only about 1% of genealogical data has been digitized and been made available on the Internet. Great strides are being taken to get more data online, but it is a costly process and sometimes what is available is only a small reference to a certain record group, and not the actual image.

Libraries and archives are still the main sources of information for the genealogical researcher, especially when you want to dig deeper. Ruth Blair will present case studies using such resources.

The talk will take place at Quinte West City Hall Library, 7 Creswell Drive, Trenton, Ontario

The Quinte OGS Branch web site is at www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canqbogs/index.htm


The Passionate Genealogist web site is at http://blog.familyhistorysearches.com 

Thursday, June 6, 2013

69th Anniversary of D-Day



 The Men Are Ready...Only You Can Give Them Wings
  Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-30-106 (Copyright: is expired) 

Today is the 69th Anniversary of D-Day – the Normandy Invasion on the northern beaches of France.

As the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, said today in an official statement -

“The 109 vessels and 10,000 sailors of the Royal Canadian Navy helped keep the German fleet bottled up in ports, cleared mines across the English Channel, silenced enemy batteries on the shoreline, and carried Canadian troops and landing craft to the battle.

“Finally, the soldiers of the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division and 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade through raw courage, grit and determination engaged in fierce combat on the beaches and in the small towns of Normandy helping smash the first line of German coastal defences.  In fact, by the evening of June 6, 1944, Canadian troops had progressed further inland than any of their Allies – a proud and remarkable accomplishment.

“The day took a heavy toll.  To secure victory on D-Day, 340 Canadians gave their lives, 574 were wounded and 47 taken prisoner.

“Let us pause on this day to recall and honour the noble sacrifices of these heroes who with other Allied forces turned the tide of the war, rid Europe of the Nazi scourge, and paid a price so that we and so many others might be able to enjoy peace and freedom with our families. While it is an impossible debt to repay, we honour their memory". 

Lest We Forget

D-Day: Canada's role http://www.cbc.ca/news/dday CBC give a very comprehensive retelling of  Canada’s role in D-Day, with video, photos, and excellent timelines that you might find useful in writing family history.


Juno http://junobeach.stormpages.com A site which describes the Canadian participation of the 3rd Canadian Division which landed on Juno Beach. 

Experience Aboriginal History Month at the Canadian Museum of Civilization

If you are planning to come to Ottawa during your summer vacation, stop by the Canadian Museum Of Civilization to take in their new Aboriginal exhibit - Indigenous and Urban.

Indigenous and Urban is a summer-long program featuring visual and media arts, music, dance, film, readings and interactive workshops.

Come see the new outdoor sculpture created by Mary Anne Barkhouse of the Nimpkish band, Kwakiutl First Nation for the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The sculpture of a life-size copper canoe and bronze wolf will be installed outside in the pond adjacent to the Grand Hall.

You can also walk through the six Native houses and explore the newly-redesigned First Peoples of the Northwest Coast exhibition. You can also see the brightly coloured ceiling mural by Dene Suline artist Alex Janvier  and Bill Reid's well known sculpture, The Spirit of the Haida Gwaii.

In addition, you can also visit the Grand Hall and the towering totem poles of the Northwest Coast. And you can continue on to the First Peoples Hall for an overview of the  history and culture of Native Peoples across Canada.

Join the people on June 27 at 5 p.m. for Indigenous and Urban, and see the new sculpture by acclaimed  Kwakiutl First Nation artist Mary Anne Barkhouse.

As the press release says “MAKE JUNE your month to connect with the songs and stories, history and present day of the Peoples who have inhabited this land for thousands of years”.

The exhibit will be open from June 27, 2013 to September 2, 2013 


To see more about the museum, you can go to www.civilization.ca

Saturday, June 1, 2013

UPDATE: 1921 Canada Census

It looks like June 2, 2013 will come and go without any news on the 1921 Canada Census from the LAC. And what about indexing of the census? Will it or won’t it be indexed? Question, questions, questions.

While we are waiting for the answers, we can read John D. Reid’s posts on the 1921 Canada Census at

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Conference 2013 - Footprints Through Time

Mark your calendar - The  Moose Jaw Branch of the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society will be hosting the  2013 Saskatchewan Genealogical Society Conference, October 4-5-6, at the Heritage Inn, 1590 Main St N Moose Jaw SK. 

New This Year is the Brick Wall Story.

We will print your Brick Wall Story in our syllabus at no charge. 

Email us a detailed account of your Brick Wall. Who or what you are looking for? When & where your wall went up? What you’ve already found and where you’ve looked?

You must put your contact name and email address with the submission of this you give us permission to print it in the Conference Syllabus. Entries MUST be EMAILED to twg@canwan.com no later than September 15th 2013.

On Friday Evening C.C.S.G. will "Breakdown one of these walls!"


The web site for the conference is http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~skmjbsgs  

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Spirit Walk at the Crown Cemetery

A Spirit Walk will be held on Tuesday June 11th at 7 p.m. at the Crown Cemetery at Aberfoyle, Ontario.

Join them as they tell the life stories of five people buried in Crown Cemetery

two pioneer settlers

a World War Two soldier

a travelling music teacher

a  pioneer storekeeper in Morriston

A 'tailgate lunch' will follow, and you are asked to meet at the rear entrance to the cemetery off Nicholar Beaver Road (at Tim Hortons on Brock Road), Aberfoyle, Ontario.


The web site for the Puslinch Historical Society is at www.puslinchhistorical.ca/Mtgs.shtml

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Open Doors – Ottawa

 Open Doors – Ottawa will be held June 1 and 2, and it is a FREE event.

The doors will be open to the buildings which “celebrates our community’s built heritage, allowing access to functionally, culturally, and historically significant buildings.  Held during the first weekend in June, Doors Open Ottawa has witnessed the annual attendance rate rise to over 80,000 visitors, and include the participation of over 125 of the city’s finest buildings”.

Some of the buildings which will be open this year will include the Billings Estate National Historic Site, All Saints Cathedral, and the city transit building.  

If you go to the website, there is a map, where the parking will be, and there will be shuttle buses to take you to each of the buildings.


Calgary Nurses in the Great War

A meeting will be held on Monday, June 3, 2013 at 7:00 pm by the Alberta Family History Society at the  River Park Church, 3818 - 14A Street, Calgary where the speaker will be Marjorie Norris, and her topic will be Calgary Nurses in the Great Wars.

Noted Calgary author Marjorie Norris will give a presentation on the contribution of Calgary nurses in the Great War, based on her years of research in often hidden resources.  Copies of her book Sister Heroines will be available for purchase.

 The Annual General Meeting will also be held.

For more information, go to www.afhs.ab.ca

If you want to read a review of the book Sister Heroines: The Roseate Glow of Wartime Nursing, 1914-1918, you can read a review by Cynthia Toman in The Canadian Historical Review, Volume 85, Number 1, March 2004.


Monday, May 27, 2013

Historical Maps of Toronto

Nathan Ng would like to share with us his newest site. His blog is called Historical Maps of Toronto.


The site is an easy site to use, online collection of notable pre-1900 maps of Toronto. Specific maps that researchers may find of utility include the 1858 Boulton Atlas of the City of Toronto and Vicinity, and the 1860 Tremaine Map of the County of York, Canada West.

He says that “I hope the site will facilitate discovery and exploration, as well as serve as a convenient resource for casual research [It's also enormously fun to randomly browse through]. The site is intended to serve as a companion resource for my previous mapping project, Goad's Atlas of Toronto -- Online!

I would be delighted if you could please share this with anyone who would enjoy it or find it useful as a resource...

I will be using the site when I am called to do research in Toronto. 

The site is at www.oldtorontomaps.blogspot.com If you go to the website and like what you see, drop him a line at nathan.ng@gmail.com

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Want to track down descendants of immigrants who were on the Empress of Ireland

A display of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence River will tour across Canada in hope of tracking down descendants of immigrants who came to Canada onboard the ship. 

Here is the press release - 

TORONTO, May 24, 2013 - Is your last name Clark, Johnson or Smith? Do you know if your ancestors came to Canada onboard the Empress of Ireland? Would you like to know more about this Canadian Pacific Railway Company's ship?

On May 26th in Toronto, following the 99th Anniversary memorial service organized by The Salvation Army's Historical Society to commemorate the sinking of the Empress of Ireland, the "Site historique maritime de la Pointe au Père" (SHMP) will launch a national tour to trace down descendants of immigrants who came to Canada onboard the Empress of Ireland.

For a week, starting on Monday May 27th, at The Salvation Army's Territorial Headquarters for Canada and Bermuda (2 Overlea Boulevard, Toronto), you will learn everything about the fascinating but tragic story of the great ship that disappeared in 14 minutes on May 29th 1914 at 1 h 55 am in the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence River near Rimouski. 1477 people were on board, 1012 of them died. This disaster, overshadowed by the outbreak of the First World War, remains, to this day, the largest maritime disaster in Canadian waters.

A visual stand showing the ship in all its 1914 glory will showcase may pictures of the magnificent ship's interiors as well as a reconstitution of the disaster and rarely seen video footage of the underwater wreck. Documents and interesting information related to the exhibit will also be on display, including the list of onboard passengers from 1906 to 1914, the passenger list at the moment of the tragedy, a log book relating the ship's history and a complete calendar of all remembrance activities to be organized. Over ten cities across Canada will welcome this truly unique exhibition.

In 1914 The Salvation Army shared in the national tragedy of the sinking of The Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence. On board were more than 150 members of the Canadian Salvation Army, bound for a major international gathering in London, England. Most of them, including the national commander and members of the Canadian Staff Band, were drowned.

As the exhibit travels across Canada, Mrs. Pascale St-Amand, project manager, will be on hand to answer any questions from all visitors interested in this important page of Canadian history. Mrs. St-Amand will also keep a record of all the information and details visitors share with her regarding the hundreds of stories from immigrants who adopted this country at the beginning of the 20th century.

Come tell us your story!

Friday, May 24, 2013

Immigration and Citizenship records at LAC before 1865

In case you are not aware of the databases that the LAC has to offer on immigration and citizenship, here is a summary of the indexes -   

This article, the first of a series depicting Immigration and Citizenship sources, offers insight into pre-Confederation arrivals in Canada. Very few records compiled before 1865 still exist. Most surviving records, which are from various sources, have been indexed by name in databases.

The Immigrants to Canada database was compiled from documents such as immigration and land records and some private fonds, namely the Peter Robinson Papers. It provides access to more than 28,000 references to records held at Library and Archives Canada (LAC).

The Montreal Emigrant Society Passage Book (1832) database provides access to 1,945 references and digitized documents to people who received assistance from the Montreal Emigrant Society in 1832.

The Immigrants at Grosse-Île (1832-1937) database is the result of an agreement between Parks Canada and LAC. It contains more than 33,000 records spanning a 100-year time period. The references describe various events for immigrants arriving at the city of Québec and their time spent at the Grosse-Île Quarantine Station.

The Upper Canada and Canada West Naturalization Records (1828-1850) database gives references to the names of 2,967 persons naturalized in what is now the province of Ontario between 1828 and 1850. The 188 registers have been scanned and digitized images are accessible in this database.

The Citizenship Registration Records for the Montreal Circuit Court (1851-1945) database provides access to more than 8,000 references to the Citizenship Registration Records for the Montreal Circuit Court. The records have been digitized and linked to the database references.

If you think some of your “ancêtres” can be traced back to France, LAC holds a small number of lists from the French Regime (1717-1786).

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Release of a new version of the Census of Canada, 1901 database

I see where the LAC has released the new version of the 1901census today - 

Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the 1901 Census of Canada database. This fourth general census covered the seven provinces and the territory that were then part of Confederation: British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and the Territories.

The new version includes suggestions for corrections that were received from users in recent months, as well as revised district and sub-district information.

To go to the 1901 Census, go to www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1901/Pages/1901.aspx