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/

Canadian Week in Review 03 February 2014

I have come across the following Canadian websites, social media websites, and newspaper articles this past week that were of interest to me, and I thought you might be interested in them, too

Websites

Up To Rawdon http://uptorawdon.com/ Daniel Parkinson has updated his two book set. To see the 29 pages of updates, please go to http://www.uptorawdon.com/0-addendum.pdf

Social Media

No new blogs this week.

News Articles

Funding to help save community's http://www.highrivertimes.com/2014/01/27/provincial-funding-to-help-save-communitys-heritage-sites Heather Klimchuk, Alberta Minister of Culture announced $12-million in funding on Jan. 27 at the Museum of the Highwood. She said that these funds will be used ”to protect historical buildings, museums and archives and archeological and palaeontological sites”

War memorial to be added to Saskatoon’s River Landing  http://metronews.ca/news/saskatoon/924502/war-memorial-to-be-added-to-river-landing/ River Landing could soon be home to a new war memorial honouring the contributions of First Nations and ally soldiers in the War of 1812.

Neanderthal DNA hides in genes dictating our hair, skin
Researcher 'quite proud' of his above-average 2.9% Neanderthal genome http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/neanderthal-dna-hides-in-genes-dictating-our-hair-skin-1.2515871 Scientists say that skin and hair of modern man could be as much as 70 per cent Neanderthal

Story of the Week



In a message from His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, on the Occasion of Black History Month, he remind us “Black History Month serves a two-fold purpose: to look back on the achievements and contributions of Black Canadians; and to acknowledge that Black history is Canadian history-inextricably linked to every citizen across the land and essential to Canada's future”.

In December 1995, the Canadian House of Commons officially recognized February as Black History Month. The motion introduced by the first black Canadian woman elected to Parliament, the Honourable Jean Augustine. The motion was carried unanimously by the House of Commons, and the Senate ratified a similar motion by Senator Donald Oliver in 2008

To this end, Canada Post had issued two stamps – one to Africville, a black community in north-end of Halifax and Hogan’s Alley was the unofficial name of a four-block-long dirt lane that formed the nucleus of Vancouver’s – first concentrated African-Canadian community in British Columbia.

To read more about Canadian Back Heritage month, go to http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/multiculturalism/black/index.asp

Reminder: Check the Canadian Week in Review next Monday for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada. It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in country! The next post will be on 10 February 2014.

FootsSteps of the Past

Kim Mills, a fellow blogger and writer—she also wrote Organizing Digital Files, a how-to article for the latest edition of Chinook (the journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society)—has a blog called FootsSteps of the Past at http://footstepspast.blogspot.com

In her blog, she mentions researching the following surnames –

• Anderson & Andersson
• Badgerow
• Churchyard
• Colgan
• Ferrier
• Gallant
• Gardiner
• Gibson
• Grummett
• Hazard
• Hazlett & Haslett
• Kane
• Kuhn
• Laws & Lawes
• Mills
• Mört
• Puddington
• Robichaud
• Robinson
• Schuler
• Smith (Irish from County Tyrone)
• Spitz
• Stinson

Her main areas of research are –

Canada

• New Brunswick
• Ontario
• Prince Edward Island 

US

• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• New York
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island

Countries

• Germany (Baden)
• Ireland
• Scotland
• Sweden

She also has a blog called Homestead Acres at www.homestead-acres.com, and she has vlogs and videos at www.youtube.com/homesteadacres where she talks about the “homesteading lifestyle”.

Chinook - Winter, January 2014

The Winter, January 2014 (Volume 34, Number 2) issue of Chinook —the journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society—is out, and I am in it!

Last fall, I had asked its Editor, Wayne Shepheard, about doing a possible article on citing sources. I submitted Sources and Citations in Genealogy: What Are They? in November, and it appears on pages 8 to 11 of this issue.

In another article, entitled Starting Over, Michele Simmons Lewis gives very good advice on keeping one’s genealogy current.

Lois Sparling, in Organizing Family History Research, explores different ways to keep it all organized. She also reviews a book on the subject by A. C. Fleming called The Organized Family Historian.

And following in her footsteps is an article by Marion Peterson called Organizing My Genealogy Files in which she tells us how she has organized her work. Next, Kim Mills, in her article, Organizing Digital Files, lets us see how she does it.

    

And there are three other articles – Caring for Family Keepsakes: Ten Tips to Help You Preserve the Past by Denise May Levenick; Personal Digital Archiving for Individuals, Families and Information Professionals: Issues to Consider by Donald T. Hawkins; and Succession-Proofing Your Family History by Jim Benedict.

This a very complete journal, with lots of articles, columns, tips, events, and book reviews of interest to genealogists. The journal is not necessarily Alberta-centric, and it certainly appeals to everyone.

For further information, visit the AFHS online at www.afhs.ab.ca.

Gwyneth Pearce, Secretary of the Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society tells us that they will be holding an all-day workshop Scotland and its People, at the North York Central Library on Saturday 12 April 2014. .

There will be 11 sessions, and they will be on Scottish history, patterns of migration, records and repositories, planning your research both here and in Scotland, and adding “flesh to the bones” of your Scottish ancestors.

The workshop will be led by two principal speakers: UK-based genealogist Sheena Tait, who specializes in Scottish research, and historian Kevin James, a faculty member in the Scottish Studies Program at the University of Guelph. Krista Barclay, Christine Woodcock, and three of our own Toronto Branch experts – Marian Press, Linda Reid and James F.S. Thomson – will also bring their knowledge and enthusiasm to the day’s program..Whether you’re a seasoned researcher or just beginning your family history journey, this is a day you won’t want to miss!

Full program details and speaker biographies can be found on the Branch website at http://torontofamilyhistory.org/learn/workshops/scottish-workshop-2014/

The early-bird registration deadline for this event is 15 March. OGS members enjoy additional discounts.

Library and Archives Canada and Canadiana.org partnership starting to appear online

This notice came from the LAC this morning - "The partnership between Library and Archives Canada and Canadiana.org over the next ten years involves the digitization, indexing and description of millions of personal, administrative and government documents. It will triple the LAC's digital content on the Web, and allow Canadians to access tens of millions of additional images regardless of where they live, at no charge". They have divided the holdings into Genealogy, Aboriginal History, Military History, and Landmark Papers. Be forewarned before you start working with these fonds though, I have found with the ones that I have worked with, they ARE NOT INDEXED. And it has can cause headaches to me – a researcher. So has anyone used these online digitization fonds yet? How have you found them? And some of them are dark - almost too dark to read. `1q So if you can deal with that all that, they are great research material to have online, and combined with the report s

NEWS FLASH!!Global RootsTech Conference Announces Free Online Broadcast Schedule

Paul Nauta from RootsTech Media Relations, has just sent us this notice -

SALT LAKE CITY-RootsTech, the world's largest family history and technology conference held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 6-8, 2014, announced today that 15 of its popular sessions will be broadcast live and complimentary over the Internet. The live broadcasts will give those unable to attend in-person worldwide a sample of this year's conference content. Interested viewers can watch the live presentations at RootsTech.org. The fourth-year conference has attracted over 10,000 registered attendees in-person, and leaders expect over 20,000 additional viewers online.

The streamed sessions include a sampling of technology and family history presentations. Following are the broadcasted sessions and speakers. All times are in mountain standard time (MST):

Thursday, February 6

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Top 10 Things I Learned About My Family from My Couch by Tammy Hepps

1 p.m. to 2 p.m., FamilySearch Family Tree: What's New and What's Next by Ron Tanner

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Intro to DNA for Genealogists by James Rader

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Genealogy in the Cloud by Randy Hoffman

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Sharing Your Family with Multimedia by Michael LeClerc

Friday, February 7

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Storytelling Super Powers: How to Come Off as Your Family's Genealogy Hero by David Adelman

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., Tweets, Links, Pins, and Posts: Break Down Genealogical Brick Walls with Social Media by Lisa Alzo

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., Getting the Most Out of Ancestry.com by Crista Cowen

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Finding Family and Ancestors Outside the USA with New Technologies by Daniel Horowitz

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Do It Yourself Photo Restoration by Ancestry Insider

Saturday, February 8

10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., Become an iPad Power User by Lisa Louise Cooke

1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., Information Overload: Managing Online Searches and Their Resultsby Josh Taylor

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m., A Beginner's Guide to Going Paperless by Randy Whited

4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., How to Interview Yourself for a Personal History by Tom Taylor

5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., Five Ways to Do Genealogy in Your Sleep by Deborah Gamble

About RootsTech

RootsTech is a global family history event where people of all ages learn to discover and share their family stories and connections through technology. The first annual conference was held in 2011, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Hosted by FamilySearch and sponsored by leading genealogical organizations, the conference includes hands-on demonstrations and forums to provide a highly interactive environment and accelerate learning. Content is geared to young and old, beginner to advanced levels.

To visit their website, go to https://rootstech.org/