FamilySearch.org reaches 100,000 mark

FamilySearch has announced a milestone in its collection of Family History Books.

One hundred thousand books have now been scanned by the partnership of the Family History Library, Allen County Public Library, and several other important family history libraries in the world.

These books are online and available to search and use on the FamilySearch.org website. You can reach the collection by clicking Search and then Books or by simply clicking the link above.

The majority of the books online are family histories, with a smaller portion made up of cemetery records, local and county histories, genealogy magazines, and how-to-books, gazetteers, and medieval histories and pedigrees.

These valuable aids are viewed by more than 100,000 people a month.


To view the books, go to https://books.familysearch.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=1&dstmp=1375809771058&vid=FHD_PUBLIC&fromLogin=true 

Protecting Ontario’s cemeteries

Have you read this invitation from the OGS?

“Do you have a GPS system? Would you like to assist the Ontario Genealogical Society and the  Ontario Historical Society in protecting Ontario’s cemeteries? If you do, then we have the job for you!

This is what you can do to help.

The Registrar of Cemeteries requires accurate location information to help identify the cemeteries that are not registered.  If you pass an entrance to a cemetery in your travels, could you record the GPS location? We are asking you to be especially mindful of the county and township where the cemetery is located. Therefore, when you send the information to the Society, we kindly request that you list the following information:

• The name of the Cemetery

• The County in which the cemetery is located, if known (i.e., Durham, Niagara, Carleton etc.)

• If possible, the Historical township (as listed on the OGS Ontario Cemetery Locator),

• The street name

• And of course, the GPS co-ordinates

Some of our volunteers have advised us that they take the GPS readings at the entrance of the cemetery as this provides the most accurate location information.

To date we know of 12 Riverside Cemeteries around the province, 48 St. John’s Anglican Cemeteries and 11 Zion Cemeteries just to name a few. Don’t worry if you find that a cemetery has been registered, someone else will have the benefit of your work”.

All GPS information you gather may be forwarded to cemeteries@ogs.on.ca

The OGS web site is at www.ogs.on.ca/index.php


The OHS web site is at www.ontariohistoricalsociety.ca

Canadian Week in Review 05 August 2013

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

Websites

Eagle River History http://eagleriverhistory.ca  Eagle River, Ontario is located in Northwestern Ontario, and the origin of town goes back to the late 1800s.

The website says that “The town has a varied background including being a Canadian Pacific Railway stop for coal and water in the steam engine period.  Logging, power generation, tourism are some of the other principal mainstays of the town”.

Blogs

Canadian History Association Blog (CHA) www.cha-shc.ca/en/Other_useful_links_68/0/2.html The site has a list of all Canadian historical blogs in the country, and an Historian Database, where historians put in their profile, so that you may contact them if they are researching the same area as you.

Facebook, Videos, You Tube

Newspapers Articles of the Week

Social media buffs help find heirs of property lost in Holocaust on the Internet www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/social-media-buffs-help-find-heirs-of-property-lost-in-holocaust-on-the-internet/article13472564 Read how Gilad Japhet, CEO and founder of Israel-based MyHeritage.com is helping descendants claim their property lost in the Holocaust.

The dark history of the Old Prison of Trois-Rivieres is brought to light in guided tours www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/dark+history+Prison+Trois+Rivieres+brought+light+guided+tours/8666219/story.html A glimpse into early penal life in Canada

NovaStory…bringing light to your stories www.ngnews.ca/Community/2013-07-28/article-3331396/NovaStorybringing-light-to-your-stories/1 Read how the Pictou County, Nova Scotia library, and how they have an online database of maps, histories, and cemeteries.  

Fire Destroys Canadian Library, Archive http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/07/industry-news/fire-destroys-canadian-library-archive Read how the Lac-Mégantic library, destroyed by fire in the train derailment a month ago, will move to a new facility in November.

Heritage designation sought for St. Charles Church in Vanier www.ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/preserve+Charles+Church+Vanier+local+resident+applied/8723095/story.html St. Charles Church in Vanier may soon be on the market as a "tear down" to make way for condos. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Ottawa says that the church lacks historic value, a Vanier resident is seeking heritage designation for the 105-year-old building.

Welcome to Internment Camp B70, a little known piece of New Brunswick's history www.theprovince.com/news/Welcome+Internment+Camp+little+known+piece+Brunswicks/8745969/story.html Read the article about Camp B70, a internment camp for 700 Jewish people during the Second World War.

Gore Park buildings likely to receive heritage status, councillor says hwww.cbc.ca/hamilton/news/story/2013/07/23/hamilton-gore-park-heritage-building-status.html Hamilton industrial neighbourhood most likely will receive Heritage Status

Story of the Week

Operation Husky 2013

In July and August of 1943, 25,000 Canadian soldier took part in the liberation of  Sicily.  My uncle, Perley Arnold BARCLAY, was a member of the 1^st Canadian Division that landed in Sicily in July that year.

Operation Husky has been formed to help honour the memory of those people who died in the operation, and they have definite plans to remember the liberation  of Sicily.

They have a new war memorial to the memory the Canadians who landed there on that date 70 years earlier, and they are looking for support to erect markers to the men who dies there. Each one of the markers will carry the name of a soldier who died there. 

In so doing, they feel that they can “visually represent the loss suffered by so many Canadian families in the liberation of Sicilian soil while funding the legacy initiatives”.

There are videos onsite at www.operationhusky2013.ca/latest-news/the-latest-videos

For more information, go to http://www.operationhusky2013.ca

Reminder: Check out Canadian Week in Review every 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 posted 11 August, 2013

Canadian Week in Review

Reminder: Check out Canadian Week in Review every Monday for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada. It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in country! 

New workshop at Toronto

They are planning a full day of lectures on Saturday, 26 October on Tracing Forward – Searching for Relatives in Recent Times – a day designed to provide researchers with new ideas, strategies and tools to help them trace members of their expanded family trees, people who might still be alive or recently deceased.

This is a brand-new workshop topic for Toronto Branch and we’re quite excited about it – we expect to have program and registration details available on our website in the very near future.

Their website at www.torontofamilyhistory.org

BIFHSGO Conference next month

Conference time (Sept 20 - 22) is nearly here, and are you ready to attend a full-day of workshops, and two days of lectures by people from Ireland, and local genealogical experts on Irish roots?

One thing which BIFHSGO does, and has done for the past two years, is to present interviews with the conference speakers.

This year, some of the interviews are -  

Lesley Anderson Previews her Pre-conference Seminar  Lesley talks about her lecture on Ancestry.ca and how it can help you with your Irish family history research.

Interview with Linda Reid Toronto genealogist Linda Reid will be presenting "Around the Brick Wall: Tracing Back an Irish Family through Collateral Lines" and "Are They Really My Ancestors? Using Autosomal DNA Tests to Confirm (or Deny) Relationships and Ancestors."

and

Success through One Name Studies Sandra Adams, Bill Arthurs and Elizabeth Kipp along with John D Reid talk about the successes they have had by pursuing their one-name studies and what you can expect to learn if you attend the Saturday afternoon session "Success through One Name Studies"

If you want to listen to these interviews, go to www.bifhsgo.ca/cpage.php?pt=62

If you still haven’t registered, you can register online at http://www.bifhsgo.ca/cpage.php?pt=109

The website for BIFHSGO is www.bifhsgo.ca

LAC Update: 1861 Canada Census available online

Once again, the Library and Archives Canada has released a census – this time, its the 1861 census. Information was collected for people living in Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

You can search this new database by nominal information, such as the surname, given name(s) and age of an individual, as well as by geographical information such as district and sub-district names.

This wasn’t a uniform census – the questionnaires were different in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and in the Canadas (Canada West – Ontario and Canada East – Quebec).

Also, the enumeration day in the Canadas was January the 14^th, March 30^th in Nova Scotia, and August the 15^th in Prince Edward Island.

The census was also divided among rural and urban centres of the country.

So if an ancestor lived in Toronto (an urban centre), the enumerator would drop off the form for the inhabitants to fill out themselves, and then they would stop by a couple of days later to pick up the form, or if your ancestor lived in a rural area, the enumerator would fill out the form.

Districts and sub-districts did not all survive. To see which district survived, go to www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1861/Pages/census-districts-sub-districts.aspx

To search the census, go to www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/census/1861/Pages/about-census.aspx