Launch of LAC "Medals, Honours and Awards" Database

Victory Medal, First World War
Courtesy: LAC

Ottawa, December 9, 2010 — Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is pleased to announce the launch of a new online database, "Medals, Honours and Awards".

Through this online database, researchers can access more than 113,000 references to medal registers, citation cards, and records of various military awards. In addition to archival references, this research tool includes digitized images of some medal registers.

The database is available at: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/medals/index-e.html

I checked the database and found a Barclay Webster, s/o Henry Bentley Webster and Ina Mary Barclay (my gggg aunt) who joined the 2nd Canadian Queen's Regiment.

I did not know that he was in the militia, and that he had received the Canada General Service Medal as noted below www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/medals/001099-110.01-e.php?PHPSESSID=u8farn7vbbhl9hqp3oa83u73m5&q1=Webster&q2=Barclay&q3=&q4=&q5=&q6=&interval=2 -

Name: WEBSTER, Barclay
Rank: Private
Regiment: 2nd Queen's Regiment Nova Scotia Militia
Medal/Honour/Award: Canada General Service Medal
Event/Time Period: Fenian Raid (1866)
Volume: 8
Page: 113
Reference / Acession Number: RG 9 IIA5
Microfilm: C-1862

There is a very brief account of him and his life on Wikipedia, as follows -

Barclay Webster - from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barclay_Webster

Barclay Webster (September 16, 1849 – ) was a lawyer, judge and political figure in Nova Scotia, Canada. He represented King's County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1890 to 1894 as a Liberal-Conservative member.

He was born in Kentville, Nova Scotia, the son of Henry Bentley Webster, a lawyer, and Mary Ina Barclay. Webster was educated at Acadia College, Dalhousie University and Harvard University. He was called to the Nova Scotia bar in 1872 and set up practice in Kentville. He married Ethel, the daughter of Leverett de Veber Chipman, in 1877. In 1890, Webster was named King's Counsel.

His son, L. Beverley Webster, died in London after fighting in the Boer War.

New Issue of OGS Families - Cont'd

To continue the overview that I started the other day of the papers in the Ontario Genealogical Society's journal, Families, there are four more papers in the November issue, and they are -

"Where Are The Records?" is an ongoing column by Gwen Patterson in which she takes often overlooked resources at the archives or library and sets them in context so that Ontario researchers can use them.

In this issue, she has a piece on "The Papers of Andrew F. Hunter (1863-1940), Simcoe County Historian" and there are newspaper clippings from The Family Herald and Weekly Star. These clippings concern Lost Persons and Deaths from 1936 to 1938.

"Unfolding Old Documents", by Dr. Fraser Dunford, the Executive Director of the Ontario Genealogical Society, goes through the work involved in taking old papers to ready them for scanning. There are photos, and the step-by-step process is described for those people who are faced with the same problem.

'The Edgars in Glengarry Country and Abroad", by James Somerville Edgar, tells the story of the searching for Charles Edgar of Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland.

"Documenting Ontario War Dead, 1918-1950", by military archivist Glenn Wright. Since November is Remembrance Month in Canada, Glenn has written a new book called Canadians at War 1914-1919: A Research Guide to World War One Service Records, which details the records in Canada.

This paper goes through the Circumstances of Death Registers (which are not online) in the Library and Archives Canada, and he tells us, in detail, how to use these records.

In the February issue, the lead article will be "How to Research Your Jamaican Ancestry from Canada", by Dorothy Kew, in honor of Heritage Day in Ontario.

It's one in a variety of other similar excellent articles written by enlightened and exciting authors.

New Issue of OGS Families

As the new editor of the Ontario Genealogical Society's journal, Families, I have had the pleasure of my first issue being recently released.

In this November 2010 issue, I covered the fact that 2010 was declared as the Year of the Home Child, and I published the following articles -

"Young Immigrants to Canada: The Children's Friend Society" by Marjorie Kohli. This article gives a history of The Children's Friend Society, and lists two pages of names of children who came to Canada from Britain in the middle 18th-Century. A typical entry reads, "Smith, Jesse on Active, house servant to Rev. Thomas B. Fuller of Toronto".

"The British Child Emigration Scheme to Canada (1870-1957)" by Perry Snow. Read about the legacy left by his father, Fred G. Snow, as he made his way to Canada as a Home Child. This article appears as a reprint courtesy of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society.

'The Diary of Reverend William Bowman Tucker, 1859-1934" is an except from a diary of a Home Child, one who later went on to found the Montreal City Mission. Glenn Adams, his grandson, gave me his kind permission to reprint a small portion of the diary.

"Discovering the Story of Father" by John Fielding is a heart-warming story of a boy, Leslie Fielding, and how he made a life for himself after he came to Canada.

In the next posting, I will continue with Part II, telling you about more articles in this issue of Families, plus a special article in the OGS NewsLeaf.

OGS Provincial Office Reopens

From OGS Headquarters comes this news -

October 23, 2010

Provincial Office Reopens

The OGS Provincial Office is open for business once again. Our server, phones and fax machines are up and running and we have returned to our regular hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00am - 5:00 pm.

The incident that caused us to be closed happened around 12:00 on Friday October 8th. A worker renovating the library above the office drilled through the concrete floor and into a water pipe in the ceiling of our office. Water poured into our office and knocked out the power to our server and printer, also dumping water on parts of the machines. Sarah Newitt and Marsha Brown were the staff in the office that day and they worked quickly to remove as many objects as possible from the path of the flood that rapidly covered the office with an inch of water. Beyond some pamphlets and in stock OGS publications nothing was damaged that could not be repaired.

The building itself sustained the most damage and required that we empty and close the office so the bottom few feet of most of the drywall could be replaced as well as part of the ceiling. These repairs and the ensuing air quality check took longer than anticipated but are finally complete. Technicians have checked and reconnected all of our electronic equipment and found they were not damaged. The contractor's insurance will pay for the expenses incurred as a result of this.

If you have recently sent us an email that bounced back to you, please try again. The server was unable to receive messages during our closed period and we would like to make sure we do get your email.

Thank you once again for your patience and support during this period. We are happy to be returning to normal and look forward to hearing from you and seeing you at the office.

Happy Thanksgiving

Visit our website, www.GenealogyCanada.com, for some great stuff on Canadian genealogy, history, and heritage.

We have an article on Canadian Thanksgiving -

1. http://www.genealogycanada.com/October_News_2006.htm (with dancing turkey)

And we have two articles on Thanksgiving on our blog -

1. Canadian Thanksgiving - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2008/10/happy-thanksgiving.html (with football-playing turkey)

2. American Thanksgiving - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2008/11/happy-thanksgiving.html

Enjoy the posts, and to all our readers, "Happy Thanksgiving!", no matter which one you celebrate!

Elizabeth

Friends of Laura Secord

(Click on image to make it bigger)

www.niagaraparks.com/heritage-trail/friends-of-laura-secord.html

Workshop - The Women in Our Past

Elayne Lockhart reminds us of an upcoming workshop co-hosted by the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society and the Canadiana Department of the North York Central Library.

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Hi everyone.

If you’ve been thinking of coming to the workshop on November 6th, The Women in Our Past: Strategies and Resources for Researching Female Ancestors, I’m happy to tell you that even though the end of September has crept up on you, you haven’t missed the Early Bird deadline. We have extended it to next Monday, October 4th.

We hope to see many members there. We know that our speakers are going to be providing some great strategies to help us all learn to research “outside the box”.

Elayne

Vankleek Hill Family & Local History Day

Saturday, October 2nd will be Family & Local History Day at Vankleek Hill - a village about an hour's drive from Ottawa, right next to the town of Hawkesbury.

In the morning are talks given by the Ontario Genealogical Society and the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa on genealogical research. The afternoon session features Ancestry.ca and and their Library Edition, as well as a Q&A session for advanced genealogy. The Quebec Family History Society will also be there.

To register for either genealogy session, call the Champlain Public Library at 613.678.2216, or visit them online at www.champlaintwplibrary.ca.

There will be special sessions on the Tweedsmuir Histories, heirloom furniture, exhibits at the museum, a quilt shop, Gaelic lessons, and a Masonic Lodge tour. Even stuff for kids.

The Review newspaper www.thereview.ca will have a special exhibit all day long at the newspaper office. The paper is putting its archives online then—with free access all day—and their will be special guided tours of the Old Jail in L'Orignal.

Go to their site at www.vankleekhill.ca.

I will be there Saturday (all day), and if you see me - be sure to say "Hello!"

OGS Appoints Assistant Executive Director

From the OGS' e-Announce comes news that Sarah Newitt has been appointed as the Assistant Executive Director.

Congratulations, Sarah!

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September 24, 2010

Assistant Executive Director Appointed

The Board of the Ontario Genealogical Society is pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Newitt as Assistant Executive Director. She will become Executive Director next April, on the retirement of the current Executive Director, Dr. Fraser Dunford

Sarah, age 28, has been the Society's Librarian for the past year. She holds a BA in German from Queen's and a MLIS from McGill. She has worked in a number of libraries in Ontario and in Montreal. She has had a life-long association with Girl Guides. A native of Mount Albert Ontario, she has lived in Japan, India and Germany.

She inherited family history projects from her father's father and her mother's mother (a project that requires fluency in German). One of her ambitions is to prove a suspected UEL link.

Passing of John Becker, Editor, OGS Families

From John Becker's wife, Gwenne, comes this news -

"Dear friends and colleagues of John's:

I am saddened to tell you that John passed away on Wednesday, September 22, 2010. His cancer had caused him much pain in the last few months. However, he still enjoyed bantering with the nurses at Princess Margaret Hospital and he became a favourite on the floor.

I have attached an expanded version of the obituary that appeared in the Globe & Mail this morning.

Gwenne"

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John Adams Becker

July 18, 1932 – September 22, 2010

We honour the passing of loving husband, father, mentor, and dear friend on Wednesday September 22, 2010.

John was a man of passion, commitment, and an ethic of making a difference. In addition to a long career in university administration, he devoted much of his life energy to volunteer work.

Hart House was a major influence in his life and work during his years at the University of Toronto (SPS 5T5) and after, first as a member of the Finnish Exchange program, then as Undergraduate Secretary. He continued his administrative career at McMaster and York Universities from which he retired in 1989.

York was a formative experience for John. He spent over 20 years in various capacities and developed numerous long-term friendships which continued into retirement. The York community was a passion for him and retirement begged the question “was there life after York”.

He was happy to find a very fulfilling life after his retirement. He worked in the family firm, Becker Associates, and was instrumental in steering it in new directions. He also had time to indulge his love of researching family trees, and to develop a new passion for water colouring. Recently he served as volunteer editor of Families, the journal of the Ontario Genealogical Society.

John’s prostate cancer was first diagnosed in 1997 and was kept in check by the wizards at Princess Margaret Hospital during the years since then. Only in early 2010 did he begin to have any symptoms. For the last few weeks he was in the care of the loving staff at the Palliative Care Unit at PMH. Our family cannot thank them enough for the comfort they provided to John and to us.

John leaves his loving wife of 54 years and best friend, Gwenne (née Belsten), daughter Christina, and sons Adam (Benoit Desmarais), and Paul (Christian Garate), grandchildren Carolina, Max, and Lorraine. He also leaves his brother Dean (Lois Kelly Becker) and twin brother Keith (Neil Macvicar).

The absence of his energy, good humour, and caring will leave a large hole in our lives.

A private family service and cremation have been held. On October 13 a celebration of John’s life will be held at Trinity St. Paul’s at 427 Bloor St. West, Toronto, 3:00 – 6:00 p.m.

If friends and family wish to make a donation in John’s memory, the family would ask that it be made to the Hart House Finnish Exchange, University of Toronto.

New LAC Database - "Upper Canada Land Petitions"

Just received within the hour from Sylvie Tremblay of Library and Archives Canada -

Launch of "Upper Canada Land Petitions"

Ottawa, 23 September, 2010 - Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is pleased to announce the launch of a new online database, "Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763–1865)".

Through this online database, researchers can access more than 77,000 references to petitions for grants or leases of land created done by individuals who lived in present-day Ontario between 1763 and 1865.

The database is available at: www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/upper-canada-land/index-e.html.

About Library and Archives Canada

The mandate of Library and Archives Canada is to preserve the documentary heritage of Canada for the benefit of present and future generations and to be a source of enduring knowledge accessible to all, thereby contributing to the cultural, social and economic advancement of Canada. Library and Archives Canada also facilitates co-operation among communities involved in the acquisition, preservation and diffusion of knowledge, and serves as the continuing memory of the Government of Canada and its institutions.

The Genealogy Services www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy include all physical and online genealogical services of Library and Archives Canada. They offer genealogical content, services, advice, research tools and opportunities to work on joint projects, all in both official languages.

The contributions of many LAC staff were instrumental in the success of this project, and their efforts are much appreciated.

For more information, please contact webservices@lac-bac.gc.ca.