Monday’s with Myrt Webinar

Yesterday, I listed to Dear Myrtle's (Pat Richley-Erickson) first webinar in her new series, “Mondays with Myrt”. What a delightful way to spend an hour or so listening to her and her cousin, Russ Worthington, who kept everything in running order.

She had, as special guest, Denise Levenick, The Family Curator blogger www.thefamilycurator.com, and author of a new book, How to Archive Family Keepsakes.

Pat and Denise talked about different aspects of archiving family heirlooms and how to go about doing that, and gave some advice on setting-up one's own archives.

Dear Myrt then had a lightning round at the end of the program in which listeners phoned in and told her how they archived their own family keepsakes.

And one more important thing to mention is that Dear Myrt asked people to enter the 2012 Share a Memory contest, and pne of the winners was Diane Rogers, the person behind the British Columbia Genealogy Society blog at http://www.bcgs.ca, and her own personal blog called CanadaGenealogy, or 'Jane's Your Aunt', at http://canadagenealogy.blogspot.com.

In her blog post of September 26, 2012 entitled, “My Childhood Room - Pink, Pink - My Share A Memory”, she talks about her childhood memory of her room in the house (she even has a floor plan of her bedroom, which she drew), and everything in the room was in her favourite coluor - PINK!

Congratulations, Diane!

So be sure to listen to Dear Myrt next week on "Mondays with Myrt". This webinar series will remain free, or you can register at http://blog.geneawebinars.com to hear her other webinar series. And don't forget to check her blog at http://blog.dearmyrtle.com.

I will see you next week as we listen to Dear Myrt on her “Mondays With Myrt” webinar.

New/Updated Websites, Blogs, and Newspaper Articles - 08 October 2012

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

Records From New France www.bms2000.org They are up to Version 16 of this database now, and they inclue the following records -

 

Parishes - 6,864 records

Patronyms - 15,614 records

Baptisms - 5,133,171 records

Marriages - 3,462,849 records

Burials - 2,255,309 records

They say that these records are “verified genealogical data”, and that the index is free. Once you have subscribed to the website, you can have access to the records themselves (for a fee).

 

Tutto Franchini! http://franchinisurname.wordpress.com Read about the Franchini family in Canada.

 

Robineau Family Genealogy www.robineau.ca Read about the Sauve, Cartier, Lavimodiere, Powell, and White families in Eastern Ontario and Quebec.

 

Half-brothers meet for the first time thanks to Internet search and Toronto Daily Star article from 1945 http://www.thestar.com/living/article/1267688--half-brothers-meet-for-the-first-time-thanks-to-internet-search-and-toronto-daily-star-article-from-1945 Nancy J. White, a reporter from the Toronto Star, reports on a story about a family from the Toronto area who have met a family member that they didn’t even know existed.

 

Donation of documents helps fill gap in area death records www.ngnews.ca/News/Local/2012-10-03/article-3092090/Donation-of-documents-helps-fill-gap-in-area-death-records/1 The News in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, reports that the Pictou County Roots Society www.pictoucountyroots.ca has discovered books in their local library that cover the period from 1877 to 1908. These books uncover death records that were previously unknown.

 

Celebrating all those yesterdays today www.kamloopsthisweek.com/entertainment/171350161.html Kamloops This Week, an online newspaper from British Columbia, has a story about how Gillian Gaisera, a genealogist from the area, read an article about genealogy in a local magazine, and started the Kamloops Family History Society! This year, they celebrate their 20th anniversary!

The website of the Kamloops Family History is at www.kfhs.org

Campbellford-Seymour Heritage Society

The society is located on Front Street in Campbellford on the main street in the middle of the town, and it is in a busy place with monthly meetings, member’s helping with cemetery transcriptions, and the Campbellford Model Railroad Club.

They have put together a Tour Guide and Map, and it contains two maps of the town (a town map, and a general map of the area), and inside of the publication, there is two full pages of sites called the Heritage of Our Community which, for example, the Ferris Provincial Park where the Highland Games are held every summer, the former bridge Street School, and the Empire Cheese & Butter Co-operative, the only cheese-making facility in Northumberland County.

They have produced four books - Gleanings, A History of Campbellford-Seymour; Campbellford Memorial Hospital: 50 Years of Care Beyond Compare, 1953-2003; A Walk Down Memory Lane: 150 Years of the Campbellford-Seymour Agricultural Society, 1854-2004; and Glimpses of Campbellford: A Collection of 300 Postcards from the Archives of the Campbellford-Seymour Heritage Society.

For research purposes, they have 119,000 family names, 100 Family Files, in their local database for Campbellford and Seymour, and Campbellford/Seymour Veterans of World War I and II.

To go to their website, click on to www.csheritage.org

Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800

The Nova Scotia Archives has gathered land records (1765-1800), and has put them on it's online database.

The information that is on the website says that “The records are a collection of petitions made to government by individuals or groups of people seeking grants of Crown Land for settlement purposes in early Nova Scotia”.

The database contains 11,464 names, and links from the petitioner's name to the fully digitized document files created for that particular land grant — 1890 files, containing 9259 image that were scanned.

They say that if you are searching for online information about early land settlement in Nova Scotia, you have come to the right place – you get to read the original document! The land records are from the "Record Group 20, Series A, Land Petitions and other material."

I did come across records belonging to Andrew BARCLAY, in Shelburne County, which completed, for me, his land records that I had been looking for from 1783 to 1785.

The website for the archives is http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm

The land records are at http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/landpapers

In addition, there are some records here from New Brunswick before it became a separate province in 1784.

Postscript: I am slowly going through the Nova Scotia Historical Newspaper Records for news about the Barclay family from Shelbure County, and the Webster family from Kentville, Kings County, although it does seen that I have not made much progress.

You can go to http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/newspapers

New FamilySearch Video

The other day, I learned that FamilySearch Center had put a new 10 minute video on the Family Seach site.

So I decided to take a look.

The title of the video is “Doing Research in Real Time-An Exhilarating Collaboration Experience!", and a team of researchers led David E. Rencher as he sets about researching in real time. The team was from around the country, and used records in Salt Lake City, Ancestry.ca, and from other parts of the U.S., for example, Alabama in real time.

I found that it gave a very good picture of how the research is done. And I would recommend it to everyone to get your genealogy done in a resonable amount of time.

The video is at https://familysearch.org/learningcenter/home.html

There is a The Wiki Article/Handout link at https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Doing_Research_in_Real_Time, that you can print out and use for reference later on, and a survey that you can complete.

The website for FamilySearch is at https://familysearch.org

BIFHSGO Meeting Saturday October 13th

On October 13th, 2012, starting at 9:000, at the Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, there will be a meeting of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ontario (BIFHSGO).

Starting at 9:00, there will be a “Before BIFHSGO Educational Talk” and it will be “Using A2A Archives (UK)” by Glenn Wright, from 9:15-10:00 am, there will be the “ Discovery Your Library and the Research Computer” out in the foyer, and from 10:00-11:30, there will be the monthly meeting speaker who will be Gillian Leitch, and she will talk about “Itchy Feet: Understanding the Emigrations of the Paulin Family from Henley-on-Thames” in the audiotorium.

She will discuss their various moves in England, their lives in their home-towns in England, and the reasons why chose the places to live that they did.

There is a 10 minute interview with Gillian by Brooke Broadbent on www.bifhsgo.ca/cpage.php?pt=59 in which she explains how she discovered the reasons why her family emigrated from England to Canada in the late/early 19th and 20th centuries, and then back to England again.

She says that being a professional historian, she always “spreads a wide net” so that she catches all of the reasons (both economic and political), as to why a family may emigrate.

There meetings are FREE, and open to everyone to come and enjoy family history.

The website for BIFHSGO is www.bifhsgo.ca

Births, Marriages, Deaths (BMD) Database

The Alberta Family Histories Society (AFHS) recently made the announcement that they have just added thousands of new records, bringing the total to almost 10,000!

It will continue to grow over time, and is a supplemental to the Newspaper announcements page.

The AFHS says that transcribers are needed. Help the Projects Committee record newspaper births, marriages and deaths.

By transcribing, you can 

■ Work from home!

■ Do as little or as much as you’d like (every little bit helps).

■ Have fun adding to the Alberta Family Histories Society’s databases.

■ Get that warm glow contributing to a worthwhile project gives you!

You can go to www.afhs.ab.ca/data/bmd/search.php to check the database, and be a AFHS transcriber!

Canada Voters Lists, 1935-1980

Ancesty.ca has added voter’s lists to their database online. As they say “Canada Voters Lists is our newest and largest collection to date and the one that may help you discover more of your family’s story”.

They contain such information as name, address, electoral district and occupations.

The women, if they are married at the time, appears as their married name, such as my mother – Mrs. Harold Barclay – not as her maiden name – Florence Blades.

I checked 1948, and 1965, two years in the voter’s list for my parent’s names –

In 1948, they were living with Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Westhaver, (train operator), at 37 Summit Street, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and my father was listed as a meat cutter.

By 1965, we were living in Jordan Falls, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, and my father was a cook.

There can be mistakes in the voter’s list, because the database is an  OCR version from the original record.

For instance, in the 1965 list, my father’s middle name was listed as “cihik”, which was his occupation (cook), not his middle name. So I must correct that.

When time allows, I will check the rest of the family, who lived in southwestern Nova Scotia. It will be helpful when I marry together the year’s that members were in the United States, and when they returned to Nova Scotia.

Go to www.ancestry.ca/cavoterslists?o_xid=52461&o_lid=52461&o_sch=Email

The Association of Nova Scotia

The association has a new website, and having spent sometime there this morning, I am quite impressed!

There have their library holdings online, a Facts and Tips page, and a Surname page.

They also have FREE databases that you can check. These are all good databases, with lots of information in them.

They databases are -

Index to records of the Halifax Funeral Home

Index to Vital Stats from "The Colonial Patriot" 1827-1834

Published Genealogies of Nova Scotia Families

Nova Scotia Genealogist Subject Index

Genealogical Newsletters of the Nova Scotia Historical Society

The new site is very pleasing to the eye, and it makes you want to believe that they will keep adding to the databases. They also have a Member's Only page, which also holds databases.

On Tuesday, the 27 November 2012, at 7:30, they will hold their 3rd Annual Brick Wall Busters in which they will address "Road Blocks in Your Genealogy Research: How to Proceed".

Dr. Allan Marble, CG(C), President, GANS and Ginny Clark CG(C), Past President, Genealogical Institute of the Maritimes will be there to help you get through those Brick Walls.

The meeting will be held at Akins A/V Room, Nova Scotia Archives,
Public Archives Site, 6016 University Avenue, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The new website at http://www.novascotiaancestors.ca

And if you want to check their Facebook, go to www.facebook.com/NovaScotiaAncestors

Relatively Speaking

The newsletter of the Alberta Genealogical Society headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, has over 10 indexes of their newsletter "Relatively Speaking" online.

You can search their individual indexes to the newsletter, with issues starting online at 2004. There is also a summary of the newsletter, and supplements such as Bylaw Changes, AGM 2012, and Policy Changes.

The full issue of the newsletter itself is available at the Member’s Only website online at www.abgensoc.ca.

Moreover, they have great news!

The 40th Anniversary will be held next year, in 2013, in Edmonton. It will be celebrated at the Alberta Genealogical Society, Conference 2013, to be held April 20 & 21, 2013,

The website is www.abgensoc.ca.

The blog about the conference is at www.abgensoc.ca/AGSConference2013.jpg

The Toronto History Lecture

A press release came from The Toronto History Lecture this morning, and I thought that you would be interested -

“Please join us again this year in spreading the word about The Toronto History Lecture. It will be held on October 24 at 7:30 pm at the City of Toronto Archives and is presented jointly by the Archives and the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society.

To commemorate the bicentennial of the War of 1812, the City of Toronto Museum Services created a Book of Remembrance for the men of York who fell during the war and all the casualties of the Battle of York. Janice Nickerson's research on the militia men uncovered so many fascinating stories that she decided to put them together in a book, York's Sacrifice: Militia Casualties of the War of 1812.

For the bicentennial year's Toronto History Lecture, Janice will tell a few stories of the men, women and children whose lives were transformed by this pivotal event in the history of Toronto.

Admission is free, but reservation is required. Their website is at www.toronto.ca/archives

Many members of the heritage community contributed to the great success of last year's inaugural Toronto History Lecture. We look forward to a similar success on October 24th”.

May I add that in the November 2012 issue of the Ontario Genealogical Society Families, we will have a book excerpt from Janice’s book mentioned above, and a book review.

The website of the OGS is www.ogs.on.ca

New/Updated Websites, Blogs, and Newspaper Articles

I have come across the following websites, blogs, and newspaper articles this past week, and I thought you would be interested in them too –

A Family Tapestry http://afamilytapestry.blogspot.com Canadian and U.S. surnames such as STEVENS, TULLY, KELLY, FLOWERS, GORDON, METZGER, DAVIS, BOOTHE, McCLELLAN, PUCHALSKI, LASKOWSKI are studied in this blog.

Scrathings http://stephenheeney.com This is a new book which traces the author's newly-found aboriginal ancestry to the Six Nations of the Grand River (Iroquois) DAVIS family in Ontario.

Browns Yard http://brownsyard.wordpress.com A new blog has been put on about St Paul's Anglican Church, between Moncton and Miramichi City in New Brunswick. The blogger says that it is very remote and travel is mostly on dirt roads. She put the cemetery on the Internet for family members, but found out that more people were becoming interested, so she decided to open it to everyone.

Canada Calls Off Franklin Search, For Now http://blogs.wsj.com/canadarealtime/2012/09/24/canada-calls-off-franklin-search-for-now/?mod=google_news_blog Alistair MacDonald of The Wall Street Journal reports that the Canadian ships searching for Sir John Franklin are back in port, and have called off the search for that disappeared ships almost 200 years ago. (accessed 25 September 2012)

100 years of flight celebrated in Charlottetown http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2012/09/24/pei-flight-100-years-airplane-584.html The CBC reports that the first airplane flight in Charlottetown on the “Red Devil” took place 100 years ago, and a plaque commemorating it was recently dedicated. (accessed 25 September 2012).

Lucille Campey at BIFHSGO Conference

On Saturday and Sunday, September 15th and 16th, I attended the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa's Conference, and heard Ottawa native, Dr. Lucille Campey, give three talks about emigration from the British Isles to Canada.

Since I am deeply interested in emigration, I had waited impatiently since first hearing that she was coming to speak at the conference, so I had to make sure that I did not miss any of her talks.

The first talk was “Lord Selkirk and the Settlement of Scottish Highlanders in Canada”, and Lucille says that he is a favorite of hers to write about because he had such a strong personality, and such a commitment to bring Scottish Highlanders to Canada to settle in Red River, Manitoba; Baldoon (Wallaceburg), Ontario; and Belfast in Prince Edward Island.

Her next talk on Sunday was “Seeking a Better Future: The English Pioneers of Ontario and Quebec” in which she challenged the commonly-held idea that people were running from poverty in the homeland. She found out in her research that the English came to Canada seeking greater freedoms and a more attractive style of life than they could find at home.

Her third talk, “The Scots in Ontario – a New Look at the Data”, looked at Ontario census data to explain why Scottish people settled in the area where they settled. She showed genealogists why people such as weavers and kelp farmers settled in particular areas in Ontario. It was an interesting talk for me because it showed the patterns of settlement, and the reasons why people settled in one area, and not in another.

You should check out her books on emigration at Dundurn Press http://www.dundurn.com/authors/lucille_h_campey, and the interviews that were done with her by BIFHSGO at www.bifhsgo.ca/upload/files/Conference%202012/Campey.mp3 In addition, there is an interview with Lucille Campey, Chris Paton, and Patricia Whatley by Ottawa's Austin Comerton on his radio show, The Gaelic Hour (CJLL 97.9 FM) www.thegaelichour.ca. To listen to the interview, click here - www.thegaelichour.ca/20120916.m3u

You can visit her Scottish website at www.scotstocanada.com, and her English website at www.englishtocanada.com