Genealogy Canada

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Guelph Museum - Your stories live here

The Guelph Civic Museum in Guelph, Ontario will host an exhibit Ordinary Lives, Extraordinary Times: Italian Canadian Experiences During WWII. This exhibit opens next Friday, with a reception starting at 6.30 p. m.

More than 31,000 Italian-Canadians were designated "enemy aliens" and around 600 were removed from their homes and held in prisons and camps. Many also lost jobs or experienced racism and violence in their communities.

And while you are there, why not take the time to look at their archives (many of which are already online – and there are photos, objects, papers at http://guelph.pastperfectonline.com/).

The museum was started back in the 1960s, and moved to 52 Norfolk Street, the former Loretto Convent in 2012.

Their website is at http://guelph.ca/museum/

Check the Canadian Week in Review every Monday morning for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada.

If you missed this week’s edition, it is at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/04/canadian-week-in-review-13-april-2015_13.html

It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!

It has been a regular post every Monday morning since April 23, 2012.

Did your ancestor' s marry or die in Victoria, British Columbia?

If you have ancestors in the City of Victoria in British Columbia, then maybe you should look at the City of Victoria Archives.

They have the following reords online -

Ross Bay Cemetery Records 1872-1980

The information about each gravesite (where possible), as well as photos and descriptions of select gravesites along tour routes. The map can be used to determine the location of gravesites within the cemetery.

Death Notices Index1901-1939

Marriage Notices Index 1901-1939

The archives was started in 1967 by Ainslie Helmcken, a descendant of one of Victoria's pioneer families. Mr. Helmcken held the position of City Archivist, he worked to create strong ties to the people of Victoria and was very active in the acquisition of archives.

The website is at http://www.victoria.ca/EN/main/departments/legislative-services/archives.html

Cape Beaton Institute Digital Archives

This website provides access to the digital collections of the Beaton Institute, Cape Breton University, Nova Scotia.

The Digital Archives is an online database that contains archival descriptions from the holdings of the Beaton Institute.

Notice that there are places in Cape Breton here at http://beatoninstitute.com/places that you can search, as well, as people and organizations at http://beatoninstitute.com/actor/browse, and there is full archival descriptions at http://beatoninstitute.com/informationobject/browse

The website is at http://www.cbu.ca/beaton/archway#.VTEq3HnD-aU

Happy Researching!

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Two newspaper column this week

Janice Nickerson and Dr. Fraser Dunford, two Ontario genealogists, have newspaper columns this week in area newspapers.

Janice continues on with her monthly column in the City Centre Mirror by writing GENEALOGY WITH JANICE: What’s in your closet?

Old documents tell your family’s history and they may be hidden in your mother's or grandmother’s closet for safe keeping until it is discovered one day by yourself, or another person. What a find!

To find out what you may possibly find, go to the newspaper article at http://www.insidetoronto.com/news-story/5561867-genealogy-with-janice-what-s-in-your-closet-old-documents-tell-your-family-s-history/

Janice’s website is at http://www.uppercanadagenealogy.com/aboutus.html

And Fraser Dunford continues with his column, and this time he writes about census in Ontario.

Fraser is a professional genealogist and member of Kawartha Branch, OGS, and former executive director of the Ontario Genealogical Society, and he has written a column called The Amateur Genealogist: How To Read A Census.

They both offer sage advice. They have been at the game for a while, so to speak, and they offer good advice.

His article is at http://www.mykawartha.com/community-story/5561328-the-amateur-genealogist-how-to-read-a-census/

New Brunswick Archives adds more birth records

On April the 16th, the Province of New Brunswick Archives has added 2,284 birth records to the years 1870 -1877 at http://archives.gnb.ca/Search/VISSE/?culture=en-CA

There is an excellent finding aid at http://archives.gnb.ca/Documents/FindingAids/GovernmentRecords/RS141-EN.pdf, and this finding aid cover births, marriages and deaths and there is an Introduction and a Help page.

You can search 3,179,613 names from 34 databases in one place online!

The website for the Province of New Brunswick Archives is http://archives.gnb.ca/Archives/?culture=en-CA

Happy researching!

Friday, April 17, 2015

A “New” old historical society of Toronto

The goal of the New Toronto Historical Society is to preserve and promote the history of the Town of New Toronto.

The village of New Toronto is located on the north shore of Lake Ontario, bounded by Mimico on the east and Long Branch on the west It was incorporated as a village in 1913, became part of the City of Etobicoke in 1967, and then part of the city of Toronto.

But it has a history of its own, as is clear when you read what is online.

If you go down the left hand side a click the Discover page and it opens a page of over 40 links to different subjects like from the Cumberland House, to schools in the area to New Toronto Fish & Chips.

There will be a meeting on Tuesday, April 28 at 7 pm at the LAMP CHC (New Toronto Town Hall0, 185 Fifth Street when the society will welcome Archives Ontario’s Stewart Boden.

He will feature historical film clips from the Archives’ collection, all produced by the Ontario government. The all-Ontario subjects of the films include health promotion, tourism, education and OPS staff training.

The website of the New Toronto Historical Society is http://www.newtorontohistorical.com/

To read more history of New Toronto, you can go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Toronto

Ontario's Movie Theatres

From May 2nd to the 29th, the travelling exhibit "Ontario's Movie Theatres" from the Archives of Ontario will be in the Part Hope Archives at http://www.porthopearchives.com/whats-new.html

They will also show the exhibit "A 'Capitol' Idea: Port Hope's Capitol Theatre" which has been curated by the Port Hope Archives in partnership with the Capitol Theatre.

While there, they have photographs; artworks; business records (i.e. ledgers, minute books, etc.); genealogical resources (i.e. family histories, bibles); Municipal records; personal papers collections; maps & blueprints; local history publications; and research databases for you to research.

Their Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/PHArchives?_rdr

An incredible number of letters!!!

Ancestry.com has put on a great First World War record set – Canadians who fought under the Imperial Army, Navy, or Air, and who were entitled to payment under the Imperial War Service Gratuities, 1919-1921.

You may ask - Why would a Canadian enlist in England? Why wouldn’t he enlist in Canada?

Yes, normally he would enlist in Canada. But what if he was in England at the time that the First World War broke out? What would happen then?

He would enlist in the British troops, and this is exactly where Edward Barcley, from Debert, Nova Scotia, found himself. He was in England visiting his parents at the time.

The record set contains letters. Many letters!

And if you are a descendent of Edward Barcley of Debert, Nova Scotia, you will know, as it is written in one of the many letters you can search at Ancestry.com, that he was sent as an ‘immigrant boy’ - from a Middlemore Home to Canada in 1906! He came with his brother and sister (although he doesn't name them).

This is incredible information – right from the immigrant’s mouth, so to speak.

It just goes to show you, that when you start to search records - you will never know what you will find!!!!!!!!!!

So if you can't find them in the Canadian records, but you know he or she was in the First World War, then check these records. They might be here.

The website is at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=9149

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Digitized Directory of Schools

This afternoon I was doing some research in Nova Scotia, and I came across the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development: Digitized Directory of Schools (1950s-present) at bit.ly/1Cn6wXE

They name the school, where it is located, and how many teachers were employed at the school, and starting in 1958, they give the principles names, and extra information about the schools. There are even notes in some of the books that may prove helpful.

They are organized by the counties, and then by school districts within the individual county.

Happy researching!

The Town of Tecumseh has launched their historical archives

The Tecumseh Historical Archives is the result of an archiving project, undertaken by the Town of Tecumseh, in partnership with the Tecumseh Area Historical Society and Employment Ontario, to digitize the history of Tecumseh by photographing and scanning historically significant items and documents that were then uploaded into an online archive known as the Tecumseh Historical Archives.

The first thing that has been done is to put the Tecumseh Tribune online at http://ink.scholarsportal.info/tribune

You can choose any issue between January 30 1959 to November 11, 2010 to research.

At the Tecumseh Historical Society are deeds from Tecumseh, St. Clair Beach, Maidstone and Sandwich South area. They also have artifacts of medical supplies from Col. Paul Poisson, who was Tecumsehʼs first mayor, antique photographs of the old centre of the town, memorabilia from the Tecumseh Baseball Club, a Doherty pump organ, the telephone switchboard from Hotel Dieu Hospital, an Essex Scottish army uniform, and a photographic portrait of the townʼs first postmaster, Joseph Christe.

Follow the developments on their Facebbok page of the Tecumseh-Historical-Museum https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tecumseh-Historical-Museum-Ontario/303551066341121

BRAVO! The LAC has listened …

Attestation Paper for Thomas Cussons, regimental no. 675270, Canadian Expeditionary Force personnel files, RG 150, accession number Accession 1992-93/166, Box 2057 – 51; (http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/image.aspx?Image=073302a&URLjpg=http%3a%2f%2fdata2.archives.ca%2fcef%2fgat1%2f073302a.gif&Ecopy=073302a); accessed 15 April 2015); Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Canada.

The Library and Archives Canada (LAC) today released the latest news on digitizing the First World War Service files. Not only did they say that 143,613 of 640,000 files are available online via their Soldiers of the First World War: 1914-1918 website, but for the first time, they have released the surnames of the soldiers that they have digitized.

Thank heavens! It was a never-ending guessing game whether I should go ahead and request a file, and go to the LAC and take photos of the record, or view it online. I never knew which I should do.

But I had written to them a month ago and asked them if they would tell us where they are on the digitizing scheme of things, and now they have. So bravo to the LAC!

The latest digitized box is #2057, which corresponds to the surname Thomas Cussons. I looked up the name, and it is there – the full service record!

So, hopefully, this little addition to the LAC blog will make a difference to researchers out there. Now I must write a letter of “Thanks” to the people who are working on the boxes.

The website for the First World War Service files is http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/first-world-war/first-world-war-1914-1918-cef/Pages/canadian-expeditionary-force.aspx

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Durham Region Branch is expanding the scope of their meetings

The Durham Region Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is adding more to their meeting, and they are expanding in a good way.

According to their website, they are going to have, in addition to their standard meetings, the following new items are being added before the meetings -

TONI Tidbits from this huge database of over 3 million genealogical entries

Brick Wall Bomb - a 15 minute brainstorming session on a problem from the audience, and a 10-minute Mini-Talk on a variety of subjects.

This sounds exciting!

Their website is at http://durham.ogs.on.ca/

They have a blog at http://durham-branch.blogspot.com/

You can join their Facebook page by going to https://www.facebook.com/groups/durhamogs/

There is so much genealogy here

The Oshawa Public Library in Oshawa, Ontario just have oodles of information which have been digitized and are online at http://localhistory.oshawalibrary.ca/

They have been categorized into the following subject areas -

Clubs and Associations

Education in Oshawa

**Directories**

Entertainment in Oshawa

**General Local History**

Military

**Oshawa Families**

**Religious Life in Oshawa**

This is a prized collection (especially the Directories) that the library has put together.

Their website is at http://www.oshawalibrary.on.ca/

Their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/oshawapubliclibrary

Extra news items

Here are some news items which have come across the desk this week -

For those people who regularly follow the Dear Myrt's Beginning Genealogy posts here every week, there will not be a regular post today. Dear Myrt is attending the New England Regional Genealogical Consortium Conference in Providence, Rhode Island this week. She will return to her desk next week.

If you have not been following my posts, all of the posts are here at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/04/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-sessions_9.html

Also, the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society usually has their yearly Conference in the spring of the year. But they have found it impossible to plan one for this year, so they have postponed it until next year – 2016. So keep posted for news as it comes to us.

You have to listen to this!

Essex County Genealogical Society now hold their meeting on a YouTube channel, and the first presentation that they had this week was given by George Pitfield and called Do You Know Your Family?

George always thought that he was English (even had the genealogy to prove it), but a surprising turn in his search that he is full blood Aboriginal – on both sides of his family. All of that English genealogy was wrong. Since then, he has been made an Elder, and has leaned the language of his people. Truly fascinating story!

The YouTube presentation is at http://www.ogs.on.ca/essex/?page_id=165#Apr2015Speaker

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

National Volunteer Week in Canada

National Volunteer Week (NVW) is from April 12 to 18, 2015.

Annually, we spent close to two billion hours a year – the equivalent of approximately one million full-time jobs – in an effort to help out family, friends, and those in need to better our neighbourhoods and communities.

The call for the 2015 nominations for the Prime Minister’s Volunteer Awards was launched on April 13, 2015, and will run until June 30, 2015.

We, at Genealogy Canada, salute all of volunteers of the Canada genealogy community. We have volunteers who take photos of gravestones, who work on the The Ontario Name Index (TONI), who put together our monthly meetings, workshops, and conferences, and who work in our libraries, museum, and archives.

We appreciate what you do for us so that we have records to search, and encouragement to us when we feel that there is nothing left to search to find that elusive ancestors.

A big thank you to everyone. We appreciate all the work that you do.

The website for the National Volunteer Week is at http://volunteer.ca/

35th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy

35th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be held in Jerusalem this year from July 6 to the 10th.

The conference will be a truly international "Promised Event". Speakers and registrants hail from around the globe representing 20 nations to date including New Zealand, American Samoa, the Americas, Africa and all of Europe.

Their Preliminary Program is now listed in the website Program & Schedule in the "Program" tab of www.iajgs2015.org . You will see why they are boasting that this will be "A Conference Like No Other". The schedule will become interactive ...shortly.

As announced, the *keynote speaker will be Rabbi Israel Meir Lau,* one of the most prominent figures in Israeli society today. Rabbi Lau, a child survivor of the Holocaust, is an outstanding activist and orator. He will bring a message to genealogists reinforcing the value of their work researching individuals and families.

And Dick Eastman will be there!

They have announced that the *master genealogist Dick Eastman* will be speaking at the closing Banquet. In the mid-1980s, at the dawn of the World Wide Web, Eastman pioneered one of the first online Genealogy Forums. By 1996, he created a weekly online newsletter called "Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter" which has grown from a circulation of 100 to more than 60,000 genealogists.

Registration is now available on the Registration Form for the Shabbaton, Exploration Sunday, Breakfast with the Experts, SIG Luncheons and Banquet, and when you join them for the conference, don't miss the **pre-conference festivities:**

Their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/IAJGSConference

Beginning Genealogy classes in Winnipeg start today

There will be a two part genealogy Beginning Genealogy class in Winnipeg, Manitoba during the month of April, and the classes will be given by Bill Curtis of the Manitoba Genealogical Society.

The first class will be tonight from 6-8 pm, and the second class will be Tuesday April 21 and it also be from 6-8 pm. Bill will introduce the basics of genealogical research.

In Part 1, you will be a family history detective and find clues in a case study.

In Part 2, you will learn where to find personal information about individual ancestors both on and off the Internet.

These courses will be given at the HENDERSON LIBRARY in Winnipeg, and you can phone 204-986-4314 to register.

The webpage for the Manitoba Genealogical Society is at http://www.mbgenealogy.com/

Their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Manitoba-Genealogical-Society-Inc/7054423205

And they are also thinking about doing a possible group trip to Salt Lake City.

Anyone who is reading this and are interested in a possible trip for the week of May 17 to 24, 2015, are asked to please email Jayne Paradis. Rooms are $85US single/double and $92US triple/quad.

Jayne is looking into the costs of bussing and flying. Please email jparadis@mts.net if you are interested or if you have any questions.