2014 Will Be The Centennial of the First World War

One place where Canada is starting to plan commemoration of the First World War in 2014 is Kenora, Ontario.

Canada declared war on Germany August 5, 1914 following Britain who had declared war a day earlier.  

Over the next four years, 620,000 Canadians, and over 400,000 would serve overseas on the battlefields of France. 67,000 Canadian servicemen, and women died, and 173,000 were wounded. There were over a thousand local men from Kenora who joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

The Lake of the Woods Museum, in conjunction with the Kenora Public Library, and local genealogy group Ancestor Seekers of Kenora are undertaking a huge project of producing a data base where they will list every local man and woman who served in the First World War. They will also make biographical sketches on the soldiers, and put any other information that can be supplied by the public for each man and woman.  

Right now, there are over two dozen people who are working on the project, but more are needed.

Tomorrow at 7 p.m. the museum will be hosting an information, and training session for volunteers who would like to help with research.

If you want more information, you can go to the Ancestor Seekers of Kenora webpage at http://askgen.ning.com to read more about the project.

Indexing [Part B] Ontario Marriages, 1869–1927 Now Complete

FamilySearchh.org has told us that the Ontario Marriages 1869-1927 [Part B] is now complete.

The project have been removed from the available online indexing batches, and will now go through a final completion check process. Once this is completed, it will join the regular search feature.

To bring yourself up-to-date with the projects the FamilySeach is indexing, go to

https://indexing.familysearch.org/projtab/current_projects.jsf

30th Anniversary Party – Durham Branch OGS

Garry R. Holland, in charge of the publicity for the Durham Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) http://www.ogs.on.ca/durham/index.htm, writes and tells us that Durham Branch will hold it's 30^th Anniversary party on Tuesday June 5^th at 7:30 pm.

At the Anniversary Celebration there will be Nancy Trimble, the former president of the OGS, and she will talk on "Look to the Future - Social Networking", and Janis Carter who will talk on the history of the branch, and will present a slide-show. And there will be the all important CAKE to celebrate the 30^th Anniversary!!

Bring along your family trees, for you may find unexpected ancestor connections to others while at this meeting/celebration.

The meetings are held at the Main Branch of the Oshawa Library (basement auditorium). They hold meetings on the first Tuesday of each month, in the basement auditorium, 65 Bagot Street, just south of City Hall.

The OGS 2013 Conference will he held in Oshawa next year.

New/Improved Canadian Websites and Blogs Week 25

City of Vancouver Archives http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/archives/digitized/EarlyVan/index.htm All seven volumes of Major Matthews' Early Vancouver photos are now online.

The Children of Fort Langley www.fortlangley.ca Information on the descendants of the Hudson Bay Company employees who worked at Fort Langley between 1827 and 1895.

The First Newspapers on Canada's West Coast: 1858-1863

http://hughdoherty.tripod.com/victoria.htm Newspapers from Victoria, British Columbia in the years 1856-1863.

Prince of Wales: Immigration List 1813 http://tmsnyder.tripod.com/PW_LIST.htm List of Scottish passengers who in 1813 arrived from Stromness, Orkney, Scotland at York Factory. They arrived two months later at York Factory in Manitoba.

War of 1812 History www.1812history.com You can read about such items as period newspapers, military uniforms, weapons and documents, business records, letters, and clothing. There is also a blog at www.1812history.com/blog.html.

Acadia Parish, Louisiana https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Acadia_Parish,_Louisiana Although this is a parish in Louisiana, there are plenty of references made to the Acadians of Nova Scotia.

The Upper St. John River Valley www.upperstjohn.com Transcriptions of early censuses, surveys, land grants, and maps. If you go on the "What's New" webpage, you will see where the author has added many new records.  

Welcome to Al Beagan's "Genealogy Notes" http://members.tripod.com/~Al_Beagan/start.htm

Genealogy Notes of PEI, NFLD, and those that went to the "Boston States".

Nova Scotia Historic Notes... www.twrsoft.com/trivia/hist08.htm Notes from Nova Scotia from 1398 to 1995.

Montcalm Passenger List, July 16, 1936 www.daveobee.com/resources/pilgrim.html The Montcalm sails for Europe, July 16, 1936 on the "Vimy and Battlefields Pilgrimage". Dave Obee has put the passengers' names on this site.

Genealogy Research Toolbox

This has been my week for webinars! I listened to two of them from Ancestry.com, and another one sponsored by the Southern California Genealogy Society at www.scgsgenealogy.com,which featured Thomas MacEntee from Geneabloggers www.geneabloggers.com called Genealogy Research Toolbox.

First of all, i It must be said that Thomas' Genealogy Toolbox is FREE to take from his site at http://genealogytoolbox.weebly.com/index.html. I have just been to his site, and there were a few links that I am interested in, and will add to my site, and you can do the same thing.

But not to get ahead of myself, a Genealogy Research Toolbox (GRT) is a list of links that you have decided is key to your research. After you have made your choices, you can organize them in either a website, a “wiki”, a blog, or maybe by using Favorites or Bookmarks in your browser, for instance. The choice is yours.

The first to do this was visit Cyndi's List at www.cyndislist.com to see what links are there which would interest you, take them, and add them to your own Genealogy Research Toolbox.  

One site I will be adding to my list is RootsWeb Search Thingy at http://searches.rootsweb.ancestry.com. I have used this before and found it useful, but haven't use it lately, so I will add that to my list.

Another site is the FamilySearch Family History Books on Beta http://books.familysearch.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=1&dstmp=1337256808838&vid=FHD_PUBLIC&fromLogin=true. FamilySearch is putting the books that they have online (most are books that were published before 1923), and I will add it to my list, and read the books later.  

If you want more help setting up your own personal research list, you can go to Genealogy Research Toolbox at www.genealogy-research-tools.com to get excellent advice on how to set one up, and how to use it to your advantage.

So if you haven't set one up already, take some time to do it so that you can find sites very easily, saving you time and aggravation in trying to find them in the wide-open Internet world.  

My thanks go to the Southern California Genealogical Society and Thomas MacEntee for putting on this webinar.

Ancestry.com Webinars

Monday night, I listened to a webinar given by Ancestry.com called “Ready, Set, Go! Family History How-To Everyone Should Know”.

Although I don't usually write on Ancestry.com (I try keep my remarks to their Canadian website, Ancestry.ca, on my blog), I made an exception this week, and listened to an introductory webinar. I wanted to hear what they had to say about researching, and Crista Cowan (the girl who lead the webinar – she is behind The Barefoot Genealogist's blog on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/notes/crista-cowan/why-am-i-called-the-barefoot-genealogist/3140686791615) gave some good tips that anyone can use – be they a beginner or an experienced genealogist.

She gave a list of what she calls “Genealogy Conventions”. I picked three conventions to write on -  

When dealing with a married couples, always put the woman's maiden name with her married name in the family tree. I always put (if I know it) her maiden name in the family tree, or in the search box. That is, if I know what it is. If you don't know what it is when searching, leave that field blank. In French-Canadian genealogy, it is preferable (because of Quebec civil laws listing all of a female's records under her birth name) to use the woman's maiden name when looking up civil records, as it will greatly increase your chances of finding her records vice finding them under her married name).

In a family tree, put the surname that you are researching in CAPS (capital letters), and leave all other names in non-caps. Now this is interesting, but it make perfect sense. The surname will leap out at you when it is in caps, and you can easily find the name you are looking for. An excellent idea!  

The trouble with place names — which seems to be a constant complaint I hear with my research work in Canada — is, how do I approach this? Crista says that it is a problem everywhere – just think about the problems in Europe!

But we have problems in Canada, too. Right now, I am researching a place in Ontario that had a name change in 1800s, plus a township name change.  

So, you must put the exact name where the event took place.  

Remember that in order to find out all the information which is on the 1851 Canada Census, you must check with the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website www.lac-bac.gc.ca – and you must have the correct name in the search box, or else the search engine will say, “No Results Found”. Ancestry doesn't show everything on a record, so you will have to go to the LAC to find the information.

I must say that it was very good. If you missed it on the 14^th, it is going to be placed in their onsite archives in the Learning Center at www.ancestry.com/cs/HelpAndAdviceUS.

Postscript: One place to check first on Ancestry.ca to see if they have a certain record is the Card Catalog http://search.ancestry.ca/search/CardCatalog.aspx#ccat=hc%3D25%26dbSort%3D1%26sbo%3D1%26. They have all the records there, and you can check that first before deciding to subscribe to Ancestry.ca. And it's FREE!

Genealogy “Summer Camp” in Toronto

"Have you ever wondered what you can do this summer? Go to the Toronto Summer Camp for genealogists from August 12 to the 17^th!

Genealogy "Summer Camp" is a unique program (for adults) that brings out-of-town family historians to Toronto for an intensive week of tutorials and hands-on research at the many archives and reference libraries in the city. If you have ancestors from Toronto or other parts of Ontario, there are many resources here for you. Local family historians are also welcome to participate as “day campers”. We take full advantage of Toronto’s great public transit system, and we keep the group small to allow lots of help from our local experts.

We’ll help you spend more time finding information about your ancestors—and less time finding the archives.

This will be our 16th Summer Camp. More than 125 participants from England, right across Canada and many US states have attended the 15 previous Summer Camps—some more than once!

Genealogy “Summer Camp” 2012 will take place from August 12-17. The Summer Camp fee for 2012 is $230 (CDN), which covers approximately 7 hours of lectures and tutorials, 25 hours of hands-on instruction and all worksheets and handouts.

For details as to venues, resources, tutorials and accommodation, and to download an application package, visit www.torontofamilyhistory.org/summercamp.html, or contact Jane MacNamara at info@torontofamilyhistory.org.

Applications should be received by 11 June 2012."