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).