New Brunswick Genealogy Society Has a New Website

This bit of news slipped by me, and I hadn’t noticed that the New Brunswick Genealogical Society has a new web site.

They offer FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ's) which answers all the questions that you have about the NBGS.

They also have some interesting online indexes like the First Families Index.

The daughter of my 4x great grandfather Andrew BARCLAY (a Loyalist in Shelburne, Nova Scotia), whose name was Jane BARCLAY, married Dr. John Boyd, and they moved to Saint John, New Bruswick shortly after they were married. Both of their name are included in the “First Families Index" of surnames containing 104,626 entries. What a resourse!

They also have area death records online, surname research that is being conducted, information about their newsletter Generations, and a Forum that covers Home Children.

Go to the new web site at www.nbgs.ca

If you want to do some research in New Brunswick records, I would suggest that you combine this site with the New Brunswick Archives web site at http://archives.gnb.ca/Archives/Default.aspx?culture=en-CA where you can search 3,048,551 names from 30 databases!

Summer Day Camps

We are starting to think of summer already, and summer camps.

There will be a summer camp for children ages 6 to 10, and the Canadian Museum of Civilization will challenge your child’s imagination with a week of fun and learning — in a bilingual environment.

The camp will be held from

July 15 to 19, 2013

July 22 to 26, 2013

August 12 to 16, 2013

August 19 to 23, 2013

The fee is $250 for non-members, and $225 for museum members.

Registration starts on February 18 at 9 a.m

For information, you can call 819-776-7014, or you can go to information@civilization.ca

UPDATE! FREE Ancestry.ca

Ancestry.ca is offering FREE access to the Canadian Marriage Collections from Feb. 14 to 18th in honour of Valentine’s Day!

The press release says –

“No matter what your relationship status, Valentine’s Day is a time to reflect on the love shared by our ancestors, without whom we wouldn’t exist today. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Ancestry.ca, Canada’s leading family history website, has dug deep into its vast collection of historical documents and discovered that Canada has long been a nation of serial romantics.

For some, Valentine’s Day involves a candle-lit dinner, but that isn’t enough for some! Yet records show that many Canadians honoured the holiday in a more committed fashion, with over 13,000 couples between 1608 and 1948 affirming their love with a February 14th wedding.

To commemorate this special day, Ancestry.ca is offering free access to its collection of historical Canadian Marriage records. Records in this collection date as far back as 1621 and contain key information about the newlyweds and their parents; information that can help expand an existing family tree and allow you to better understand the love birds in your family’s history”.

Go to http://search.ancestry.ca/search/group/Canada_Marriages?o_iid=54249&o_lid=54249&o_sch=Web+Property

UELAC Conduct Online Survey

Robert C. McBride UE, Editor of The Loyalist Gazette and UELAC Dominion President has sent this press release out last evening -

“As every organization should do, the UELAC is reviewing its communications with members and others. Please take this short survey to tell us how we are reaching you and for those who receive it, in more detail, your thoughts about The Loyalist Gazette.

Those who took the test version said it took about five minutes, but we would appreciate you taking a little longer to add a comment or three. For those who already took the survey as part of the test group, there is no need to take it again. Once you have taken the survey, if you wish to change any of your answers, use the same computer and just click on the survey link again to reenter the survey and make changes.

The world around us changes. We need to be mindful of those changes, and to move with them, but in a way that can best serve your interests.

The survey will be open until end of day Sunday March 3, 2013. Please help us by telling us what you think”.

To take the survey now, go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/MSR7QVZ

LAC Postcast: Home Children

The Library and Archives Canada has just released its sixth podcast episode, and this time it’s on the Home Children.

The the press release say “LAC Project Manager and Genealogist Marthe Séguin-Muntz along with John Sayers of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa talk about the lives of Canada’s Home Children. They discuss some of the incredible stories of hardship and prosperity in early Canada, share a wealth of resources available at LAC and provide helpful research tips and tools to discover your family history”.

Subscribe to the podcast episodes using RSS or iTunes, or just tune in at: Podcast – Discover Library and Archives Canada: Your History, Your Documentary Heritage.

To go to the postcasts, click on www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/news/podcasts/Pages/home-children.aspx

If you choose not to listen to the postcasts, there is a transcript of the talk on the same page as the postcast.

Ancestry.ca Puts on Web: Manitoba, Birth Index, 1866-1912

The key word here is “Web” Search. It means that Ancestry. ca has put on the index from online vital statistics from libraries, local governments, genealogical societies, universities and genealogists from all over the country.

They have put on 476, 200 birth records from Manitoba.

Ancestry.ca says that they make it easier to “find records from many of these content publishers. To help you find genealogy information wherever it exists, we summarize basic information from freely-available web records and provide a link to the original site where you can view the full record, including any associated images”.

If you want like to ckeck these records, go to http://search.ancestry.ca/search/db.aspx?dbid=70599

The Manitoba government declared in 2003 that The Vital Statistics Act was to provide unrestricted access to the following records

Births more than 100 years ago

Marriages more than 80 years ago

Deaths more than 70 years ago

In particular, the index gives you the first and last names of the person, the date of birth, and the place of birth.

You can order the record from the full birth registration from The Vital Statistics Agency for a fee.

Go to the website http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php

Irish Palatine Group Sponsors Ontario Genealogical Tour

The Irish Palatines have the Irish Palatines in Ontario Tour in September of this year. And it seems like they will be visiting many spots of interest to the Irish Palatines in Ontario.

Here is the press release that was sent out a few days ago -

The Irish Palatine Special Interest Group (IP-SIG) is pleased to sponsor a 10-day Irish Palatines in Ontario Tour to take place September 5-15, 2013. You do not have to be a member of the IP-SIG in order to join us on the tour.

However, seating is limited and the bus is already over half full so if you want to be part of the Tour, book your seat today. Download the Tour brochure that outlines the places we will visit, as well as the cost. The tour brochure is available at http://briandunk.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/tour-brochure-final.pdf

The tour will highlight several Irish Palatine settlement areas and we will meet various Palatine descendants along the way. The tour also includes visits to many major historical and tourists sites across Ontario. Accommodations will be at quality hotels in the heart of several major Ontario cities as well as a one night stop at a lovely, large Ontario cottage country resort.

If you are interested in joining our tour, please do not hesitate to contact "Great Canadian Holidays" for details at 1-800-467-8687 (ext. 280).

They now have a WordPress page at www.ogs.on.ca/ip-sig , in addition to the website at www.ogs.on.ca/ireland

Reminder: If you want the GenealogyCanada blog updates to come to you everyday in your email, send your address to genealogycanada@aol.com with the subject heading Blog Update, and I will put you on the email list.