Canadian Week in Review 19 August 2013

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

Websites

Canadian Society of Mayflower Descendants http://www.csmd.org Have you been to this website lately? I had the occasion to go to it last week and notice that they have chapters (called colonies) across the country, and they appeared to be an active group in Canada.

Blogs

Canadian Heritage Tours on The Waterways www.thegreatwaterway.com/blogs A collection of different things to do and see on the Rideau Canal Waterway in Ontario.

Facebook, Videos, You Tube

No sites this week.

Newspapers Articles of the Week

Thousands connect with Alberta's Ukrainian heritage http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2013/08/12/edmonton-ukrainian-heritage-day.html The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village is located at Edmonton Alberta, along Highway 16, just 3 km east of Elk Island National Park. It is an open-air museum that tells the story of Ukrainian immigrants who settled in this region to 1930 (1892-1930). The website is www.history.alberta.ca/ukrainianvillage/default.aspx

Confederation Centre to play host to new Mi'kmaq exhibition

www.journalpioneer.com/News/Local/2013-08-12/article-3347467/Confederation-Centre-to-play-host-to-new-Mikmaq-exhibition/1  A new travelling exhibition highlighting the Mi’kmaq history of Prince Edward Island is set to open at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery in Charlottetown.

Fort Vermilion marks 225th anniversary with a parade that touches on its historic past www.edmontonjournal.com/Fort+Vermilion+marks+225th+anniversary+with+parade+that+touches+historic+past/8775802/story.html The float down the main street in Fort Vermilion told of the start of the town as a fur trading post established by Charles Boyer with the Northwest Company on the banks of the Peace River in 1788.

Vikings exhibit coming to Museum of Civilization in 2015 www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/Vikings+exhibit+coming+Museum+Civilization+2015/8793876/story.html The exhibition We Call Them Vikings will open at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in November, 2015, and continue to the next April.

Swaminarayan sect buys 2 US, Canada churches http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-08-15/ahmedabad/41412652_1_churches-sansthan-mahesh-varsani The  Shree Swaminarayan Gaadi Sansthan Maninagar religion, based in India, is busy buying unused churches across the world. One such church is a 100-year old church in Scarborough, Ontario – next door to Toronto.

Key piece of lighthouse history makes it back home www.ngnews.ca/News/Local/2013-08-14/article-3351059/Key-piece-of-lighthouse-history-makes-it-back-home/1 Barry MacDonald, president of the Nova Scotia Lighthouse Preservation Society, has donated the original lens from the second Caribou lighthouse to the Northumberland Fisheries Lighthouse Museum.  

Story of the Week

National Acadian Day

The National Acadian Day is held every year on August 15^th.  During the first National Convention of the Acadians held at Memramcook, New Brunswick in 1881, that the Acadians leaders received the directive to set the date of this celebration as August 15^th.  

A good site to bring you up-to-date on the history of Acadians is at www.cbc.ca/acadian/feature_national_acadian_day.html

Reminder: Check out Canadian Week in Review every Monday for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada. It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in country! The next post will be 9 September, 2013.

Transcription of the 1921 Census

People in Nova Scotia are starting to take matters in their own hands, and they are transcribing parts of the census themselves.

For example, Dwayne Meisner has “transcribed the 1921 census for 13 Mile House in Halifax County. The census also includes Beaver Bank, Kinsack, Fall River, Windsor Junction, Lower Sackville, Middle Sackville, Upper Sackville, Lakeview.

Click on "Halifax" on the map to open the dialog window, and then click on
"Halifax County - 1921". If you are not already a member of my site, you will have to register to view the data. Registration is free.

It is available on his website at
www.dwaynemeisner.com

There are other people who are doing the same thing.

Diane Tibert has transcribed parts of the Liscomb census, also in Nova Scotia, at her blog Roots to the Past at http://rootstothepast.wordpress.com/1921-census.  

If you have done the same thing, or have done it yourself, and would like to put the fact out to everyone,  send the particular to me, and I will put it on this blog.

Archive CD Books Canada Inc. joins FindMyPast to bring Canadian Content online

Malcolm Moody has written to tell us that he has reached an agreement between his company - Archives CD Books Canada Inc. and the FindMyPast people in England, which will “make the content of a large number of digitized, genealogical, and historical,  document “on line” for consultation through the excellent data delivery services of FindMyPast.

The newly available Archive CD Books Canada collection consists of over 200 documents yielding almost 70,000 pages of select information.  “We carefully chose the documents we digitize on the basis of their usefulness to Family Historians, Genealogists, and Historians” says Malcolm Moody, the president of Archive CD Books Canada.  “We believe people will appreciate the care we take to provide accurate, clear, readable, images of every printed page and to hand edit the (invisible) OCRed text to provide researchers with the best chance of finding every occurrence of their searched for words.” Continued Moody, “We also make sure that all illustrations and maps in our source documents are visible in the digitized edition and are included in the correct location, no mater what size they are.”

Malcolm says that you can still go to his site at Archives CD Books Canada Inc. if you want to buy the complete book, but you can go to FindMyPast if you just want a page or portion of a book that has been digitized .

The collection can be accessed on FindMyPast website (subscription site) at

http://search.findmypast.com/search/canada-documents, or you can go to the Archive CD Books Canada Inc. web site at http://www.ArchiveCDBooks.ca

Tracing Forward ‒ Searching for Relatives in Recent Times

Gwyneth Pearce, Secretary of the Toronto Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, let us

know this morning that registration is now open for Tracing Forward - Searching for Relatives in Recent Times, a special fall event co-sponsored by the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society and the Canadiana Department of North York Central Library.

She says to “Join expert speakers and fellow family history enthusiasts for a full day of lectures designed for researchers interested in expanding their family trees to find living relatives. Find out why we all should build “tracing forward” into our family history research, and discover new tools, techniques and strategies for tracing people who are either still alive or recently deceased. Learn how to navigate privacy and access rules and how to connect with “DNA cousins”, pick up tips from professionals who locate people for a living, and prepare to be inspired by stories of how family history mysteries have been solved”.

It will be held on Saturday, 26 October 2013 at the North York Central Library, 2nd floor Auditorium, 5120 Yonge Street, Toronto.

For full program and speaker information and to register online, visit http://www.torontofamilyhistory.org/TracingForward.html. OGS members pay reduced fees, and an additional early-bird discount applies for those who register before 30 September.

Your photos could have a snowball effect!

The deadline to get your photos on Canadians and snow in to the Museum of Civilization has been extended to September 15^th, 2013.

The Museum has already gathered 200 photos from across Canada. The objective: 300 colour and black-and-white photos, new and old, showing such activities as tobogganing, skiing, snowstorms and shovelling, etc. 

New deadline: September 15, 2013.

Your photos could be included in the Museum’s upcoming special exhibition on snow in Canada, scheduled to open December 6, 2013.

Do you have any such photos?* If so, please send them to the Museum following the instructions at http://www.civilization.ca/snow/photo.

High resolution photos are required (minimum 300 dpi).

*Excludes photographs showing activities or sports related to ice.

New deadline: September 15, 2013


And let us know if you are planning to send a photo in for the exhibit.

OGS questions are answered by LAC

This morning, Shirley Sturdevant, President of the OGS, has put the answers to her questions she asked the LAC last Saturday in an open letter. 

The morning, her letter was answered by M. Fabien Lengellé, Director General, Content Access Branch of Library and Archives Canada (LAC).

So what do you think? Are these the answers you were waiting for – has he answered her concerns completely? 

You can read my blog at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-is-partnership-between-lac-and.html where she asked the questions.

You can read the answers at http://www.ogs.on.ca/ogsblog.


   

Ancestry.ca Clarifies Access to 1921 Canada Census

Jeri Brown, Senior Consultant with Ancestry.ca, has written to me to make sure that everyone understands that -

“Under the terms of the partnership with Library and Archives Canada, Canadians will be able to access the 1921 Census of Canada images free of charge through the Ancestry.ca website. If you currently do not have an account or registered login with Ancestry.ca, you will be prompted to register (for free) to access the images. Registration requires the entry of a name and email address only. As the images are free for Canadians only, those attempting to access the 1921 Census via the other sites (ie: Ancestry.com, Ancestry.co.uk, etc…), will be prompted to sign up for a 14-day free trial”.

Meanwhile, how is everyone finding the census? Is it easy to work with? Any problems?  

I have heard from some people that the census itself is rather “marked up” and some writing is difficult to read, and that the names are difficult to decipher.  

Other people have said that they have had no problems, everything has gone as planned, and that they found the people they were looking for, without delay.

Remember, the "every name index" will be available in 2 -3 months on Ancestry.ca