Kingston Penitentiary: Home to Canada’s most notorious criminals

The four men are Albert McKeowan, James McDonald, Philip Benoit, and George Marles. These photos were taken in 1915.  Credit: Library and Archives Canada, RG73-C-6 

The Library and Archives Canada has just released the ledgers from the Kingston Penitentiary for you to research if your ancestor spent time there when it opened in 1835.   

Located in Portsmouth, now part of Kingston, this institution was designated for the incarceration of prisoners from both Upper Canada and Lower Canada.

Kingston Pen, as it is commonly known, closed its doors on September 30, 2013.

These ledgers, which have been digitized and can be viewed on the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) website at http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/pam_archives/index.php?fuseaction=genitem.displayItem&lang=eng&rec_nbr=4292048

You will have to know the name of the person you are looking for in this instant.    

The ledgers provide photographs (mug shots) of inmates and information such as name; alias; age; place of birth; physical description; occupation; crime committed; and date, place and length of sentence.

Special Holiday Season Membership Gift

The Museum of Civilization and the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa are offering a special Holiday Season Membership Gift to you.

If you sign up for a standard membership, you will receive an extended Membership Level Membership, and your membership will be extended by one extra month. If you purchase a Plus Level Membership, your membership will be extended by two extra months.

Put in the promotional code AC138 in the printed copy of the sign-up form, and bring it to the box office, or you can call the box office at 819.776.7100.

To see the levels of membership, you can go to http://www.civilization.ca/about-us/get-involved/membership-program

Get savings from Ancestry.ca

Have you ever subscribed to Ancestry.ca monthly newsletter? If you haven’t subscribed yet, maybe you should consider doing so now, because they are offering savings on products for the month of December.

If you subscribe to the December Holiday Issue: 'Tis the season! you can get exclusive savings on Family Tree Maker 2014, Blurb and more!

Sign up for the newsletter at http://home.ancestry.ca/myancestry/SubscribeNews

OGS Conference - Hank Jones Jr interview

Steve Fulton, the Chair of the 2014 Ontario Genealogical Society Conference that will be held. May 1 to May 4, 2014 at Brock University in the Niagara region of Ontario, has posted an interview he had had with the keynote speaker – Hank Jones Jr.

His speech which is entitled How "Psychic Roots" became an "Unsolved Mystery" will be presented on Saturday evening at conference banquet.

The interview is about 8 minutes long, and is interesting to listen to at http://www.ogs.on.ca/conference2014/hank_jones_interview.mp3

Two things which struck me was that he said “Genealogists are story tellers”, and “Document everything”. Family history is a series of family stories and we must document everything we write - that should be our mantra as genealogists.

You can go to their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/NiagaraPeninsulaBranchOgsConference2014, and their website http://www.ogs.on.ca/conference2014/index.php.

Postscript: Conferences are held every year in Ontario, and as a member of the OGS you are entitled to special discounts for the conference. December is membership month at the OGS. For the yearly rate of $61.20, you can join the provincial society.

Canadian Week in Review 02 December 2013

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

Websites

Souvenir of Toronto: Announcing the Robert MacIntosh Collection on the History of Toronto http://library.ryerson.ca/asc/2013/11/souvenir-of-toronto-announcing-the-robert-macintosh-historical-toronto-collection/ Ryerson Polytechnic University Archives has just acquired the personal collection of 141 books of long time Toronto resident, Robert M. MacIntosh.

They rang from the date 1807 to 1988 and the topics include  “historical accounts, biographies of notable Torontonians (including John Toronto himself, Bishop Strachan), tourist keepsakes through the years, maps, centennial publications, and TTC brochures”.

FamilySearch Wiki - Category:Charts and Forms FamilySearch has forms of the following -

1851 Canada Census https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/5/51/Canadian_Census_Form_1851.pdf

1861 Canada Census

https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/f/fe/Canadian_Census_Form_1861.pdf

1871 Canada Census

https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/d/da/Canadian_Census_Form_1871.pdf

1881 Canada Census

https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/a/a8/Canadian_Census_Form_1891.pdf

1891 Canada Census

https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/images/d/d0/Canadian_Census_Form_1901.pdf

Social Media

Membership Renewal

http://saskgenealogy.blogspot.com/2013/11/membership-renewal_23.html Membership fees will be increasing for all membership renewals in 2014

News Articles

Oil-industry money won’t influence exhibits, museum of civilization  CEO vows http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/Canadian+Museum+Civilization+gets+sponsorship+deal+from+Canadian+Association+Petroleum/9210141/story.html Because of this investment, the Museum of History will be able to mount a special exhibit called 1867 which will show how  the new country called the Dominion of Canada evolved from the colonies of British North America. The exhibit will be on from November 2014 to September 2015, and then it will tour the country.

Record $15-million donation to Calgary Stampede Foundation http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Stampede+Foundation+create+heritage+centre+with+record+donation/9214611/story.html A new western heritage centre will be built with the donation by Don Taylor and it will be the future home of the Stampede Archives.

Discover the Humanity in History with New Novel http://www.choosecornwall.ca/eng/news/743/57/Discover-the-Humanity-in-History-with-New-Novel/The novel Shadows in the Tree,  tells the story of Maria Catrina Eamer who came with her children over the Adirondack Mountains as they fled to Canada to escape the American Revolution.

737 takes off from City Centre Airport, lands safely at new home http://globalnews.ca/news/999859/737-takes-off-from-city-centre-airport-lands-safely-at-new-home/The Alberta Aviation Museum will be the new home for the Boeing 737. It was with the Pacific Western Airlines, and was retired from Air Canada’s service in 2005.

Story of the Week

There are many website staring to appear celebrating Canada 150^th anniversary in 2017.

If you want background information on Canada’s 150 Birthday, you can read about it at the PARLIAMENT of CANADA site at  http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=5614610&File=84

2017 starts now The CBC has started the celebrating Canada’s 150 birthday already on their website http://www.2017startsnow.ca/

Local app celebrates Canadian heritage

http://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/103621/Local-app-celebrates-Canadian-heritage Well a Kelowna company has developed a new app that is all about having fun and learning about our amazing country at the same time.

Reminder: Check the Canadian Week in Review next 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 on 09 December 2013.

November 2013 Families Part II

The Ontario Genealogy Society journal Families has issued its November issue, and here are the papers included in Part II.

The first paper More Than Dates: Lives Revealed Through Ecclesiastical Records by Ellen Paul, the 2^nd place Keffer Writing Contest winner.

In addition to the story she tells of Jean Baptiste Cotton, she demonstrates how to use the Drouin Collection when proving genealogy.

The surname keywords are Archambault, Beaudry, Cotton, DeGuay, Débussat, Dussault, Gauthier, Gauthier dit Landreville

“Up to Rawdon” Explained is a paper by Daniel B. Parkinson in which he explains how he came to write his 2-volume set of genealogies about the people from Rawdon, Quebec and their migration to such Ontario counties as Wellington, Huron, Grey, Bruce and Simcoe Counties.

The surname keywords are Burton, Bourne, Copping, Corcoran, Dugas, Eveleigh, Gray, Hamilton, Holiday, Holtby, Jefferies, Johnston, Keo, Mason, Norrish, Parkinson, Pearson, Scroggie, Rourke, Sadler, Smiley, Tiffin, Turner, Wade

“Feathers in the Family”: The Story of Magdeleine Pewadjiwonokwe by Lynne Duigou is the story of a ‘county marriage’ between Charles Denys de Laronde Thibaudiere and Magdeleine.   

The surname keywords are  Croteau, Pewadjiwonokwe, Laronde, Gaucher, piot, Langevin, Missosikwe, Tessepatikokwe, Gradmotagne, Okajagaw, MacFie, Douglas, Robinson

I Am a GOON: The Willox Search by Cathie Blackburn is the influence that the Guild of One-Name Studies has had on her study of her family name – the Willox.  

The surname keywords are Willox, Cole, Harper, Legge

  

Postscrpt:  December is the yearly membership drive by the OGS. This year the basic membership is $61.20 which is a deal for all the benefits that you can receive from the Members Only pages at http://www.ogs.on.ca/index.php                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

November 2013 Families Part I

 The Ontario Genealogy Society issued its journal Families for November, and here are the papers included in Part I this issue. Part II will continue tomorrow.   

With 2014 being the 100^th anniversary of the First World War, the papers about the people who fought in that war are starting to come into Families to be published.

The two papers are

Hart Leech: “A dog-gone good soldier … doing hid blooming job” by Catherine Whiteley tells the story of Hart Leech from Winnipeg, who, like so many others, went off to war as a young man, and like so many others died because of the war.  

But while he was fighting in the war, he earned the praise of his superiors, and when he died helping his fellow soldiers, he was given a burial in the Oville British Cemetery in France.

His mother received the Memorial Cross.

The keywords in the paper is Leech.

The ship on the front cover of Families and is the SS Olympic. It is shown in Halifax as it disembarked Canadian soldiers coming back from the First World War.

Blacks in the Great War by Jerry Hind is a paper which recounts the role that Blacks played in the First World War.

The men from the Chatham-Kent area who entered the 1^st Contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and the discrimination that they faced.

To go with the Families paper, there is a website called    

Gathering our Heroes at http://www.gatheringourheroes.ca/ at which there are bios of many of the Blacks who were in the No. 2 Construction Battalion.

The keywords are Jones, Hosey, Lucas, and Mills.   

Postscrpt:  December is the yearly membership drive by the OGS. This year the basic membership is $61.20 which is a deal for all the benefits that you can receive from the Members Only pages at http://www.ogs.on.ca/index.php