Branching Out Spring Seminar at Campbell River

The Branching Out Spring Seminar of the Campbell River Genealogy Society of British Columbia will be held on Saturday 25th April at the CR Maritime Heritage Centre from 9:30-3:00 pm.

The speaker will be Dave Obee and he will present four seminars and they will be -

Travel Smart with Technology: Visiting an ancestral community is one of the greatest thrills. The presentation is designed to help travellers, both real and virtual, to maximize their research into family connections outside Canada.

Beyond the Online Basics: A genealogical guide to digital collections. This session provides ideas on how to find the documents that will help you learn more about your families, or the local histories of the areas where they lived.

A Fresh Light on old Newspapers: Thanks to the many digitization projects, there are millions of newspaper pages on the Internet. What are the pitfalls? This presentation takes you through the digitization process, from hard copy to your computer screen. It is designed to help you achieve the best results from your work.

Trinkets & Treasures: Things Your Ancestors left Behind - Items that your ancestors used or created will help you to gain a better understanding of the lives they lived and serve as a reminder of times past. Think of the stories they can tell.

The cost of the seminar is $50.00.

A Save-On bag lunch can be pre-ordered for an added fee. Refreshments will be available and there will be a draw for door prizes.

To register, contact Janice Wilkin before April 17 at wilkin1@telus.net or phone (250) 203-0585. A registration form can be downloaded from www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bccrgc/

Their website is at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bccrgc/

The Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/179838535426731/

The Conference has been cancelled!

On the website of the National Genealogy Conference in Canada at http://www.visiontravel.ca/heidiwilker it says that the Conference has been CANCELLED!

They say that “Regretfully, we must cancel the National Genealogy Conference in Canada for July 17-19, 2015.

Many thanks to the planned speakers for their willingness to support an inaugural national genealogy conference in Canada, to the companies and organizations who were willing to support the conference through sponsorship, and to those who generously helped to spread the word to their network of genealogists”.

So the Conference saga has come to an end. It wasn’t unexpected. Because the cost was too high for most people, and having lived in Halifax for 20+ years, I would go for an outdoors vacation where I could visit the sights, rather than stay indoors at a conference.

So maybe they can come back to underwrite another Comference at some future date. We shall see.

Meanwhile, here are two blogs I wrote on the Conference -

January 9, 2015 National Genealogy Conference in Canada http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/national-genealogy-conference-in-canada.html

January 27, 2015 The conference lowers its price – sort of ... http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-conference-lowers-its-price-sort-of.html

Do you know that PEI has a surname list?

Prince Edward Island has a surname list at http://www.islandregister.com/surnames/surname.php?

The surname list has grown by leap and bounds since it was first started in 2002.

1516 surnames have been listed to date.

There is also a list of surname by lot (of land) at http://www.islandregister.com/surnamelist.html

Surnames submitted to the original Prince Edward Island Surname List are from Prince Edward Island Genealogical Society (1891 Census Index),  Lovell's Province of prince Edward Island Directory for 1871, and National Archives microfilm #M-896 (1841 P.E.I. Census for Lots 21, 22)

Both of these list are housed on Dave Hunter on his The Island Register site http://www.islandregister.com/

Ontario Jewish Archives

What a complete, and useful archives this is – full of records, and you can research the following topics at the archives -

marriage records

family histories

newspapers and periodicals

cemetery records

synagogue and Jewish fraternal society records

immigration case files created by the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society (JIAS) and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC)

ledgers from Jewish shipping agents

military records

Who's Who of Toronto Jewry

Go to their wesite at http://www.ontariojewisharchives.org/

Their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/OntarioJewishArchives

They have put on another Talbot Times!

The Elgin County Genealogical Society has put another article from the Talbot Times, the society newsletter, on it’s blog at http://elgincountyogs.blogspot.com/. 

The first article is Scots Coming to Canada, and it can be found at http://www.elginogs.ca/Home/talbot-times-newsletters/talbot-times-1987-september

The second article is Travels of Moses Bevans in the Talbot Times 1988 March and can be found at
http://www.elginogs.ca/Home/talbot-times-newsletters/talbot-times-1988-march

The third article is from the 1988 June of the Talbot Times, and it is entitled A Tragic Accident: The Blacks of Sparta – Buried Alive and tells us about the Black family and a well in a nearby quick sand pit that was on the property, three miles east of Port Stanley.

There are also two articles entitled St. Thomas - The Railway City, and Hodgkinson's Corners to Troy to Aylmer in the newsletter.

As I have written before, this is an excellent idea to get people interested in your society.Treat it as a “lost leader’, like milk in a grocery store. Think of your webpage as a store, and put these articles your front page, so that people can see what you can offer them.

And don’t leave the same articles there, change them around to make it interesting to people.

The website for the June 1988 article is http://www.elginogs.ca/Home/talbot-times-newsletters/talbot-times-1988-june

April 9 - Vimy Ridge Day in Canada

Vimy Ridge was a battle in which Canadians fought in the First World War. It was part of a larger battle of Arras in northern France. It began on Easter Monday, and about 30,000 Canadians fought at Vimy Ridge and claimed victory. 3,600 Canadians were killed, with many wounded.

There is a special exhibit in London right now until September 2015, and then will travel across the country, and it is called the Souterraine Impression.

This exhibition illuminates the lives of Canadian veterans through the deeply personal carvings and drawings made by soldiers concealed in the allied caves and trenches near Vimy Ridge, France.

Organized by Zenon Andrusyszyn, Souterraine Impressions “will bring reproductions of site-specific artifacts to Canada through contemporary 3-dimensional printing, allowing audiences a rare glimpse at these personal documents created while Canadian soldiers awaited orders to join the now legendary Battle for Vimy Ridge. While not a great military success, the battle has subsequently become for Canada a symbol of national unity, achievement and tremendous sacrifice”.

Visitors will see “a series of "tableaus” containing one of the reproduced carvings, a photograph of the soldier who created it and a short biography. While many of the carvings feature regimental or battalion badges, there are also carvings of hearts, animals and names’.

You can go to the museum in London at http://www.museumlondon.ca/exhibitions:115 to get particulars on the exhibit.

Meanwhile, there are news articles today in the papers, and some of them are -

Honouring the memory of Vimy Ridge
http://www.melfortjournal.com/2015/04/07/honouring-the-memory-of-vimy-ridge

New Vimy Foundation poll reveals majority of Canadians believe 100th anniversary of Vimy Ridge in 2017 should be focus of Canada's Sesquicentennial
http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1514029/new-vimy-foundation-poll-reveals-majority-of-canadians-believe-100th-anniversary-of-vimy-ridge-in-2017-should-be-focus-of-canada-s-sesquicentennial

Three Quarters of Canadians (74%) Believe 100th Anniversary of Vimy Ridge in 2017 Should Be One of Canada’s Most Important Celebrations During Sesquicentennial 
http://www.northumberlandview.ca/index.php?module=news&type=user&func=display&sid=33787

Ninety-eight years later, historian finds ‘missing’ soldiers from the Battle of Vimy Ridge 
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/ninety-eight-years-later-historian-finds-missing-soldiers-from-the-battle-of-vimy-ridge

Dear Myrt’s Beginning Genealogy - Sessions 11

As I promised my blog on 06 January 2014 at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/beginning-genealogy-study-group.html, I watched Dear Myrt’s Beginning Genealogy Session 11 on Wednesday. I will continue to watch the rest of the study group as it proceeds.

The major topic which was discussed in Sessions 11 was a subject which was easy to discuss because Dear Myrt has researched in these records before – American Military Records – Revolutionary and Civil War Military Records.

I, of course, research in both Canadian and American records, and I notice there is a difference. The Canadian records are based on the British system (ranks, for example), and the American are strictly American (my grandfather Lester John BLADES enlisted in the American Army in the First World War although he was from Barrington, Nova Scotia, but was living in Boston, Massachusetts at the time).

If you wish to refresh yourself on American Military Records, you can go to https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/United_States_Military_Records

If you wish to refresh yourself on Canadian Military Records, you can go to https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Canada_Military_Records

If you want to refresh yourself on British Military Records, you can go to https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/England_Military_Records 

The website for Session 11 is at https://plus.google.com/communities/104382659430904043232

Session 1 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-session-1.html

Session 2 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-session-2.html

Session 3 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-session-3.html

Session 4 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-session-4.html

Session 5 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/02/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-session-5.htm 

Session 6 & 7 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/03/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-sessions_5.html

Sessioin 8 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/03/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-sessions_13.html

Session 9 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/03/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-sessions_20.html

Session 10 - http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/03/dear-myrts-beginning-genealogy-session.html

Remember to make yourself a member of Dear Myrt’s Genealogy Community before watching the YouTube Google+ Hangout on Air at https://plus.google.com/communities/104382659430904043232