Genealogy Canada

Friday, May 8, 2015

Calling all travellers!!!

Between June and August this year, if you are leaving and saying goodbye to someone special at Toronto Pearson International Airport or if you are waiting for someone to arrive back home – the people at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) needs your story! Your story could appear in their program called Hello Goodbye Canada.

Please fill out their very brief questionnaire and one of their story producers will get back to you ASAP!

To fill out the questionnaire, go to
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1kIYr_AhiouNfGO8IIZMfXdnH7llnqpMRsRygyLaFs3w/viewform?c=0&w=1

Check the Canadian Week in Review every Monday morning for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada.

If you missed this week’s edition, it is at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/05/canadian-week-in-review-04-may-2015.html

It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!

It has been a regular post every Monday morning since April 23, 2012

Early Nipissing District, Ontario Births, Marriages, Deaths Records

While at the Nipissing District Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society yesterday, I came across a site that may hold records that you have been looking for and have not been able to find. It is the are early birth, marriage and death records.

The say on the website that ‘While the old records at the Nipissing District Land Registry Office were being inventoried by members of Apolrod, three old registers were discovered which contain important information relating to early settlers. The Land Registrar gave permission for these books to be copied and the information is provided here for research purposes.

The first book contains an index of births, marriages and deaths in the Nipissing District; the second contains the original entries for 56 births; and the third contains the original entries for 27 marriages. The book containing the original entries for the 26 deaths has not been located as of November 1997.

Most of the events in these records took place in the Mattawa area and contain many first nations people. Many of the marriages were of shanty men. Catholic priests, J.M. Nedelec, J.M. Poitras, and J.M. Gueguen and Protestant ministers, John McEwan, Robert Hamilton, C.V. Forster Bliss, Silas Huntington, and D.L. MacKechnie officiated the marriages’.

The period covered by these records are

Births: February 1871 to March 1881http://www.nipissing.ogs.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Early-Nipissing-Births.pdf

Marriages: January 1871 to July 1883 http://www.nipissing.ogs.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Early-Nipissing-Marriages.pdf

Deaths: February 1871 to December 1881 http://www.nipissing.ogs.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Early-Nipissing-Deaths.pdf

The website is at http://www.nipissing.ogs.on.ca/

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Extra news items

Here are some news items which have come across the desk this week -

The Weekly Genealogists Vol 18 No 17 #Whole 737 29 April 2015 had their weekly survey once again, and this time they asked about our orphan ancestors.

Of the 4,024 who answered, 58% said they were not aware of any of their ancestors having been an orphan, and 10% said they were aware of one or more of their grandparents was an orphan, and another 10% said that they were aware of one or more of their great-grandparents was an orphan.

I do not have anyone in my family, either on my maternal or paternal side who was an orphaned.

How about you?

The Ontario Genealogical Society has officially launched their Twitter service at @OGSBarrie2015, and it looks like they are getting a good response.

The website is at https://twitter.com/OGSBarrie2015

The Department of Canadian Heritage is providing $2,300 to the Emancipation Festival through the Building Communities.

This will help support the 153rd edition of their annual summer event in Owen Sound, Ontario. This year's activities take place from July 31 to August 27 and include an artist and artisan show, speakers' forum and musical performances.

The Emancipation Festival has been holding an annual Black History celebration and commemoration event in Owen Sound since 1862. The village of Sydenham near Owen Sound was the most northerly terminus of the Underground Railway from the United States.

Read more about the Emancipation Festival at http://www.emancipation.ca/

Lastly, the latest news from the Genealogical Association of Nova Scotia is that they have a 3-month trial offering from Find My Past so that you can access through WIFI at the GANS office. This is a great database for finding those NS ancestors with origins in the UK. A reminder that they also have American Ancestors at the office. The research room is open Thursday from noon to 4 pm. Come access these great resources or check out the traditional library resources.

The website is http://www.novascotiaancestors.ca/

Would you like to volunteer?

The Manitoba Genealogical Society (MGS) will be participating again this year in this arts, culture and heritage fair along with many other community organizations, and it is called Manitoba Day Celebration.

The celebration will be held at Alloway Hall at the Manitoba Museum in Winnipeg on Saturday May 9th from 11am to 5 pm.

The celebration includes free admission to the Museum Galleries, Science Gallery and Planetarium, special educational programming throughout the day, and a new temporary exhibit featuring fur trade materials from the Hudson Bay Co. and Archaeology collections Trade: Materials and Ideas in Transition. Birthday cake (Manitoba’s 145th) and other refreshments will be served later in the day.

Why not volunteer for an hour and then take advantage of the free admission?

They need volunteers to staff their table - two volunteers for each hour (12 people could do 1 hour each). If you are available, please contact Bill Curtis (Outreach Chair) at billcurtiswpg@hotmail.com.

This is a great opportunity for MGS to inform the general public about their organization.

The website is at http://www.mbgenealogy.com/

The Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/pages/Manitoba-Genealogical-Society-Inc/7054423205

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Black Loyalist Heritage Centre opens June 6th

The Black Loyalist Heritage Centre, located in Birchtown, Nova Scotia (just outside of Shelburne on the province's’ southwest coast), will have their grand opening on Saturday June 6, 2015. The grand opening has the title of The Journey Back to Birchtown.

It will performances by African Nova Scotian artists and a multi-media stage presentation. Performers include Juno award-winner JRDN, Jeremiah Sparks, Dutch Robinson, Shelley Hamilton, Cyndi Cain, Joe Sealey, the Nova Scotia Mass Choir, the Sierra Leone dancers, Shauntay Grant, Hillcrest Academy Djembe Group and many more.

The program will also feature John Franklin of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and the Book of Negroes author Lawrence Hill.

Tours of the new facility will begin at 9 am, keynote addresses in the morning, procession of dignitaries from the Black Burial Ground, National Historic Monument at 1:30 pm and entertainment will start in the afternoon at 2 pm.

If you haven’t been to the site before, is a digital archive which you can read Our Story at http://blackloyalist.com/cdc/index.htm

To read more about the details, go to http://blackloyalist.com/

Their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Black-Loyalist-Heritage-Centre/111527972216141?fref=photo

Would you like to transcribe?

If you would like to contribute to the transcribing effort that the Royal British Columbia Museum is undertaking, then you should go to http://transcribe.royalbcmuseum.bc.ca/

The project is called First World War Letters, Diaries and Scrapbooks, and it covers letters, diaries and scrapbooks from the First World War.

The transcriptions you create will become searchable data, facilitating learning and research around the world. Whether you choose to transcribe one page, one hundred pages, or just browse our collections, you’re helping us share the stories that matter.

There is a Transcription Tips on the page that you should read, as well as
over 12 projects you can choose from to transcribe.

The Facebook page is at ia a https://www.facebook.com/RoyalBCMuseum

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Manitoba Archives blog “At home and Away”

Manitoba Archives has had a blog since 2014, and its main emphasis is on the First World War and Manitoba.

In April 2015, there are two new postings -

On the 2 April 2015, there is the Keeping a Diary in the Trenches.

George Henry Hambley was one of over 600,000 Canadians who served in the First World War. Hambley enlisted at Camp Hughes (then Camp Sewell) on 13 October 1915 when he was almost 19 years old. He was a trooper in the Canadian Light Horse and served in France, Belgium, and Germany, fighting in the battles of Ypres, Mons, Cambrai, and Vimy Ridge.

And the second post was 7 April 2015 Hudson's Bay Company & Cable Communications

During the First World War cables (also known as telegrams) were an almost immediate source of communication. The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) utilized this form of communication on a daily basis in the early 20th century, as demonstrated in a series of inward and outward cables records titled “Cables related to Hudson's Bay Company's wartime business with European governments” from 1914 to 1916.

If you are interested in reading these blogs, go to http://www.gov.mb.ca/chc/archives/ww1blog/index.html?utm_source=T270415&utm_medium=T270415&utm_campaign=T270415