Spirit Walk at the Crown Cemetery

A Spirit Walk will be held on Tuesday June 11th at 7 p.m. at the Crown Cemetery at Aberfoyle, Ontario.

Join them as they tell the life stories of five people buried in Crown Cemetery

two pioneer settlers

a World War Two soldier

a travelling music teacher

a  pioneer storekeeper in Morriston

A 'tailgate lunch' will follow, and you are asked to meet at the rear entrance to the cemetery off Nicholar Beaver Road (at Tim Hortons on Brock Road), Aberfoyle, Ontario.

The web site for the Puslinch Historical Society is at www.puslinchhistorical.ca/Mtgs.shtml

Open Doors – Ottawa

 Open Doors – Ottawa will be held June 1 and 2, and it is a FREE event.

The doors will be open to the buildings which “celebrates our community’s built heritage, allowing access to functionally, culturally, and historically significant buildings.  Held during the first weekend in June, Doors Open Ottawa has witnessed the annual attendance rate rise to over 80,000 visitors, and include the participation of over 125 of the city’s finest buildings”.

Some of the buildings which will be open this year will include the Billings Estate National Historic Site, All Saints Cathedral, and the city transit building.  

If you go to the website, there is a map, where the parking will be, and there will be shuttle buses to take you to each of the buildings.

The web site is http://ottawa.ca/cgi-bin/doors/list.pl?lang=en 

Calgary Nurses in the Great War

A meeting will be held on Monday, June 3, 2013 at 7:00 pm by the Alberta Family History Society at the  River Park Church, 3818 - 14A Street, Calgary where the speaker will be Marjorie Norris, and her topic will be Calgary Nurses in the Great Wars.

Noted Calgary author Marjorie Norris will give a presentation on the contribution of Calgary nurses in the Great War, based on her years of research in often hidden resources.  Copies of her book Sister Heroines will be available for purchase.

 The Annual General Meeting will also be held.

For more information, go to www.afhs.ab.ca

If you want to read a review of the book Sister Heroines: The Roseate Glow of Wartime Nursing, 1914-1918, you can read a review by Cynthia Toman in The Canadian Historical Review, Volume 85, Number 1, March 2004.

The review is on the website at http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/can/summary/v085/85.1toman.html

Historical Maps of Toronto

Nathan Ng would like to share with us his newest site. His blog is called Historical Maps of Toronto.

The site is an easy site to use, online collection of notable pre-1900 maps of Toronto. Specific maps that researchers may find of utility include the 1858 Boulton Atlas of the City of Toronto and Vicinity, and the 1860 Tremaine Map of the County of York, Canada West.

He says that “I hope the site will facilitate discovery and exploration, as well as serve as a convenient resource for casual research [It's also enormously fun to randomly browse through]. The site is intended to serve as a companion resource for my previous mapping project, Goad's Atlas of Toronto -- Online!

I would be delighted if you could please share this with anyone who would enjoy it or find it useful as a resource...

I will be using the site when I am called to do research in Toronto. 

The site is at www.oldtorontomaps.blogspot.com If you go to the website and like what you see, drop him a line at nathan.ng@gmail.com

Canadian Week in Review

May 27 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

The Ottawa Journal 1941-1960 Ottawa, Ontario  $  http://www.newspapers.com/title_1188/the_ottawa_journal/?xid=186 This is a subscription service, but it has the latest in updates. They have a Clip Service, and a sample page that you can view.

The Winnipeg Tribune 1901-1949 Winnipeg, Manitoba $ http://www.newspapers.com/title_1017/the_winnipeg_tribune/?xid=186  This is a subscription service, but it has the latest in updates. They have a Clip Service, and a sample page that you can view.

Blogs

Chroniques ancestrales http://chroniquesancestrales.blogspot.ca  This blogger write about his  Bélanger, Caron, Dagenais, Dusablon et Therrien lines.

Facebook- YouTube – Video

BC Students Celebrate Centennial of Canadian Expedition with Historical Videos

www.bcheritagefairs.ca/bc-students-celebrate-centennial-of-canadian-expedition-with-historical-videos

Newspapers

Petition looks to rename Victoria Day

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/05/19/victoria-day-rename.html ‘Victoria and First Peoples Day' would share holiday with Aboriginal Peoples

Concerns About Serious Mismanagement of the Library and Archives of Canada  http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2013/05/concerns-about-serious-mismanagement-of-the-library-and-archives-of-canada.html Read what Dick Eastman has to sat about the  trouble at library and Archives Canada.

Island students receive awards at annual Heritage Fair www.gov.pe.ca/index.php3/newsroom/index.php3?number=news&newsnumber=9006&dept=&lang=E The winners are listed for Grades 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Huge cache of Canadian history hits U.K. auction block, tests Library and Archives

www.canada.com/Huge+cache+Canadian+history+hits+auction+block+tests+Library+Archives/8436011/story.html#ixzz2UOSZHEJs Read about the huge cache of Canadian history left by Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, the Nova Scotia governor who conquered Maine during the War of 1812 and later served as Canada’s governor general.

Government of Canada designates first two heritage lighthouses in British Columbia http://news.yahoo.com/government-canada-designates-first-two-190000655.html Two lighthouses in British Columbia have been chosen by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. They are the East Point Lighthouse on Saturna Island and the Fisgard Lighthouse in Colwood.  

Story of the Week

National Aboriginal History Month

In June, Canadians celebrate Aboriginal History Month,which is an opportunity to honour the heritage, and cultures of Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

June was declared National Aboriginal History month in 2010, after Nanaimo-Cowichan Member of Parliament, Jean Crowder, introduced a motion to make June a month of recognition for First Nations, Inuit and Métis. 

June has long been a month of celebration and remembrance in Canada, with National Aboriginal Day on the 21st, Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day on the 24th, and Multiculturalism Day on the 27th.

Families, an Ontario Genealogical Society journal, recently published two papers on Canadian Aboriginal people.

The first one was about Squire Davis, who came to Canada after the Revolutionary War in the United States, and lived outside of the city of Brantford, Ontario. This article appeared in the February 2013 issue.

The second paper was about Marguerite Brien 1793- 1865 "Fille Naturelle", a Mohawk woman from Oka, Quebec, who, with her family, travelled all over Eastern Ontario in the 1800s. It was published in May 2013.   

For events that will take place during the month, go to www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100013322/1100100013323

The next Canadian Week in Review will be issued Monday June 3, 2013

Bentham Pioneers

Destitute to Successful, A Poor Man’s Dream will be a talk that will be given by Richard Bentham on Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 7:30 pm at the Bruce and Grey Branch of the OGS at the LDS Family History Centre, 2nd Ave. SE, Owen Sound.

The forebears of Richard Bentham fled the grinding, dismal circumstances of ordinary people in Yorkshire, England and Ireland in the mid 19th century. They arrived in Ontario as pioneers and faced daunting challenges simply to survive. Hope for a new beginning saw them through many hardships.

Richard Bentham of Grey Highlands Farm near Flesherton discusses what they were leaving behind and what they were looking for here. The story of the Bentham Pioneers could be a template for the many thousands of pioneers that poured into Grey County.

For more information, go to www.bruceandgreygenealogy.com

Want to track down descendants of immigrants who were on the Empress of Ireland

A display of the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence River will tour across Canada in hope of tracking down descendants of immigrants who came to Canada onboard the ship. 

Here is the press release - 

TORONTO, May 24, 2013 - Is your last name Clark, Johnson or Smith? Do you know if your ancestors came to Canada onboard the Empress of Ireland? Would you like to know more about this Canadian Pacific Railway Company's ship?

On May 26th in Toronto, following the 99th Anniversary memorial service organized by The Salvation Army's Historical Society to commemorate the sinking of the Empress of Ireland, the "Site historique maritime de la Pointe au Père" (SHMP) will launch a national tour to trace down descendants of immigrants who came to Canada onboard the Empress of Ireland.

For a week, starting on Monday May 27th, at The Salvation Army's Territorial Headquarters for Canada and Bermuda (2 Overlea Boulevard, Toronto), you will learn everything about the fascinating but tragic story of the great ship that disappeared in 14 minutes on May 29th 1914 at 1 h 55 am in the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence River near Rimouski. 1477 people were on board, 1012 of them died. This disaster, overshadowed by the outbreak of the First World War, remains, to this day, the largest maritime disaster in Canadian waters.

A visual stand showing the ship in all its 1914 glory will showcase may pictures of the magnificent ship's interiors as well as a reconstitution of the disaster and rarely seen video footage of the underwater wreck. Documents and interesting information related to the exhibit will also be on display, including the list of onboard passengers from 1906 to 1914, the passenger list at the moment of the tragedy, a log book relating the ship's history and a complete calendar of all remembrance activities to be organized. Over ten cities across Canada will welcome this truly unique exhibition.

In 1914 The Salvation Army shared in the national tragedy of the sinking of The Empress of Ireland in the St. Lawrence. On board were more than 150 members of the Canadian Salvation Army, bound for a major international gathering in London, England. Most of them, including the national commander and members of the Canadian Staff Band, were drowned.

As the exhibit travels across Canada, Mrs. Pascale St-Amand, project manager, will be on hand to answer any questions from all visitors interested in this important page of Canadian history. Mrs. St-Amand will also keep a record of all the information and details visitors share with her regarding the hundreds of stories from immigrants who adopted this country at the beginning of the 20th century.

Come tell us your story!