Sunday, June 8, 2014

Canadian Week in Review


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

It has the latest news covered in New/Updated Websites, History, Social Media, and Newspaper Articles.

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

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

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Special Notice: Join the OGS First World War Society

Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1983-28-826

If you had anyone in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War, you should read this notice -

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War, OGS has launched a new Heritage Society. The First World War Society is a lineage Society open to anyone who can show descent from a person who served in a documented capacity on the Allied side of the First World War.

To qualify for this Society, your research must show that your named ancestor(s) fits in the category above, and then show the line of descent from that ancestor(s) to you or the person you wish named on the certificate.

For more information and an application form visit the Heritage Societies area on the OGS website is http://www.ogs.on.ca/heritage_societies.php#WW1

If you want to check the CEF site to see if your relative is there, go to the Library and Archives Canada site to see if they are listed as having joined. The site is http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/pages/home.aspx

If I can be of any assistance to you in researching your CEF member, you can email me at genealogyresearcha@aol.com or visit my site at http://www.elrs.biz

Ontario: Then and Now


The Archives of Ontario is offering a new feature and is asking for your help.

Grab your camera and get involved on Flickr! Recreate our fascinating historical photographs of neighbourhoods and landmarks across the province. We’ll provide the “then”… you provide the “now”! 

This is a great idea. It will allow you and others to see how a neighbourhood or landmark use to look years ago, and the way it looks today. Or does it look the same or different? 

You can find out about the new project by going to https://www.flickr.com/groups/ontariothenandnow

Friday, June 6, 2014

D-Day Live: The historic invasion in real time on the CBC

Credit: Lieut. Ken Bell / Canada. Dept. of National Defence / Library and Archives Canada / PA-136820

Today is the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, and CBCNews.ca has re-imagined how the events of that historic day would have been reported if Twitter been around at the time. Relive history through a real-time recreation 


Meanwhile, the Library and Archives Canada has an expanded version of the Service Files of the Second World War – War Dead, 1939-1947 Database onsite. 

Thursday, June 5, 2014

100 Years of Loss - The Residential School System in Canada

The Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa is recognition of National Aboriginal History Month, by presenting the travelling exhibition 100 Years of Loss – The Residential School System in Canada.

This exhibition uses reproductions of photographs, artwork and primary documents to tell the story of thousands of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children who were removed from their families and institutionalized in residential schools. It emphasizes the present-day effects of the system, focusing on healing and reconciliation.

Special Activities

Also, as part of National Aboriginal History Month, two Residential School Survivors will share their experiences in Survivor Talks (June 9–11), and Aboriginal dancers and singers will perform in Celebrating Aboriginal Heritage (June 19).

The exhibit will be at the Canadian Museum of History from June 5 to 26, 2014 

Their website is at http://www.historymuseum.ca  

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Are you new to genealogy?

If you are new to genealogy, Family Search Learning Center has FREE Beginning Genealogy Courses, in which there are 5-minute videos that have been put on their site so that you can watch and listen to them. If you are wondering how to get started, you can learn the very rudimentary way to do research. 

Yesterday, I watched four of them – Quick Start, The Research Process, Records – An Introduction, Using Indexes to Find Records and the videos are quite good. Jesse Davis, the hostess, takes you through setting up the research problem, and brings up good points of where to look for records – at FamilySearch, naturally!

So take a look at the videos, and see what you think.

On the left hand side, there is a library of videos that are divided by a county, by subject, and by level of experience - Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. Of course, none have been done about Canadian records - yet!

The videos are on https://familysearch.org/learningcenter/home.html  

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Wellington County Branch OGS will meet this Saturday

The Wellington County Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is recognizing The 12th Field Regiment R.C.A. (1940-1945) in their meeting on Saturday. The program will consists of two presentations –

Family and Military History

and 

A Remembrance Service for the Honour Roll of 74 Fallen Men

The meeting will be held at Saturday, June 7, 2014 at 1:00 pm at the Ontario Legion, 281 George St. Arthur, Ontario.

In the family history segment, well-known speaker Glenn Wright, a former archivist at Library and Archives Canada and a published author, will speak on locating the military records of veterans who returned to Canada and appear in researchers' family trees. The military part of the session will be presented by Rob Stark, President of the 12th Field Regiment Association and a son of a late veteran of the Regiment

A limited number of compilations of many names will be made available to those interested in both the military and family history of the 12th Field Regiment. The organizing committee requests the assistance of the community in providing service numbers of some of the men listed.

There will be a brief lunch break followed by the Remembrance service conducted by the Arthur Legion.

For more information on this special event, please visit the Wellington County website http://www.ogs.on.ca/wellington/events.html
Contact Info http://www.ogs.on.ca/wellington/index.html