Ancestry.ca Offers FREE Access to French-Canadian Records

Ancestry.ca is offering FREE access to more than 14.5 million records of millions of people in Quebec, and France, and they will be available free from April 17-22.

Among the free collections is the Drouin database. This database spans 346 years from 1621 to 1967,  and includes  37 million names in baptism, marriage and burial records, plus a summary of church records from Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and various New England states.

The free access also includes the Tanguay collection. This large, seven-volume collection was published by the French-Canadian priest and genealogist Father Cyprien Tanguay from 1871 to 1890.

The collection includes Quebec, the Maritimes, Ontario and old French settlements in the United States and France. Tanguay traced ancestors of many early French-Canadian colonists back to Normandy, and other parts of France.

Entries in this collection details family pedigrees with baptism, marriage, and burial dates, and places.

Go to http://www.ancestry.ca/

Genealogy Association of Nova Scotia Events

This note comes to us from GANS - 

"Since we don't have a monthly lecture planned for April, we've been busy
planning a number of other ventures that will take us out into the community.

Tomorrow, Bob Davison, VP; Dawn Josey, Membership and Correspondence Secretary
and I will be attending the Kings County Genealogy and Family History
Committee meeting at the Kings County Museum in Kentville at 1:30 pm to
promote the August 25 30th Anniversary event.

As well, we will be at the West Hants Historical Society monthly meeting in
Windsor at 7:30 tomorrow night.  We will again provide information about the
30th Anniversary event and Dawn Josey will be giving her "Research to Artwork"
presentation.  If you missed Dawn's presentation in January, come and join us
tomorrow night.  Here is a little bit about the presentation and Dawn:

  Dawn Josey, a visual artist, has taken her family research from paper to
works of art telling the story for generations to come. Come hear how your
story can be told visually.

  Dawn Josey is a mixed media artist living in Enfield, Nova Scotia. For 17
years she practiced Biomedical photography first in Life Science then Biology
at Dalhousie University. She is an elected member of the Society of Canadian
Artists and a board member of Visual Arts Nova Scotia who exhibits her work in
group and solo shows throughout the province. She is currently continuing
studies at NSCAD.

On Saturday, April 14 and Sunday, April 15, GANS will have a table at the
Shearwater Spring Hobby Show held at the Aviation Museum in Shearwater outside
of Dartmouth.  You'll be able to purchase our publications, register for the
30th Anniversary event or pick up some handouts.  We could use some help
during those two days.  The show is open from 10:00 to 4:00 both days.  So
far, four members of the executive have volunteered, but it would be nice to
have at least two people at the table at all times.  If you'd like to spend a
half day with one of us, it would help us immensely.  Send me a quick email
and let me know which half day you are available. As a bonus, the company is
pretty good too! :)

If you can't help out, please consider coming to the show - drop by to
introduce yourself and say hello.  The show is wonderful entertainment and at
$3.00 per person/$10 per family, is an excellent bargain.  Proceeds are
donated to the Aviation Museum."

Hope to see you at any or all of the above events!

Regards,

Pamela Wile
Programme Convener
https://www.facebook.com/NovaScotiaAncestors

Ancestry.com Has Canadian Titanic Records

As a lead in to the 100th Anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic on April 15th, Ancestry.com has added more than 200,000 records to the collection at www.ancestry.com.

Among the records are two collections from Nova Scotia, and they are – headstone photographs of 121 victims buried at Fairview Cemetery in Halifax, N.S. and coroner inquest files and 330 records about bodies that were recovered from the wreck The collection includes the vessel's passenger list of the Titanic, information about crew members, and coroner files, and records about recovered bodies. Access to the records is FREE until May 31.

95th Anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge

One just has to say "Vimy Ridge" to any Canadian, and we think of the sacrifices that our fellow countrymen have made in the First World War. And this year. Major Arthur William Currie, grandson of  famed Canadian commander, General Arthur Currie, will lead Ottawa-area cadets on a pilgrimage to Vimy Ridge.

The cadets are from the Ottawa unit of the Royal Canadian Dragoons Cadet Corps, and they will see Vimy Ridge today. They will participate in a Remembrance Ceremony organized by the government.

To find out more about the Memorial, please visit http://veterans.gc.ca/eng/feature/vimy-ridge/history.

To learn more about Vimy Ridge, visit the following websites –

Canadian National Vimy Memorial Stone Display www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/memorials/cbmr/wall_stone_display See if your ancestor is on the Memorial.

Canadian War Museum www.warmuseum.ca/home See the events and displays at the museum on Vimy Day.

If you want to find out more about your ancestor in the First World War, Glenn Wright has written an excellent book, Canadians at War 1914-1919: A Research Guide to World War One Service Records. I have used this book many times to help me answer the questions that my clients have about their ancestors in the First World War.

It is available from Global Genealogy at http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/canada/military/resources/101160.htm

Richmond Hill Public Library

Richmond Hill Public Library located at the corner of Yonge Street, and Major Mackenzie Drive has a genealogy library on the library’s fourth floor (now known as the Mary-Lou Griffin Room) to house information about Richmond Hill.

They have had public lectures during the winter/spring season called "Finding Our Roots Online", and they have two sessions left -

Googling for Genealogy: How to Take Advantage of all Google has to Offer


Saturday, April 28, 2012, 10:30 - 11:30 AM

Most genealogists know that Google is a good place to start to find family information on the Internet but many don’t know how to get the best results from this search engine nor do they take full advantage of everything else Google has to offer. Author, librarian and genealogist Marian Press will guide you through Google alerts, image searching, Google Maps, Google Books, Google News Archives, Google Blogs, Google translation tools and more

Using Ancestry Library Edition to Find Your Family

Saturday, May 26, 2012, 10:30 - 11:30 AM

Working with the databases and creating a family tree online can make it easy to keep track of your family. We all know Ancestry has the Ontario births, marriages and deaths and some of the census returns but what else is available to help us find our family? Join author, historian and genealogist Ruth Burkholder and find out

Tickets for each program is $5.00 per person.

Interested people are asked to pre-register at the Central Library’s Full Service Desk

The website is at http://www.rhpl.richmondhill.on.ca/

OGS Receives Trillium Grant for Phase 2 of Digitization Project

The Ontario Genealogical Society is pleased to announce that we have been granted funding by the Ontario Trillium Foundation to begin Phase 2 of our Keeping and Valuing Ontario’s Heritage Project. The funding consists of $156,000 over two years and will allow us to continue to assist Ontario heritage organization in scanning their materials and making them available to researchers.

 Phase 1 began in Fall 2008 with the aim to do the following:

• provide a digitized version of one-of-a-kind records, increasing security
• allow small organizations access to digitizing services they otherwise could not afford
• increase access to records significant to Ontario's heritage
• allow an income stream to heritage organizations if they wish

Since then we have successfully joined with several Ontario heritage organizations to digitize their records and make them available online through a revenue generating program. We have launched a beta version of The Ontario Name Index (TONI) as the main access point to the Pay-Per-View database. The information available through Pay-Per-View allows access to the history of the people of this province.

Phase 2 seeks to continue to support the preservation of Ontario heritage materials through digitization by adding to the data available on this system and expanding our affiliations to include new heritage organizations. 

We will improve and expand on TONI while creating new indexing systems where necessary.

We will also create and launch a more user friendly search interface for TONI and Pay- Per-View to ensure that researchers can find and access their information with ease.

OGS gratefully acknowledges the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their strong support of this project and appreciates their ongoing efforts to support the growth and vitality of communities across the province of Ontario.


To go to the website of the Ontario Genealogical Society, click on www.ogs.on.ca

Sable Island Will Be a National Park Reserve

Sable Island was passed from the Canadian Coast Guard to Parks Canada this week, and the sandbar where so many ships went down (shipwrecked), and lives were lost, will be recognized as a National Park Reserve.

Over the recent years, more requests have been made by people wishing to visit the island, and it was believed that Parks Canada was best equipped to answer these requests.

The Honourable Peter Kent, Canada’s Minister of the Environment and Minister responsible for Parks Canada, the Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of National Defence and Regional Minister for Nova Scotia, and the Honourable Darrell Dexter, Premier of Nova Scotia, signed a landmark agreement in 2011.

“Today’s historic agreement will ensure that this iconic and valued Canadian landscape fabled for its wild horses, shipwrecks and one of the largest dune systems in Eastern Canada, will be protected as a national park reserve.

Located 290 kilometres offshore from Halifax, Sable Island is a windswept crescent-shaped sandbar 42 kilometres long that emerges from the Atlantic Ocean near the edge of the Continental Shelf. The island’s sand dunes and fresh water ponds are home to over 400 wild horses and numerous migrant and breeding birds, including the rare Ipswich Savannah sparrow", said Minister Kent in the press release.

Called the "Graveyard of the Atlantic”, there were over 350 shipwrecks recorded here since 1583 due to the fog and storms that beset the island from time to time.