OGS Ottawa Branch December Meeting

From the Ottawa Branch website at http://ogsottawa.on.ca/?cat=6

Date:           Tuesday, 20 December 2011: 7:00 p.m.

Location:     City of Ottawa Archives, 100 Tallwood Drive

Networking (AKA Juice and Cookies) 7:00 to 7:30

7:30 Upcoming Events and Announcements

7:45  Questions and Answers: Get answers to your genealogical questions from our panel of experienced members, with help from the rest of the audience. They may even have the correct answer.    We will start with a case study of the research of new member Cindy Enright and some of this may help your line of investigation. We will then open the floor to the membership for questions. Among our panel will be:

• Dorothy Meyerhof;: UEL/Lineage Societies:
• Jim Stanzell: War of 1812: ;
• Mike More: The Master Genealogist: software
• Charles Godwin: general computer questions
• John Patton: research in Leeds & Grenville Counties

Contact:        http://ogsottawa.on.ca

Everyone welcome. Free refreshments. Free parking.

Chris Paton commits blogicide

I admire the genealogy blogging and writing that Chris Paton does.  Since I first discovered his Scottish GENES blog, I don't think that was the original name, I've witnessed Chris working hard to bring us news from Scotland with frequent excursions to Ireland and England.  He has built his business through books, columns and lectures.

Some while ago he polled his readers asking if he should expand the scope of the blog beyond Scotland, and then had to report his blog readers didn't want that. I felt at the time that wasn't Chris's preference, so wasn't surprised when a little later he opened another blog, British GENES. Often the same items ran in both.

Now Chris has announced he's closing Scottish GENES and will post every thing that would have been in Scottish GENES there, at www.britishgenes.blogspot.com.

Read more about this change at the last post on Scottish GENES.

The link in the left hand column is now to British GENES so you can go there directly for my site.

Canada150 update

The Canada Aviation and Space Museum was the venue last Monday, 12 November, for a consultation session with about 25 representatives of various organizations in the heritage community. I was invited as a blogger; I'd better earn my invitation!

This Canada 150 project invites Canadians to share their family and community histories. The project will officially launch on 1 July 2012 giving five years to achieve its ambitions targets.

The MC for the event was Paul Jones, well known to Ontario genealogists, a Board member of Canada's History, a national charity devoted to public history. 

We were welcomed by Denise Amyot, President and CEO of the Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation. She announced that starting in 2014, in the 150 weeks leading up to the 150th anniversary, the Museums Corporation will be placing online a select group of 150 objects, one a week, and invite Canadians to tell their stories related to them. She also remarked that the Science and Technology Museum was established in 1967 as a Centennial initiative, commented they are still in temporary location, and mused that it would be a good 150th anniversary initiative for the museum to be installed in a permanent location.

In the mid-1990s Harry van Bommel, project founder, had a vision of celebrating Canada's sesquescentennial through stories Canadians told about themselves, their families, communities and organizations of which they are part. 

On 1 July 2017 he envisions the Canada 150 collection of 1.5 million stories, short and long, presented to the Governor General on our behalf as our gift to Canada. Replicating the enthusiasm of 1967, as well as the Olympics, it would be an inclusive project, the largest nation-building historical exercise in our history. 

Memorable beyond 2017 it would constitute an accessible and easily searchable collection so that the children of today, in 30 or 50 years, will be able to see what they wrote about themselves and their communities. People would be able to type in any search term and perhaps find an item of relevance to them, likely written by someone else who shared an experience such as attending the same school.

Harry van Bommel sees the bulk of the material being photographs with a story attached that people can upload to a common website. It would also include digital versions of family collections such as scrapbooks, photograph albums, films and videos, and more conventional digitized family histories. Material need not be newly created as long as it was available in the digital collection.

Canadians are ready to celebrate. A 2010 poll of 1000 Canadian found that 49% of respondents thought it very important to celebrate Canada's 150th birthday, 32% thought it was somewhat important, 37% were very interested in participating, 42% somewhat interested.

This project to date is completely volunteer, there is no budget. There is the beginning of a database of people who want to write their stories, and who want to help. People from all kinds of communities have expressed interest and the start of a contact list which needs to grow further. There's a website at www.canada150.ca, a blog, a Facebook page, and a very nice logo courtesy of Canada's History society. It's also at www.canada150.com, .org and .net

Accompanying the vision are a draft business plan, rough budgets, and an examination of lessons to be drawn from the 1867 Centennial and the Vancouver Olympics which were presented in some detail at the meeting.

Before moving into small group discussion Paul Calandra, MP and Parliamentary Secretary for Canadian Heritage encouraged the initiative while presenting his thoughts on the coming 150th birthday celebrations. He spoke about the need for planning well in advance, a mistake with the 125th anniversary, and enthusiastically about making the celebration even more successful than the Centennial. The House of Commons committee on Canadian Heritage is holding hearings on celebrating the sesquescentennial and is due to report before summer 2012.

Group discussions were on the topics

• How to get organizations involved in Canada 150 using their current resources
• How to expand the board and tap into other communities
• Finances

The results of those discussions are input to the project board.

This project is grassroots, not a government initiative. That's just as it was in 1967 as expressed in this TED video.

I admire the initiative Harry has shown. No small thinking there.

I'm hoping that Library and Archives Canada will find it a worthwhile contribution to the event to offer to archive and continue to make available the 1.5 million items contributed. A major part of LAC's lexicon these days is "trusted digital repository." Maintaining the project archive would be no small contribution.

One can see the result when continuity of availability, such as provided by a major national memory institution, is not part of the plan with the 1986 BBC Domesday Project. Produced in a proprietary videodisc format it became unreadable when the BBC computer went the way of the dodo. It has been made available again, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/domesday , thanks to a substantial recovery effort and provides snapshots of community life at the time.

More genealogy site rankings

Uberblogger Dick Eastman got me in trouble. Not that I mind.

Any time Dick, at eogn.com, mentions my blog, which he's done a couple of times previously, I get a spike of visits.  This time he saw my posting on the rankings of genealogy sites and pointed out that his site ranked the highest of any non-data site in the list. Thanks for the mention and kind words Dick. All I did was call them as I see them on Alexa.

How did it get me in trouble? While I do call them I see only what I look for, the sites I find valuable for the mandate of this blog. Read it at the top of the page

SINCE 2006, AN INDEPENDENT VIEW OF FAMILY HISTORY RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENTS WITH A BRITISH-CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE, FROM OTTAWA, CANADA'S CAPITAL FOR MORE THAN 150 YEARS.

There are lots of genealogy sites, good genealogy sites, that don't fall in the scope of my independent perspective. That's particularly the case with many US sites. A couple of their proprietors politely contacted me pointing out the lacunae. That probably wouldn't have happened if Dick hadn't noted his ranking.

One that cropped up, they didn't contact me, is archives.com (Alexa rank 8,477). I'd thought it only has US data, but see they also have BMD index and census transcriptions for England and Wales so it will get into the regular table. In fact it ranks above eogn.com (40,852) so Dick will lose his unlucky 13th spot in the genealogy sites list.

Two other sites, genealogytoday.com (118,669) and mocavo.com (134,126) come in above anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com (159,611) dropping it three places.

Other sites not in the original list ranked above 1,000,000 by Alexa are:

scotlandspeople.gov.uk 221,617
thegenealogist.co.uk 292,373
britishgenes.blogspot.com 292,914

olivetreegenealogy.blogspot.com 377,772historyextra.com 377,773
bi-gen.blogspot.com  559,298

There are probably others, Suggestions welcome for any Canadian, UK or international site that ranks better than 1,000,000 by Alexa.

Ancestry adds more of the Tyler Collection (East Kent)

From the Tyler Collection of the Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies Ancestry now has online a 303,872 record index of East Kent parish records, 1538-1874. This collection was indexed from Frank Watt Tyler's notebooks through the Ancestry World Archives Project.

Ancestry had added images from the Tyler collection back in April, see
http://anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com/2011/04/tyler-collection-of-misc-notes-and.html

Does anyone know more about Frank Watt Tyler?  It appears he was most active in the 1930s and was for several years the Hon. Sec. of the Kent Archaeological Society.  There are 306 entries of items in the FHL catalog associated with his name.

There are several letter he wrote in The Times. He may have been in the insurance business. One of his letters, published on 3 October 1929 regarding "An Ancient Fire Policy", mentions a man whose full baptismal name was "If-Christ-had-not-died-thou-hadst-been-damned Nicholas Barebones, the son of "Praise-God Barebones."

A likely looking death index record for a Frank W. Tyler is in the Bridge registration district in 1952 giving his age as 81.

FMP adds Napoleonic war records

New to findmypast.co.uk three types of Napoleon-era military record:

• Army of Reserve 1803: 26,314 records of soldiers who were part of the 1803 England and Wales Army of Reserve
• Regimental indexes 1806: 97,463 regimental records of Napoleonic era soldiers from 1806
• Foot Guards attestation papers 1775-1817: 9,309 records of soldiers' attestations to the 1st Foot Guard between 1775 and 1817

Details are at: http://www.findmypast.co.uk/search/military/napoleonic-war/napoleonic-war-records/

Jill Chambers, who supplied these index records, has further information at http://www.britisharmyresearchnapoleonicwars.co.uk/

Yuletide R&R favourites - I

I'm planning on posting a series of items during the festive season as folks are busy with preparations, news becomes scarce and the number of visitors to the blog declines.

I'll repeat some of the favourite YouTube items, classics of British comedy with some nostalgia items thrown in, posted last year. I also plan examples of more creative videos discovered.

This first is the classic which lead off this series last year from the British comedy duo "The Two Ronnies"

Genealogy site rankings

Here, using Alexa.com, are the global rankings for a selection of genealogy-related websites as of 15 December 2011. In parenthesis find the rankings at not quite equal intervals back to six and a half months ago.

Ancestry.com's stock may be dropping but it's climbing in the rankings to its highest place ever in this set. Ancestry.ca moves up one slot in the table.

Myheritage.com, the top genealogy social networking site, slips marginally but the company recent acquisition worldvitalrecords.com made a major advance.

Legacyfamilytree.com moved above familytreemaker.com

Since the last update 41 rankings have increased, 6 declined.

ancestry.com 974, (1,021), (1,103), (1,076), (984)

myheritage.com 3,565, (3,359), (3,524), (4,573), (3,886)

familysearch.org 6,449, (7,208), (8,497), (9,138), (9,120)

geni.com 7,262, (8,456), (7,768), (7,068), (8,086)

genealogy.com 10,948, (11,105), (12,295), (12,691), (12,190)

ancestry.co.uk  11,912, (12,737), (15,944), (17,199), (17,243)

archives.gov 15,462, (17,162), (17,366), (17,053), (18,209)

nationalarchives.gov.uk 17,613, (18,074), (21,600), (21,801), (18,550)

findmypast.co.uk  33,005, (42,383), (68,220), (69,394), (81,411)

ancestry.ca 38,158, (44,332), (54,036), (51,631), (42,325)
23andme.com  39,859, (45,204), (41,077), (38,146), (41,700)

genesreunited.co.uk 40,501, (42,547), (50,347), (51,699), (46,279)
eogn.com 41,458, (69,059), (135,238), (123,589), (150,226)

genealogyintime.com 46,671, (87,791), (615,133), (839,046), (784,440)

familytreedna.com  54,402, (59,819), (57,972), (67,246), (80,397)
worldvitalrecords.com 86,886, (130,933), (205,946), (250,031), (175,547)
cyndislist.com 99,715, (112,034), (116,532), (101,523), (86,990)

freebmd.org.uk 111,912, (129,726), (178,177), (204,998), (212,655)

jiapu.com 122,212, (116,716), (129,664), (176,217), (168,666)
familytreemagazine.com 115,214, (164,353), (296,260), (309,746), (201,288)
legacyfamilytree.com 145,810, (220,038), (325,569), (334,563), (273,131)

genuki.org.uk 152,152, (167,623), (177,305), (194,673), (193,436)

familytreemaker.com 152,372, (180,222), (216,098), (198,889), (161,170)

anglo-celtic-connections.blogspot.com 160,633, (280,037), (1,407,276), (1,624,999), (2,418,382)
rootsmagic.com 189,045, (320,252), (528,067), (469,630), (372,173)
americanancestors.org 193,880, (327,065), (568,638), (413,274), (276,418)

geneabloggers.com 262,399, (331,231), (671,941), (635,502), (438,407)

cwgc.org 275,362, (332,427), (304,733), (307,860), (527,236)

genealogywise.com 316,862, (397,010), (702,073), (895,754), (525,834)
lostcousins.com 340,183, (674,248), (2,427,784), (1,815,516), (2,677,921)
automatedgenealogy.com 350,302, (376,823), (471,773), (452,499), (296,376)

ogs.on.ca 448,452, (757,331), (1,487,132), (1,440,397), (1,289,655)
globalgenealogy.com 554,157, (681,424),(1,101,224), (1,019,853), (830,338)
ngsgenealogy.org 561,996, (439,639), (292,785), (507,702), (770,719)

sog.org.uk 773,042, (957,333), (1,050,849), (965,288), (708,746)

scottishancestry.blogspot.com 914,280, (1,134,859), (1,414,288), (-), (-)
whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com  923,728, (1,037,678), (1,023,413), (993,634), (994,049)
family-tree.co.uk 943,801, (1,593,687), (2,407,513), (1,684,518) (1,836,425)

ffhs.org.uk 958,864, (1,215,275), (1,201,950), (1,210,668), (1,267,779)

deceasedonline.com 1,279,069, (1,318,500),  (2,452,985), (1,902,137), (1,648,569)

rootsuk.com  1,443,015, (1,677,033), (2,030,679), (2,724,618), (1,340,610)

familychronicle.com  1,475,946, (2,192,955), 2,763,979, (2,224,075), (1,881,611)
bcgcertification.org 2,221,113, (2,010,085), (2,329,800), (1,874,498), (1,601,646)

bifhsgo.ca 2,483,731, (2,045,032), (2,541,927), (4,938,796), (7,145,992)

genealogicalstudies.com  2,933,768, (2,654,497), (1,555,150), (1,328,035), (1,093,695)
bcgs.ca 3,525,820, (4,749,980), (3,361,982), (3,459,358), (3,313,414)

arcalife.com 3,725,178, (4,398,434), (2,803,254), (2,343,474), (2,356,437)

internet-genealogy.com   3,598,927, (6,471,779), (10,981,334), (10,510,651), (3,234,636)

qfhs.ca 8,062,969, (10,593,990), (12,118,104), (9,884,139), (6,654,860)

These are all genealogy-specific sites. There are many other general sites we all use, including for our family history investigations.  Click the links to see the latest lists of top sites globally, in Canada and in the UK.

British Newspaper Archive - update

On release of the British Newspaper Archive we were promised 8,000 new pages a day. They've been doing better. From 9,695 pages added the first day they averaged 9,853 pages per day in the first two weeks of December.

There are now 176 titles in the collection, 52 issues of the Coventry Herald and 53 of the Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald have been added. 77 other papers have issues added, the largest number being for:

 London Daily News  2840
 Aberdeen Journal  2221
 Hampshire Telegraph  1932
 Derby Mercury  1278
 Nottingham Evening Post 1184
 Worcester Journal  1183
 Norfolk Chronicle  835
 Bristol Mercury  800
 Morning Chronicle  760
 Freeman's Journal  727

On average there are 5.7 pages per issue in the added issues indicating a lot of four page papers at this stage.

Ottawa City Archives

When Councillor Maria McRae said "Ottawa has a garbage problem" she wasn't referring to Council's approval of naming the building at 100 Tallwood Drive for James Bartleman. It would have been appropriate to the process. With one vote in the negative, that of Rainer Bloess, Council approved the product of a highly flawed commemorative naming process.

While this is a distant concern for many readers I'll take the opportunity to wrap up the story for those who may be curious.

At Wednesday's Council meeting Rick Chiarelli championed the proposal for the mayor.

A few council members expressed reservations, and concern about the process.

Rainer Bloess found the process sufficiently flawed to speak and vote against the council committee recommendation.

David Chernushenko express concerns with the whole commemorative naming process, although he didn't see the actual recommendation as enough of a problem to vote against it.

Bob Monette contemplated a vote against while being most concerned about finding a place to commemorate former City Librarian Claude Aubrey. He received assurances from Jan Harder, Library Board Chair, that a suitable building to bear his name would be found.

What I saw at the meeting was Council showing team solidarity, which is good for the community most of the time. When you find yourself on the wrong end of position championed by the issue leader determined to have his way by riding roughshod over public opinion, in this case the mayor, one endures the consequences.

The commemorative naming process needs an overhaul.

Meetings were held in secret despite assurances they were not automatically in camera.

The official public consultation result was manipulated by ruling the majority of responses non-compliant, even without recourse to hanging chads.

No account was taken of the petition signed by 115 people showing more people opposed to the proposal than all who responded to the official consultation. Petitions are always a feint hope but a last resort to put the public opinion on the record when the official consultation process is so grossly manipulated to provide the result desired.

The consolation is that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Thanks to the efforts of many Ottawa enjoys a serviceable, if architecturally mundane, archives is at 100 Tallwood that will serve for many years to come.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee plans

To mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Charles, Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will visit Canada.

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh intend to travel as widely as possible across the UK.

More on the plans for travel by Royal family members are at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16174233

TNA podcast: Untold histories: black Britons during the period of the British slave trade, c. 1660-1807

Life for the 'average' black person in England before and into the Victorian age wasn't what you might imagine.  There was never slavery in England, as there was in Scotland; that's according to Dr Kathleen Chater in this podcast from a lecture given during TNA's recent Diversity Week

According to Chater most were quietly getting on with their lives, seeking employment, getting married and raising families. Despite the obstacle that blacks were rarely identified as such in official records, and it takes a lot of work to uncover their life histories, glimpses into their lives can be found buried in The National Archives' vast collection. The presentation contains anecdotes about some colourful individuals.

Listen from http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/untold-histories-black-britons.htm

Ontario Senior Achievement Award for the Preservation of History

Have you ever looked at the Historic Images Gallery at www.mississauga.ca/historicimages? It’s a project of the Mississauga Library System, Museums of Mississauga, and two offices of the City of Mississauga, Planning & Heritage and Administration & Cemeteries.

Dorothy Kew played an important role in the development of the site and continues to work on it as a part-time librarian in the Mississauga Library System. She is the proud recipient of an Ontario Senior Achievement Award for the Preservation of History. The Honourable David Onley will present the awards on December 14, 2011 at Queen’s Park.

Congratulations to Dorothy.

via Liz McQuaig, Librarian, Arts & History Department, Mississauga Central Library

My Ottawa Morning interview

On Tuesday morning I had the pleasure, despite the early hour, of being interviewed on CBC Radio's Ottawa Morning program by the new host, Robyn Bresnahan, on the petition drive I've undertaken regarding naming the building housing the main City Archives at 100 Tallwood Drive.

Here it is, for the record: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Radio/Local_Shows/Ontario/Ottawa_Morning/1366095551/ID=2176229230

Barbara Clubb retires

Today marks the retirement of long time Ottawa city Librarian Barbara Clubb.

Barbara has provided exceptional leadership for the City's library system.

One of the challenges she leaves for her successors is the question of a new main city library.  In her final report to the Library Board she provides, toward that end, a concise summary of major library developments in other cities in recent years, including photographs showing the type of landmark architecture Ottawa so sorely needs.

I'd like to offer appreciation for Barbara's service and wish her well for the future.

WW1 digitized microfilms from LAC

Library and Archives Canada announces availability of over 127,000 new images for the:

Commonwealth War Graves Registers, First World War
Circumstances of Death Registers, First World War

These are unindexed, but the files are in name order with a key to the name range on each digital microfilm found under the corresponding help file.

No investigation of a Canadian WW1 casualty is complete without searching these files, facilitated now with online availability. 

Early Victorian London

I caught the tail end of an interview Eleanor Wachtel, one of the treasures of CBC radio, had on Writers and Company with Claire Tomalin in anticipation of the bicentenary of the birth, and her new biography, of Charles Dickens.

Asked about her favourite Dickens book Tomalin avoided the issue, the first mentioned of several being Sketches by "Boz," Illustrative of Every-day (London) Life and Every-day People published between 1833 and 1836, so they're not strictly Victorian. The episode should be coming soon on iTunes. Read the book from here.

Only a few hours later I came across a review of The Blackest Streets: The Rise and Fall of a Victorian Slum by Sarah Wise on the Post It Notes from Hades blog. Persephone describes it as "a very readable account of the neighbourhood behind St Leonard Shoreditch which, for about one century, had the reputation of being the dirtiest, poorest, and most dangerous place in London," but only gives the book three stars out of five.

CAUT video on LAC

A short You Tube message from the Canadian Association of University Teachers about the dangers of Library and Archives Canada's direction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XGOtGmL-Maw

via the University of Toronto Academic Librarians Blog

More on naming the Ottawa main archives building

A previous post summarized the situation regarding finding a name for the building which houses the new main City Archives.

This late in the process options for further input are limited. However, the city policy is clear: "The City of Ottawa is committed to citizen engagement and supports petitions as one tool for citizens to have input into Council’s decision making process."

At Saturday's meeting of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa a petition was circulated, not formally endorsed by the Society, regarding the naming.

Whereas: the building housing the main city archives at 100 Tallwood Drive is proposed to be named for James Bartleman, who has made substantial contributions to Canada and Ontario; and
Whereas: that building should be named for a person or persons with a strong connection to the history and heritage of Ottawa, a criterion not met by the proposal.
I/We the undersigned, petition the Council of the City of Ottawa:to seek a more suitable name through a fully open and transparent process.  

The petition is signed by 103 people with perhaps a few more coming.

During the city official consultation period 86 responses were received, of which 39 were disqualified as not focusing on the intended purpose of the consultation, at least to some extent. That would include responses that proposed another name.

Of the remaining 47 responses in the city consultation 32 supported the Bartleman proposal. In this petition more than three times that number found it inappropriate to the function of the building.

The issue of naming the building is on the agenda for the Ottawa City Council meeting on Wednesday, 16 December.

No books

I don't normally cover items from Leland Meitzler's Genealogy Blog as it's usually US-centric, but the item Book Venders Banned from the RootsTech Exhibit Hall is of more than US interest, a sign of the times.

It refers to a note from RootsTech's Exhibit Hall Coordinator that:

"RootsTech exhibit hall is for technically related products and services. We are purposefully not accepting applications from genealogical studies, book publishers, book resellers or arts and crafts dealers."

This appears to continue the trend I sensed last year from the conference  - nothing to learn from the past, no room for the conventional. Reminds me of the Dot Com bubble days when we were told the old ways of evaluating stocks no longer applied.

Best use all tools at your disposal, and use them together.

Recent improvements to public services at LAC?

Recent days have seen an increase in LAC communications. I'll quote the latest item in full, they likely won't mind!

Recent improvements to public services at Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is committed to providing services and tools that allow you to discover, engage with, and share your documentary heritage. Thanks to client feedback, we identified service issues and discussed how best to address them. Here are the resulting improvements for 2010-2011.

Better search: We made some changes to the LAC website so you can access our rich and varied holdings quickly and easily. You will find helpful tips on how to use the Archives Search tool in our Search Help section.

New research guides: We added research guides to the LAC website to help you find materials on a range of topics, including Canadiana keyword searching in AMICUS the national catalogue of published materials; internment camp records; and ethnocultural groups. Most of these are available at:
www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/discover/product/index-e.html#a
More records online: We digitized many more resources, which are now available to you on the LAC website. These include materials in popular research areas, such as genealogy, family history, and military history. Access the complete list here.

Access to previously restricted materials: Recent legal decisions enable us to grant more public access to important collections: Second World War Service Files and all photographs in private collections to which donors or copyright holders allow access "for archival purposes."

Canada’s history and heritage is just a click away.

This is welcome progress over the past two years, 2010-2011. It's good communications to remind people of the things the organization has achieved, perhaps things overlooked when announced the first time around. 

Unfortunately not everything goes smoothly when you check it out.  I tried the Archives Search and got the response

Archives Search Result

We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please try again later. Library and Archives Canada regrets the inconvenience.

The wording on the Second World War Service Files suggests there's information on other's aside from those who died during the conflict.  Not the case, and even for those the information online is little different from what's been available elsewhere for years.

That's from LAC. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission site, online for many years, gives:

From LAC you get the reference, RG 23, and the volume. You do not get the Grave Memorial Reference and Cemetery given by the CWGC.

LAC have started to add the complete service files for WW1 soldiers as scanned copies are requested, and paid for, by clients. I got a notice a few days ago that my great uncle's file is finally linked. Progress. 

Milestone

I'm celebrating.

Yesterday this blog passed half a million page-loads. Thanks to all who have visited.

Ancestry adds 1911 census of England

It's taken a while but Ancestry announces they have the 1911 census for England, as well as Wales, the Isle of Man and Channel Islands, indexed and online.

Taken on the night of Sunday, 2 April 1911 the original information is a form, one per household, giving name, relationship to head of family, age at last birthday, sex, marriage details (including number of children), occupation (for people age 10 and over), birthplace, nationality, infirmity (deaf, blind, lunatic, etc.; infirmity information will not be available until 2012 for privacy reasons), postal address

There are forms to institutions such as hospitals, prisons, and workhouses. Men on Royal Navy and merchant marine vessels were counted, as were the families of military personnel stationed overseas.

Find it at http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=2352

Don't forget to check the corresponding record in the census summary book, also on Ancestry, with information on the type of property (such as a house, flat or shop), and statistics on the local population.

LAC corporate video

"It’s the classic situation.
You’re celebrating a friend’s birthday and you’ve been asked to find the old Year Book and some pictures that will make the event really special."

Those are the opening lines in this new Library and Archives Canada corporate video. In simple language, grade 10 level, the video conveys the message of the mission and direction of the organization. Available in both languages it has optional closed captioning.

I understand the concept and text came from the creative services group at LAC; the production was by HyperActive, an Ottawa-based video production company.

Maybe one day LAC will walk the walk as well as this talks the talk.

BIFHSGO December meeting

The December BIHSGO Great Moments in Genealogy session is always a favourite.

This time the topics and speakers are:

• How I Found 'Uncle Effie' While Helping to Research a WWII Pilot, by Mary Anne Sharpe
• Professor Robinson – Where did you come from? by Roberta Kay
• Revelations in a Paper Bag and a Shoe Box, by Anne Sterling (listen to a brief interview here)
• Fun Boy, Fly Boy, My Reclusive Uncle, by Ted Lawrence

The meeting starts at 10am on Saturday, 10 December. The location is the auditorium at Library and Archives Canada, 395 Wellington Street, Ottawa, which is where the meetings are planned to remain in 2012.

The December issue of Anglo-Celtic Roots will be available for members to collect. Editor Jean Kitchen has been working hard to solicit writers. It's paid off in this issue, I've seen some of the content.  

There will also be the usual Discovery Tables on England, Ireland & Scotland to browse and meet with family history experts; refreshments and good company.

More details on the presentations are at http://www.bifhsgo.ca/

Watson bulls through naming proposal

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson had no presents for the heritage community this season. He marginalized the contributions of local historians by bulling through the city Finance and Economic Development Committee his choice of James Bartleman as the person for whom the main City Archives and Library Materials Building will be named.

Despite three public interventions at the meeting indicating Bartleman was not a good choice for this particular building, as he had practically nothing to do with the history of the city, counsellors acted like sheeple agreeing to the mayor's suggestion without discussion.

On the previous item Mayor Watson trumpeted how transparent the city process had been.  He was strangely quiet about that when it came to this item.

It was not supposed to be that way. I had received  an email from Tyler L. Cox of the City Clerk's office on 3 June that “the Commemorative Naming Committee ... no longer automatically moves in-camera to consider naming proposals.”

Only through the press did  it come out  that the Commemorative Naming Committee had met ... surreptitiously. The meeting was not publicised in advance so whether it was in-camera or not becomes academic. Why no transparency?

That Commemorative Naming Committee meeting endorsed Mayor Watson's selection of James Bartleman.

Given his achievements Mr Bartleman’s name could appropriately grace a city library branch, a community centre or social housing building. But his links to the heritage of this city are tenuous.

The majority of proposals received had indicated the community favoured a name that rings strongly in the annals of the city. That should have guided the Commemorative Naming Committee in deciding what weight to give to the various established criteria. It appears to be quite normal for the city to be strongly guided by the wishes of the community in question in choosing a name. Why not in this case?

There were people nominated whose names might ONLY be appropriately celebrated in a building dedicated in large part to the heritage of the City, not as with Mr Bartleman in many different types of building or facility. Mr. Bartleman’s trailblazing record of federal public service is historic in its own right, but it’s on a larger stage, not on the local scene, aside from the incidental that he happened to be a nominal resident of the City absent for much of that time due to his Foreign Service postings.

Mr Bartleman's name was bulled forward in a secretive process, one that failed to respect the wishes and initiative of those who made other proposals. Citizens need to be able to see that their proposals have been considered equitably.

Those who submitted proposals didn't even receive a simple letter of acknowledgement nor any other communication. Does such treatment do anything to encourage citizens to make honest efforts to make the city the best it can be, one that respects and remembers its heritage? Why the omission?

Much was made at the Finance and Economic Development Committee meeting of comments received in response to a notice regarding the Bartleman proposal. They were presented as favoring the proposal, but only because a large number were rejected as proposing other names rather than commenting on the proposal. Obviously if you're proposing another name you're not supporting the proposal, but that's a leap of logic too inconvenient to Mayor Watson's wishes, worthy of an election manipulating dictatorship.

The reality is that there is no urgency in deciding this issue. This committee could have refer the nomination back to the Commemorative Naming Committee, without passing any judgement on the merit of Mr Bartleman, with a request for reconsideration in a more transparent process sensitive to the wishes of the community.

Use Ctrl-F to making finding easy

I was surprised to read in the My Heritage blog that 90% of people don't use the Ctrl-F command to find items on a web page. It's something I use every day.

To see how this works, hold down the Ctrl button, the Command button if you use a Mac, and press F. When the box appears  type in your search term. Try typing the word useful, then click to start the search.  Scroll through the hits highlighted in the text until you come to the hidden one. Then highlight that whole line.




There are other useful Ctrl commands covered in the My Heritage blog post.

QFHS December meeting: Life in Edwardian Montreal

Unfortunately the Quebec Family History Society and BIFHSGO meetings are on the same day, next Saturday 10 December, so I won't be in Beaconsfield to hear Robert N. Wilkins, a regular contributor to the Montreal Gazette, speaking about life and death in Edwardian Montreal.

The meeting starts at10:30 AM at Briarwood Presbyterian Church, 70 Beaconsfield Blvd., Beaconsfield.

Canada 150: hearing with LAC

The House of Commons Canadian Heritage Committee met on Tuesday morning continuing with the early stages of its study of Canada’s 150th anniversary. The witnesses were from the National Film Board of Canada and Library and Archives Canada (Daniel Caron).

From the opening statements made on behalf of both organizations it was clear that neither have specific plans for 2017. They spent their time describing their programs, directions, and how those equip the organization to contribute to the celebration.

Planning for the 150th is desirable, but we should be realistic about what is possible. Looking back to the 50th anniversary of Confederation, it was a low key affair. Canada was enmeshed in The Great War and there was little appetite for celebration while Canadians were dying in France and Belgium. Also the Centre Block of the parliament building lay in ashes. None of that was anticipated in December 1911. Are we any better today at predicting the situation in 2017?

The bulk of the questions from committee members were to the representatives of the National Film Board.

You should be able to listen to the 110 minute session from http://www.parl.gc.ca/CommitteeBusiness/CommitteeMeetings.aspx?Mode=1&ControlCallback=pvuWebcast&Parl=41&Ses=1&Organization=CHPC&MeetingNumber=17&Language=E&NoJavaScript=true

Daniel Caron's opening statement runs from about 12 minutes into the recording to 24 minutes.

Global Genealogy Bestsellers

Once again this year here, from Sandra Roberts of Global Genealogy, is the company list of bestsellers, books you might want to consider as a gift for your favourite Canadian genealogist.

1. Canadians at War, 1914-1919: A Research Guide to World War One Service Records, by Glenn Wright
2. British Home Children: Their Stories, compiled by BIFHSGO
3. Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada Before Confederation (pre-1867) Vol. 1, 2, 3 & 4, by Donald Whyte.
4. Le Tanguay Collection, Version 3.0 - TWO CD SET, by Cyprien Tanguay and Joseph-Arthur Leboeuf

5. King's Daughters and Founding Mothers: The Filles du Roi, 1663-1673 (2 Vol. Set) , by Peter J. Gagné (only 6 stock, appears to be out of print)

6. The Search for Heinrich Stief, A Genealogist on the Loose, by Les Bowser  

7. Early Ontario Settlers, A Source Book, by Norman Crowder

8. Ontario People: 1796-1803, by Keith Fitzgerald

9. Discover Scottish Church Records, by Chris Paton

10. A Genealogical Gazetteer of England, compiled by Frank Smith

Sandra comments that some of their other popular products this season are:
Magnabrite Magnifiers in a number of sizes
Gravestone rubbing kit (a big hit in the US).
"Quick Sheets" or "Genealogy at a Glance" sheets (the one for Michigan is going great guns.)

More information, and order at www.globalgenealogy.com

The People's Post

A 15 part series of programs under the title "The People's Post: A Narrative History of the Post Office" is underway on BBC Radio 4. It explores the development of the Royal Mail, an institution tracing origins back to Henry VIII.

The first episode, The Secret Room, covered the origins of the postal service and how, during the English Civil War and Cromwell's interegnum the postal network became an important instrument of state control. In a secret room deep in the post office building, agents opened and copied letters from suspected dissidents on a grand scale.

The upcoming 15 minutes episodes this week are:

The London Penny Post
A Culture of Letters
The Mail Coach
Freepost

You can listen to BBC Radio 4 online, the program airs at 8:45am EST. While there does not appear to be availability as a podcast there is an omnibus edition scheduled for 4pm EST on Friday.

OGS conference registration open online

Online registration is now open for the OGS conference 2012, click here.

FreeBMD December update

The FreeBMD Database was last updated on Sun 4 Dec 2011 and currently contains 209,323,684 distinct records (265,436,329 total records).

This update includes a large number of births for 1938, 1940, 1943-45, 1949, 1952, 1954-55, 1957-1959; marriages for 1920, 1952-55, 1957-59; and deaths for 1883, 1946, 1951, 1953-55, 1957-59, 1961.

Universal access to all knowledge

You've got to love the "Can Do" approach of the Internet Archives, as evident in this brief summary of a talk given on 20 November by Brewster Kahle

.... the Wayback Machine copies every page of every website every two months and makes them time-searchable from its six-petabyte database of 150 billion pages. It has 500,000 users a day making 6,000 queries a second.

Contrast that with the "can't do" attitude here.

 "Exponential growth of information means that we cannot capture and preserve all of it"

DNA for Genealogy

On Tuesday December 6, 2011 The Jewish Genealogical Society of Ottawa will host a presentation by Jay Sage explaining the basics of human genetics, the different types of testing available, the costs involved, and how to use the results of the analysis to further one's genealogical research.

Jay Sage served as co-president of the JGS of Greater Boston from 2000 to 2003, is currently co-editor of the Society's journal, Mass-Pocha, and is a member of the IAJGS board of directors.

Proceedings get underway at 7:30 pm at the Soloway Jewish Community Centre,  21 Nadolny Sachs Private, Ottawa.

The presentation is open to the general public and free of charge.

Ten gift suggestions for the family historian

Shopping for a gift for a genealogist? Looking for ideas on hints to drop? Here's my 2011 list of seasonal gifts.

For those who will not cite their sources encourage them with Elizabeth Shown Mills Quicksheets on Citing Online Historical Resources, and Citing Ancestry.com Databases & Images. There's also a Quicksheet on Genealogical Problem Analysis- A Strategic Plan- Evidence! Style. Check out globalgenealogy.com or amazon.com, amazon.ca or amazon.co.uk. Less than $10.

There is a good selection of publications available from Moorshead Magazines. As well as a subscription to one (or more) of their magazines, Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy and History Magazine, they have a selection of their own and other's publications at http://www.familychronicle.com/books.htm

I'll have more on books in another post.

Getting into electronics, everyone needs to back up the family history on their computer. There are various ways to do so. One of the easiest and most secure is to put the files on a USB flash drive, also known as jump drive, data stick and other names. Store it off-site, with a friend or relative or put it in a bank safety deposit box. Capabilities and capacities vary. I found a Kingston DataTraveler G3 8GB USB 2.0 Drive at Future Shop for $9. Walmart has a SanDisk Cruzer™ Micro 8.0 GB for $12. There's lots more choice.

If you listen to genealogy webinars and podcasts you may get frustrated by the sound quality from built-in speakers. I'm now using an iHome speaker purchased from Walmart for less than $20.

Consider a headset for those long Skype conversations with distant cousins, or to use with speech to text software like Dragon Naturally Speaking. I found models by Logitech at Staples for $25 and up.

A digital audio recorder can come in useful for preserving those conversations with the keepers of the family memories. Staples.ca have models from less than $50 and up by Sony and Olympus. Panasonic have some more expensive models. Make sure you can transfer them, perhaps via USB, to your computer for storage on that USB flash drive.

However, if you're looking at the high end of that range you might want to consider an iPod Touch starting at $200 for the most recent 8GB model. With two video-capable cameras and a microphone it does most of what an iPhone does for considerably less money, except you only get online through WiFi. One of Canada's top genealogists got one a couple of months ago and is delighted with it.

Warning -- once you put your foot in that territory it's a slippery slope to iPhone, iPad. I'm a happy iPhone user continually tempted by the iPad, also looking at the competition.

There are actually more than ten suggestions, and you can add to that number by sharing in a comment.

Life in Britain 200 years ago

An amusing item in the BBC online magazine "Headlines from 1811: Riots, cuts and a snake-eating cow" illustrates how our problems were often their problems.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15945306

TNA Podcast: Making geographical sense of the census

From the day long conference on the census held at TNA on Saturday 1 October 2011 comes this talk by university geographer Humphrey Southall who looks at the bewildering variety of geographical parameters that have been associated with the census since 1801 to the present.

Unusually, and very welcome, the slides accompanying the presentation are available online; it`s a big download. Toward the end the presentation he switches to an online example from Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire, from the Vision of Britain website.

There is some annoying variation in volume as the speaker moves back and forth which would be corrected if TNA would splurge for a head-attached mic, something I've already suggest to them.

While the talk doesn't have much directly for the genealogist it might help you explore how your ancestor managed to switch geographical area between censuses while staying in the same house.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/podcasts/making-geographical-sense-census.htm

Ottawa Public Library 2012-2015 draft strategic plan

The following is from the OPL website:

The Ottawa Public Library is asking Ottawans to contribute to its planning.
You are invited to complete a short survey pertaining to the Library’s 2012-2015 Draft Strategic Plan. It includes the Library’s specific objectives, related to strategic directions including relevant and vital services and spaces enabled by a commitment to innovation, engagement and excellence.

Feedback will help inform the OPL Board about the needs of the Ottawa community in future planning for the Library.

The draft Strategic Plan and the survey will be available to citizens between November 28 and December 7, 2011.

Thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey below.

Read the 2012-2015 Draft Strategic Plan here

Fill out the survey here

ACOM finishes November on an uptick

ACOM, Ancestry.com's stock, has had a rough year.

From a high near $45 at the beginning of August the price settled below $30 in mid-September.

It was mostly a no cheerfulness November on stock markets, with ACOM sharing in the ride. It traded between $22 and $25 managing to gain 80c on the 30th in a positive market. It lost half that gain on December 1st.

The third quarter financial report issued at the end of October saw Ancestry.com subscribers increase 24% , and revenues increase 30% year-over-year.

Less encouraging is that subscriber churn was 4.2%, the fourth highest, and subscriber acquisition cost the second highest in the company history of 13 quarters.

Analysts continue to rate the stock a strong buy, or buy. Interestingly that's an opinion that hasn't changed since 3 months ago when the stock peaked at twice the current price!

FMP adds 1861 Scottish census, Manchester Police Index 1812-1941 and Prestwich Asylum Admissions 1851-1901

Three new databases, all transcriptions or indexes without original images,  appeared at Find My Past for the end of the month.

The 1861 census of Scotland is now available adding to those for 1841 and 1851. Note that there is no separate database entry, you search 1861 and select Scotland in the drop down menu for country.

The Manchester Police Index 1812-1941 contains 10,636 records with information about: age, place of birth, religion, trade and whether married or single. You may also be able to find out details of previous employment – in many cases involving military service – or reason for leaving.

Prestwich Asylum Admissions includes  22,722 records of male and female admissions from January 1851 to March 1901 containing basic information on: when the patient was admitted, age, occupation, marital status, religious affiliation and number of children, as well as an outline of how they came to be admitted. Later admissions may be supplemented by a photograph.

These are indexes with no access to original images.

More at http://www.findmypast.co.uk/content/news/manchester-police-prestwich-asylum.html

Governor General's History Awards

His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada will present the Governor General's History Awards, a newly expanded set of national honours in the field of Canadian history, on December 12, 2011 in Ottawa at 10 a.m. at Rideau Hall.

Some of the award winners are:

The Governor General's History Award for Popular History - The Pierre Berton Award - 'J'ai la memoire qui tourne' - produced by Guylaine Maroist and Eric Ruel, two filmmakers from Montréal, for their multi-media project about the history of Quebec.

The Governor General's History Award for Scholarly Achievement - The Sir John A. Macdonald Prize - Michel Ducharme, a professor from the University of British Columbia, who authored Le concept de liberté au Canada a l'epoque des Revolution atlantiques (1776-1838).

The Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Museums - The History Alive! Award - Centre des sciences de Montreal for their exhibit entitled 'All Hands to Battle! Life in the Port of Montreal'.
The Governor General's History Award for Excellence in Community Programming - St. Joseph and Area Historical Society for a community theatre production entitled 'Narcisse: The Father of the St. Lawrence Seaway' and Société d'histoire de Saint-le-Grand for 'Les Grands Basilois'.

See the press release, which includes honourable mentions, at http://goo.gl/3uFns

British Newspaper Archive - review

The much anticipated British Newspaper Archive is online!  It boasts 3,088,748 pages as of the end of November with a promise of adding 8,000 new pages every day. In ten years time up to 40 million pages are promised, and if history is anything to go by that will be achieved sooner. 9,695 pages were added the first day.

I was interested to find out what's available, and how likely you are to find what you're looking for -- if it was printed, and what it costs.

Availability is easy and well documented. There are presently 174 titles in the collection, 145 from England, 19 from Scotland, 6 from Wales, 3 from Ireland, and 1 from the Isle of Man.

According to the website "The first stage of this project focuses on runs published before 1900 and includes titles from cities such as Birmingham, Derby, Manchester, Nottingham, Norwich, Leeds and York, along with local titles from London boroughs." Here are the top 20 papers which have the most issues available.

Newspaper Issues Years 

Morning Post  22256 1801-1900 

Caledonian Mercury  19165 1720-1867 

Western Times  15724 1827-1940 

London Standard  14043 1827-1900 

London Daily News  12438 1846-1900 

Dundee Courier  11251 1844-1900 

Freeman's Journal  11043 1820-1900 

Belfast News-Letter  10776 1828-1900 

Morning Chronicle  10655 1801-1865 

Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser  10496 1825-1903 Glasgow Herald  9521 1820-1900 

Birmingham Daily Post  9216 1857-1900 

Leeds Mercury  8775 1807-1900 

Manchester Evening News  8551 1870-1903 

Sheffield Independent  8181 1819-1900 

York Herald  8167 1801-1900 

Liverpool Mercury  7465 1811-1900 

Nottingham Evening Post  7113 1878-1944 

Aberdeen Journal  7064 1798-1900 

Bristol Mercury  6828 1716-1900  

Indicated in red are newspapers that also have content on the 19th Century British Library Newspaper online collection, sometimes more, sometimes less. To save, if working on a pay per view basis, it would be wise to investigate availability there, often free at a public access site such as the LDS Family History Centres.

A couple of newspapers are represented by only single issues, the "Ayr Advertiser, or, West Country Journal" and the "Elgin Courant, and Morayshire Advertiser". 

Assessing how likely you are to find what you're looking for, if it was printed, is much less certain. Here are two examples of the snippet view you can view for free as a result of a search showing the quality of the text recognition.  

f Mr. Robert Digby, of Barrow ; Mrs. Briggs, wife of Mr. Henry Briggs, of the Plumber's Arms, Denston ; Mrs. Webb, wife of Mr. Webb, a respectable farmer, of Brebbenham. Corn Returns. — Prices of wheat made at the Corn Exchange. Week ending July 6 ... ?

-oit Marmon..oad Sonhec; orof . K.Up-stree holserer Quen-steetPortea, unnigham HATEROYAL, COMMRIJ OD Iy as IESEE.Aim MANAGER, MR. H. L Authorised to Perform the Pieces of the D ,oue Authors' Society. . LAST WEEK OF MR. J.CLARE - of wales's, Ad hi, S ... ?

As yet there is no study of the quality of the text recognition. It is likely to be quite variable from paper to paper as found in the study of the 19th Century British Library Newspaper collection. On average, there was about a 2 in 3 chance of a proper name being correctly recognized in the 19th Century British Library Newspaper collection study.

A welcome feature is the capability, pioneered by the National Library of Australia, to allow users to correct text.

Finally, what does it cost?

A 2 day package of 500 credits is £6.95 GBP; a 30 day package of 3,000 credits is £29.95 GB.

What do you get for a credit? Viewing a B&W page over 107 years old costs 5 credits, a colour scanned page over 107 years old costs 10 credits. They new scanning is being done in colour. A more recent page (within 107 years) 15 credits. 

A full year unlimited subscription is £79.95 GBP, about $128 Canadian.

I suggest trying it. Searching and viewing the snippet result is free.