2018: A year of Canadian genealogy in review

Inspired by historian Andrea Eidinger’s 2018: A Year of Canadian History in Review, I put together a month-by-month summary of the initiatives and announcements that helped shape and had an impact on genealogical research in Canada this year.

Three of the biggest genealogy news stories this year were about Library and Archives Canada (LAC) completing its mammoth project to digitize all WWI personnel files, Statistics Canada transferring the 1926 Census of Prairie Provinces to LAC, and how genetic genealogy has expanded from helping family historians connecting with distant cousins to becoming a tool for law enforcement agencies to track down violent criminals.

While not noted in the summary, 2018 was a busy one for Canadian genealogical societies, especially those who hosted conferences, workshops, and special events.

I’d also like to give a tip of the hat to the provincial archives in British Columbia, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia that released an additional year of civil birth, marriage, and death records.

January
• Postmedia donates 2 million historic photographs to City of Vancouver Archives
• Quebec Genealogical eSociety launched
• Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada WWII War Diaries transcribed and online
• LAC launches new search engine, Collection SearchBETA
• Improved search feature added to Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery website

February
• LAC launches national library catalogue, Voilà
• Canadian Parliament votes to establish annual British Home Child Day
• Interactive mapping tool of burial site info and photos of Peterborough, ON cemetery
• City of Victoria launches searchable archives with more than 10,000 photos and records
• Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada uploads thousands of photos to Flickr
• Lakehead University Archives launches Thunder Bay WWI website

A group of happy British home children descendants and friends joined Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry MP Guy Lauzon (front centre) for a group photo after Parliament passed Motion No. 133 in Ottawa, Ontario. Photo courtesy Jennifer DeBruin.

March
• MyHeritage releases chromosome browser upgrade
• New tool to explore Toronto streets through more than 30,000 historical photos
• NSW Archives in Australia digitizes photos of prisoners, 1870-1930, including Canadians

April
• Canadian Research Knowledge Network and Canadiana merge
• New Brunswick opens sealed adoption records
• Manitoba launches Heritage Trust Program to support museums and archives
• McGill University inaugurates Chair in Canadian-Scottish Studies
• FamilySearch reaches milestone with 2 billion records
• Genealogy and DNA help identify Golden State Killer
• LAC introduces Co-Lab tool to transcribe, tag, translate records
• Virtual Genealogical Association launched 

May
• Halifax, Nova Scotia city directories online
• Gaspé, Quebec museum digitizes 4,000 historic photos
• Ancestry appoints former head of Mattell Margo Georgiadis as CEO

June
• Stats Canada transfers 1926 Census of Prairie Provinces to LAC
• Jean-Louis Roy becomes CEO of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec
• Quebec opens adoption records
• Ulster American Heritage Symposium held for first time in Canada
• ‘Genealogy with a Canadian Twist’ webinar series launched
• Marine History Archive digitizing collection of people in Newfoundland, 1500-1850

July
• Owner shuts down Cornwall Roots website
• Report released on nearly 600,000 forced post-WWII adoptions in Canada
• Quebec’s Monastère des Augustines provides online access to archives, dating back to
  New France
• Findmypast and Living DNA announce partnership
• GlaxoSmithKline to invest $300 million in 23andMe to develop new drugs

Officers and members of the 26th Battalion of the Second Canadian Expeditionary Force, Saint John, New Brunswick, June 1915. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

August
• LAC Canada completes digitization of entire WWI personnel files
• University of Saskatchewan Archives digitizes historic images of postcards and people
• 103 years of Maclean’s magazine digitized

Saskatchewan History, Volume 66, Number 2, Fall/Winter 2014. Source: Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan

September
• PRDH almost doubles in size
• Winnipeg Tribune, 1890-1980, online
• Issues of ‘Ontario History,’ 2013-2017, online
• 69 years of ‘Saskatchewan History’ magazine
  online

October
• City of Edmonton Archives launches new website
• New NAFTA to extend term of Canadian
  copyright
• Historians campaign to relocate City of Winnipeg
  Archives to new home
• LAC’s National Heritage Digitization Strategy
  funds 21 projects

November
• Yukon First Nations opens massive archive
• Canadian Research Knowledge Network announces
  free access to 60 million pages of Canadiana January 1, 2019
• Prince Edward Island announces it will open adoption records in one or two years
• Kelowna and District Genealogical Society digitizes obits, local history, photos

December
• FamilySearch sends indexed 1926 Census of Prairie Provinces to Library and Archives
  Canada to build database
• Medicine Hat Genealogical Society digitizing phone books for several Alberta cities
• Library of Congress digitizes World War History: Newspaper Clippings, 1914 to 1926
• Queen’s University student registers online, 1842-1907
• Archives de Montréal relocates for three years
• Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan closes Saskatoon facility
• Ontario OnLand Phase 2 (Ontario land registration records) launched

Top blog post on Genealogy à la carte
The most-read article on this blog was Why I cancelled my Ancestry subscription after 12 years. Apparently, I wasn’t alone when I wrote about my huge reluctance to do so.

Thank you to everyone who read my blog and wrote comments this year and to those who are members of the Genealogy à la carte Facebook group.