Ancestry has updated its Ontario Marriages collection by adding records for 1941 and 1942.
Perhaps we’ll soon see the 1918 Ontario birth registrations, along with the 1951 and 1952 death registrations.
This September, the Archives of Ontario confirmed with Ken McKinlay that the 1943 marriages and 1953 deaths were being “actively being digitized and processed for online release.” They were unable to provide a release date.
The first week of the month is usually a busy one for virtual and hybrid presentations at Ontario Ancestors, and that’s the case this week. There are six presentations and, not surprisingly as Remembrance Day nears, three of them have a military theme.
All of the presentations are open to everyone who registers. Five are free and the society one is free to Ontario Ancestors members, but there’s a small fee for non-members.
The following times are in Eastern time.
Monday, November 4, 7:00 p.m. — Leeds & Grenville Branch
Mike More’s Grandfather’s Experience in the British Army in the First World War by Mike More
Branch member Mike More will give a presentation about his grandfather’s experience in the British Army in the First World War. Mike says, “To many Canadians, the Great War was fought in the trenches of France. But my grandfather spent almost five years in India and the Middle East. This was truly a global war and, although few Canadians served on other fronts, there was a great deal of fighting outside of France, and ‘Soldiers of the King’ were involved in all of them, along with many other nations. I’ll give a brief summary of what happened in the other areas of the conflict.” Register to watch online.
Tuesday, November 5, 7:30 p.m. — Durham Region Branch
Exploring The United Church of Canada Archives by Kyle Pugh
Celebrating its 100th anniversary next year, the United Church of Canada is the country’s largest mainline Protestant denomination. Formed in 1925 with the union of the Methodist, Congregational, and Presbyterian Unions, the United Church Archives houses thousands of vital statistic registers and historic rolls. Kyle Pugh, the Ontario Regional Councils Archivist at the United Church of Canada Archives, will be exploring these resources, as well as providing valuable tips on navigating the United Church’s collections. Register to watch online.
Wednesday, November 6, 7:30 p.m. — Huron County Branch
Diaries Uncover the Daily Lives of Rural Families by Catharine A. Wilson
Join Catharine, recently retired history professor at the University of Guelph and founder and director of the Rural Diary Archive as she tours the Rural Diary Archive exploring old diaries (including some from Huron County), the nature of diary writing, and the value of diaries for historical research. Rather than indulge in self-reflection, rural men and women looked outward, recording the activities of their family including work, marketing, purchasing goods, visiting friends and helping neighbours. Register to watch online.
Thursday, November 7, 1:00 p.m. — Scottish Special Interest Group
Lost Streets and Disappearing Communities of Glasgow presented by Catriona Haine
Thursday, November 7, 7:00 p.m. — Ontario Ancestors
Exploring Military Records by Richard Ruggle
I got into this by trying to identify the people named on the cenotaph in my town (Georgetown). An introduction to the frustration of variant spellings, and of who’s included or not. I liked the challenge of finding out about the fleeting lives of some of these men-often boys-like the one who had to use the head of the family with whom he boarded as his next-of-kin, who went off to war and is buried across the ocean, who would otherwise be forgotten, but for that name on the cenotaph. Sometimes I failed: there was a John MacDonald there who died during the first world war, one of 49 Canadian John MacDonalds who perished – none with any obvious connection to the town. As you who are searching your family history know, we aren’t always successful. But there’s a lot of fascinating things to discover along the way. Can be challenging to know what’s there, what’s not there, what it means. Free to society members. $10 for non-members. Register to watch online.
Saturday, November 9, 2:00 p.m. – Simcoe County Branch
Simcoe Remembers by Ellen Millar
Join us as Ellen Millar, Archivist, Corporate and Municipal Records, Simcoe County Archives, tells us about her pet project, a database containing the names of 1,009 men and women who had connections to Simcoe County and who died while in service or as a result of wounds or injuries sustained during the First World War. This database is a virtual supplement to the public memorials located in communities around Simcoe County.
This is a hybrid meeting. Attend in person at Northwest Barrie United Church, 464 Ferndale Drive North in Barrie or register to watch online.
Some of the bijoux I discovered this week.
Blog posts
Financial Health of Canadian Genealogical Societies 2023 – update by John Reid on Anglo-Celtic Connections.
David Rumsey Historical Map Collection – Maps and genealogy research and Inside Barlinnie, Scotland’s Biggest Prison by Dick Eastman on Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter.
When City Directory Indexing Goes Wrong: A Genealogist’s Tale by Nicole Elder Dyer on Family Locket.
The Beginning of the End for the FamilySearch Catalog or Another Beginning? by James Tanner on Genealogy’s Star.
Guide to DIY personal military displays by Sacha Mathew on Library and Archives Canada Blog.
Articles
1.7m Second World War records to go online and Genealogy website Findmypast launches new budget subscription package, but is it worth it? by Sarah Williams, Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine, Bristol, England.
How to Create a Genealogy Source Citation by Andrew Koch on Family Tree Magazine, Dublin, New Hampshire.
Ancestry.com Considers Acquisition of 23andMe ‘Challenging’ Due to Antitrust Concerns, CPI, United States.
For more gems like these throughout the week, join the Genealogy à la carte Facebook group. When you submit your request to join, you will be asked to answer two quick questions about your family history research.
Global Genealogy has published a new book, British Home Children to Canada — Three Sisters from Kensington and Chelsea Union, by Gloria Tubman who lives in Ottawa, Ontario.
The author’s research into the story of her grandmother Annie Bond Hodgins’ life evolved into a case study of the lives of three sisters who emigrated to Canada under the British Home Children scheme.
Beyond being a deeply interesting true story of three children, this book provides the reader with an example of how to go about researching a British Home Child, where the records are, and what information you might expect to find.
The book includes information Ms. Tubman discovered through 30 years of research.
The sisters’ lives are documented beyond the usual 16 years of age, using records from a Union Board of Guardians in England, a Canadian receiving home, the holdings at Library and Archives Canada, plus other sources cited and listed in the extensive bibliography.
The three sisters had Quebec placements in North Hatley, Georgeville, Sutton Junction, East Farnham, and Pontiac County.
Ms. Tubman said, “This book would be of particular interest to those who have relatives who came through the Knowlton Distribution Home. The story of each of the sisters is from the information on their personal file from that home.”
From today until Monday, November 4, Findmypast has “opened the vault,” making it possible to search the 1939 Register of England and Wales for free.
Each person’s record contains:
This free offer is the third in a four-weekend run-up to Remembrance Day. Each weekend, there is a different collection made completely free to use, culminating in the final Remembrance weekend, November 8 to 11, when all of Findmypast’s record collections, including the 1921 Census, will be freely available.
The campaign is running with the slogan No Story Left Behind. Findmypast hopes to encourage more people to discover the men and women who served in their family.
The Wikitree Symposium, running from November 1 to 3 during WikiTree Week, has quite a great list of genealogy speakers and topics. In all, there are 28 free presentations.
The full program and schedule, along with registration, can be found on the WikiTree website. (A reminder will be sent to registrants by email prior to the event.)
The presentations will be live-streamed and available on demand for 30 days after the event. To watch, it appears that you just click on the video at the scheduled time.
On the list of international speakers are many familiar names, including the following Canadians.
Friday, November 1
2:00 p.m. Eastern time
Linda Yip — Finding the records for “impossible” genealogy – lessons learned from a Chinese genealogist
Saturday, November 2
10:oo a.m. Eastern time
Kathryn Lake Hogan — What Happened to Mean Old Mr. Simons?
1:oo p.m. Eastern time
Lianne Kruger — One Ancestor at a Time: The Process of Research
5:00 p.m. Eastern time
Lianne Kruger — Vlogging to Record Family Memories
Sunday, November 3
1:30 p.m. Eastern time
Kathryn Lake Hogan — So, Your Ancestor Was Canadian, Eh?
If one or more of your relatives attended Concordia University in Montreal, you may want to check out their new online archival collection.
The university has been rebuilding its alumni archives, created from donations from past students and their relatives, in time the school’s 50th anniversary this year.
Concordia was created in 1974 through the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University.
The Records Management and Archives team has been digitizing samples of items in their collection and uploading them to Concordia’s Internet Archive collection.
The archival collection contains documents related to alumni from Loyola, Sir George Williams and Concordia. It focuses mainly on their activities while they were students. There is a variety of materials, such as textual documents, photographs, negatives and objects.
Searching the collection
If your relative attended Loyola or Sir George Williams before 1974, don’t despair. Some of the earliest documents available online include a letter, dated 1825, and an 1856 YMCA Annual Report. Also available are faculty newsletters, a 1959 Loyola yearbook, and a 1920 Loyola College Review.
When researching a relative, first search for their last name, although you probably won’t have much luck because there are a lot of photos and names of people that don’t appear in a search result.
Instead, try looking at some of the photos and documents created during the years your relative attended the university. Narrow down by year using the filters in the left margin.
Only interested in photos? Then, select Image in the Media Type filter in the left margin.
Even if you don’t find a specific reference to a relative, you can learn about student life at the time. For example, reading about the debating team in the June 1920 issue of the Loyola College Review, you’ll learn that the “lessons in elocution are beginning to bear their fruits.”
You can also conduct a text-content search on the Records Management and Archives web page.
Read more about the archivists’ work in Concordia’s article, New Concordia alumni archives collection documents student life through the ages.
Who needs to go trick or treating when you can devote your time to researching free records? And, of course, genealogy research has zero calories.
For Halloween, MyHeritage is providing free access to its collection of nearly 1.2 billion death, burial, cemetery, and obituary records, from October 29 to November 1.
In its announcement about the offer, MyHeritage said, “Halloween is so much more than costumes, pumpkins, and sweets — it’s a time to honour the departed, especially our ancestors.”
To begin searching these records, all you need is to set up a free MyHeritage account.
Info for Quebec deaths can be inaccurate at times
A note about MyHeritage’s Quebec collection, Canada, Quebec Deaths, that was added in September. This collection contains death records from the year 1926 onwards, and it’s a good source of information and hints. Records typically include the deceased’s name, date of birth, residence, date and place of death, and the names of their parents and spouse.
For some reason, however, the information about the deceased’s civil status is not always accurate. The dates, however, seem to always be correct.
For example, in the case of one of my great-uncles, the record says his civil status was Divorcé. The problem is he was never divorced. When he died, he was married, and his wife lived for many years after his demise.
The records for two aunts, who were single their entire lives, indicate they were each in a Union civil, which is also incorrect.
It’s not a question of language. In the case of all three relatives cited above, the marital status information is inaccurate in both English and French.
These Quebec records are also available on the subscription site, Genealogy Quebec, and the civil status there for my two aunts is correct, i.e., single. In the case of my uncle, no civil status is provided.
Perhaps the problem lies with how MyHeritage’s system transcribed some of the information.
Nevertheless, while we cannot see the original Quebec Deaths records, the information provided can be very useful in our research. We can use these hints to track down other sources, such as cemeteries and newspaper obituaries and articles.
While waiting for the kids to yell, “Trick or treat,” at your front door on Halloween, you can watch Dave Obee’s live webinar about what’s new in Canadian genealogy resources.
Hosted by Brigham Young University, the webinar will begin at 5:00 p.m. Mountain time (7:00 p.m. Eastern time) on Thursday, October 31. It’s free, and you can join the webinar by clicking on the Join Live Webinar button at the scheduled time. No registration is required.
Brigham Young University has several videos about Canadian research, including two by Dave Obee and one by Maureen Brady, called The Québécois — French-Canadian Research about Quebec records on FamilySearch.
To watch any of the many recorded webinars, visit the webinar library.
By the way, I’ve attended in person and watched online several of Dave’s presentations. He’s very good — not at all scary, even on Halloween.
Researchers who have relatives in British Columbia are likely wondering when they’ll see this year’s release of marriage and death records.
In a news release, BC Archives said, “We have now received the new release, which includes marriage registrations from 1948 and death registrations from 2003.
“We are currently in the process of data testing and hope to have the index entries and images available on our genealogy database as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding.”
This is the third time the provincial archives has teased us with the pending release. In January, they said the release was expected to take place in May. Then, in June, they announced it had been moved to September.
While no reason has been provided publicly for the delay, it appears the issue may be with the BC Vital Statistics Agency, not the archives. At least, they’re keeping us posted.
In 2023, the annual release of marriage and death records was published online in August.
