National Genealogical Society conference to go virtual

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Gail Dever

Due to the continuing spread of COVID-19 and concern for the health and safety of all those involved in our 2020 Family History Conference, the National Genealogical Society (NGS) has changed its in-person conference to a virtual conference.

The conference was scheduled to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, May 20 to 23.

NGS is now developing a virtual conference that is a mixture of live and on-demand programming. A full day of NGS 2020 Live! is planned for Wednesday, May 20, from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. In addition, streaming access to many more sessions will be available starting in July.

There was no word in yesterday’s announcement about fees for the virtual conference.

In the coming days, NGS will post specific information relevant to their registrants, speakers, award recipients, exhibitors, and sponsors.

They will also let people know how all prior commitments to social events, meals, workshops, and tour fees, as well as registration, will be handled.

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Webinar today — Research Hudson’s Bay Company and Western Métis ancestors

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Gail Dever

The Canadian Interest Group of the Minnesota Genealogical Society will host the webinar, Researching Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and Western Metis Ancestors, presented by Christine Woodcock, today, April 16, at 7:00 p.m. Central time.

Scotland has had a long history with the Hudson’s Bay Company. Beginning in about 1702, men from Orkney began being recruited by the Hudson’s Bay Company to work in their settlement at York Factory. Many of these men had families with the Cree women. In addition, the Montreal-based rival fur trading company, The North West Company, founded by Scotsmen, often “wintered” in York Factory and also coupled with the Cree women. This coupling of European men with Cree women created the Metis Nation in Canada. In this presentation we will look at available records for the men who worked for the HBC as well as for Western Metis (those from the Red River area) ancestral research.

Register to watch this webinar.

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New TV series about investigative genealogist airs in May

Posted on April 16, 2020 by Gail Dever
American CeCe Moore is well known in the genealogy community for her popular lectures and webinars and for using her genetic genealogy skills to help law enforcement agencies solve cold cases.

For those interested in mysteries and genetic genealogy, ABC will premiere its TV series, The Genetic Detective, on Tuesday, May 19, at 10:oo p.m. Eastern and Pacific times.

The series follows investigative genetic genealogist CeCe Moore as she uses her unique research skills to transform the face of crime solving. By working with police departments and crime scene DNA, Ms. Moore is able to trace the path of a violent criminal’s family tree to reveal their identity and help bring them to justice.

Ms. Moore is the genetic genealogy consultant for Finding Your Roots.

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FamilySearch adds more than 28 million records from England, France, and Vermont

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Gail Dever

During the past week, FamilySearch has added four new collections of significant size.

England Death Record, 1998-2015 — 3,293,133 indexed records. This collection was compiled by Wilmington Millennium from various funeral homes in England. The index contains names, death dates, and places.

France, INSEE Social Security Death Index, 1970-2019 — 25,030,960 indexed records. INSEE is France’s national institute of statistics and economic studies.

France, Paris, Marriage Records, 1860-1918 — 270,180 indexed records. These are civil marriage records. The images may be found in the FamilySearch catalogue, but are not currently linked to the indexed records. More of these records, linked to their corresponding images, will be indexed in future iterations.

Vermont, Passenger Lists, 1895-1924 — 102,351 indexed records. Images available. This collection is a name index to alien arrivals and border entries in the State of Vermont.

To look at the records, you need a free account that will only take a few seconds to set up.

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Learn about one of the best Quebec genealogy databases in Québec Genealogical eSociety’s free webinar tonight

Posted on April 15, 2020 by Gail Dever

If you have ancestors who lived in Quebec, especially those who were French-speaking, you may want to attend the Québec Genealogical eSociety’s free webinar, The PRDH-IGD Database, presented by Bertrand Desjardins, this evening, Wednesday, April 15, at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Mr. Desjardins will give an online demonstration of PRDH-IGD to show how to navigate the database and he will provide tips to help with your research.

PRDH-IGD stands for Programme de recherche en démographie historique (Research Program in Historical Demography)-Institut généalogique Drouin.

The eSociety’s one-year membership fee of $50 includes free access to PRDH.

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Learn from Ancestry Extra webinars twice a week in April and May

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Gail Dever

Ancestry Canada is offering a free webinar series, called Ancestry Extra, throughout April and May on its social media channels.

Every Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time and Thursday at noon Eastern time on Ancestry’s Facebook page, family history experts from Canada and beyond, will hold sessions filled with useful tips and tricks.

Ontario ancestors — Tuesday, April 14
Today, Ancestry Canada’s Lesley Anderson and Ontario Ancestors President Steve Fulton UE, will hold a video conversation on how and where to find Ontario ancestors.

Mr. Fulton will talk about the work the society does and the tools they have to support genealogy research. Ms. Anderson will share her tips on navigating the Ontario records available on Ancestry. They will both be answering any questions you have about Ontario family history research from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m. Eastern time.

Loyalist roots — Thursday, April 16
On Thursday, April 16, at noon Eastern time, Ms. Anderson will talk about Uncovering Your Loyalist Roots.

Patriots to some, and traitors to others, more than 70,000 Loyalists fled the American colonies after the War of Independence, settling in modern day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Ontario. Ms. Anderson will explore key Ancestry Loyalist collections, and share her tips and tricks for uncovering your family connections to this iconic group of Canadian settlers.

Recorded sessions
The first three episodes of Ancestry Extra have been recorded and are already available on Ancestry Canada’s Facebook page. (Look for Videos in the left margin on the Facebook page.)

Ms. Anderson kicked off the webinar series with Spring Cleaning Your Family Tree. She shared her top tips for making the most out of your family tree on Ancestry and answered questions from the audience in the comments below the video.  

Joe Buggy spoke on Researching Your Irish Ancestors, and military expert Simon Pearce shared tips and key resources in Discovering Your Ancestor’s WWI Story.

While Ancestry continues to work on the calendar of upcoming episodes, the list below provides an idea of the types of topics they’ll cover:

  • Genealogy 101
  • Researching Newspapers
  • The Census Project
  • Chinese-Canadian Genealogy
  • French Canadian Genealogy: Navigating the Drouin Collection
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This week’s crème de la crème — April 11, 2020

Posted on April 11, 2020 by Gail Dever

Some of the bijoux I discovered this week.

Crème de la crème of genealogy blogs

Blogs
Ontario Parish Registers: LAC and Héritage, “Old School” Research With a Modern Twist, New Brunswick Parish Registers: LAC and Héritage and Nova Scotia Parish Registers: LAC and Héritage by Ken McKinlay on Family Tree Knots.

French Canadians and the Epidemic of 1885 by Patrick Lacroix on Query the Past.

Scottish civil registration records talk for genealogists by Chris Paton on Scottish GENES.

Understanding Irish Jurisdictions by Donna Moughty on Irish Family Roots.

Finding Maritime Ancestors from the Netherlands by Yvette Hoitink on Dutch Genealogy.

Major Update to WWII Database Honors 75th Victory Anniversary by Vera Miller on Find Lost Russian & Ukrainian Family.

Brick Wall Ancestor Got You Down? Try Some Transcribing and Indexing by Candice McDonald on Finding Your Canadian Story.

Help the National Archives uncover WW1 ships crew logs by Ian on IanVisits.

Google that Date and Place by Michael John Neill on Genealogy Tip of the Day.

Write A Family History Faster Using This One Trick by Devon Noel Lee on Family History Fanatics.

Food, Glorious Food! on Genealogy Jude.

DNA in a time of crisis by Judy G. Russell on The Legal Genealogist.

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.

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BIFHSGO creates Ontario Home Child photo database

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Gail Dever

Early this morning, the British Isles Family History Society (BIFHSGO) launched the Father Hudson’s Photos database, containing 146 photos of homeless English children who were brought to Ontario between 1908 and 1936.

Fr. Hudson, who was a parish priest in Coleshill, near Birmingham, England, established a home for Catholic boys (and later also girls) at 1153 Wellington Street in Ottawa. The building was known as St. George’s Home, and it is still in use today as part of the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary Parish.

The photos and name indexes database is the sixth to be added to the Home Children section on BIFHSGO’s website.

From 1869 to 1948, more than 100,000 poverty-stricken British children were sent to Canada to start a new life amid strangers. Some of the children ended up being used as indentured farm workers and domestics. These children, known as the British Home Children, were sent to Canada by more than 50 organizations, including Barnardo’s, The Salvation Army, Quarrier’s and Fairbridge.

BIFHSGO has placed special emphasis on Canada’s home children because of the society’s accessibility to the ship, military and federal government records at Library and Archives Canada and to the records of the Family History Center of Ottawa. About 70 percent of the home children were settled in Ontario.

The society’s role in Canada’s home children story is to create databases or indexes and to encourage its members/volunteers to give public lectures and to publish articles about home children in its quarterly journal and other publications.

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Commonwealth War Graves Commission launches webinar series

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Gail Dever

A recording of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s (CWGC) Live presentation, The Somme, presented yesterday by historian Max Dutton, is now available to watch for free.

In the first eight hours, more than 10,000 people had already watched the video.

During the hour-long presentation, Mr. Dutton talks about Google Maps, the Battle of the Somme, the Thiepval Memorial, war diaries, and overlay maps.

The CWGC over the next few weeks will provide a series of live webinars about the work of the commission. The Somme is the first in the series.

You can watch The Somme here, or you can go to the CWGC Facebook page and look for it under Videos in the left margin.

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Download free issue of Internet Genealogy magazine

Posted on April 10, 2020 by Gail Dever

With the COVID-19 situation, and with the majority of people being quarantined to their homes, the publisher of Internet Genealogy magazine is offering the February/March 2020 issue free to download.

The publisher, Moorshead Magazines, said in their message, “Hopefully you will find this free issue helpful and maybe it might inspire you to start a subscription. You can always visit our website at www.internet-genealogy.com and get subscription details there.

“You might be interested in the April/May 2020 edition, which is also available in PDF format. The price for the PDF is $4.00 (CDN and US).”

Use this link to download the free issue. There are no strings attached.

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