This week, American Ancestors added the presentation, Top Resources for Atlantic Canadian Research, delivered by David Allen Lambert, to its YouTube channel. The video runs for one hour and 18 minutes.
Atlantic Canadian research can be difficult to navigate — there is no “one-stop-shop” for the region, and record locations and availability can vary widely from province to province. In this online lecture, Chief Genealogist David Allen Lambert will provide his go-to resources for the region. He will discuss each province — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Prince Edward Island — highlighting key online and on-site resources to help you trace your Atlantic Canadian ancestors.
A link to the five-page resources guide can be found under the video description under the video.
If you have Irish ancestors, you may want to check out the recordings of the Irish Genealogical Research Society’s online lectures that John Reid shared in his weekly blog post, Sunday Sundries, on Anglo-Celtic Connections. The presentations vary in length from about 45 minutes to just over one hour.
The collection includes 47.1 million historical records. It fills an important gap in French genealogy since national death records for much of this period are not yet available online.
Whether your ancestors remained in France or emigrated, these records can help confirm family relationships, identify new relatives, and lead to further discoveries in French archives.
Vive la France — et bonne chance dans dans la quête de vos ancêtres !
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.
Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company This week’s second new set of railway records is from the Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company. Covering 1818 to 1931, there are 80,813 records to explore.
This year’s British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa virtual conference will focus on Scottish ancestry, and it will be held October 17 and 18.
According to the society, the speakers plan to dive deep into the forces behind Scottish migration and offer strategies to help attendees trace their roots back across the Atlantic.
Early news about the conference indicates there will be a “distinguished lineup of exceptional experts in the fields of Scottish history and genealogy,” including the following:
Sir Thomas Devine: Keynote speaker, renowned historian, author, and Professor Emeritus at The University of Edinburgh.
Professor Graeme Morton: Author, Professor of Modern History, and Director of the Centre for Scottish Culture at the University of Dundee, as well as former Chair of the Centre for Scottish Studies at Guelph University.
Alison Spring: Professional genealogist, international speaker, and the creator of The Frugal Family Historian blog.
Morag Peers: Professional genealogist and the Director of Scottish Studies at the International Institute for Genealogical Studies.
Details about the schedule and registration are expected soon. News will likely be posted on BIFHSGO’s home page, on its Events page, or in a special Conference section.
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.
June, 30, 2026 was the 104th anniversary of the explosion and fire that destroyed the Public Record Office of Ireland in 1922 in the opening engagement of the Civil War.
To mark the date, 194,000 new historical records have been released online, bringing to over half a million the total number of records freely available on the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland.
The Four Courts in Dublin during the Battle of Dublin. The building had been taken over by Anti-Treaty forces on April 14, 1922. Bombarded by National Army forces on June 28 and 29, a huge explosion of stored munitions on June 30 destroyed the Public Records Office. Photo: National Library of Ireland.
Three years ago, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland was launched to rebuild, in digital form, the vast archive that was destroyed when the Public Record Office in Dublin was lost on June 30, 1922, during the opening days of the Irish Civil War.
One section for genealogists to start their search is the Population Portal that includes 60,000 names from the 19th-century census that was destroyed in 1922.
Hosted by Trinity College Dublin and funded by the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland is now home to more than 350,000 records.
A total of 75 institutions across Ireland and around the world are contributing digital images of replacement documents, transcripts and duplicates to the Virtual Treasury. This includes core partners National Archives of Ireland, Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, The National Archives UK, the Irish Manuscripts Commission, and the Library of Trinity College Dublin.
The Appartenance Mauricie Regional Historical Society, located in the Mauricie region between Montreal and Quebec City, officially launched on June 23 its online publication of 30,000 historical photographs from the Le Nouvelliste newspaper’s archives.
The digitization project was completed over a two-year period with the support of Library and Archives Canada’s Documentary Heritage Communities Program. It represents an investment of $99,832 to preserve, disseminate and enhance regional archives.
The newspaper’s archives cover the entire Mauricie territory and document major events and the daily lives of citizens. It appears that most of the recently digitized photos are from the newspaper’s Shawinigan archives.
All photographs can be viewed free of charge and their reproduction is permitted for personal use.
For Frédéric Grunet, an archivist who worked on the project, the strength of this collection lies in its ability to bring back personal memories.
Mr. Grunet said (in French), “We already have photos that were online. Many people are doing research on them. It can be for master’s theses, for genealogy. Or just nostalgic people who want to see photos from the past.”
He added, “Many people also sometimes share them on history Facebook groups. This enhances the photo because it’s people who can comment, who say: ‘Ah yes, I remember that, it’s in that location, it was such and such a business.’”
The digitization work is far from complete. Appartenance Mauricie indicates that the Le Nouvelliste collection contains approximately 500,000 photographs in total. With the 40,000 images already published and the 30,000 new ones added online, approximately 70,000 will now be accessible to the public.
These photographs can be viewed on the website in the Banque photographique (Photo Bank) section.
When searching for generic subjects, such as school and church, use the French words, école and église.
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.
