The Write Stuff: Using Nonfiction Writing Techniques to Write a Better Family History

If you are an OGS (Ontario Genealogical Society) member, don't forget about the next webinar. Sign on to the OGS website, sign in to the Members Only area, then choose Webinars from the Members Only tab. If you have not already downloaded "Adobe Connect", go to the webinar page ahead of time to make sure you have the program installed before joining the webinar.

The Write Stuff: Using Nonfiction Writing Techniques to Write a Better Family History

Tuesday December 2, 2014 @ 7:00 pm Speaker: Lisa Alzo www.lisaalzo.com  As genealogists we often focus on facts and uncover so much that our research produces nothing but lists. But do you really know what happened between the dashes of your ancestors’ lives? This presentation will discuss how to using nonfiction writing techniques to produce a “can’t put down” family history that will keep the pages turning for generations. If you live in the Oshawa area, come to the Durham Region Branch of the OGS meeting on Tues, Dec 2 at 7 pm in the Basement Auditorium at the Oshawa Public Library, Bagot St, Oshawa (just south of the City Hall). We will be joining the above webinar from our meeting. After the webinar, we will be having a "Show & Tell / Bring & Brag" session, followed by "pot-luck" Christmas goodies. Coffee, tea and apple cider will be provided. Everyone is welcome!

The British Newspaper Archive reaches 9 million pages

There are now 9 million historical newspaper pages to explore at The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) after the website reached a major milestone this week. 

Product Director Ian Tester commented, ‘We’re thrilled to have reached 9 million pages and have already started chasing the next big milestone. Customers tell us that they’re making amazing discoveries every day, whether they’re researching their family history, the First World War or the history of their local area. Our focus on local titles means that you can find stories from all around the UK and with the recent addition of more Irish titles, we’re becoming a more useful resource all the time’.

The British Newspaper Archive has grown massively since it was launched in November 2011. 282 British and Irish newspaper titles are now online, covering 1710-1954.

45 newspaper titles added so far this year

Thousands of pages are added every week, so coverage will just keep getting better. More than 2 million pages and 45 new titles have been added to The British Newspaper Archive so far this year, including the Daily Mirror, Daily Record, Dublin Monitor, Lancashire Evening Post, London Evening Standard and Sports Argus.

Register for free at www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/account/register to receive monthly updates about what’s being added to the website.

Vote for the newspapers you’d like to see online

Is there something you’d like The British Newspaper Archive to digitise? You can now suggest titles and vote for other people’s suggestions on the website’s feedback forum:http://help-and-advice.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/forums/243704-newspapers-we-should-add-next

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The British Newspaper Archive is a partnership project between the British Library and Findmypast. From November 2011 to 2021, up to 40 million pages from historical newspapers across the UK and Ireland (spanning the period 1700 to 1954) will be uploaded to www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk.

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive research collection.

Launch of Scottish Valuation Rolls 1875- free Index Search for 2014

Announced on ScotlandsPeople 

-- and you can search the index for FREE until Dec. 31st!

Among the hundreds of thousands of Victorian Scots who can be found in the latest year of Valuation Rolls to be released on ScotlandsPeople are two of the most celebrated sportsmen of the era, the golfers Old Tom Morris and his eldest son Young Tom.

Valuation rolls for 1875 covering the whole of Scotland have become available, enabling searches for property owners, tenants and occupiers across Scotland from 1875 to 1920, and often revealing valuable information about the inter-census years. The latest addition comprises over 900,000 index entries and almost 72,000 digital images taken from 141 volumes of Valuation Rolls.

All the Rolls are fully searchable by name and address, and researchers can investigate people living, working and playing all over Scotland – from country estates to city tenements, castles to crofts, and factories to golf courses. Researchers at the National Records of Scotland were particularly interested to spot 17 golf clubs and societies around Scotland – from Ayrshire to Aberdeen – plus three Golf Inns.

Tom Morris father and son were not only renowned professional golfers, but Old Tom was also a sought-after maker of golf clubs and balls at his shop in St Andrews, where he was helped by his sons. His family was also prospering. Young Tom was already a successful professional player, having won the Open three times by the age of nineteen, and was newly-married. In early 1875 his daughter Elizabeth also married, but the year turned out to be the family’s ‘annus horribilis’, when tragic personal loss followed professional success.

Using the newly-available Valuation Rolls, and records of births, deaths, marriages and wills that are already on ScotlandsPeople, archivists at the National Records of Scotland have pieced together the sad tale of Old Tom and his family. ‘Old Tom Morris’s Terrible Year’, a special display at the National Records of Scotland, enables visitors to learn more about this remarkable story of repeated family loss and extraordinary resilience as Old Tom outlived all his children and their spouses.Old Tom continued his business and designed many golf courses in Scotland and beyond. When this elder statesman of Scottish golf died in 1908 at the age of 86, as the result of an accidental fall in the New Golf Club in St Andrews, only his grandchildren, Elizabeth’s children, survived him.

Tim Ellis, Registrar General and Keeper of the Records of Scotland, said:“The Morrises helped Scotland’s golfing reputation to grow across the world, and we are using the outstanding historical resources of the National Records of Scotland to mark the Ryder Cup with a tribute to two remarkable Scottish sportsmen. The release of the Valuation Rolls for 1875 enables people worldwide to take a virtual peek into addresses throughout Scotland between 1841 and 1920 on the ScotlandsPeople website. This is part of the commitment of the National Records of Scotland to provide access to the key records that researchers want.”

The Valuation Rolls can be searched along with statutory registers, old parish registers, Catholic registers, census records, wills and testaments and coats of arms on the ScotlandsPeople website, at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh, and at local family history centres in Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Hawick and Inverness.

Vital & Court Records for the USA

I just received notice about a website that helps people researching their family history/genealogy in the United States. The site is www.county-clerks.com and was recently updated to include the Official contact details for every single county clerk in the USA.

If you were not aware, researchers trying to learn about their family history in the USA need to contact a county clerk if they are in search of any court records as well as marriage, divorce, birth and death records (vital records). County-Clerks.com makes it easier for people to contact the county official they need to find for this research.

There are no other sites like it (vitalrec.com for instance hasn't been updated in years) and it serves as a valuable resource for people looking for archived records. This has the potential to be a valuable resource for US researchers.

Mocavo- free weekend access to Universal Search

What better way to top off Mocavo's Back to School Week than with an Open Access to Universal Search weekend? Usually you need to be a Mocavo Gold member to search all of our databases at once, but for this weekend only, you can search more than420,000 databases to your heart's content. Kick start your research today and see who you will discover.

Start Searching Now

The British Newspaper Archive starts digitising eight new titles

The British Newspaper Archive starts digitising eight new titles

More than 8 million newspaper pages from 1710-1954 are now available to search at The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk).

In the last month, the website has started digitising the newspaper archives of eight new titles. These cover England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and include the London Evening Standard, Glasgow’s Daily Record and the Northern Whig.

The first years from the following new titles have been added to The British Newspaper Archive:

·         Biggleswade Chronicle, covering 1912

·         Daily Record, covering 1914-1915

·         Lake's Falmouth Packet and Cornwall Advertiser, covering 1864

·         London Evening Standard, covering 1860-1862 and 1866-1867

·         Newcastle Evening Chronicle, covering 1915

·         Northern Whig, covering 1869-1870

·         Surrey Comet, covering 1854-1857 and 1859-1870

·         Watford Observer, covering 1864-1865, 1867, 1869-1870

You’ll find more information and links to these new additions at http://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2014/08/07/8-new-titles-including-the-london-evening-standard/

The British Newspaper Archive is a partnership project between the British Library and Findmypast. From November 2011 to 2021, up to 40 million pages from historical newspapers across the UK and Ireland (spanning the period 1700 to 1954) will be uploaded to the website www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world’s largest and most comprehensive research collection.

The Workers’ City: Lives of Toronto’s Working People

The 2014 Toronto History Lecture is dedicated to the memory of J. Brian Gilchrist(1956-2014).

THE 2014 TORONTO HISTORY LECTURE
6 August 2014, 7:30 pmCity of Toronto Archives, 255 Spadina Road
Admission is free, but reservation is required.

The 2014 Toronto History Lecture, titled The Workers’ City: Lives of Toronto’s Working People, will offer a rare window on the diversity of working-class experiences in Toronto’s past and highlight their distinctive place in its history. Generations of working people literally built the city and created the goods and services to sustain a large metropolitan population. Yet their stories are seldom told. Historian Craig Heron will explore the opportunities and challenges that members of the city’s working class have faced over the past 150 years, and will share his insights into major changes and common themes during that period, through the lives of eight different Toronto workers.

For more information, see the website here.

Ancestry.ca Offers Free Access to all 235 Million Canadian Records

from Dick Eastman Online Genealogy Newsletter of today:

In celebration of Canada Day on July 1st, Ancestry.ca is offering free access to all its Canadian records. Quoting from the web site’s home page: “Explore our extensive variety of Canadian records – ALL FREE this weekend – and connect the milestones of your ancestors’ lives.”

“Access to the records will be free until July 1, 2014, 11:59 p.m.(Eastern Time). To view these records you will need to register for free with Ancestry.ca with your name and email address. Once you have registered we will then send you a user name and password to access the records. If you haven’t already, you will be prompted to register once you start trying to search and view the records. After July 1, 2014, you will only be able to view these records using an Ancestry.ca paid membership.”

For more information, or to view the records free of charge, go to http://www.ancestry.ca.

“How-To DNA” – A Multimedia How-To Guide for Genetic Genealogy

Dick Eastman posted at www.eogn.com on June 20, 2014 the following information about a new site linking us to many sources of information on Genetic Genealogy.
Blaine Bettinger is a genealogist and a DNA expert with a Ph.D. in biochemistry with a concentration in genetics. He is a frequent author and lecturer with a focus on DNA. He has now announced the creation of a new online how-to guide for genetic genealogy. The site will include short instructional how-to videos for beginners, as well as presentations and webcasts for the advanced genealogist.

How-To DNA (www.howtodna.com) will also provide links to the latest videos, podcasts, and other instructional material created by DNA experts. 

You can learn more in Blaine’s announcement at http://www.thegeneticgenealogist.com/2014/06/20/announcing-dna. 

The site is live now at http://howtodna.com.

Scotlands People Announcement!

Did you have leftover credits on Scotlands People? And, did they expire before you were able to use them all up? Well, good news! See the announcement from Scotlands People below:

Reactivate your expired credits!
We are pleased to announce that for one week only, you can reactivate any expired ScotlandsPeople credits at no cost. The validity period at purchase is 365 days, so any credits purchased over a year ago can now be reactivated by entering the special promotional code spring2014. 

To reactivate your expired credits, please enter spring2014 into the 'voucher code' box on the Shopping Basket page. Pleaseclick here for a step-by-step guide to reactivating your expired credits. This promotional code will be valid up until midnight (BST) on 30/4/2014.

Ancestry.co.uk - FREE English Databases for the Easter Weekend

from the Toronto Branch's e-Newsletter:

http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/grouplist.aspx?group=easter_free_records

Click on the  link to see which records are free this holiday weekend.

Happy searching!

Archives Week at the Archives of Ontario

I have just finished a posting at the Durham Region Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society's blog about this topic.

See it at http://durham-branch.blogspot.ca

OCAPG Professional Development Day

Less than two weeks ago, I joined approximately 20 other members of the Ontario Chapter, Association of Professional Genealogists for an amazing workshop on Advanced Genealogical Skills.

This workshop was led by Dr. Thomas Jones, well known author, editor and lecturer from Fairfax, Virginia. Tom has edited the prestigious National Genealogical Society Quarterly since 2002. He is also a trustee and past president of the Board for Certification of Genealogist and a past board member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, among many other accomplishments. Suffice it to say, Tom has been in the vanguard of the evolution and revolution that occurred in the field of genealogy which led to the development of the Genealogical Proof Standard. His book, Mastering Genealogical Proof has filled an immense gap in the literature of genealogy.

Tom gave us 4 packed lectures during the day: Developing an Evidence Orientation; Correlating Sources, Information, and Evidence to Solve Genealogical Problems; Resolving Conflicting Evidence; and Writing Genealogy. My head is still whirling  almost 2 weeks later! I have learned so much and will be looking at my past research to see where to apply all the concepts presented.

Of equal importance was the networking going on that day. We had members from all across Ontario and even one member from Quebec attended. It was great to finally put names to faces.

OCAPG members with Dr. Thomas Jones - photo Janet Iles

Welcome!

Welcome to Trimble Family History Services!

Nancy Trimble, PLCGS is the sole researcher of this new company, specializing in Ontario Canada records retrieval and research.

Nancy completed her Professional Learning Certificate in Genealogical Studies (Canada) through the online courses offered at The National Institute of Genealogical Studies, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto.

She has been doing her own family history research since 1965 and has recently retired from her career in Pharmacy. Setting up her own part-time business is a huge step, but a natural result of her volunteer work with many genealogy societies. Nancy was the President of the Ontario Genealogical Society in 2010-2012 and has spent 12 years on the Board of Directors in various positions. She has also spent many years involved in the Durham Region Branch of the same organization. Currently, Nancy is the 1st Vice-Chair of the Branch and is deeply involved in cemetery transcriptions and updates. Past experience includes organizing the OGS Annual conference in 2006, and helping with conferences held in 2004, 2011 and 2013.

Contact information: nancy dot trimble at gmail.com