Saturday, March 7, 2015

You help is needed!



One day, while doing research on British Home Children in past issues of the Ontario Genealogical Society`s journal, Families, I came across an article about the children who were British Second World War evacuees to Canada. In the article, they had come to Port Colbourne, Ontario, and had stayed there while the war was raging in the UK and in Europe. They went to school while staying together in a house, and most of them seemed to have adjusted very well to their situation. They were a part of Operation Pied Piper.

That article stuck with me, because I hadn’t known about this before reading about them. But now there is a post-graduate student at the University of Western Ontario who is doing a project on the children, and her name is Claire Halstead.

Her thesis work, by its completion, will account for more than 3,000 children who came to Canada, of which 1,500 came by way of the Children’s Overseas Reception Board (CORB). They were all part of Operation Pied Piper.

If there is any information that you might have on this subject that you would like to share, please get in contact with Clare at chalstea@uwo.ca.

You can read the story in the Western News at http://news.westernu.ca/2015/01/student-returns-identity-to-british-war-evacuees/http://news.westernu.ca/2015/01/student-returns-identity-to-british-war-evacuees/  

To get some background information, you can read Children's Overseas Reception Board at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Overseas_Reception_Board

There is also an article on the web called “Guests” not “Refugees” Child Evacuees to Canada During World War II at http://www.cst.ed.ac.uk/Events/Conferences/documents/SmerdonCPaper.pdf



Check the Canadian Week in Review every Monday morning for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada.

If you missed this week’s edition, it is at 
http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/03/canadian-week-in-review.html

 
It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!
 
It has been a regular post every Monday morning since
April 23, 2012.

Canadian tourism photos on Flickr


How many photos do you have in your family genealogy of Canadian vacations? Did you know the the Library and Archives Canada has travel photod too, and now are putting some of them on Flickr.

The press release says that -

The concept of Canadian tourism emerged during the early nineteenth century. Improved modes of transportation, such as new railways stretching across the country, facilitated leisure travel and offered people the chance to witness some of the nation’s greatest marvels and modern achievements.

'Photographs were the ideal medium with which to attract potential visitors, and photographers were hired by transportation companies to produce images of majestic scenery that would promote destinations. Later rivaled by amateur picture-takers, eager to create their personal holiday mementos, these photographs were a vital component of the burgeoning tourist industry. The imagery created during this period helped to characterize the country, establishing a sense of national identity by introducing viewers to iconic images of Canadian scenery'.

The website is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/lac-bac/sets/72157650719659971/

And for people who will travel to Ottawa in the coming months, visit the National Gallery of Canada to see the photos exhibit from March 6 to August 30, 2015.