Showing posts with label Family Search. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family Search. Show all posts

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Two databases upgraded at FamilySearch



There are two databases that have been recently updated on the FamilySearch web page -

Family Origins,Quebec, Quebec Federation of Genealogical Societies, 1621-1865 

This is an index of the family origins of French and foreign immigrants who settled in old Quebec from 1621 to 1865. The index includes individual names, gender, birth dates, baptism dates, area where the individual migrated from, parent's names, and marital status

You can search the index at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2558681

Prince Edward Island Death Card Index, 1721-1905 

This database has also been updated. It is from index and images of index cards. Information comes from various sources, newspapers, cemeteries, churches, etc.


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

If you missed last week’s edition, it is 


It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!


Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Canadian Genealogy News 19 August 2015

 

 Here are some news items which have come across my desk this morning - 

Worldwide Indexing Event has ended 

FamilySearch has said that a total of 82,039 volunteers helped to “Fuel the Find” during FamilySearch’s Worldwide Indexing Event, held August 7-14, 2015.

Though short of the goal of 100,000 participants, the effort produced a number of remarkable achievements, among them an 89% increase in non-English language indexing activity, Volunteers produced more than 12.2 million indexed (transcribed) and 2.3 million arbitrated (reviewed) records during the weekly event. As with all records indexed by FamilySearch indexing volunteers, those indexed during the global event will be made freely searchable at FamilySearch.

For the Worldwide Indexing Event, FamilySearch sought volunteers who could decipher records recorded in a variety of languages, with a focus on French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Volunteers from all over the world exceeded expectations by processing over 2,183,212 non-English records including 1,380,684 in Spanish, 147,568 in Portuguese, 226,734 in French, and116,835 in Italian.

FamilySearch heartily thanks all of the volunteers for their contributions and dedication and encourages anyone interested in participating to join the ongoing indexing initiative at www.FamilySearch.org/indexing 

Digitization of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) update 

And digitization of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) service files is underway and a substantial number of digitized files have been added to their website as part of the Government of Canada First World War commemoration activities at the Library and Archives Canada. 

They will add new files every two weeks, as the CEF digitization initiative is a priority for them. LAC will ensure that Canadians have access to the files throughout the digitization process, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018.

As of today, 181,338 of 640,000 files are available in the database. Latest box digitized box: #2490, name: Devos

For more information on this initiative, please consult the Fact Sheet: Digitization of Canadian Expeditionary Force Service Files

Meanwhile, happy researching!

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

If you missed last week’s edition, it is at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/08/canadian-week-in-review-cwr-17-august.html

It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Canadian Genealogy News 22 July 2015






News come from Ancestry that they now have over 100 years of Canadian Yearbook Records at Ancestry.ca, which means that they digitized yearbooks 1908 to 2010.

So I went on to see if my name was there. I had attended the Shelburne Regional High School, Shelburne, Nova Scotia and Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia but the books from those institutes weren't there. So I out of luck this time, but as they add more schools and universities, I am sure that I will pop up on the radar.

They do say that is it a collection which "contains 1,355,141 Canadian middle school, junior high, high school and university records from almost 800 institutions across the nation".

Th search the collection, go to http://search.ancestry.ca/search/db.aspx?dbid=60576


Global Genealogy has their annual Dog Days of Summer Sale until the end of July.

I have picked out a couple of books that I want, and I will be sure to order them.

Global Genealogy specializes in Canadian books, and you see them at Canadian genealogical conferences.

Enter the Coupon Code words Summer Sale into the 'Coupon Code' field in the shopping cart when checking out online. The shopping cart will automatically calculate your discount. The Summer sale ends on July 31 at midnight.

Their website is at http://www.globalgenealogy.com

And Salt Lake City record-setting 100,000 online volunteers are expected to participate in the second annual Worldwide Indexing Event.

Scheduled for August 7–14, the event will show how anyone with a computer and Internet connection can help you by making information from historical documents easily searchable online.

And this year they are putting International Language Emphasis in the forefront. Currently FamilySearch.org offers 20 times more searchable records in English than in all other languages combined. To balance this ratio, people with fluency in other languages, especially French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, are being sought as indexing volunteers.

Go to https://familysearch.org/indexing/ to get started.

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

If you missed last week’s edition, it is at
http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/07/canadian-week-in-review-13-july-2015.html

It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Voter’s List



 
Oxford County Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society has  a searchable Voter’s List on their site at http://www.ogs.on.ca/oxford/VotersLists.html
 
There are the Voter’s List for the following areas of the county -
 
Township of East Zorra
 
Township of West Zorra
 
Township of Blandford
 
Township of North Oxford
 
Township of East Oxford
 
Township of West Oxford
 
Township of Dereham
 
Township of South Norwich
 
Municipality of Embro
 
Town of Ingersoll
 
Village of Norwich
 
If you would like to see the website of the Oxford Branch, go to http://oxford.ogs.on.ca/


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SPECIAL OFFER!!!!!!!!!

Need help in finding your Canadian ancestors?

As a nod of the hat to the Ontario Genealogical Conference being held in Barrie, Ontario from May 29 to May 31, may we take this opportunity to offer a month-long discount on our research and consultation services of 15% (ends 11 June 2015 at midnight).

Just go to Elizabeth Lapointe Research Services at www.elrs.biz, or send an email with the subject "special" to genealogyresearch@aol.com to see how I can help you find that elusive Canadian ancestor!

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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/2015/05/canadian-week-in-review-11-may-2015.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

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Another indexing opportunity




A new project that has been started by the Kawartha Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society is the indexing of the family histories in the society’s library. 

They hope to create a name index for each history and will put the index in TONI (The Ontario Name Index - the three million and growing name index created by OGS).

If you would like to help, this is another project you can do in your own home. You will be sent a digitized copy of the family history, you read it, and you enter each name you find into a spreadsheet.

It sounds like a neat thing to do over the summer!

If you want to help, please contact them at kawarthaprojects@ogs.on.ca 

The website for the TONI page is http://www.ogs.on.ca/projects.php#toni



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/2015/05/canadian-week-in-review-04-may-2015.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

Sunday, April 26, 2015

FamilySearch – Nova Scotia Death Records 1956-1957



This collection include death records from 1956-1957 from Nova Scotia counties. The death records are from all counties and are arranged by county name. These records are housed at the Archives of Nova Scotia in Halifax.

Death Records may contain the following information:

Name of deceased

Name of parents

Maiden name of mother

Place of parent’s birth

Name of spouse

Gender

Age at death

Place of birth

Date of birth

Date of death

Place of death

Cause of death

Date of burial

Place of burial

Marital status

Name of cemetery

Name of funeral home

Place of residence

Occupation

I found the death of a son (Austin Locke Peterson) of my great great aunt Margaret Barclay of Jordan River, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, and since his son-in-law, J. Thomas Whiteway, was the informant on the death certificate, another clue has been was given to me to take my genealogy to another level. Excellent!

If you wish to check out this website, it is at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2251301



Check the Canadian Week in Review every Monday morning for the latest in Genealogy, Heritage, and History news in Canada.
 
 
It’s the ONLY news blog of its kind in Canada!
 
It has been a regular post every Monday morning since April 23, 2012.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

35th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy



35th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy will be held in Jerusalem this year from July 6 to the 10th.

The conference will be a truly international "Promised Event". Speakers and registrants hail from around the globe representing 20 nations to date including New Zealand, American Samoa, the Americas, Africa and all of Europe.

Their Preliminary Program is now listed in the website Program & Schedule in the "Program" tab of www.iajgs2015.org . You will see why they are boasting that this will be "A Conference Like No Other". The schedule will become interactive ...shortly.

As announced, the *keynote speaker will be Rabbi Israel Meir Lau,* one of the most prominent figures in Israeli society today. Rabbi Lau, a child survivor of the Holocaust, is an outstanding activist and orator. He will bring a message to genealogists reinforcing the value of their work researching individuals and families.

And Dick Eastman will be there!

They have announced that the *master genealogist Dick Eastman* will be speaking at the closing Banquet. In the mid-1980s, at the dawn of the World Wide Web, Eastman pioneered one of the first online Genealogy Forums. By 1996, he created a weekly online newsletter called "Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter" which has grown from a circulation of 100 to more than 60,000 genealogists.

Registration is now available on the Registration Form for the Shabbaton, Exploration Sunday, Breakfast with the Experts, SIG Luncheons and Banquet, and when you join them for the conference, don't miss the **pre-conference festivities:**

Their Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/IAJGSConference



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/2015/04/canadian-week-in-review-13-april-2015_13.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.

 

Friday, April 3, 2015

April is Sikh Heritage Month in Ontario


Sikh Heritage Month is celebrating in Ontario because in 2013 Bill 52 An Act to proclaim the month of April as Sikh Heritage passed by the Ontario government.

“Sikh Canadians have lived in Ontario since the middle of the 20th century,” said Singh. “They represent a growing and dynamic population. Sikh Canadians have made significant contributions to the growth and prosperity of Ontario and that’s what we’re celebrating this month.” said Jagmeet Singh, NDP MPP. 

Their website says that "April was specifically chosen given its importance for Sikhs, as it is in April that Sikh Canadians celebrate Vaisakhi, which marks the formalization of the Khalsa and the Sikh articles of faith. Sikh Heritage Month is an opportunity to remember, celebrate and educate our future generations and society at large about Sikh Canadians and the important role that they play in communities across Ontario".

To see their website, go to http://ontariosikhheritagemonth.ca/

To read their Facebook page, go to https://www.facebook.com/sikhheritagemonth



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-30-march-2015.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.

Saturday, February 7, 2015

UPDATE: OGS Conference - Interviews

During this week's meeting of the Ontario Chapter of the Associated Professional Genealogists (OCAPG), Shirley Sturdevant—the immediate past-president of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS)—brought us up-to-date with happenings at the 2015 OGS conference to be held this year in Barrie, Ontario.

One thing that she said was new this year are the interviews with the presenters at the conference, and so far, they have interviewed Thomas MacEntee and Dr. Janet Few.

Thomas MacEntee will be the moderator on the Panel Discussion: Tracks through Time on Saturday morning, and on Sunday will present Tracing Your New York Ancestors.

The interview with him is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uax98ie2LxQ

I also listened to the interview with Dr. Janet Few from England, who will give a lecture on Saturday entitled Uproar and Disorder: the Bible Christians of North Devon and their impact upon nineteenth century Canada, and another lecture on Sunday entitled Putting Your Ancestors in their Place: an introduction to one-place studies.

The interview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN16jlIqxqs&feature=youtu.be, and her lectures will be live streamed to the Conference from England.

The Conference website is online at http://www.ogs.on.ca/conference

The Conference Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/OntarioGenealogicalSocietyConference



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/2015/02/canadian-week-in-review-02-february-2015.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.

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

FREE Family History Fair

There is going to be a FREE Family History Fair in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Family History Centre on Saturday, 15 November 2014 from 9:30 am until 4 pm. 

Learn how to search for your ancestors and build your family tree. It will be a day of fun, music, discussions and great teachers. Presenters include Dr Allen Marble, the president of Genealogy Association of Nova Scotia (GANS) and other well known and experienced genealogists.

To see the schedule for the day, click on the following link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx5QmHTtDVKmWXNDNGljdzlzRVU/edit?usp=sharing  

Registration is totally free. Everybody will be provide with a free lunch. To sign up, click on the link http://www.lds.org/familyhistoryfair  

The location is Dartmouth Family History Centre, 44 Cumberland Drive in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. Google Maps gets you to the door: https://goo.gl/maps/FQ0MD 

For more information contact Doug Williams at ddoug.williams10@gmail.com 

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Update: Nova Scotia Births, 1864-1877



FamilySearch have updates the Nova Scotia Birth 1864-1877 which includes indexes and images of Nova Scotia county births . These records are the registration of births, not birth certificates

Birth registers may contain the following information:

  • Name of child 
  • Gender 
  • Birth date and place 
  • Father’s name, occupation and residence 
  • Mother’s name and maiden name 
  • When and where parents were married 
  • Informant’s name and residence 
  • Date birth was registered 
  • Name of witness 
It covers the counties of
  • Annapolis 
  • Antigonish 
  • Cape Bretonp 
  • Colchester 
  • Cumberland 
  • Digby 
  • Guyborough 
  • Halifax 
  • Hants 

You can go to 

Thursday, June 5, 2014

100 Years of Loss - The Residential School System in Canada

The Canadian Museum of History in Ottawa is recognition of National Aboriginal History Month, by presenting the travelling exhibition 100 Years of Loss – The Residential School System in Canada.

This exhibition uses reproductions of photographs, artwork and primary documents to tell the story of thousands of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children who were removed from their families and institutionalized in residential schools. It emphasizes the present-day effects of the system, focusing on healing and reconciliation.

Special Activities

Also, as part of National Aboriginal History Month, two Residential School Survivors will share their experiences in Survivor Talks (June 9–11), and Aboriginal dancers and singers will perform in Celebrating Aboriginal Heritage (June 19).

The exhibit will be at the Canadian Museum of History from June 5 to 26, 2014 

Their website is at http://www.historymuseum.ca  

Monday, March 17, 2014

Preserving Ireland's Genealogy

This was just sent out from FamilySearch.org on St. Partick’s Day.

Website Gathers St. Patrick's Day and Other Irish Family Stories and Photos by Glen Greener

“St. Patrick died on March 17, 481, but St. Patrick's Day lives on all over the world demonstrating how prolific Irish roots have permeated cultures globally over the years. A sampling of the many areas St. Patrick's day is celebrated in includes: Argentina, Canada, Great Britain, Japan, Malaysia, Montserrat, Russia, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States. 

FamilySearch.org is celebrating St. Patrick's day by encouraging descendants of Irish immigrants to preserve and share their Irish family memories online through photos and stories. Family historians can also freely search over 30 million historic Irish records online or begin building their Irish family trees.

Ireland provides one of the most interesting and challenging genealogies for family researchers, and there are a lot of them. Over 100 million people worldwide claim some Irish heritage. 

A loss of records by fire and problems recording Irish emigrants who boarded ships after the original departure can seem like barriers to genealogists trying to "get back across the pond." The family histories are often available in the emigrant's new country, but finding the lines back in Ireland can be difficult.

Chris Paton, a former BBC television producer, author, and a professional genealogist, says, "Ireland has probably experienced more tragedy when it comes to the preservation of resources for family historians than any other region of the British Isles. Many of the nation's primary records were lost during the civil war in 1922 and through other equally tragic means." 

There is good news, says David Rencher, Chief Genealogical Officer at FamilySearch. "The government of Ireland now considers genealogy an economic resource. It is one of the main reasons for tourism. In the past five years, more resources have been made available than were in the previous 15 years."

Rencher comes by his love of Irish ancestry naturally. Both sides of his family hail from the Emerald Isle. And he's always fascinated by the traditions of celebrating St. Patrick's Day all over the world.

There are good resources online: FamilySearch.org, findmypast.com, ancestry.com, the public records office of Northern Ireland, and the national archives of Ireland. Counties are coming forward with quality publications of local histories, and the Irish government wants to help those with Irish roots to plan their search. 

Rencher says, "People need to find out specifically where their Irish ancestors hail from. County records are important. Parish records are becoming more available." 

Finding the home town and county of your ancestors is helped by surnames which are often good indicators of where in Ireland someone is from. Employment records in America can contain a birthplace in Ireland. Cemeteries in Ireland are valuable because it was not uncommon for relatives to have a tombstone erected in Ireland although the deceased was buried in another country.

The names of neighbors and friends in a possible village of origin could open up help and hospitality. "The Irish are very generous with their time when people are searching for their Irish roots. Most towns have someone who people regard as the local historian who wants to help. Local libraries are also valuable resources. In any case, people on a pilgrimage to find their family's history in Ireland are welcomed with open arms," Rencher said.

According to Rencher, the best method is to, "Start with what you know and branch out to what you don't know. What artifacts do you have in your home? A Presbyterian Church token has a mark that can tell what congregation in Ireland it's from. Other members of a family might have naturalization certificates or church records. Irish families are so large that artifacts could be with any number of cousins."

It's also important to document the ancestors you find along with any stories or pictures. With 100 million Irish descendants around the world, it's a strong possibility someone you don't know can add details to your history if they can find your photos and stories on free preservation sites likeFamilySearch.org. DNA results can also help identify where others in your family line are located. 

Because of death and emigration to other countries, the population of Ireland was the same in 1900 as in 1800. Irish emigrants went all over the world for many reasons—mostly looking for new opportunity and a new life. Many had to leave when their landlords moved a tenant off the property so a new tenant could pay higher rents. Others went into military service or worked as indentured servants, working for seven years to pay off their costs of emigrating. Many moved to England, Canada, and America to work as miners and laborers. 

Some got a new start in a developing country. If you had to guess the name of a founder and first president of a newly independent nation in South America, would you guess O'Higgins? If you did, you'd be right. Bernardo O'Higgins became the Supreme Director of Chile in 1817.

On St. Patrick's Day, the saying is, "Everybody is Irish for one day," and that might be literally true. Irish is the second most common ancestry in the United States. It's the fourth largest in Canada. Mexico has 600,000 Irish descendants. And this just names a few. 

Whether you're marching in a St. Patrick's Day parade, helping turn the Chicago River green, wearing garish green socks, or just having some corned beef and cabbage at home, take the time to share your favorite Irish family photos and stories online at FamilySearch.org. So even if you don't think you have any Irish in you, it's now a lot easier to double check”.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

FamilySearch has designated 2014 as “The Year of the Obituary’’

Now here is an exciting announcement that FamilySearch.org made at RootsTech 2014 -

The year 2014 has been designated as “The Year of the Obituary” for FamilySearch. We know that many family history centers have clipped obituaries from newspapers and we’d like to place these collections online on the FamilySearch website. FamilySearch will scan and digitize the collections. They will then be indexed and placed online. Digitizing obituaries will make these valuable collections easier to access and simpler to attach to FamilyTree. Information gathered from obituaries will help users to add people and data to Family Tree.

Here are some guidelines for what FamilySearch wants to collect:

· These records should be actual obituaries, not indexes.

· They must be camera-ready which means the obituaries should be attached to the same-sized cards (3×5, 4×6) or to 8 1/2 by 11 inch paper.

· If you have already indexed the collection and it is in paper format, please include that with your submission.

After the obituaries are scanned, you may request that they be returned to you or discarded.

If you have a collection you would like to submit to FamilySearch, please contact Nathan Murphy at murphynw@familysearch.org

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

FamilySearch.org reaches 100,000 mark


FamilySearch has announced a milestone in its collection of Family History Books.

One hundred thousand books have now been scanned by the partnership of the Family History Library, Allen County Public Library, and several other important family history libraries in the world.

These books are online and available to search and use on the FamilySearch.org website. You can reach the collection by clicking Search and then Books or by simply clicking the link above.

The majority of the books online are family histories, with a smaller portion made up of cemetery records, local and county histories, genealogy magazines, and how-to-books, gazetteers, and medieval histories and pedigrees.

These valuable aids are viewed by more than 100,000 people a month.


To view the books, go to https://books.familysearch.org/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?dscnt=1&dstmp=1375809771058&vid=FHD_PUBLIC&fromLogin=true 

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

UPDATE: Saskatchewan Catholic Church Records

Julia Adamson at saskgenweb@yahoo.com wrote a blog on FamilySearch.org yesterday about the announcement of Saskatchewan Catholic Church Records on Family Search.

She gives a very good history of the Catholic records (baptisms, confirmations, marriages, burials) in Saskatchewan, and other records between 1846 -1957.

If you have any ancestors in Saskatchewan, you should read the blog https://familysearch.org/blog/en/announcing-saskatchewan-catholic-church-records-family-search

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Saskatchewan Probate Estate Files, 1887-1931


FamilySearch.org has just released it's update on one of the Canadian records it is putting online.

On December 22, 2011, it reports that there are now 1, 591, 193 records of Saskatchewan Probate Records Index (1887-1931) at  https://familysearch.org/search/collection/show#uri=http://familysearch.org/searchapi/search/collection/1918293

These index, and images are of estate files from Saskatchewan judicial districts. The website says that the  "estate records contain loose papers relating to the settlement of estates including such matters as provision for heirs including minor children as well as distribution of funds, land and property. This project was indexed in partnership with the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society".