Leaving Ontario, Resources for Tracking Ontario Migrants

Leaving Ontario, Resources for Tracking Ontario Migrants is Fawne Stratford-Devai's latest book, available for sale at Global Genealogy in Campbellville, ON. In it, she offers leads for those who have hit the proverbial genealogical "brick wall" for ancestors who have left the province of Ontario. The bonus, according to Rick Roberts, writing for the Global Gazette, is her transcription of one of the resources she consulted when preparing the book. To read more, please click here, and you will also be taken to her transcription of "'Go West' Horace Greely's Advice Taken by Many Canadians" from the The London Adviser published Wednesday April 7, 1880.

War Orphans from Poland (via Siberia and Africa) in Canada

I wasn't aware of the numbers of war orphans in Canada from Poland by way of Siberia and Africa. Their journey is one chronicled in the book, Stolen Childhood: A Saga of Polish War Children by Lucjan Krolikowski. These 123 children arrived in Montreal in 1949, though thousands more remained in Africa. To learn more, please visit the Montreal Gazette article by clicking here.

My thanks to my sister who saw this article and pointed it out to me.

Jewish Cemeteries in Toronto

Some time ago, the Toronto Star ran a great article on the first Jewish cemeteries founded in the City of Toronto. What is more important is the project of these cemeteries by volunteers of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Toronto to take digital photos of each and every tombstone in each of these cemeteries. To read the article, please click here.

Writing a Narrative Family History Seminar

The Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists has teamed up with the Canadiana Department of the North York Central Library to offer this seminar with John Colletta on Saturday, September 27, 2008. The day promises to help you "learn how to turn your family research into readable stories." Registration is $20 for OCAPG members, $45 for non-members and space is limited, so be sure to register soon!

African Roots in Canada

This day-long summer workshop on Saturday, August 9 is presented by the Ontario Genealogical Society, Toronto Branch in conjunction with the Canadiana Department of North York Central Library (Toronto Public Library) and the Ontario Black History Society. There are seven speakers in addition to a lunchtime tour of the Canadiana Department and, my personal favourite, a question and answer session with the speakers/expert panel. Registration fees increase after July 15th, so be sure to register quickly!

IFLA Genealogy and Local History Section Newsletter

I've previously blogged about IFLA's Genealogy and Local History Section's Satellite Conference here which, I understand, is still accepting registrations.  It was only recently, however, that I joined the mailing list and learned that the Section publishes an online newsletter.  The newest edition of e-newsletter is now available and may be accessed by clicking here to be taken to the pdf. Though not everything is Canadian, the information that this publication contains demonstrates the diversity of Local History and Genealogy projects from around the world. It is published twice a year. I look forward to exploring it more in depth, and am very jealous of anyone heading on the Expedition to Grosse-Ile!

Oh my gosh...

I was reading through my personal email when I came across my subscription to RootsWeb Review. I haven't read it in a while. I started thinking that my spam mail filter must have grabbed it and tossed it before I got a chance to see it as it is an e-newsletter that is published regularly, but going to their website, I noticed that it did change to monthly publication from weekly, beginning in April 2008.

I really like the Review. It offers a lot of very helpful general genealogical research tips, like the article this issue entitled, "Research Clues from the Faith of Our Fathers" by Joan Young which looks at the significance of faith (religion) in research. Another piece on "International Genealogical Symbols" by Mary Harrell-Sesniak illustrates symbols used in describing relationships in a variety of resources from around the world.

What surprised me was not the quality of the newsletter, but the fact that this blog received a mention, and from the Editor's Desk at that! She writes:

Editor's Desk: News and Notes

Locating Free Canadian Resources

If you're looking for a blog that captures primarily free Canadian resources, be sure to take a look here.

Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 9 July 2008, Vol. 11, No. 17

Dick Eastman's blog, Cyndi's List, various library schools, and a few other places, now RootsWeb Review. I'm very flattered and extremely pleased that this blog is allowing me to "wander" farther and farther!

CanadaGenealogy, or, 'Jane's Your Aunt' Blog

CanadaGenealogy, or, 'Jane's Your Aunt' is a blog that is written to be about, "Canadian Genealogy & Women's History: Current Ideas, Information & Projects." It has some great things in it, including the announcement for the BC Genealogical Society's Annual Free Library Research Week, taking place July 21-26.
Many thanks to the blog's owner, M. Diane Rogers, for adding this blog to her blogroll for Canadian Genealogy. I've added her blog to my list as well!

Digital Books of Remembrance

From my colleague, Joanne McCarthy, at Halifax Public Libraries:

The Halifax Public Libraries (Nova Scotia, Canada) is pleased to announce the launching of the online Halifax County Books of Remembrance.  If you are searching for family members who died in World War 1, World War 2 or the Korean War, have a look at our online Books of Remembrance, a digital copy of the two handmade and hand illustrated lists commemorating those who lost their lives during the Wars.

It can be found at  http://www.halifaxpubliclibraries.ca/content/view/197/397/

You can search by surname, rank, regiment or cause of death (for WW1). You can also print out a colour copy (if you have a colour printer) by clicking on the "print page" icon underneath the page display.

Divorces in Canada

From the Canadian Genealogy Centre's website:

From 1840 to 1968, divorces in Canada were granted by private acts of the Parliament of Canada.Before 1867, only five divorce acts were passed and published either in the Statutes of the Province of Canada or in the Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. The first divorce that occurred in Canada was between John Stuart and Elizabeth Van Reneselaer Powell in 1841.

From 1867 to 1968, a person wishing to obtain a divorce was first required to place a notice of intent to petition the government for an Act of Divorce in the Canada Gazette and in two newspapers in the district or county where the petitioner resided. It was to appear for a six-month period.

CGC offers their database, Divorce in Canada, which covers those divorces in parliamentary publications from 1841-1968.

Give Me 5 Generations Charts

The Canadian Genealogy Centre still has Give Me 5 Generation charts available to libraries. To get your copies, visit the publication ordering site.

Canada Year Book Historical Collection

Statistics Canada has made available the Canada Year Book from 1867 to 1967 as a searchable database online. It covers the economic and social history of Canada's formative century, and is an invaluble resource to demonstrate the context in which our ancestors lived.

Database: Immigrants from China to Canada

The Library and Archives of Canada in conjunction with the Department of History at University of British Columbia has made available an indexed database of over 900,000 who immigrated to Canada from China between 1885 and 1945. This collection of information is intended for genealogical purposes only. If you would like to learn more about Chinese immigration to Canada, please visit the Canadian Genealogy Centre's discussion located here.

I missed my own blog's 3rd anniversary!

Good grief - it was back in May 2005 that this blog was created, and I missed marking the occasion of it's third anniversary.

This blog was created to bring to one spot Canadian resources that are useful to genealogy and local history librarians who assist family history researchers, particularly within in public libraries. My criteria isn't complicated: Canadian, preferably online resources, and free are all included - fee-based if the resource looks REALLY good. Non-Canadian links are only included if they include Canadian information such as New England ports where some people may have indicated they were heading across the border to Canada, and not remaining in the US.

Have an idea? Like to see a resource included that I haven't talked about before? Please comment!

Nova Scotian Genealogy in Toronto

While "wandering" back from Port Hope, I heard a radio ad for the Toronto Nautical Festival at Queens Quay Harbourfront, taking place from June 19-22. Don't know how I'm about to make the genealogy leap? Well, turns out that there will be genealogy booth at the Festival where assistance will be provided to help you discover your Nova Scotia roots. So, think Black Loyalist, Acadian, Maritime genealogies, and that's just a start!

IFLA Satellite Genealogy Conference for Librarians in Ottawa, August 6&7

Genealogy and Local History for All: Services to Multicultural Communities

Early registration will close in less than two weeks (June 20). Register now!

The conference is for librarians and archivists and will take place in Ottawa, Ontario on August 6 and 7 at Library and Archives Canada. For full details, please see the conference website.

The programme will feature presentations on a wide variety of topics including DNA and genealogy, resources and services for specific ethnic groups, and global initiatives being undertaken by FamilySearch. It will also provide an excellent opportunity to make new contacts with librarians and archivists working in the area of genealogy and local history. There will also be tours of the Canadian Genealogy Centre, Library and Archives Canada and the Gatineau Preservation Centre.

For further information, please contact:

Janet Tomkins, Information Coordinator
janettom at vpl.ca
Standing Committee
Section 37 - Genealogy and Local History
International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions

The "Wandering Genealogist" continues her tour of Southern Ontario

I'm having such a great time on my SOLS workshop tour of Southern Ontario. I'm very grateful to SOLS, the workshop participants and the host libraries. Two stops done - only three more to go, and there's still some room in all three remaining locations: Barrie, Paris, and Port Hope.

My most recent stop was the Westmount Branch of the London Public Library, run by Alastair Neeley. He reminded our group of the upcoming "Wired Genealogy" conference coming May 30-Jun 1 at Fanshawe College, and particularly of his session, "For King and Country: Military Records." He will be providing his lecture materials on CD, so if you're not able to attend, please email him as he would be happy to send out a CD to you at your library via the SOLS courier. I leave it to the Ontario library staff who follow this blog to find Alastair's contact information rather than including it here for all the spammers to find.

For those looking for an incredible learning opportunity, "Wired Genealogy" is still accepting registrations. Dick Eastman will be delivering the Houston Lecture on Friday evening, and accomodations are available at Fanshawe College for those travelling a distance to attend.

Oh, and the new nickname is courtesy of a colleague. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet;

This post title brought to you by William Shakespeare and his play, Romeo and Juliet.

Quotations aside, one of the things I'm often asked about are the meaning of names or their origins, especially if a family historian is coming across older, less common names. It's important to turn to a reliable resource to research name meanings, or their "etymology." Once such resource is Behind the Name, where I've learned that my first name is not only English but also has German usage. It also provides links down the right side of the page so that you can find the popularity of a particular name (Ebba is a LOT more popular in Sweden currently than it is in the US) as well as any related names, namesakes and name days. The two drawbacks to the site? My middle name isn't included, and the current ad is of a certain president whom I can't wait to see leave office.

ancestorsonboard.com

Taken directly from the ancestorsonboard.com website:

Passenger lists with over 24 million records from ships sailing to destinations worldwide.

Findmypast.com, in association with The National Archives, is proud to present
ancestorsonboard, a new database featuring BT27 Outward Passenger Lists for long-distance voyages leaving the British Isles from 1960 right back to 1890.

With ancestorsonboard, you can search for passenger list records of individuals or groups of people leaving for destinations including Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa and USA featuring ports such as Boston, Philadelphia and New York. Passengers include not only immigrants and emigrants, but also businessmen, diplomats and tourists. Images of the passenger lists are available to download, view, save and print."

You may also sign up for their RSS feed of Live News Updates or register for email updates. Either way, this resource is sure to be a big help to many people researching passenger lists both old and more recent. But, be warned, there are fees involved to view the transcript and/or image involved. Without a subscription, it's 5 units for the transcript and 30 units to view the image.

Voici Ma Famille/That's My Family

Dick Eastman has a great entry for the new Canadian Genealogy Search Engine on his blog, Voici Ma Famille/That's My Family. It's a combination of free and fee databases, and the site is the creation of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec and is maintained by them, Library and Archives Canada and Council of Provincial and Territorial Archivists of Canada. To learn more, visit Eastman's post here.

Some Genealogy Humour

I recently received this bit of genealogical humour via one of my many mailing lists. I had to post it for everyone to enjoy, and I hope you do because it's SO utterly true!

Enjoy!

1852 NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

TO SOLVE GENEALOGICAL MYSTERIES.

It is New Year's Eve 1852 and Henry Hydenwel sits at his desk by candlelight. He dips his quill pen in ink and begins to writes his New Year's resolutions.

1. No man is truly well-educated unless he learns to spell his name at least three different ways within the same document. I resolve to give the appearance of being extremely well-educated in the coming year.

2. I resolve to see to it that all of my children will have the same names that my ancestors have used for six generations in a row.

3. My age is no one's business but my own. I hereby resolve to never list the same age or birth year twice on any document.

4. I resolve to have each of my children baptized in a different church -- either in a different faith or in a different parish. Every third child will not be baptized at all or will be baptized by an itinerant minister who keeps no records.

5. I resolve to move to a new town, new county, or new state at least once every 10 years -- just before those pesky enumerators come around asking silly questions.

6. I will make every attempt to reside in counties and towns where no vital records are maintained or where the courthouse burns down every few years.

7. I resolve to join an obscure religious cult that does not believe in record keeping or in participating in military service.

8. When the tax collector comes to my door, I'll loan him my pen, which has been dipped in rapidly fading blue ink.

9. I resolve that if my beloved wife Mary should die, I will marry another Mary.

10. I resolve not to make a will. Who needs to spend money on a lawyer?

Ontario Time Machine: Really Old Books!

Maybe not completely related to genealogy, but you never know what ancestor you might find IN one of these books!

The Ontario Time Machine is a database of full-text books covering the period from the 1750s until World War I, and is a project of Toronto Public Library in conjunction with Hamilton and Kingston Frontenac Public Libraries and the Ontario Ministry of Culture. It's curriculum based, and is

Wired Genealogy: OGS Annual Conference

The Ontario Genealogical Society's annual conference happens this spring: May 30-June 1 at Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. The theme is Wired Genealogy, and includes experts from Dick Eastman to Fawne Stratford-Devai to Geoffrey D. Rasmussen among the 46 speakers who will be discussing EVERYTHING related to genealogy, the internet, and computers/software. A very affordable learning experience, so don't miss out!

Canadian Genealogy Centre - Update

The Canadian Genealogy Centre of Library and Archives Canada has changed quite a bit over the past year or so. What's really nice is the Ancestors Search on the very first page which searches all of their databases at once. It will pull information from the Soldiers of the First World War database, Court Martials of WWI, the 1871 Ontario census, Immigration and Citizenship resources like the Home Children database, and many, many more.

Global Genealogy Workshops

If you happen to be in the Campbellville area, be sure to check out the Workshops available through Global Genealogy. They range from instruction on popular family history software, to research methods, to how to stay organized. Rick and Sandy are known for the expertise they provide both in their own courses as well as the other instructors whom they bring in. Not in the area and need to know what events are taking place closer to home? Their free calendar of events is just the resource for you if you're within Canada and the US. If you have an event to advertise, be sure to submit it to this list.

Quebec City Is 400 Years Old!

That's right, and in honour of the occasion, Genealogical.com has published Companions of Champlain: Founding Families of Quebec, 1608-1635. From their website:

Drawing on primary and reliable secondary sources, this work provides readers with a concise historical overview of the founding of Quebec and French-Canadian culture. It also supplies readers with the research tools necessary to link their family lines with those of the original 18 pioneer families who inhabited Quebec during the lifetime of the city’s founder, Samuel de Champlain.

Now, based on a comment I've seen about this book on Dick Eastman's blog, the s&h fees are quite high compared to the price of the book, so I'll repeat my suggestion that I posted as a comment there: Make this title a suggested purchase to your local public library. If it's not the type of purchase they'll typically make, try requesting it from that same public library as an InterLibrary Loan! You may have to wait a while especially since it's a new publication, but it may be worth it.

The families covered in this title are as follows: Amiot/Amyot, Boucher, Bourdon, Cloutier, Cote/Coste, Couillard/Couillart, Delaunay, Desportes, Giffard, Guyon, Hebert, Juchereau, Langlois, Marsolet, Martin, Nicolet, Pinguet, and Tardif/Letardif.

The CanadianLibGenie is going on the road!

The Southern Ontario Library Service's Spring Workshops will include yours truly! I'm very excited to be presenting 1/2 day workshops in five locations in Southern Ontario on Genealogical Policy, How-Tos, Resources and Community Programming Partnerships. Registration opens on February 11th and the full brochure is available here.

Here are the dates and locations for your quick reference:
Friday, April 25, 2008: 1-4pm - Brockville Public Library
Friday, May 2, 2008: 1-4pm - London Public Library – Westmount branch
Friday, May 9, 2008: 1-4pm - Barrie Public Library
Friday, June 6, 2008: 1-4pm - County of Brant Public Library – Paris
Friday, June 13, 2008: 1-4pm - Port Hope Public Library – Port Hope
branch

Top Ten Worst Ways to Begin a Family History

Here's some fun for everyone from a blog I've recently added to my blogroll.

Top Ten Worst Ways to Begin a Family History

Who Do You Think You Are? and Black Loyalists

CBC has brought the BBC hit, Who Do You Think You Are? to Canadian television, looking at the ancestry of 13 well known Canadian personalities ranging from Don Cherry to Margaret Trudeau. Not only are the commercials pretty well split between ancestry.ca and the Canadian Genealogy Centre of Library and Archives Canada, but the research is also varied, including DNA testing.

The part of tonight's episode that I found particularly fascinating was the Book of Negroes, a now searchable book listing the names and status of the Black Loyalists who travelled from the United States to Nova Scotia from 1783 to 1785, as a direct result of the American Revolution. Some of these Black Loyalists were still slaves, freed slaves, or still indentured, but given their freedom because they had joined the British in New York. Check out the links to learn more about this period in our history.

It has been too long...

For those who have noticed my absence, thank you for your kind words and good thoughts.

There's a LOT in the Canadian Genealogy realm that has gone by recently that I haven't blogged about, but here's one that I've just come across today that's good for general knowledge when working with family history patrons:

Taken from: Genealogy Gems: News from the Fort Wayne Library, No. 44, October 30, 2007
***************************************
Preservation Tip of the Month
by Becky Schipper
***************************************
The Library of Congress has a great webpage offering simple
instructions and links to more in-depth information regarding
preserving family documents. The webpage is titled, "Preparing,
Protecting and Preserving Family Treasures." It is an enjoyable and
informative collection of data and links to explore. The web address
is: www.lcweb.loc.gov/preserv/familytreasures/index.html
***************************************
***************************************

If you'd like to receive Genealogy Gems directly in your email, head over to the Genealogy Center of the Allen County Public Library's website and add your email address to subscribe. You can even read back issues of the e-zine until you receive your first installment.

Oh, Enough with the Exclamation Points

Okay - I admit it. I'm an exclamation point junkie. Alas, I'm unable to find a support group for this particular afflication, so unless I curb my enthusiasm, you may have to look beyond all those exclamation points! (oops, there I go again!...)

Have a great day, Everyone! ;-D

Nova Scotian Vital Stats now available online!

And, more importantly, it's free! Original images of births, marriages and deaths are now available online via a simple name search. Here's what's covered so far:

Births 1864-1877
Marriages 1864-1930
Deaths 1864-1877 and 1908-1955

Copies may be ordered for a fee, so click here to get started!

Genealogy Resources You Can Use Now!

I've just been notified that my presentation at OLA Superconference is now available on the conference website. Click here to head on over! Just a reminder that it was session #1913