Links from Talk at Grey Roots

During my talk at Grey Roots Museum and Archives near Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, on March 26,  2019, the following are some urls to websites shared during the talk on Internet Genealogy Research: Tools and Tips -- not all in the order presented

Thomas MacEntee's        http://hackgenealogy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/HANDOUT-Using-and-Managing-a-Genealogy-Research-Log.pdf 

Bruce Grey Branch Ontario Ancestors (Ontario Genealogical Society) https://brucegrey.ogs.on.ca/

Kenneth Marks's article on Letters that Get Confused       http://www.theancestorhunt.com/blog/the-one-absolute-best-way-to-find-more-ancestor-articles-in-historic-newspapers-online#.Vx9lCPkrLIU 
Check other resources on his site. 

Family Search Wiki       https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Main_Page

Family Search Catalog      https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/search/

Automated Genealogy Some Canadian census record indexes http://automatedgenealogy.com

Cyndislist  https://cyndislist.com/  -- since 1996 she has provided this service
Linkpendium http://www.linkpendium.com/
Genweb https://www.worldgenweb.org/
Genuki https://www.genuki.org.uk/
CanGenealogy http://www.cangenealogy.com/

Ontario Archives http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/index.aspx•

Library & Archives Canada http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Pages/home.aspx

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/Pages/collection-databases.aspx

Bruce Grey Branch Ontario Ancestors (Ontario Genealogical Society) https://brucegrey.ogs.on.ca

Grey Roots  https://greyroots.com/
https://greyroots.com/collections-and-research/archives-research/external-resources
West Grey Library http://www.westgreylibrary.com/
Hanover Public Library https://hanoverlibrary.ca/
South Grey Museum  http://www.southgreymuseum.ca/
Markdale and Flesherton newspapers on ourontario.ca  http://news.ourontario.ca/ghpl/search
Owen Sound & North Grey Union Public Library http://owensound.library.on.ca
Grey Highlands Public Library https://www.greyhighlands.ca/en/visit-and-explore/libraries.aspx -- links to branches

Different search engines       https://www.lifewire.com/best-search-engines-2483352 

Extras
Scotland's People  https://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ -- purchase credits for records
Irish Toolkit https://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/
Canadiana  http://canadiana.ca -- free
Map Explorer https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/maps requires a subscription but shows what is happening with history/genealogical websites.

        

•

 Janet Iles

Patience Blandford and Richard Iles Marriage Delayed

When doing genealogical research it always pays to revisit previous research. New records become readily available and you check them out or you find research of others that points you to records that are new to you. This was the case in learning more about one of my ancestors.

I have written about Patience Iles nee Blandford before here and Richard Iles here. They are my great-great-great grandparents. I had borrowed the microfilm from the Family History Library a number of years ago and had found their marriage that took place on 21 October 1822 at the Brimpsfield Parish Church in Gloucestershire, England. [1] Ancestry now has both the Parish register and the Bishop transcript

One family history on Ancestry mentioned that the banns had been published the year before in December 1821, so I looked at each of the records that this researcher had included. Here is what I found.

The original publishing of the banns in the Parish church happened on 2, 9 and 16 of December 1821. Notice that the curate added a note on a piece of paper that stated the curate, John Davies, read the banns on October 6, 1822. There is no indication that the banns were read the customary three times the month before the wedding.

No explanation is given in the records why there was a delay in the marriage. [2] Patience had three children prior to her marriage. On 4 November 1821, she brought her twins, Reuben and Harriett to the parish church to be baptized. [3] Her son, Reuben died when he was seven months old. [4] Was this a factor in the delay in their marriage?

You never know what you will find when you look at previous research.


[1] Church of England. Parish Church of Brimpsfield (Gloucestershire), Parish Marriage Register,  entry for Patience Blandford and Richard Eyles, microfilm 991292 item 1, p. 6, no. 16, Family History Library, Salt Lake City.
[2] Church of England. Parish Church of Brimpsfield (Gloucestershire). Parish Register - banns; entry for Patience Blandford and Richard Eyles, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 9 July 2016) citing Gloucestershire Archives; Gloucester, England; Reference Numbers: P58 IN 1/8.
[3] Church of England. Parish Church of Brimpsfield (Gloucestershire), Parish Baptismal Register,  entry for Harriet and Reuben Blandford, microfilm  991292 item 1 p. 10, no. 86, Family History Library, Salt Lake City.
[4] Church of England. Parish Church of Brimpsfield (Gloucestershire). Parish Burial Register, entry for Reuben Blandford, p. 8 no. 64; Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 9 July 2016) citing Gloucestershire Archives; Gloucester, England; Reference Numbers: P58 IN 1/9

© 2016 Janet Iles

Goals (Genealogy) 2012 - how did I do? What are my goals for 2013?

Here was what I wrote for my goals for 2012 with my comments.
My main goal for this year will be organizational in nature: my office, desk, files, books, etc. so that I can be very productive in pleasant surroundings.


Well I was partially successful in this regard. The new shelving is fairly well organized but it could use some sprucing up. The filing cabinet was purchased. I purchased a three-drawer (used) lateral filing cabinet. I like the ability to have hanging files. I did some preliminary work on this but it still needs some better organization and likely purging of some materials. My challenge is that some material is in binders, some in files and some still needing to be filed.  

I purchased  six two-drawer plastic organizers. I use these to divide the different paper supplies. Each drawer is labelled so that it is easy to find special papers when they are needed.


I still would like to update my family history that was put aside last year.
I was unsuccessful -- I did not do this. I didn't even work on it. I did some research while in Salt Lake City but that still needs to be reviewed and incorporated into what I have.

I also look forward to helping others with their genealogical research. I always learn something new with each project.
I am very pleased that I worked on more projects for clients this year - some small and some much larger. Each was interesting and as always, I learned something new with each one.

2013
The list does not change. What I need to do next is to take these three goals and refine them by breaking them down and adding more specific details and putting in some deadlines for each portion.

© 2013 Janet Iles

Do you have a Canadian Doctor on your Family Tree?

I have been working on my Johnston family tree to send to a cousin. It will not be a polished work as there is so much to do to get all the necessary citations. Lots of derrivative sources that need to be verified but I don't want to wait until I get that done to share the information. I am sending only the first four generations. As I am going through, I can't help myself from trying to get as many births, marriages and deaths entered that I can easily find on Ancestry. I also found some citations that need to be cleaned up from when they were originally entered into my software.

Okay - now the topic at hand - A Canadian Doctor -

Ralph Ernest Johnston b. 4 January 1887 in Sandfield Township, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, d. 1 November 1958, occupation teacher / Doctor. On 17 April 1916, Ralph enlisted. He was living at 808 3rd Avenue West in Calgary. In 1928, Ralph was living in Edson, Alberta. He lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They had two children.


Ralph Ernest Johnston is my first cousin, twice removed on my mother's side. I knew very little about him before I began my research. My mother knew that he had gone west and my aunt told me, he had become a doctor. In his sister, Eleanor's obituary, he is listed as being in Edson, Alberta. His attestation papers say he was living in Calgary and that he was a teacher.


As I was cleaning up the information, I decided to follow through on a reference I had noted.

 Johnston   Ralph E.   CMAJ   1958   volume 79  page 1026 reference from obituary database for doctors

Canadian Health Obituaries Index File http://osler.library.mcgill.ca/cfstand/

Fortunately, I discovered this weekend that the issues are online for the time period I am interested in.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/journals/188/  I couldn't find it on page 1026 as listed but it turned out that the obituaries continued on the next page in the issue that I wanted.

DR. RALPH E. JOHNSTON, 71, died on November 1. [1958] He was born in Ontario and went to Edmonton, Alta., in 1912. He graduated from the University of Alberta in 1924, later graduating in medicine from McGill University, Montreal. He served overseas with the 49th Battalion during the First Great War, returning to Edmonton in 1919. He began to practise in Sangudo, Alta., in 1925. Dr. Johnston is survived by his widow and two daughters.

This was found at the Archives Canadian Medical Association Journal. By looking at the appropriate issue, I located his obituary.

If you are searching for an obituary for a Canadian doctor, check out the index. You may be as lucky as I was to find some more information on my cousin.

© 2011 Janet Iles

Elizabeth Shown Mills - Fan Club concept

Those who have heard Elizabeth Shown Mills speak or read anything she has written knows that she stresses studying not only the family but also the associates and neighbours of those we are researching. She refers to those individuals as the fan club. She reminds us to really look at the documents.

As I work on my soldiers' project, I am only doing a brief introduction to the family of the soldier. Currently, I am looking at the life of Alexander McKay Gunn. Although not digging deeply into all the relations, I did come across where the fan club concept would be helpful to a researcher of his family.

Alexander McKay Gunn, son of John Gunn and Johanna McKay was born in Keppel Township on 13 January 1884.


Alexander’s mother died two weeks after his birth. She died 27 January 1884 of puerperal fever. He went to live with his mother’s sisters. In 1891, at the age of 7, Alexander is shown in the census in the household of William and Isabella Cullen. Alexander is listed as the nephew of the head of the household. Mary McKay and Betsey McKay, also in the same household, are listed as sisters-in-law to William. Ten years later, according to the 1901 census, Alexander is living with his aunts, Mary and Betsy McKay, in Sydenham Township.

Alexander's mother was Johanna McKay, daughter of Alexander McKay and Betsy Gunn. Alexander's father was John Gunn, son of Donald Gunn and Elizabeth McDonald. John Gunn married Johanna McKay 25 January 1882 in Keppel Township by Rev. Scott. The witnessses at the wedding were Angus McDonald and Isabela McKay, both of Sydenham Township.

Who was the informant of the birth of Alexander and the death of his mother Johanna?  == Donald McGregor of Keppel Township. Both events were registered on the same day.

So who was Donald McGregor? Was he a neighbour or was there a family connection? A search on Ancestry.ca, found a Donald McGregor getting married in 1864 in Sydenham Township  to  Elizabeth McKay. Donald was the son of William McGregor and Jane Gunn. Elizabeth was a daughter of William McKay and Catharine Gunn. It certainly looks there is some family connection. If either the Gunns, McKays or McGregors of this area, were my family, I would do some more investigating of these connections through a variety of different sources.

© 2011 Janet Iles

Advanced Genealogical Skills: A Seminar with Elizabeth Shown Mills - the pledge

Already a week has past since I attended Advanced Genealogical Skills: A Seminar with Elizabeth Shown Mills on April 2 at the North York Central Library in Toronto. The day was wonderful. I am so happy that I was able to attend. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina prevented Elizabeth Shown Mills (ESM) from attending the FGS Conference in Salt Lake City and I had hoped to hear her at that conference.

I am thankful that I have the handouts and the recording of the presentations to review as she packed so much information into the day that it is good to be able to review regularly what we learned. The challenge is of course, to put it into practice.

Near the end of the afternoon, ESM told us "Raise your right hand and repeat after me."  So up went the hands. She spotted someone who hadn't raised their hand. "Come on now _______. "

So here is the pledge we repeated
"I am determined to solve my problems; therefore, I do hereby promise Elizabeth, in front of all these witnesses, that every time I write down a source, I will add an appraisal of that source."

I have printed out these words to post in my office as a reminder.

I know I need to slow down to take the time to look at the first frames of the microfilm that contain the title, author, etc. or to look at the description of a database on an online source or to get all the necessary details from other types of sources, and to write down all the important information and as promised an appraisal of the source.

More in an upcoming post.


© 2011 Janet Iles

You learn something new everyday -- It pays to read the description of the database

One thing I like about doing genealogical research, is that I'm always learning something new or that I am reminded about something that I already knew but had forgotten. Today, while I was working on my soldiers' project, I was reminded that it is important to read the description of the database that you are using.

After the death of Clarence Russell Porter's father, his mother had married a widower with children. Her stepson, William Edward Dunn was also killed in the First World War. Today I was looking at the burial records for William Edward Dunn on Ancestry.ca.   I read the descriptions of the two different databases concerning burial records of Canadians. Now, I understood the difference between the two.

Using William Edward Dunn, here are his two records.

War Graves Registry: Cause of Death

Source Citation: Library and Archives Canada (LAC). War Graves Registry: Circumstances of Death. RG150, 1992-1993/314, Box 145-238. Box: 174, entry for William Edward Dunn; digital image viewed at Ancestry.ca

Source Citation: Library and Archives Canada (LAC). War Graves Registry: Circumstances of Death. RG150, 1992-1993/314, Box 145-238. Box: 174, verso of entry for William Edward Dunn; digital image viewed at Ancestry.ca 

This database contains records from the Burial Registers for service personnel of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) who died during the First World War in Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom. The registers, also known as the 'Brown Binders', were created by the Ministry of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada, the department of the Canadian government set up in London to oversee the war effort. . . .



The registers contain the initial burial location for Canadian war dead. After the war, many graves were consolidated in the cemeteries of the Imperial War Graves Commission, later renamed as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. To determine the final burial location, you may consult the Canada, Commonwealth War Graves Registers, 1914-1919 database, which contains records for many of the same soldiers.

The following explains why I have not found some of the soldiers that I have been working on during the last few weeks as I started working from the end of the alphabet.

Additionally, soldiers with surnames Sims through Z are missing from the original Burial Registers collection, and hence are not available in this database. Records for those soldiers may be found in the Canada, Commonwealth War Graves Registers, 1914-1919 database.

War Graves Registry: Commonwealth War Graves

Source Citation: Library and Archives Canada (LAC). War Graves Registry: Commonwealth War Graves. RG150, 1992-1993/314, Box 39-244. Box: 65, entry for William Edward Dunn; digital image viewed at Ancestry.ca

Source Citation: Library and Archives Canada (LAC). War Graves Registry: Commonwealth War Graves. RG150, 1992-1993/314, Box 39-244. Box: 65, verso of entry for William Edward Dunn; digital image viewed at Ancestry.ca


Here is a part of the description.
 

This database contains records from the War Grave Registers for service personnel of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) who died during the First World War in Belgium, France and the United Kingdom. The registers, also known as the ‘Black Binders’, were created at the end of the war by the Department of Militia and Defence, the forerunner of the Canadian Department of National Defense. These registers were used to record the final resting place of the soldier, nurse or other individual, and to record the notification of the next of kin. If the body was never recovered, these records contain the official memorial on which the individual’s name would be found.

As I continue to work on this project, I will look at both databases and save copies of both sides of the document.
 
Knowing the details concerning the cause of death and not just "killed in action" makes each soldier's story more interesting.

Surprise Finds

 Today, when I was at the library, I was searching for a newspaper article for a client project in the Canadian Echo, I stumbled upon two articles pertaining to one of the soldiers in my project. It told how he was accidentally injured during a training lecture. That will make the telling of his story more interesting.

This afternoon, I went to the Grey County Archives to check a book for the same client. I didn't find much in the book for him but I found information on some of my own families as I checked the book page by page (not indexed.).

You  never know what you are going to find when you are researching. You might not find what you are looking for, but there may be a surprise or two.

© 2010 Janet Iles

Timelines - Do you use them?

Do you use timelines in your genealogical research? I do.

On Tuesday, October 26 (that is tomorrow), I will be speaking at the Bruce County Museum in Southampton, Ontario at 7:30 p.m. to the Bruce Grey Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society and  their guests the Bruce County Genealogical Society. My topic is Timelines and Genealogy. The public is welcome to attend and there is no charge.

The talk is illustrated with examples of timelines. The four areas I will focus on are 1) what are timelines and different types of timelines 2) using timelines during the genealogical research phase and 3) using timelines as you develop the story of the people and 4) using timelines as a visual presentation of a person or family's life.

Has the use of timelines helped you in your genealogical research? If you wish to share an example please comment.

© 2010 Janet Iles