BIFHSGO Newsletters - This May Be News To You | ||||||||||||
The following (monthly) articles highlight recent changes in Family History Research mainly concerned with on-line access. The Latest Newsletter together with back issues covering the previous year are provided. | ||||||||||||
Back Issues of This May Be News To You ... | ||||||||||||
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Who Do You Think You Are (Canadian)
Sites referenced in Pat Wohler's talk (12 May 2007)
1837 Rebellion.
Canadian Council of Archives.
Exonumia.com.
Another Genealogy related UK E-Petition (03 May 2007)
We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Mandate the electronic indexing and free public
searching thereof of locally held records of Birth, Marriage and Death at Register Offices across England and Wales.
Local Register Offices (part of Local Government) are the primary contact for people wanting copies of Birth, Marriage or Death certificates. GRO Southport is a secondary contact having photocopies of the primary locally held registers. As such, Local Register Offices hold a mine of information for UK residents and Family Historians alike. These records are found and managed almost universally by old hand written indexes in cloth bound books and ledgers. While the public can legally access the indexes in person at each office, this mode of access is unacceptable in this day and age. Also, that any modern day business can still work like this in the 21st century is appalling. This petition seeks support to force local Register Offices to electronically index their records from 1837 to 2007 when a new on-line electronic registration system was introduced. While some areas have already opted to do this under the auspices of the UKBMD umbrella, and publish data on freely searchable web databases, other areas show no such inclination. This petition seeks to mandate that action.
Sign Petition (Must be an expatriate)
Mark Lloyd - Radio Performer (17 April 2007)
In case you missed it, BIFHSGO's Mark Lloyd was a studio guest on the CBC Radio 1's Ontario Today program (originating from the Ottawa studios).
He did a great interview - in the middle of the genealogy phone-in with Fraser Dunford (Exec Dir, OGS).
If you missed it, you can listen to the whole phone-in segment, incl. Mark's interview, at
www.cbc.ca/ontariotoday/story_archive.html
Scroll down to Geneology (sic) - Parts 1 & 2. The interview with Mark is at the beginning of Part 2.
Indexes of England and Wales Birth, marriage and death records will go on the Internet in 2008 (17 April 2007).
Thanks to Jim Shearon for this information.
The U. K. Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced in January that facilities to search indexes of births, marriages and deaths in England and Wales will start to be available on the Internet beginning in early 2008.
ONS intends to close its public search facility, currently located at the Family Records Centre (FRC) in Islington, and instead to make indexes available at The National Archives (TNA) in Kew. This will enable researchers to access records yet to be digitized in paper or microfiche format as well as making use of the wider opportunities offered by Kew for researching historic records.
The relocation is expected to be complete by April 2008. The services currently provided by ONS in Islington will then cease.
TNA had previously announced that it intended to relocate to Kew the facilities it currently provides alongside ONS at the FRC. At the time, ONS said that it would be reviewing the services it offered at the FRC.
Peter Murphy, ONS Director of Registration Services, said: "The decision reflects the changes in the way family historians and others prefer to carry out their research, by making use of online facilities. Confirmation of funding has now allowed us to plan for most searches to be possible electronically by April 2008 and almost all the rest by 2009."
"As part of the system developments underlying these changes we will improve the process for users to place orders for the certificates they identify from the indexes."
"Because the electronic indexes will not be fully complete when the relocation takes place, we expect that some indexes in the form of books or microfiche, will be available at Kew for a short period after the move. This will ensure that users of the search facility will have access to all records by one means or another."
This is a statement from an LDS member about the free access to Ancestry (25 March 2007)
For many years, Ancestry.com has provided free access to patrons of family history centers around the world. Ancestry has informed the Church that as of April 1, 2007, it will discontinue this free access to the full Ancestry.com service.
Free access through Ancestry.com to the following databases will continue:
- Index and images for the 1880, 1900 and 1920 U.S. censuses
- Full name indices for the British 1841-1891 censuses (England and Wales)
- World War I draft cards indices as created and miscellaneous other databases
Free access is likely to be discontinued for the remainder of the Ancestry.com databases including:
- Index and images for the 1930 U.S. census
- Index and images for the 1901 British census (England, Scotland, and Wales)
At this point, Ancestry.com is not offering an option for family history centers to independently purchase commercial or library site licenses. Patrons, of course, may choose to subscribe directly to Ancestry.com.
Free access to online databases is important and we therefore intend to add many new databases to FamilySearch.org. Much of the data preparation will be accomplished through the online indexing program available at FamilySearchIndexing.org. We encourage you to visit the website to learn more.
Catronia Crowe, our featured speaker from the Irish Archives delivered a speech on Saturday morning on resources available to us in the Irish Archives. A CD containing the information she gave us can be purchased from the commerical arm of Trinity College in Dublin.
Details shown below about the CD were taken the website of the Trinity College Enterprise Centre.
Counties in Time
Ref: ENEC006
Author: National Archives of Ireland
ISBN: 0-9540750-0-5
Series:
Documents and commentaries from the National Archives of Ireland
The Counties in Time CD-ROM aims to introduce a sample of the records held in the National Archives of Ireland to a wide audience. The records chosen exist, in nearly all cases, for the 32 counties of Ireland, and cover the period from the late sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. The National Archives is used extensively by local and family historians from all over the country and from abroad, as well as by political, economic, social and administrative historians. Local history is a growing area of interest for many people, and it is hoped that Counties in Time will alert them, and many others, to the rich archival heritage preserved in the National Archives.
The CD contains almost 1000 documents, including sixteenth century Chancery Pleadings, seventeenth century Books of Survey and Distribution, eighteenth century Proclamations, nineteenth century Famine papers, and twentieth century records of the first Dáil. There are scanned images for almost all of the documents, transcripts for those which are difficult to read, and explanatory introductions to all of the record classes. There are short illustrated county histories for each county, covering the period from the late sixteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. There is a glossary of terms, like "conacre", "Whiteboy" and "cess", and a timeline which provides a short chronology of Irish history since the sixteenth century, and gives details on several key national issues that are referred to in the county histories. There is a guide to using original records for historical research. The CD is easy to navigate and user-friendly, with an extensive "Help" section.
Counties in Time will be invaluable for local and family historians in Ireland and abroad, post-primary teachers and pupils, and individuals interested in Ireland's archival heritage. The variety of the documents included, ranging from proclamations against Catholics holding arms during the penal days to family returns for the 1901 and 1911 Censuses, from the records of seventeenth century land redistribution to police reports on 1930s IRA activity, and from mid-nineteenth century crime reports to 1867 photographs of Fenian suspects, is testimony to the riches in the custody of the National Archives of Ireland.
Price: €20.62 (€24.95 Including VAT at 21%) VAT is only charged on customers in the European Union. People can order this directly from the website above by going to the website's shop. Expect shipping costs in the order of 3.6 Euros [1.00 EUR = 1.42863 CAD on Sept 16, 2007] using this rate €(20.62 + 3.60) would be 34.60 in Canadian dollars.
BIFHSGO is intending to try to negotiate a better price for a bulk order. A number of people have already given their name and e-mail addresses. Please contact the before 29 September if you wish to have your order to be included in the bulk order.
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