Brickwall Panel Discussion Notes – March 11, 2013

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These are a few of the websites mentioned and some suggestions for topics discussed at the BCGS – VPL Brickwall Panel Discussion, March 11, 2013 in Vancouver. If you are looking for information on anything discussed that’s not here, don’t hesitate to contact the BCGS webmaster: webmaster@bcgs.ca

See also the BCGS Research Links pages for many topics and geographic areas: http://www.bcgs.ca/?page_id=116 These pages are often updated and new topics added. Send any suggestions for additional sites to the BCGS webmaster: webmaster@bcgs.ca

Vancouver Public Library – see the list of suggested books – ‘Brickwall Help – Genealogy and Family History’: http://vpl.bibliocommons.com/list/show/83147979_mdianerogers/159388881_brickwall_help_-_genealogy_amp_family_history

BCGS Library: http://www.bcgs.ca/?page_id=87

BCGS Boutique, lists of the Heritage Book Series books mentioned: http://www.bcgs.ca/?page_id=23

And for any of these topics or ideas, check www.CyndisList.com for more on-line sites and articles.

Techniques

Creating Timelines to Make Sense of Genealogy Records by bethfoulk at Genealogy DeCoded: http://www.genealogydecoded.com/ahha_moments_for_genealogyists_blog/2012/09/21/creating-timelines-to-make-sense-of-genealogy-records/

Using Timelines in Your Research by Donna Przecha:
http://www.genealogy.com/36_donna.html

Evidentia software: http://evidentia.ed4becky.net   See also Too Many Birth Dates – A Trial of Evidentia Software at Brenner Genealogy http://brennerfamilytree.org/wp/2012/12/too-many-birth-dates-a-trial-of-evidentia-software.html

Cluster Genealogy, (sometimes called whole family genealogy), Shoestring Genealogy: http://www.shoestringgenealogy.com/article/Cluster.htm

The F.A.N. Genealogy principle – researching Friends-Associates-Neighbours, or location-based genealogy- videos by Bernie Gracy – see these at Breaking Down Brick Walls with Location Based Genealogy at Find Your Folks by Drusilla Pair: http://findyourfolks.blogspot.ca/2010/11/breaking-down-brick-walls-with-location.html

Reverse Genealogy, Trace Your Family Forward, Family Tree Magazine: http://familytreemagazine.com/article/reverse-genealogy-resources
Twenty Ways to Avoid Grief When Researching” by Margaret M. Sharon, BCGS website: http://www.bcgs.ca/?p=52

Citations

Evidence Explained, Elizabeth Shown Mills: https://www.evidenceexplained.com

UK and Ireland Genealogy

Genuki, UK and Ireland reference site, gazetteeer, find local records offices, etc.: http://www.genuki.org.uk

English Research

Wills and Probate – Further Research guide, National Archives of the UK: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/records/research-guides/wills-and-probate-records.htm

England Probate Records, FamilySearch Wiki: https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/England_Probate_Records

Free BMD: http://www.freebmd.org.uk/

Online Parish Clerks: http://www.ukbmd.org.uk/online_parish_clerk

See also the BCGS ‘England and Wales’ and ‘Great Britain’ Research Links pages: http://www.bcgs.ca/?page_id=116

Ireland

Ireland Reaching Out: http://www.irelandxo.com

ERIN, The Emigration Resources Information Network: the Irish Migration Gateway: http://migration.ucc.ie/indexemigration.htm This is a joint project of the The Centre for Migration Studies (CMS) at the Ulster-American Folk Park, Co. Tyrone, and the Irish Centre for Migration Studies (ICMS) at University College Cork.

Scotland

Family History, Mitchell Library: http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/the-mitchell-library/family-history/Pages/home.aspx

Resources for Family History, Mitchell Library: http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/libraries/the-mitchell-library/family-history/resources/Pages/home.aspx

See also the Mitchell Library’s virtual tour of old Glasgow: http://www.mitchelllibrary.org/virtualmitchell

The surnames of Scotland: their origin, meaning and history by George Fraser Black. New York Public Library, 1946.

The Collins Scottish Clan Encyclopedia by George Way, HarperCollins, 1994.

No Quarter Given: The Muster Roll of Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s Army, 1745-46 by Christian Aikman, Neil Wilson Publishing Ltd, Jan 1, 2012.

Photographs of the old closes and streets of Glasgow, 1868/1877: with a supplement of 15 related views by Thomas Annan, Dover Publications, 1977.

ScotlandsPeople, census, parish and civil registration records, wills, etc.: http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/

Canada – see also North American Immigration Centres below

War Service Recognition Books, BC Yukon Comand, Royal Canadian Legion, See the books and submit your own family’s military members, submission deadline June 30th, 2013: http://www.legionbcyukon.ca/content/military-service-recognition-book

Automated Genealogy, free index and access to these Canadian censuses: 1851/52, 1901, 1911; also the 1906 Prairie Province census: http://automatedgenealogy.com

See these links to search or apply for Canadian naturalization records: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-908.011-e.html

See this link to apply for the 1940 Canadian National Registration information: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-911.007-e.html

Manitoba – Manitobia.ca, newspapers and much more: http://www.manitobia.ca

North American Immigration Centres

Ellis Island, USA, from 1892: http://www.ellisisland.org

Castle Garden, USA, database 1820-1892. Castle Garden operated 1855-1892: http://www.castlegarden.org/

Immigrants at Grosse-Île, Canada,  database: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/grosse-ile-immigration/index-e.html

In Quarantine: Life and Death on Grosse Île, 1832-1937, Canada: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/grosse-ile/index-e.html

Canada, see Library and Archives Canada for all Immigration and citizenship Resources, including passenger lists: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-908-e.html

See also “Selected Census and Immigration Sources – Canada” by M. Diane Rogers (2011) .pdf file: http://www.bcgsoc.ca/Documents/immigration-censusVPL-BCGS2011.pdf 

Local Genealogical Societies – start with these groups

England and Wales, Federation of Family History Societies: http://www.ffhs.org.uk/

Scottish Association of Family History Societies: http://www.safhs.org.uk

USA, Federation of Genealogical Societies; http://www.fgs.org/

Canada, Canadian Provincial Genealogical Societies and their journals: http://www.bcgs.ca/?page_id=1395#comment-74

British Columbia Local Genealogical and Historical Groups: http://www.bcgs.ca/?page_id=1240

Miscellaneous

Rootsweb, for message boards and e-mail lists: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com (or www.rootsweb.com)

Find A Grave: http://www.findagrave.com

How to register for a free FamilySearch account: https://help.familysearch.org/publishing/519/111396_f.SAL_Public.html

 

The BCGS Offspring E-newsletter is back

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The BCGS quarterly e-newsletter, The Offspring, is back. Look for the latest issue on the BCGS Publication Archives page.

The BCGS Offspring Vol 4 No 1 Spring 2013

Thank you to Rob Whitlock for his assistance with the new Offspring.

We hope that members and others will send in their research tips, short stories or news for future issues. Please contact the BCGS Editor: editor@bcgs.ca or by mail, c/o the Society’s address below.

BCGS European Day – BCGS Library March 2013

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March 2, 2013 was the European Group’s Day at the BCGS Walter Draycott Library.

BCGS Library - European SectionA very good day with lots of discussion and sharing of resources – and homemade muffins too. A good turnout – and some new people.

Most of the group are currently looking for families in Eastern Europe – from 1700 through to post World War II. Among the places and countries represented were: Austria, Belarus, France, Galicia, Germany, Hanover [Germany], Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Ukraine, Württemberg [Germany]– most with family emigrating to Canada and the US (Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania).

Collecting as much information as possible about your immigrant families is vital. Our access to the Library’s subscription databases, Ancestry Library Edition, the Genealogical Research Library and the New England Historic Genealogical Society is helpful for this. In one case, although the original entry into the US has not yet been found, on a passenger list for a later trip home we saw birth dates and places for 3 of the children, as well as the mother’s date and court of naturalization, and her US passport number.

Deciphering place names of origin from these records is often a challenge due to changes in jurisdiction and spelling. To look for places we used a mix of maps and gazetteers from the Library’s collections, Internet maps (some printed out so we could more easily compare distances) and a good number of websites – particularly the on-line maps and information at the Federation of East European Family History Societies and the Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe, but even Wikipedia.com was of assistance, as were GeoNames.org, JewishGen.org (with database links to Communities Database and Gazetteer, and to the JewishGen Kehila Links Project), and the Główny Urząd Statystyczny (GUS), an information portal for the Central Statistics Office for Poland.

For those with German families of Germanic origin migrating ‘back’ into Germany during World War II, the EWZ or Einwandererzentralstelle records could be helpful. Dave Obee has articles about these on-line, “East European Emigration and the EWZ”, 51, FEEFHS Journal, Volume IX) and a guide to using them at his website Volhynia.com as does FamilySearch, “Using The EWZ Records for German and Eastern European Research” by NishimotoSR (2011).

Recommended highly was the Poznan Marriage Indexing project for the Prussian province of Posen, now Poznań, Poland and the Poznan State Archive.   There are similar projects for Pomorze, Lublin and Geneteka.

For Württemberg, there is an article at ProGenealogists with information and good links: http://www.progenealogists.com/germany/baden-wurttemberg/

And learning how ancestors may have pronounced their own names or place or origin could help us look for more spelling variations in the many pubished and Internet indexes.

Forvo.com is great for this. Already there are lists of names/places that you can hear spoken, but submit yours, if not already there.

And try Pronounce Names too

The need for translation can often an issue both on-line and off. Google Translate certainly does a good job, but many times, terms we are looking for are older or specialized words or phrases and do not translate well ‘automatically’.

Books in the Library collections with lists of often seen words are very useful, for example,  Finding Your German Ancestors by Dr. Hans W. Rerup and Finding Your Ukrainian Ancestors by Muryl Andrejciw Geary.
(Both were published by Heritage Productions and available at the BCGS Boutique as well as at the Library, as are similar books for other parts of Europe.)

 

Legend, Hamburg Map, 1943

 

Some of the Library’s maps, the WW II U.S. Army ones, had lists of translated terms too as this image shows.

For writing letters, the guides at FamilySearch are helpful. https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Category:Letter_Writing_Guides

 

Map of Hamburg, Germany, First Edition AMS1 Army Air 1943 Sheet L54. BCGS Map Tube #1

 

BCGS Annual General Meeting & Postcard Presentation – March 13, 2013, Burnaby, BC

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The BC Genealogical Society Annual General Meeting is Wednesday, March 13, 2013, at 7:30 pm, Edmonds Community Centre, 7282 Kingsway (Kingsway & Edmonds), Burnaby V5E 1G3.

After the AGM, M. Diane Rogers will give an illustrated presentation, Postcard Craze: Postcards, Postal History and Family History.   Diane has personal collections of family related postcards, and British Columbia postcards, and has her own postcard website, Postcard Craze.

Refreshments. All interested are welcome to attend.

Upcoming event – BCGS Seminar with Glenn T. Wright and Lesley Anderson, all day, Saturday, 27 April 2013, in Burnaby, BC. at the Danish Lutheran Church. Details on the BCGS website. Tickets available at the BCGS meeting, or through the 2013 BCGS Seminar webpage, or by telephone or mail.

BCGS General Meetings: the second Wednesday of every month, 7:30 pm. Please note that for the April 10, May 8, and June 12, 2013 general meetings, we wll be at the Danish Lutheran Church, Downstairs Hall, 6010 Kincaid St., Burnaby, BC.  (The Edmonds Community Centre is closing.)

BCGS Research Tip – March 2013

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BCGS Group at Vancouver, BC's CelticFest Parade

BCGS Group at Vancouver, BC’s CelticFest Parade.

The BCGS Members’ Tip for March is:

 

Looking for a date of death in England?

For deaths from 1858 to most current date available, check for your ancestor’s name in the National Probate Index (formally known as the the Calendar of Grants of Probate Letters of Administration). Most listings state the date the deceased passed away, their place of residence at the time of their death, the size of their estate, and often the names of the individuals who served as executors to the estate, which can include wives, sons and daughters.

The Index is available through Ancestry Library Edition, available at many libraries, including the BCGS Walter Draycott Library.