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Showing posts with the label free genealogy resources

Born on St Patrick's Day: Happy 115th Mary

They say that its good luck to be Irish, and that the luckiest of all are those who are born on St Patrick's Day. No doubt this is what was said the day that my great grandmother was born. However, her life was not necessarily filled with the good luck that the superstition had predicted. As much as she had a hard life, her life was also an "ordinary" one of a young British immigrant to Canada. Despite that, the simple life she led in youth was filled with fun. She embrace the changing times, new found freedoms, and innovations. Its the heirlooms from that chapter of her life that fascinate me the most because they show a side to her that none of my relatives knew - a woman who was happy. So today, I am going to share the side of her - that one that the heirlooms tells. I have a small black autograph book that was hers.  At almost 100 years old, the book binding has all but disintegrated yet the leather cover is in near pristine condition and the partially bound pages are...
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Free Genealogy Spring 2021

Many years ago when I first started genealogy, I was a broke student and didnt have the funds to purchase a subscription to a major genealogy site. I thought that I would quickly reach a point where the free research would end and I would have to find the cash or stop - thankfully this was not the case. I learned that many of the major sites offer free trials and free weeks or weekends throughout the year. The goal to performing free research is learning how to capitalize on these promotional offers.  The following list will continue to be updated as further promotional offers become available. Spring 2021 April 18-24: MyHeritage Birth Records
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How to Create an Interactive Family Tree in Powerpoint

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When it comes to sharing your family history, one of the first things that people ask to see is the family tree. Of course there are great online family tree builders (such as Ancestry, FMP, and My Heritage) but that often involves family members having to create their own account. Creating a free account on Ancestry can be quite frustrating (Im not even sure how I did that a decade ago...). There are many other reasons why someone may not want to share one of these online trees. For example, I have chosen not to because I explore many theories in my trees, I dont always keep them the most up to date with all my knowledge, I know some of my family members would struggle with the technology, and I still want to maintain a little privacy within my research. For all of those reasons I chose to go the more simple route and create an interactive tree in Powerpoint. (Yes I do realize that this is significantly more work than updating my tree! But I dont care!).  Why Powerpoint? I chose t...
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7 Tips to Become a More Efficient Genealogist

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Over the years my research practices have changed. Each revision I make is to shift my research towards becoming a more efficient and streamlined process. Maybe this is because of my professional background in process design, or maybe it is my inner desire to have everything as organized as it can be. Regardless it has caused me to develop ways of organizing my research that I have not seen anywhere else. Efficient research is not necessarily about having your research expertly organized in one form, but rather in many. Its about knowing which way of looking at the information will make it the easiest to understand for a particular research question.  Tip #1: Handwritten notes are not outdated To many the concept of using a pen and paper to take notes is a thing of yester-year, but to me it is one the easiest ways to capture an abundance of information in a concise space. When I was going through university I was one of the few students that still used a pen and paper for notetakin...
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A Great Big List of (Mostly) Free Canadian Genealogy Websites

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One of the main reasons why I started this blog is because I noticed that there were few sites that focused on Canadian genealogy. Over the years I have amassed quite the list of resources. Some cover the entire country while others focus on specific areas that I'm researching. I have organized the list below by location and as always I have identified paid resources with ($).  Nationwide Canadian Genealogy Resources  I have provided more detail about the following resources on my Canadian Resources page.  Library and Archives Canada   Provincial Databases (some $) -  Familysearch Wiki - Canada Internet Archive Familysearch ProQuest  ($) Canadiana Military Resources I wrote a post on military resources and loyalists which can be found  here  and  here .  Database: WW1 Service Files Database WW2 War Dead Service Files The Commonwealth War Graves Commission Veterans Affairs Canada Wikipedia WW1 CEF Battalions Canadian Great War Project A S...
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Excel for Genealogists: Why you should be Constructing Timelines

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Timelines are one of the most overlooked genealogical tools. I love them because they put the events in order and allow me to identify gaps where information is missing, and they let me quickly tell if a record is a match. I started writing timelines out by hand on blank printer paper but quickly realized this was incredibly inefficient because it was easy to run out of space during a certain timeframe (especially if the family was frequently on the move) and thus have to rewrite all the information. For the past three or so years I have been using Excel. I love how easy it is to add information by inserting rows, and how easy it is to customize the way that the information is displayed. My timeline is not a conventional line but rather a chronological table of events. I colour code the cells of major life events to help me visually breakup the information. I have included below the blank template that I use to create my timelines.  On the left hand side I have a summary of the fam...
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Who were the Loyalists?

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I remember when I was in elementary school and my history teacher told the class that "history is written by those who won the war". At the time I was in grade 7 and too young to realize the true depth of that statement. I didn't fully understand what he had said until years later when I began researching my own Loyalists roots. Almost every source I read on the American Revolution portrayed the Patriots such as Washington as heroes. They payed little attention to the Loyalist side of the conflict. Loyalist victories were glossed over, and even less mentioned were sacrifices and struggles of the Loyalist families. The true experiences of the Loyalists are best told through the few documents they left behind such as the Loyalist Claims.  One of my ancestors, who served with the Westchester Refugees, told the British government of the terror he faced because it was commonly assumed that he was a Loyalist. He "says he was considered a Torie from the very beginning becau...
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How to find Canadian Military Records

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Its that time of year again when everyone starts thinking about veterans. For genealogists this is the time when many choose to focus their efforts on finding their ancestors that served in the military. I have provided below a list of some of my favourite resources for finding ancestors that served in the Canadian military.  1. Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada's (bac-lac) boasts a large military collection which contains service records for a variety of different conflicts. I have attached links below to two of their most popular collections (WW1 and WW2 service files). Due to Canada's privacy laws WW2 service files have only been digitalized for those who did not survive the war. All service files have been digitalized for WW1 regardless of if they survived the war or not.  Database: WW1 Service Files Database WW2 War Dead Service Files Each database allows you to perform a 'basic' and 'advanced' search. A basic search allows you to sear...
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Popular posts from this blog

Born on St Patrick's Day: Happy 115th Mary

They say that its good luck to be Irish, and that the luckiest of all are those who are born on St Patrick's Day. No doubt this is what was said the day that my great grandmother was born. However, her life was not necessarily filled with the good luck that the superstition had predicted. As much as she had a hard life, her life was also an "ordinary" one of a young British immigrant to Canada. Despite that, the simple life she led in youth was filled with fun. She embrace the changing times, new found freedoms, and innovations. Its the heirlooms from that chapter of her life that fascinate me the most because they show a side to her that none of my relatives knew - a woman who was happy. So today, I am going to share the side of her - that one that the heirlooms tells. I have a small black autograph book that was hers.  At almost 100 years old, the book binding has all but disintegrated yet the leather cover is in near pristine condition and the partially bound pages are...
Read more

Ford's Folly and the Slum of Little Hell

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Battersea: The Sinkhole of Surrey During the Victorian Era, Battersea had gained the reputation as being “the sinkhole of Surrey” due to its widespread poverty and slum-like conditions. Many of the poor in Battersea were subject to irregular income from the building trades. For a family to scrape by in the winter they would have to apply thrift spending during the summer. This was often complicated by the reliance on alcohol which was used as a means of escape from the depression of living in such widespread poverty. The irregular income caused many of Battersea’s poor to frequently be on the move. On average a family lived in one place for less than two years before moving no more than a few streets away. After hopping from neighbourhood to neighbourhood the family would eventually return to where they were once exiled from, moving in only a few doors away from their former address. Ford’s Folly and the slum of Little Hell In Keith Bailey’s report Orville Road, Battersea: a Victor...
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F.A.N. Club: How to perform a Hub Analysis

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FAN club analysis is one of the most valuable tools at a genealogists disposal. Conventionally it is used to build a network of people around a single ancestor or family, however the process can be reversed to determine the nature of unknown relationships. The Hub analysis is a method that I came up with that helps break a large group of people into small social circles that are centered around something that they all have in common. For example, this could be a place of employment, worship, or even a club/hobby. By grouping the people in this way we can identify what subgroups exists within the FAN club (I wrote a post here on how these subgroups can be visually represented used a net diagram).  The easiest way to explain the process is by using an example. Lets take a look at a list of names that I found of people who called the family following my great grandfather's death.  **Please note that for privacy reasons I have redacted the full surname and addresses of any person...
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