Smile For The Camera "Bling, ancestor Bling."

The 16th Edition of Smile For The Camera is "Bling, ancestor Bling." The word prompt is "Show us a photograph of your ancestor wearing their "Bling," or photographs of the pieces you have inherited. "

I have many pieces given to me by my grandmother when I was a teenager. I think my favourite is the gold pocket watch given to my grandfather on his 21st birthday by his parents (my great grandparents)

On the outside in fancy lettering are his initials CHF and inside the cover is engraved From Mum & Dad, April 24th, 1914

I also have Grandad's signet ring with his initials and I used to have his silver watch fob and engraved match case but they were stolen many years ago. I have felt great sadness ever since they were taken and have chastised myself for not keeping them locked up instead of on display in our home. I find myself looking at every case and fob in antique stores in case one day his turn up!

Caribbean Slave Records coming online

Ancestry.com Launches One of the Most Comprehensive Collections of Caribbean Slave Records

Nearly 200 Years of St. Croix-Virgin Islands Family History Records Coming Online

PROVO, UT--(Marketwire - July 16, 2009) - Ancestry.com, the world's largest online commercial resource for family history, today announced that the company, in collaboration with Virgin Islands Social History Associates (VISHA), is launching a significant online collection of Caribbean slave records detailing nearly 200 years of St. Croix-Virgin Islands history.

This unique collection is a product of the St. Croix African Roots Project, initiated in 2002 by VISHA to bring together records that document the population, families and individuals on St. Croix during the period of Danish rule. During the past seven years, VISHA collected, documented and transcribed a vast array of historical records found in American, Danish and Virgin Island archives. These records together in one collection help individuals of African descent chronicle the lives of their African and Creole ancestors as they negotiated enslavement and freedom in a New World plantation society.

To make this collection more accessible, Ancestry.com is working with VISHA to digitize and put online the St. Croix African Roots Project documents, which will help tens of thousands of people trace their ancestral roots, some to individual Africans and specific African homelands.

The first installment of this collection that went online today includes the U.S. Virgin Islands St. Croix Slave Lists (1772-1821) and Population Census (1835-1911), which together contain information on more than 700,000 slaves, owners and family members. These St. Croix African Roots Project records will be searchable for free on Ancestry.com until the end of July.

Ancestry.com has set up a remote scanning operation in St. Croix to digitize more of this collection and in the coming year, the site will add more than a million family history records from the project including:

-- Slave Trade Shipping Records 1749-1802 -- Names and prices of enslaved
Africans sold from slave ships to purchasers on St. Croix
-- Property Inventories 1755-1848 -- Names, occupations, property values,
locations and family relations of enslaved individuals
-- Free Persons of Color Records 1740-1834 -- Periodic censuses, lists
and freedom charters for the free colored population and other special
censuses and papers
-- Church Records 1744-1917 -- Records of baptisms, marriages, births and
deaths of slaves and free persons belonging to the Lutheran, Dutch Reform,
Anglican, Roman Catholic and Moravian churches in St. Croix
-- Vital Statistics 1820-1917 -- Records of births, death, and marriages
on an annual basis with information about family relations
-- Vaccination Records 1823-1853 -- Smallpox vaccination records for all
plantation slaves for the years 1823-1824 and annual vaccinations performed
in both towns and plantations 1829-1853
-- Emancipation Records 1848 -- Compiled for all plantation slaves freed
in order to establish compensation amounts for the owners
-- Movements of Plantation Workers 1848-1870 -- Traces the movements of
ex-slaves around St. Croix and off-island in the years after emancipation
-- Immigration Records 1850-1917 -- Documents immigration of people from
other Caribbean Islands to St. Croix after emancipation
-- Laborer Lists 1849-1917 -- Lists of laborers working on the
plantations

Continue reading Press Release

Dating Old Family Photos

You've found a box of old photos in your great-aunt's attic. She doesn't want them and tells you to go ahead and take the box. Some of the pictures are identified by name but you've no idea when the photos were taken! What do you do now?

The first thing you need to do is figure out the approximate time period of each photo. Is it 20th century, or 19th century? Mid 1800s? Late 1800s? How do you figure it out?

You can date photographs through various clues:

1. Type of photo - Tintype, daguerreotype, Carte de visite, cabinet card, 1900s home photos - narrow your time frame by first identifying the photo type.

2. Photographer's name (if there is one). Research the photographer. Find out when he or she was in business.

3. Photographer's mark and logo on the back of a CDV (Carte de Visite). Marks and logos changed over time from none to simple to more elaborate.

4. Fashion, especially women's fashions. Are the skirts full? Do they have hoops? Crinolines? Do they simply fall from the waist? Does the dress have full sleeves? Tight tapered sleeves? Dropped shoulder? A Yoke effect? High collar? Low collar? Natural wwaistline with belt? Dropped waist? Bustle? All these and more indicate fairly specific years.

5. Hairstyles. Women's hairstyles in particular changed over the years. Look to see if the ears are exposed or covered. Is hair parted in the middle and swept back severely? Is it low on the nape of the neck? Is it in sausage curls or ringlets? Is it gathered high on the top of the head? There are many variations and every one is typical of a fairly specific time period.

6. Is there a Revenue Stamp on the back? This dates your photo to 1864-1866. If you're lucky, the photographer date stamped his revenue stamp as he was supposed to.

There are many details you can also look for when attempting to date an ancestor photo. See Hints For Dating an Ancestor Photograph for information on Photo Corners (round versus square cut), quality of photograph cards (thin, thick), colured backings versus non-coloured etc.

It's a great feeling to get a box of old family photos and be able to slot them into time periods! Why not join us on Lost Faces: Ancestor Photos & Albums on GenealogyWise. This is a group I created to talk about our old photos and to help each other identify the years taken.

Air Canada offers flight for remains of woman left in London

Isn't it amazing what people will do to help? When this story first came out I thought poor Gladys would never come home. I was wrong! Read the story from

THE CANADIAN PRESS

FREDERICTON – The incredible tale of the unclaimed remains of a Canadian woman at a London cemetery, and efforts to send her home after almost a century, has caught the interest of a major airline.

Barry Smith of The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery says Air Canada has offered a free flight to ship the coffin from London to Halifax.

Gladys Winifred Fowler was 18 when she died in April 1917.

... Continue reading

Anomaly of Ellis Island Ships Passenger Lists

Some time ago on a ships passenger lists mailing list, my friend Sue Swiggum of TheShipsList.com discovered that the total number of passengers on a filmed Ellis Island list matched the number of third class passengers only. All other passengers were missing.

Investigations and consultation with a knowledgeable colleague gave us the answer to the puzzle of the missing passengers. There are always exceptions, but in general from about June 15th 1897 until approx. March or April 1903, the lists for first class and second class passengers were not collected at Ellis Island and do not survive, so therefore will not appear on microfilm, nor in the Ellis Island online database.

So if you are looking for ancestors and you are 100% positive they arrived at Ellis Island between 1897 and 1903, be aware that if they travelled first or second class, you might not find their names.

I Got Wise... GenealogyWise that is....

I got wise. GenealogyWise that is... yesterday I joined GenealogyWise.com. GenealogyWise is a new social network site and when I first heard about it I thought "Oh no, just a Facebook wannabee..." I didn't expect to like it. I decided to give it a try though before giving it the thumbs down.

I am giving it one thumbs up and reserving that second thumb until more time has passed. I want to see if the initial euphoria and excitement of it wears off over time.

It is set up just for genealogists and it is rather nice to be connected to others who are passionate about genealogy too!

Not that I will give up Facebook. I have hundreds of friends, family and colleagues on Facebook and I enjoy everything I do there. But the more time I spent on GenealogyWise yesterday, the more I realized I can use both of them.

And GenealogyWise is the hottest thing in cyberspace right now. It took off like a rocket. When I joined there were about 200 members. 24 hours later there were over 1,000. You can link to me as Friend on My Page if you decide to pop over and give GenealogyWise a try.

Last night there were 332 Genealogy Groups. I've never seen so many genealogist set up so many groups so quickly! It almost became a race to see who could grab a good genealogy group name first. Here are a few of the groups I set up for genealogists to join:

Olive Tree Genealogy

Ships Passenger Lists to Canada

Lost Faces: Ancestor Photographs & Albums

Ontario Canada Genealogy

Ships Passenger Lists to USA

Naturalization Records

I hope you'll consider joining me, and other genealogists, in these groups. And there are hundreds more run by other genealogists!

There's lots you can do on GenealogyWise - Blogs, Forums, Groups, Videos, Photos.. you name it you can look at it or participate in it. It's free and easy to register, being part of the NING social network sites. If you are already registered with NING all you'll need to do is log in with your NING ID. Otherwise all you need do is give an email address, a password and fill out a brief profile page.

Hope to see you there! Be sure to look me up at My Page

Featured Genealogy Resource: Coffin Plates (a Death Record)

Today's featured set of little-known Genealogy resources is Coffin Plates. Yes - coffin plates, also known as Casket plates, coffin plaques and casket plaques.

The history of Coffin Plates or casket plates is a long but not very well documented one. Coffin plates are decorative adornments that contain free genealogical information such as the name and death date of the deceased.

Sometimes the coffin plate was attached to the coffin and removed before burial, then given to the family to take home as a remembrance token. Other times the coffin plate was placed on top of the coffin in a stand, then given to the loved ones after the funeral.

Brian Massey of AncestorsAtRest.com has a very large collection of coffin plates online. There are over 500 individual coffin plates on Brian's website and they are all free for visitors to look for a Coffin Plate of an ancestor.

OGS Quinte Branch Updated Searchable Database

The Quinte Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) covers Hastings, Prince Edward and southeastern Northumberland counties was one of the first areas settled by United Empire Loyalists in 1784.

Their Searchable Names Index has been updated and now has over 1,014,600 Names

More than 514,000 names have been added from cemetery transcriptions, baptism records, newspaper indexes and genealogies

If you are searching for Canadian ancestors in other parts of Ontario see Ontario Genealogy for online databases and links.

Reformed Dutch Church of Woodstock, Ulster Co. NY Baptisms 1805 to 1889

Reformed Dutch Church of Woodstock, Ulster Co. New York Baptisms 1805 to 1889 are online as part of an ongoing project on Olive Tree Genealogy to bring New York Church records online

Looking for other New York Church records? See Church Records of New Netherland (New York) on the Olive Tree Genealogy website

NewspaperArchive offering all July 5th newspapers free today

Do you have ancestors who may have made their mark on July 5th any year? In an interesting concept, for today only NewspaperARCHIVE.com is offering all newspapers in their archive from July 5 FREE!

It's worth looking to see if any July 5th newspapers have mention of your ancestor's name.

Bill of Treason from 1837 Rebellion Found

A historical glimpse of Canadiana – a bill of treason connected to the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 – has been found among the archives at McMaster University.

Written on parchment and dated March 1838, the bill was filed against William Rogers, a yeoman living in or near Albion, York Township, Upper Canada.

Rogers was arrested for treason on December 13, 1837, for plotting an insurrection against the Queen, persuading others to join him, and assembling with about 50 other people.

In the indictment, Rogers is described as "not having the fear of God in his heart but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil."

He was tried April 18, 1838, and ultimately acquitted.

Read more about the Rebellion of 1837 and see a list of names of those Canadians tried and convicted of treason at The Canadian Military Heritage Project

Continue reading this story Bill of Treason from 1837 Rebellion

Footnote.com Partnership to bring more newspapers online

Footnote,com announces an exciting new partnership between Footnote and the largest newspaper publisher in the US, the Gannett Company. Gannett, publisher of 84 daily newspapers including USA Today, will be able to digitize their vast archives for the first time by working together with Footnote. Through this partnership Footnote Members will be able to access valuable historical newspapers never seen before on the internet.

Footnote has this to say

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Moon Landing and Woodstock, we have kicked off our partnership by digitizing the newspapers covering those events. We have recently launched the first runs of Florida Today and the Poughkeepsie Journal (NY). Footnote will continue to digitize the full run of those newspapers including all of the Poughkeepsie Journal, which goes back to 1785.

Form 30A, 1919-1924 Canadian Ships Passenger Lists

Form 30A, 1919-1924

From June 1, 1921 to December 31, 1924, individual manifests had to be completed and submitted to the immigration officers at the ports of arrival, instead of the large sheet passenger list manifests previously in use.

A form had to be submitted for each passenger, including children, except those in transit to the United States. This means that passengers proceeding directly to USA destinations from Canadian ports during 1919-1924, will not appear on a Form
30A record. Because some immigration offices did continue using the big sheet manifests during Form 30A period, you might find USA destined passengers, but the
St. Albans Lists are a better source of information for these USA destined passengers.

Form 30A was discontinued as of January 1, 1925. At that time the use of large sheet manifests was reinstated.Each Form 30A usually included the following details:

•name of ship;
•date of sailing;
•port and date of arrival;
•name;
•age;
•occupation;
•birthplace;
•race;
•citizenship;
•religion;
•destination; and
•name of the nearest relative in the country from which the immigrant came.

See a list of questions on Form 30A

In the earlier version of Form 30A used in 1919, the names of accompanying dependents were usually included with the head-of-household, not on separate forms.

Some immigration offices were using Form 30A as early as 1919, while some offices continued to use the sheet manifests as late as 1922. From 1919 to 1922, a passenger's name might appear in one or both series.

If you cannot find a reference to your ancestor in Forms 30A, try searching the passenger lists for that period.

More about Form 30A at Library and Archives Canada

Immigration: List of Destitute Poor Removed from England to Ireland 1860-1862

I think it's time to feature yet another obscure set of genealogy records on one of my websites. This might very well help someone find an ancestor.

It's a List of Poor Sent from England to Ireland 1860-1862 This set of records includes Ports of Departure & Arrival plus number of years in England or Scotland. There are over 1,600 names!

The exact title is Return of Destitute Poor Removed from England to Ireland, from the 1st day of December 1860 till the 1st day of December 1862; the Port in England from which, and the Port in Ireland to which, each such Person was removed; also, as far as possible, the Number of Years each such person had resided in England; and the Cause or Authority for and Date of each Removal.

This is a great substitute immigration record

Ordering Documents from National Archives in Kew - a Comedy of Errors Part 2

Continued from A Comedy of Errors Part 1

I was now ready to fill out the online Request Form and order my ancestor's Chelsea Pensioner Records.


This is where it got a bit confusing. The fields were filled in for me with the Catalogue Reference Number and Details "Customer requested item reference WO 121/1/38 (part of document WO 121/1)"

My uncertainty was over how I could make sure I received all pages (images) for my ancestor Thomas Blandon? It was noted that his record was Image 170 but having had experience ordering other documents such as petitions, I knew that very often there were several pages (images) associated with one individual.

The detail box says "Or, give us details of the information you're seeking from the document. For example, name, service number, regiment, dates, ship's name, places etc."

So I decided to check "Copy all pages in this document" and add a note in the details box which stated that I was only interested in the images for Thomas Blandon whose document started on Image 170.

(This is where I believe I made my mistake. I failed to note the word "Or" which was not highlighted in red as I have made it here. So by ticking the radio button beside "copy all pages in this document" I inadvertently had made a choice of one or the other. I did not realize I couldn't add a note in the detail box! If I had simply written out what I wanted in the detail box, and NOT ticked off the "Copy all pages..." I believe I would have received just the papers on Thomas Blandon)

Next I received the following confirmation email:

Dear Lorine

This email is to confirm we have received your order for document copying.Please save or print this email or make a note of the following details. You should quote your order number in all correspondence and queries.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order number: Cxxxxxx
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your copies will be produced with the following options:
Medium option: Digital Images
Colour option: Monochrome
Delivery option: By email

Documents to copy:
1. WO 121/1

Charge: £28.00
Transaction Number: R/09/xxxxxx
Payment Method: E-commerce

Once completed, your order will be sent to:olivetreegenealogy@gmail.com

Thank you for your order.
Regards

Record copying department
The National Archives

And so I sat back to wait. And wait. And wait. 3 months later, on June 25th I received a CD ROM in the mail with 864 images. It was the complete microfilm of every soldier who was pensioned out in 1787! So besides paying for these 864 documents, I also paid for the CD ROM to be mailed even though I had requested the less expensive option of picking the records up on the National Archives website. I am sure this was because there was so many images that the National Archives realized it would be quite a task to upload them all and use their server room for 30 days.

I am happy to say though that my ancestor Thomas Blandon had 2 pages (images) on the CD ROM.



And I have 862 other documents to read through if I am ever bored....

Ordering Documents Online from National Archives in Kew England - a Comedy of Errors Part 1

On April 9, I searched for an English ancestor (Thomas Blandon) on the National Archives site for UK. I found several records for Thomas and I wrote about ordering the records which were held at Suffolk Archives in Ipswich. But one record was held at the National Archives in Kew and that had to be ordered separately.

It seemed fairly easy to order although there were some areas where I was not 100% sure what information I needed to provide. But I read everything carefully and filled the online request out as best I could. A lot is filled out automatically for you once you find a hit and choose to order the documents for that hit. It did seem a bit expensive for what I thought I was ordering (and note the word "thought"....) but I wanted the documents on Thomas badly enought to go ahead. Since it was expensive to have documents mailed I chose the option to have the images uploaded to the website where I had 30 days to download them to my computer.

After ordering what I thought was anywhere from 1 to 5 pages on one specific individual (Thomas Blandon), and waiting for 3 months, I received 864 images - the entire microfilm! Where did I go wrong? How did I end up ordering the records for over 800 soldiers instead of just my Thomas Blandon?

Let me walk you through the process as perhaps I can save others from making the same mistake(s) I did.



I used the search box top right which is a quick search and entered "Thomas Blandon". Several hits appeared and it is the second one down that I wanted.

Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners WO 121/1/38 THOMAS BLANDEN alias THOMAS BLANDON Born WENERSTON, Suffolk Served in Suffolk Militia Discharged aged 48 after 28 years of service See film image number 170 . Certificates of service (disability or reason for discharge, length of service, rank, regiment, Date: 1787.Source: The Catalogue of The National Archives

The next step was to click on the link title Royal Hospital, Chelsea: Discharge Documents of Pensioners WO 121/1/38



This took me to a page which explained the scope of the records, the dates, whether or not it was available publicly and where it is held, in this case, the National Archives in Kew. On the top right, outlined in red is a nice little button labelled "Request This" You simply click on that button and you are taken to a page where you may choose to request an estimate for a printed or digital copy. I had to create an account with the Archives before I could place my order or get my estimate but that is very easy.


I requested the estimate and soon after received an email from the Record copying department with a link to where my estimate could be found. I looked at the estimate, thought it was a bit expensive but decided to go ahead with the order.

Read the rest of my Comedy of Errors in Part 2 tomorrow....

Live Roots Search Experience, Release Two

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 2009

For Further Information Contact:
Illya D'Addezio, Owner
(908) 963-1277

Live Roots Search Experience, Release Two
BURBANK, Calif. - June 25, 2009 - Genealogy Today announced the second release of the Live Roots search experience. Included in this release are project management tools to help visitors keep track and organize the genealogical resources that they discover while using the search engine.

Throughout the Live Roots search experience, registered members will now see Follow, Comment, Record and Share buttons. These buttons let the members conveniently interface with the new project management tools. Follow is an active bookmarking feature; Comment allows members to post comments on resources; Record lets members make entries in a dynamic research log; and Share is a way to send notices about resources to friends and family via e-mail.

All members will be given a , and may create additional projects as they wish to organized the resources that they wish to track. Within each project, the following features will be accessible:

Recent Activity -- a running history of your interaction with the Live Roots features.

Ancestor Notecards -- profiles of your brickwall ancestors. These profiles are accessible throughout the Live Roots search experience, reducing the times you need to retype the names that you frequently search for.

Related Resources -- items that are "followed", providing a quick method of revisiting them, and when transcriptions are followed, a unique way to search across the items you find most relevant to your research.

Research History -- the dynamic research log. Capture all of your online and offline research activities, whether it be searching an online database or mailing away for documents from an archive.

Personal Library -- catalog your own private collection. A convenient way to simplify research log entries and also a way to share access to your unique resources via lookups.

Research Notepad -- a simple notepad for recording miscellaneous items related to your research: clues, follow-up todo lists, anything you like.

External Resources -- allows members to configure links to their research activities on other websites (e.g. Flickr, Scribd, Twitter, etc.).

"While we are all very passionate about working on our family histories, the reality is that life frequently interrupts us," commented Illya D'Addezio, owner of Genealogy Today. "With the addition of these new features, Live Roots is better equipped to assist genealogists when these interruptions occur. Follow items that you may want to return to; Post comments to remind yourself what you intended to search for; Record activities that you completed to avoid doing them over again in the future; and Share items with fellow researchers that may have the time to investigate them when you don't."

In order to access the project management section and the follow/ comment/ record/ share buttons, you will need to become a Team Roots member. This free service was launched in 2001 to provide visitors of GenealogyToday.com with password-protected access to special features and content, and is also available on the LiveRoots.com web site.

For additional information, visit http://www.liveroots.com/genealogy/research.html

Featuring OurOntario.ca

I recently discovered OurOntario.ca website and thought I'd share it with everyone.

The website states, in part:

Explore your story via OurOntario.ca!
Search across hundreds of sites – digital collections of libraries, archives, museums, historical societies, community groups, government agencies, and content organizations – in seconds.

I've been using it to search for my Ontario ancestors and have found some great images that I would never have seen without it.

Try it, you might just like it!

Featuring Pennsylvania Ships Passenger Lists - The pre 1820 Baggage Lists

Pennsylvania Ships Passenger Lists begin in 1800 instead of after the Federal Legislation requiring ships Passenger lists to be kept after 1819. The arrival port of Philadelphia kept lists of names of arriving passengers whos personal luggage was over the limit set for exemption from taxes. This gives genealogists a nice set of ships passenger lists from 1800-1820 when full ships passenger lists began.

These Philadelphia Pennsylvania Baggage Lists can be found online.

They include images of the actual manifest and a transcription of the names of the passengers on board. Philadelphia Baggage Lists contain the names of passengers who had to pay taxes on excess baggage. It does not contain the names of passengers who were exempt because their luggage was not over the limit.

This is an ongoing project and currently only Baggage Lists from 1809 are online. All names have been indexed, not just passenger names, but also the names of those shipping luggage or goods, and the names of those where the goods were being shipped.

Dealing with Transcription Errors in Census Records

Many years ago, in the days of genealogy records only being available on microfilm (Remember those days? When we had to trudge to a nearby archive or library or Family History Center? When we had to physically crank through reel after reel, page after page of film....), I found and recorded my Levi Peer and family in the 1861 Ontario Canada Census. But I had never obtained an image since my local library did not have a reader printer.

Now that Ancestry.com has put the complete collection of Canadian census records online, I hopped on over to their website to get that image for my files. I searched for lev* peer* (just in case his name was written as Levy instead of Levi, and in case his surname was recorded as Peere instead of Peer) No results.

Okay, no problem. I searched the standard mis-spellings for his surname - Pier, Peir, Pier(r)e, Pear, Peair.... nothing.

Okay, I tried the common misindexing of P as R or B - Reer, Beer, Rier and so on. Still nothing.

I knew exactly where Levi and his family were in 1861 down to the lot and concession number. Levi was even on the Agricultural 1861 census on Ancestry.com.

I then tried only his first name (Lev*) and year of birth (1807) plus or minus 5 years either side. Also added the township and county, and got lots of hits but nothing that remotely resembled his surname.

My next step was to use one of his son's names - hoping it was a little less common and perhaps something would turn up that was recognizable as this PEER family. Using his first name, year of birth (+/- 5) and the location I got 2 hits. With my new high speed internet it isn't so tedious for me to load images now so I clicked on both and there they were - mistranscribed under the surname ROSS.

Funny thing is, the image is quite clear. Yes the first letter of the surname might be mistaken for an R. But "oss" for the last 4 letters? Absolutely not!

So remember to not get too hung up on what you know your ancestor's name was - try leaving the surname off. Search under other fields (year of birth, first name, names of children or spouse, etc) and you too may have better success finding that elusive ancestor.