Lest We Forget: Military Heroes in My Family

Remembering my military ancestors today. 

The collage above shows my father Lt. Cecil McGinnis, his brother Clare, my grand-uncles Edgar Peer, Syd Simpson, Ernie Simpson and my cousin 4x removed Charles Vollick.

But I have more military heroes in my family - My paternal grandmother's five brothers (George, Herbert, Chester, Leonard and Edgar Peer), all enlisted in WW1. Edgar Peer was killed in France a few days short of his 21st birthday.

My maternal grandmother's two brothers Ernest and Sydney  Simpson  enlisted in WW1 in England and in Canada, and her brother Albert enlisted in the Australian Army in WW2.

Albert's son Frank, my first cousin once removed,  enlisted in the Australian Army in WW2

My Loyalist ancestors - my 5th great-grandfather Isaac Van Valkenburg aka Vollick, his sons Storm Follick and Cornelius Vollick (my 4th great-grandfather); and another 5th great-grandfather Jonas Larroway all of whom fought in Butler's Rangers during the American Revolution

My 3rd great-granduncle Stephen Peer  fought in the War of 1812 and was killed at the Battle of Chippewa in 1814 


LEST WE FORGET

Vintage Postcard North Colling, New York

Recently I rescued 28 vintage orphaned postcards from antique shops. They range in date from 1900 to 1918. 27 are from United States and 1 is from Ontario Canada. 

I have scanned and added 6 of these postcards to Lost Faces and will be adding the rest of these wonderful cards over the next month. I hope descendants will see these postcards and recognize an ancestor.  

 Perhaps you will find an ancestor or two!

 Marie C. Renaldo, North Colling, New York. From "Your Aunt Josie"

Emigrant City: Help Transcribe 19th & 20th Century Documents

Just spotted this note on  The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society's Facebook post

The New York Public Library presents EMIGRANT CITY

Join us in transcribing 19th and early 20th century real estate records from the Emigrant Savings Bank. These unique documents reveal the lives and dreams of immigrants who helped create modern New York. Help unlock a vital piece of history!

Emigrant Bank was founded in 1850 by members of the Irish Emigrant society to serve the needs of the Irish immigrant community in New York.  The goal of the Emigrant City transcription initiative is to produce structured, building-level records for approximately 6,400 digitized mortgages.

We are encouraging general access to the collection by making high resolution images of these materials available via the NYPL Digital Collections website. This is not the first time the collection has garnered attention from crowdsourcing efforts. An Ancestry.com project has successfully digitized and indexed the collection's Index Book, Test Books, Deposit-Account Ledger, and Transfer, Signature, and Test Books. 

It's a cool crowdsourcing venture. You can Mark, Transcribe or Verify records so it's easy to pick a task that is of most interest to you. I'm off to verify a few! Won't you join in too?

Nursing Sister WW1 Photo Album 35V convoy

This Photo Archive consists of a small autograph album (6.5" by 5.25") kept by Constance (Connie) Philips as a memento of her time serving as a nurse during World War One. 

The majority of the photos and items are from 1915, when she served as a nurse in France and Britain. 

WW1 35V convoy

The album and all photographs, postcards, and other ephemera contained in the album belong to Karin Armstrong and may not be copied or republished without her written permission. The images will be published on Olive Tree Genealogy with permission.

Each image has been designated an "R" for Recto or a "V" for Verso plus an album page number. Recto is the right-hand side page of a bound book while Verso is the left-hand side page.

I will be posting the entire album and my additional research on the individuals identified in Connie's album over the coming months so please check back frequently to view these historic photos. The easiest way to see what has been published is to click on the topic "Nursing Sister WW1 Photos"

Don't Miss Free Access to Ancestry's Global Military Records

In honour of Remembrance Day, Ancestry.ca has launched an extensive collection of military records containing over 29,000 service files of Canadian military personnel killed in action during the conflict. Ancestry is also offering free online access to this, and its entire collection of global military records from November 6 to 11.

The WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947 collection includes a variety of different documents for each soldier from attestation papers to medical history forms, and even correspondence to family members back home in Canada, as well as more than two million images.

This dataset was of particular interest to me because my uncle James Nevin Bonar was killed in WW2 and his complete file is found there. The image on the left shows one of the dozens of pages in his file. 

Some of the most heroic Canadian soldiers' records found are:

•                    John Robert Osborn (1899 – 1941) who was the first Canadian awarded a Victoria Cross in the Second World War, after bravely sacrificing himself by throwing himself on a grenade to save his comrades.

•                    Samuel Moses (“Moe”) Hurwitz (1910 – 1944) who was the most highly decorated non-commissioned member of the Canadian Grenadier Guards, earning the Military Medal in August and the Distinguished Conduct Medal

•                    David Ernest Hornell (1910 – 1944) who was the first member of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) to be awarded the Victoria Cross for his last and final mission when he successfully sunk a German U-boat under extreme fire.

Don't wait to check out the free online access to Ancestry.ca's entire collection of global military records from November 6 to 11.  I am not sure if this free access is also on Ancestry.com so if one of my readers discovers that it is available there, please leave a comment in the comment section below.

1912 Birthday Postcard Detroit Michigan

I am lucky enough to have rescued some early 1900s postcards from a flea market. I will be posting them here and on my Olive Tree Genealogy site for all to view. Perhaps you will find an ancestor or two!

Mrs. Emma Beane, 175 Kirby Ave, Detroit Michigan. To "Dear Emma" from "with love, Isa" 1912

Library & Archives Canada New Immigration Database!

Olive Tree Genealogy just received the following announcement:

Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the launch of a new online database, Immigrants to Canada, Porters and Domestics, 1899–1949.

This online database allows you to access more than 8,600 references to individuals who came to Canada as porters or domestics between 1899 and 1949. Names were taken from lists contained in the Central Registry Files series of the Immigration Branch (RG76 BIA) and other files held at LAC.

Start searching porters and domestics now!

This looks like it will be a great addition to existing Canadian Immigration records. I'm off to see if any of my British family are to be found there.

Don't forget you can also search for ancestors on ships on OliveTreeGenealogy.com 

Canadian Naturalization Records, 1915-1951 database Update!

The following announcement just came in from Library & Archives Canada. This is great news! I can search for my husband's great-grandfather from Belgium now.

Library and Archives Canada is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the online database Naturalization Records, 1915-1951. The nominal index has been extended with the addition of more than 68,000 names and now covers the years from 1915 to 1944, inclusively. Work is ongoing to extend the nominal index to 1951, and volunteers are welcome to help. Those interested should write to Cdn-Nat-Coord@jgs-montreal.org.

This database is one of the few Canadian genealogical resources specifically designed to benefit researchers having roots other than British. The reference numbers indicated in the database can be used to request copies of the original naturalization records, which are held by Citizenship and Immigration Canada.

Library and Archives Canada would like to thank the Jewish Genealogical Society of Montreal and its volunteers, without whom this project would not have happened.

For those wondering "Why not British?" the answer is found on my website NaturalizationRecords.com (and in the graphic above) along with access to free naturalization and passport records and information on the Naturalization Process in both Canada and USA. 

Where (and Why) Are Canadian Genealogists Hiding?

In Gail Dever's blog post Some of the great Canadian genealogists we have lost she mentions that since the results of the Rock Star Genealogist contest, many of us in the Genealogy Community have been disappointed that very few Canadian Genealogists were recognized.

Why is this? Are we Canadians not good at self-promotion and getting known? Are Canadians so Americanized by our Television Shows and Movies that we automatically (and subconsciously) assume that if it's from an American Genealogist it's got to be better?

I should make it very clear that I am not trying to start a turf war of "us against them" - Canadians against Americans! I am merely advocating that we Canadian Genealogists need to get our game faces on and get to a level playing field with (not against) our American friends and neighbours. 

I believe part of the problem is that we Canadians are just not very well known, even in our own country. We don't promote ourselves and we need to do that. 

It was also obvious that it was mostly Genealogy speakers who were finalists in the Rock Star Genealogist contest. There are many excellent speakers and it's terrific that they are being recognized but what about the bloggers and writers? I'd like to see all of those who contribute to Canadian genealogy recognized, not just those who speak at Conferences. 
 


STAND UP AND BE NOTICED

It's time to stand up and be noticed if you are a Canadian genealogy blogger, speaker or author. Are Canadian Genealogy bloggers aware of, and using, Social Media to its full potential? Are they on Twitter, Instagram, Periscope, Facebook, Google+ and Instagram? How about YouTube - do they have their own YouTube Channel? Do they have a mailing list or newsletter? Do others in the genealogy community instantly recognize their name, their logo, or their slogan? 

Branding is the same as advertising. If you want to be known you have to advertise yourself. But that does not mean you have to spam Facebook groups or mailing lists with your posts! Be discreet. 

THE POWER OF PROMOTING OTHERS

We need to promote others. Co-operate with the rest of the Genealogy Community. It's much like the adage "win friends and influence people". We bloggers should not ignore our fellow bloggers  - we need to promote others as well as ourselves.

One of the things I did recently to promote other Genealogy bloggers was to invite several from different countries to respond to 10 Interview Questions I devised. I was happy to feature them with a photo on my blog. Any opportunity to be featured on another blogger's blog or in a newsletter or any other advertising media is a golden opportunity and should be jumped at.


But interestingly enough of the dozen genealogists I reached out to, one was not interested in participating, one never replied to my initial email, two never sent me their Interview Responses after expressing interest, and one told me I would have to remind them periodically as they were "busy" and would "probably forget". Wow. How rude is that response? 

First it implies that I am not busy and have all the time in the world to act as their (unpaid) personal assistant. Secondly it implies that they consider themselves far more important than me. Third they blew any chance of me ever offering to promote them again. I suspect they will lose many opportunities if they treat all offers of exposure and promotion as they did mine. And no, I did not remind this person. If you want to see which genealogists were featured, you can read their biographies here.
  
SOCIAL MEDIA IS YOUR FRIEND

Every Canadian Genealogy speaker, author and blogger should be on all Social Media  sites and should learn how to use them correctly.  There are lots of great articles with tips for using Social Media well. There are rules. There are protocols and there are etiquette expectations. If you are interested in my Social Media presence you can follow me by clicking on the icons below:

             
 
I confess that I almost certainly am unaware of all of the great Canadian genealogy talent that is out there. In fact when I discussed this with my friend Gail Dever, she gave me names of a few Canadian genealogists I had never heard of.



CANADIAN GENEALOGY PERSONALITIES

So here is my list of Canadian Genealogy personalities - and please, if I missed you, leave a comment or write to me and I'll add your name and website or blog. I'm sure there must be more. We live in the second largest country in the world. Why can I only come up with 19 names, one of them my own!

Denyse Beaugrand-Champagne of Histoquest
Fred Blair of War of 1812 Canadian Stories 
Ruth Blair of Blair Archival Research
Elise Cole of Librarians Helping Canadian Genealogists Climb Family Trees  
Gail Dever of Genealogy à la carte
Yvonne Demoskoff of Yvonne's Genealogy Blog
Allison Hare 
Kathryn Lake Hogan of Looking4Ancestors
Janet Iles of Janet the Researcher 
Ken McKinlay of Family Tree Knots
Brenda Dougall Merriman
Janice Nickerson of Upper Canada Genealogy
Dave Obee
John D. Reid of Canada’s Anglo-Celtic Connections
M. Diane Rogers of  CanadaGenealogy, or, 'Jane's Your Aunt' 
Lorine McGinnis Schulze of Olive Tree Genealogy  website and blog
Diane Lynn Tibert of Roots to the Past 
Christine Woodcock of Scottish Genealogy Tips & Tricks
Glenn Wright

THE CHALLENGE 

Fellow Genealogists - here's a chance for you to promote a Canadian Genealogy Speaker, Blogger or Writer - who are they? Where are they hiding? Please provide their names and a link to their website or blog in the comment section below. Let's all get to know our Canadian Genealogists. I'm going to add one "rule" regarding bloggers - I only want names of those who are actively blogging and who post fairly regularly.  So please - only add a blogger who has posted within the last 2 weeks.

Fellow Genealogy Bloggers - here is my challenge to you. Promote one Canadian Genealogist on your blog, website, on a Facebook group, or in a Tweet next week. It's not always about self- promotion, it's about co-operation and promoting others too.

Join Me on a Cemetery Walk Through Panna Maria, Texas

Panna Maria (meaning Virgin Mary) is the oldest Polish settlement in the United States. It is located in Karnes County, Texas, United States. 

Thanks to  Sonja Nishimoto who sent me 262 photographs of tombstones taken by her in 2008, I now have the Panna Maria Cemetery Walk online on Olive Tree Genealogy  YouTube Channel.

Nursing Sister WW1 Photo Album 35R Blighty

This Photo Archive consists of a small autograph album (6.5" by 5.25") kept by Constance (Connie) Philips as a memento of her time serving as a nurse during World War One. 

The majority of the photos and items are from 1915, when she served as a nurse in France and Britain. 

WW1 35R Blighty

Note that "Blighty" was a slang word for "Britain"

The album and all photographs, postcards, and other ephemera contained in the album belong to Karin Armstrong and may not be copied or republished without her written permission. The images will be published on Olive Tree Genealogy with permission.

Each image has been designated an "R" for Recto or a "V" for Verso plus an album page number. Recto is the right-hand side page of a bound book while Verso is the left-hand side page.

I will be posting the entire album and my additional research on the individuals identified in Connie's album over the coming months so please check back frequently to view these historic photos. The easiest way to see what has been published is to click on the topic "Nursing Sister WW1 Photos"

Happy Hallowe'en!

Hallowe'en through the years... I always made my sons' costumes out of whatever I could find in the house. Here's a few of their growing up years and a few of my grandchildren's.

Happy Hallowe'en everyone! Remember to drive carefully and watch for children

New Blog Post on Legacy Family Tree

I have a new article published on the blog “Legacy News”.  I think my readers might enjoy it! 

 It's called “What Kind of Genealogist Are You?” 

Take a peek and weigh in with an answer! Where do you fit in the categories I came up with?

 Writing this article (which is based on a similar article I wrote several years ago) made me stop and think about what I'm lacking in my genealogy methodology. 

It's time for me to try to incorporate one or two into my research methods. 

1909 Birthday Postcard Adams, North Dakota

Recently I rescued 28 vintage orphaned postcards from antique shops. They range in date from 1900 to 1918. 27 are from United States and 1 is from Ontario Canada. 

I have scanned and added more of these postcards to Lost Faces and will be adding the rest of these wonderful cards over the next month. I hope descendants will see these postcards and recognize an ancestor.  

Perhaps you will find an ancestor or two!

Mrs. Earl/CarlBergsland, Adams, North Dakota. to "Dear Minnie" From Alma. 1909

1908 Postcard Snyder County, Pennsylvania

Recently I rescued 28 vintage orphaned postcards from antique shops. They range in date from 1900 to 1918. 27 are from United States and 1 is from Ontario Canada. 

I have scanned and added 6 of these postcards to Lost Faces and will be adding the rest of these wonderful cards over the next month. I hope descendants will see these postcards and recognize an ancestor.  

Perhaps you will find an ancestor or two!

 Mr. Lyman Baker, McClure, Snyder Co. Pennsylvania. From D. A. Baker 1908

Join the Baby Boomers Who Want to Share Their Stories and Memories

Yesterday I spotted an article online called Writing down family histories as Baby Boomers look back

I love anything that inspires us to write our own memoirs! As a baby boomer myself I began jotting down my memories of childhood several years ago. So many of my readers seemed interested but didn't know how to start! So I set up a monthly Sharing Memories blog post - where I provided a prompt such as "Grandma's Cooking", shared my own memories of the topic, and encouraged my readers to join in. 

This was intended to help genealogists overcome writer's block and get their own stories down permanently. You can see a few of the prompts on my Sharing Memories page

Now you can use my e-book Writing Your Memoirs For Descendants: Prompts for Recording & Preserving Your Family Stories and Memories  (with over 100 prompts) to guide you on your journey. You do not need a Kindle to read this book.
You can read it on the Amazon Kindle Cloud reader (free) or the Kindle App (also free)

Don't wait. By setting aside a few minutes each week you can preserve your childhood and family memories to pass on to your children and grand-children. 

Can you imagine how excited one of your descendants would be 100 years from now to read what you experienced, to learn about family members and events such as births, weddings and funerals? I know how thrilled I would be to find my great-grandmother's journal (or any ancestor's stories) 


 

New United Kingdom 1939 Survey Records Coming Online!

The following news is pretty exciting for me personally.  In September 1939 a survey was held in the United Kingdom.

The details of the survey requested were:

• Name

• Sex

• Age

• Occupation

• Address

• Marital status

• Membership of naval, military or air force reserves, auxiliary forces or civil defence services or reserves

This is a very important survey because the 1931 census for England and Wales was completely destroyed by fire (nothing remains) and there was no census taken in 1941. This 1939 survey fills that huge gap in records. But the best news? 

The survey returns from England and Wales are being digitized and are expected to be available online in November 2015! This is great news for me personally as both sets of my great-grandparents should be found in it plus numerous grand aunts and uncles as well as cousins. 

But my "if only" wish? If only the 1940 National Registration taken in Canada could be digitized and brought online! Right now it is accessible through a search service and a rather hefty fee.

Details on how, when and where to access the 1939 UK records are found at Plugging genealogy's 30-year gap

UPDATE: Nov. 2nd is the release date! Guess what I'll be busy doing that day....

More information on the Registration is available on The National Archives Blog.

Good Deal on NYGBS Book on New York Research

The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society is offering free U.S. shipping (a $10 savings) on its monumental book, the New York Family History Research Guide and Gazetteer.

Since its highly anticipated publication in January 2015, the New York Family History Research Guide and Gazetteer has garnered widespread praise and quickly sold out its first print run.  The comprehensive, 856-page book has become the de facto textbook for New York genealogical research.

Diane Rapaport in the September issue of the NGS Q calls the book “. . . the biggest and best ever guide to New York research. Everything a researcher would want to know about researching New York’s sixty-two counties, and the boroughs of New York City, is now in one comprehensive, encyclopedic, easy-to-use manual.”

Henry Hoff, editor of the New England Historical and Genealogical Register, declared "This is a volume that every library and New York researcher should have, and indeed must have."

And the New York Times described the book as "an overdue handbook for serious researchers," "an enlightening and eclectic chronological tour of four centuries of New York benchmarks and record-keeping," and "an authoritative, fact-filled beginner's resource."

The Federation of Genealogical Societies recently presented the NYG&B with an Award of Merit in recognition of distinguished work in family history for this publication.

From now until November 30, U.S. shipping and handling (regularly $10) is free for all in the NYG&B online store, phone, and mail orders when you use the discount Code "BOOKSHIP." The same code will give a $10 discount on shipping for international orders.

Full details about the book—including an Annotated Table of Contents—are on the website at www.NewYorkFamilyHistory.org.

Nursing Sister WW1 Photo Album 36V Canadian Ambulance

This Photo Archive consists of a small autograph album (6.5" by 5.25") kept by Constance (Connie) Philips as a memento of her time serving as a nurse during World War One. 

The majority of the photos and items are from 1915, when she served as a nurse in France and Britain.

WW1  36V Canadian Ambulance

The album and all photographs, postcards, and other ephemera contained in the album belong to Karin Armstrong and may not be copied or republished without her written permission. The images will be published on Olive Tree Genealogy with permission.

Each image has been designated an "R" for Recto or a "V" for Verso plus an album page number. Recto is the right-hand side page of a bound book while Verso is the left-hand side page.

I will be posting the entire album and my additional research on the individuals identified in Connie's album over the coming months so please check back frequently to view these historic photos. The easiest way to see what has been published is to click on the topic "Nursing Sister WW1 Photos"

1918 Postcard North East, Pennsylvania

Recently I rescued 28 vintage orphaned postcards from antique shops. They range in date from 1900 to 1918. 27 are from United States and 1 is from Ontario Canada. 

I have scanned and added 6 of these postcards to Lost Faces and will be adding the rest of these wonderful cards over the next month. I hope descendants will see these postcards and recognize an ancestor.  

Perhaps you will find an ancestor or two!

Mrs. Jacob Roth, North East, Pennsylvania.To "my dear Audie, with love to all and a kiss to you, Jake July 8, 1918