Friday 25 May 2018

High Fives - May 25, 2018




High Fives are articles or blog posts I have read during the week that I find interesting, and perhaps are pertinent to my research. Sometimes there are only a couple and sometimes there are quite a few.









~by Gail Dever at Genealogy à la carte
Now I can find my way around my ancestor’s Scotland!


By Donna Moughty at Donna’s Irish Genealogy Resources
Now I can easily map my Irish ancestors!


~by Paula Arasaki at UBC Library Digitizer’s Blog
Maps of the greater Vancouver area 





For more helpful weekend reading, see what posts these bloggers liked...
Saturday – Gail Dever, Crème de la Crème
Sunday – Randy Seaver, Best of the Genea-Blogs



New Web Regulations




You may have read about the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that comes into effect today. This regulation was made to protect website users when they give their personal information - name, address, phone no, credit card, etc -  to a business over the internet.  Some businesses already had in place the option for them to store your info for the next time you make a purchase or pay a bill, or delete it - now all businesses dealing with anyone in Europe has to comply. It is for YOUR protection.

As a blog author I do not collect personal info and therefore the regulation does not apply to us. It applies only to those that are collecting in a database personal information that can identify a person.

The only thing we bloggers have to do is to inform our readers about cookies, and this has been in place for a long time now. Because I have Statcounter on my blog, I have written another Privacy Policy so you understand what that means for you, the reader.

Thank you for reading my blog


Thursday 24 May 2018

Digitization Stations




Many Public Libraries now have Digitization Stations.  You can book time to digitize your vhs tapes, 8mm home movies, audio tapes, old negatives and photos to a format that is compatible with modern day devices. 





Check your local library to see if they offer this service.    

Search using keywords such as the following:

library digitization

library digitize media

library digitization station

library digitize your collection




Monday 21 May 2018

The Right to Bear Arms




Coats of Arms to be exact. 


Some people pepper their family tree with coats of arms for all their ancestors.  It may be pretty and all, but it is NOT right. It is maybe fine for those that don't really care about accuracy and just want names on their tree, and perhaps use the coat of arms image to differentiate their line, but don't go copying that practice just because. 
This is use "without authority or right"!

A coat of arms was granted to a person, not a family surname.  The Royal Proclamation of 1417 stated more or less: no man should assume arms unless he held them by right of inheritance or by the donation of some person who had the power to give them. 

My ancestor came to Canada from Ireland as a soldier in the 1820s, bringing with him a drawing of the Seale coat of arms. He was a carpenter and carved the coat of arms on the backs of the dining room chairs he made for his new home in Kingston. (I'd love to find one of those chairs!!)





I sent a copy of the drawing to the Herald at the College of Arms in London and asked him to look into it for me. I wrote a post on the results here.

The Queen authorized Coats of Arms for Princes William and Harry on their eighteenth birthday, as was her right. In September 2013 the Queen authorized a conjugal coat of arms for William and Kate. There is no news as of this date on the College of Arms website page for new grants for a conjugal coat of arms for Harry and Meghan. **
  
Some companies will sell you a coat of arms and other items "relating to your family" even though it is hooey... they just want to make money by preying on people interested in Heraldry. There is nothing wrong with having these items in your home as long as you don't pass them down as authorized, and they have no place in your ancestry, unless authorized. 

You can apply for a grant of arms by submitting a memorial to the College of Arms, along with the sum of £6,075 (roughly $10,500 CDN).  Check with the Heraldry Society of your country to see how to apply. (see post titled Disclaimed Gentlemen)



** Update 25 May 2018: Kensington Palace has released a statement that the Duchess of Sussex now has her own coat of arms. Not yet posted on College of Arms site. 


Related posts:

Disclaimed Gentlemen

Report From the College of Arms

  


Sunday 20 May 2018

Cathern found Kathyrn



My sister Kathyrn Edith was born 24 May 1952.  She was born with Rh Disease and not expected to live very long. My Mom went against the doctor's advice to put her in an institution and brought Kathyrn home. 


Mom and Kathy 1953
(shortly before she died)



I had a little sister for just over 10 months. Kathyrn died 4 April 1953.  My mother was devastated. She took my brother and I to my grandmother's house and told my father to get rid of everything baby-related before we got home. Dad looked after the burial arrangements and I never heard anything more about Kathyrn, except two times much later in life.  It was a tacit agreement in the house that she was never spoken of. 

I was young so I didn't really understand it all at the time, I just knew Kathyrn was gone and she wasn't coming back. There were many times in my life that I felt the void, especially when I saw sisters together that were close. I was robbed of that. Visiting graves was not something our family did, the relatives that I knew were all cremated, so I never thought about a gravesite for Kathyrn. Until....

My father died in 2013 and I was the executor of his estate. I put all important papers in a big envelope and brought them home to go over. The envelope sat for a long time before I decided to go through it. Among his papers I discovered a burial certificate for Kathyrn. 




She was buried!!  And I had the name of the cemetery.  And I had a friend that lived not too far from that cemetery. And coincidentally, her name is Cathern. 

I got in touch with Cathern and asked her if she lived close to the Lakeview Cemetery and if perhaps she could find the gravesite.  She told me her grandparents were buried there and she would like to go and find their grave also. So on a fine day in August 2014 Cathern went to Lakeview Cemetery, and in a dingy, messy office she met with an employee who found the names in the computer.  But the employee didn't know were the plot for Kathyrn was, although they did eventually find her grandparents. She left her name and number for the manager who would know where to find Plot 2, Lot I,Section D. 

Two months later the manager called Cathern and told her he found where my sister Kathyrn was buried over 61 years ago. He said there was no marker but he could show her where the plot is. She is buried in an area with other children. On one side are two children from the same family, a baby and a 4 year old, and on her other side is an older child. 





On November 11, 2014, Cathern left flowers on her grave and took a photo for me. It was a very emotional day for me when I received this photo, and I am forever grateful to Cathern for finding my sister,  Kathyrn.




Friday 18 May 2018

High Fives - May 18, 2018




High Fives are articles or blog posts I have read during the week that I find interesting, and perhaps are pertinent to my research. Sometimes there are only a couple and sometimes there are quite a few.









~by Lisa Louise Cooke at Genealogy Gems
I have found ancestors mentioned in other people's diaries, never thought of other people's home movies!  But why not?


~by Candice McDonald at Finding Your Canadian Story
Another free database to search for your ancestors


~by Janine Adams at Organize Your Family History
I am forever saying to myself “Where did I see that?”  
I have to follow Janine more carefully


~by Family Tree Editors at Family Tree Magazine
Must check for my US ancestors









For more helpful weekend reading, see what posts these bloggers liked...
Saturday – Gail Dever, Crème de la Crème
Sunday – Randy Seaver, Best of the Genea-Blogs





Wednesday 16 May 2018

Kinship in Genealogy




There are two types of kinship... by blood and by marriage. Then there are degrees of kinship. You can read about them here.


The Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama has a Kinship Glossary on their website. This is actually where I got my Letter Z for the A to Z challenge in 2016.  Did you know that Z is for sister?   


  
Scrolling down the page author Michael Dean Murphy has compiled a list of Kinship Terms and Concepts for many cultures. 

Examples:

Did you know that a  Matrifocal Family consists of a mother and her children? 

Fictive Kin are those not related by blood or marriage, such as godparents, close family friends, blood brothers and informally adopted children. This is family you choose!




Relevant Links

Kinship glossary, terms and concepts - university of Alabama

Kinship terms at Linguistik Online

Family words in various languages





Monday 14 May 2018

Make a Personal Favicon




What's a Favicon?

Updated: 1 Dec 2022

The favicon (short for favourite icon) is the little icon or logo that shows on the tab of an open website and on your favourites or bookmark bar. In this diagram the arrows are pointing to the favicon.




Some favicons are instantly recognizable, like those for the national Archives (UK and USA), social media sites like twitter, blogging sites like word press and blogger, all have their own icon. In the above diagram you can see in the first tab my blogger manager is open.  

The second tab is my blog site showing the favicon I created for all my blogs, which are under the umbrella of Dianne at Home. My logo is a fancy D with a little house on it. You should be seeing my favicon on the tab now.

A favicon is a ".ico" file (rather than a .jpg) which is 16px x 16px and can be created with an online favicon generator. The reason for using a generator is that most image programs do not give you the option to save an image as a .ico file.

When choosing an image, remember the image you use must be able to go square. Most generators want to start with at least 260 x 260, for best results they may ask for 512 x 512 ... and it will be reduced to 16 x 16 in the program. Save your image as a png file.

I made my image in Photoshop elements, using a small image on top of a letter, then I uploaded it to the favicon generator. If you are using image only, make sure the image is not too complicated as when it is reduced to 16 x 16 it is harder to see, and you can just go ahead and upload it to the generator. If you don't like what you get, try another image. It's all free, so you can play around with it.

Once you have created your favicon, save it on your computer as favicon.ico

I will give instructions for adding it to Blogger, as that is what I have.

Open blogger manager and go to Settings. The last element under Basic is for the favicon. The default is the blogger logo you see on most blogger blogs.







Click on Favicon then Choose File, then upload your "favicon.ico" image. 
Click Save.
It may take a while for the favicons to appear. Sometimes it will appear right away and other times you may have to close, press F5, or even restart your computer.  But it will show up and appear on the tab when you open your site, and on your favourites bar. One of mine only appeared the next day.  Clearing your cache helps.

If you have WordPress - try this post 3 Easy Ways to Add a Favicon in WordPress

If you have your own website add this code in the header element... (remember, if your ico file is in a folder, perhaps named images, then use "images/favicon.ico")
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon"> 
Upload your "favicon.ico" image and altered file with your ftp manager. 

Below are some links to favicon generators. Some, like the first one, will download a list of files in a zip folder, pick out the ico file. 



Relevant Links

The 1&1 Favicon Generator

Favicon cc

Faviconer

Favikon

Antifavicon  






Sunday 13 May 2018

My Mothers




Happy Mother's Day




Mary Jane Porter ggm
Susanna Johnston 2xggm, Sarah Mavor gm, Mary Johnston 3xggm
1896



Mary Johnston (her maiden name), my 3x great-grandmother, left everything and everyone she knew with her husband William Johnston and their young son and immigrated from Cork, Ireland  in the early 1840s. They settled in Ulverton, South Durham, Quebec. They had nine children. Their third child was my 2x great-grandmother Susanna Johnston



Susanna Johnston 1846-1923



Susanna Johnston married John Porter in Ulverton in 1866. They raised 11 children in Ulverton and retired to Jefferson, NH.  Their eldest daughter was my great-grandmother Mary Jane Porter



Mary Jane Porter 1867-1957



Mary Jane Porter married Clement King in 1893 in Ulverton and they made their home in Verdun, Montreal, Quebec.  Clement died in 1922 and Mary Jane held the family together during the depression. They had 5 children and their eldest daughter was my grandmother, Sarah Myrtle King



Sarah Myrtle King 1894-1984

Sarah (Sadie) King married Herbert James Mavor in 1919 in Verdun, Montreal, Quebec. In the depression years of the 1930s Sadie was fortunate to get employment as Secretary-Treasurer for Mr Fred Shackell at the Coatwell paint and Varnish Co. When Mr Shackell died Sadie and another employee bought the company, saving the jobs of the other people employed there. Sadie and Herbie had 2 children and the youngest was my Mom, Jean Audrey Mavor.



Audrey Mavor 1925-2016
(and me at 5 months)



I think of all my mothers on Mother's Day. I also wish Happy Mother's Day to my daughters, it is not easy bringing up kids in this day and age, and they are doing a wonderful job!





Friday 11 May 2018

High Fives - May 11, 2018




High Fives are articles or blog posts I have read during the week that I find interesting, and perhaps are pertinent to my research. Sometimes there are only a couple and sometimes there are quite a few.









~by Institut Drouin at Genealogie Quebec
Showing how to get back to your early ancestor from France using PRDH records and their database. I bought a bunch of hits (credits) a few years ago and I still have some left!  


~by University of Aberdeen
Database of Scottish emigration between 1890 and 1960


~by Thomas MacEntee at Genealogy Bargains
Save those original records!


Robbing from the dead
~by Judy G Russell at The Legal Genealogist
Nothing is sacred! 






For more exciting weekend reading, see what posts these bloggers liked...
Saturday – Gail Dever, Crème de la Crème
Sunday – Randy Seaver, Best of the Genea-Blogs

Monday 7 May 2018

Sheep Breeders




My Grampa was the cook in his family. He might have learned as a survival tactic because my Granny was a businesswoman and didn't like to cook.  

Grampa would take the bus from where they lived in Verdun to the Atwater Market, which opened in 1933 in Montreal. He always got his meat from one of the butchers at the market. 

He loved lamb and his favourite butcher would call him when the spring lambs started to arrive from New Zealand. 



Chef Grampa c1957


Grampa didn't know who bred the sheep, he just cared that it tasted good. In Breeds of Sheep, it is said that "New Zealand lambs are outstanding because of their quality and type." They mix breeds for the best tasting meat. I wonder if his lamb came from one of the ancestors of these NZ breeders


People have raised sheep for milk, meat and wool for thousands of years. They don't have to have a perfect pasture as for cattle. 



Search also with these keywords: flock book, flock register, sheep breeding. 
Check local museums, historical societies and libraries for papers of sheep breeder societies. The Glenbow Museum in Calgary holds documents of Wool Growers and Sheep Breeders in Alberta. 



Relevant Links























Friday 4 May 2018

High Fives - May 4, 2018




High Fives are articles or blog posts I have read during the week that I find interesting, and perhaps are pertinent to my research. Sometimes there are only a couple and sometimes there are quite a few.








~by DiAnn Iamarino Ohama at Fortify Your Family Tree
I have found family all living close on the same street, but not in the same building.


~by Jill at GeniAus
How far do you go off track to find your ancestors?


~by Gail Dever at Genealogy à la carte
I'll have to remember this in a couple of months.


It was my 4th Blogiversary this past week, and I think that's a pretty good accomplishment, but..

The French Genealogy Blog is celebrating 9 years!
If you have French ancestors, this is a blog to follow! The archives' websites of each Department (area) is listed in the left column for easy access.





Catch up on my Blogging A to Z challenge. I completed the 2018 challenge, and under the tab I created a map of the places mentioned. I think I will do this for all my ancestors - when I have the time!
Tune in next Monday for my Reflections on the challenge. 


For more exciting weekend reading, see what posts these bloggers liked...
Saturday – Gail Dever, Crème de la Crème
Sunday – Randy Seaver, Best of the Genea-Blogs

Wednesday 2 May 2018

Check your own files!




You are all familiar with Engineer John McTeer who died a tragic death in a train accident. In that post I told you about the Locomotive Engineer and Fireman Magazines available online. I had looked through them and found a bit that said John Mcteer was secretary for a branch in Montreal, where he was living at the time. 

Today a member of another Facebook Group asked about researching engineers in Scotland. So I checked over my several Railway posts and one entry caught my eye.

On 3 October 2016 I posted an article titled Railway Directories and Wages. Going down the list of links, the very last is "Souvenir Quebec, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers 1907".  




What???? John belonged to the Brotherhood when he lived in Montreal.  He had moved back from  Bisbee to Quebec in 1902. Hmmmmm.  Let's take a look!

Sure enough...


Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, 1907, pg 58


Portrait No.1 - John McTeer, Vice-Chairman, Committee of Arrangements.

The moral of this story is... when researching an ancestor, research in your own files. You may already have what you are looking for!




Tuesday 1 May 2018

WWI Casualty Clearing Stations




My great uncle Alexander George Mavor was wounded at "The Bluff" at Ypres, Belguim in the First World War. He was in the trenches and hit in the stomach with a bullet that ricocheted off a periscope. He was taken to the No 17 Casualty Clearing Station where he died the following day.  That is all I knew from his military records.





From research I found out two things: 

 - that No 17 Casualty Clearing Station is not a place, it is one of a number of medical units set up at different places where most needed throughout the war.

 - that Remy Sidings were sidings constructed from the main railway line to allow ambulance trains to get to these medical stations that had been set up at a farm called Remi Quaghebeur. Some sidings went to base hospitals.

Entrance to Remy Hospital and Cemetery 1920


A member of the Great War Forum (Diane, username Bardess) has transcribed all the war diaries for the No 17 Casual Clearing Station at Remy Siding.  You can view the transcriptions without registering...  



...and if you register as a member for free and ask nice she will be happy to give you a copy of the specific page. 




Alexander George Mavor, age 24, was laid to rest in the cemetery at Remi Station, now the Lijssenthoek Cemetery, Poperinge, Ypres... Section VI  Row B  Grave 8A .






RIP Alexander George Mavor 1891-1916



The UK CCS War Diaries link below includes Australian CCSs. To get only Australian type Australian in front of casualty clearing station in the search box top left. 
  

Relevant Links


















Related Post
Military - Medical





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