The following is an announcement written by Library and Archives Canada:

In August 2018, Library and Archives Canada finished digitizing more than 600,000 service files of Canadians who served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the First World War. We’re pleased to announce that these files have been integrated into our main database, Collection Search, and are now available through a new landing page.

This change brings a number of improvements from the old database search experience. For example, you can now use filters to focus your research more closely and easily. In addition, the improved wildcard search function means that your research can continue even if you are unsure of a name or its spelling—for example, “Fran*” can lead you to results for “Frank” or “Francis.” Finally, the landing page has an integrated image viewer, which means that you can now see all of the images directly on the results page rather than individually.

Don’t forget to check out our tips and research strategies, located at the bottom of the page! 

You may also want to consider creating an account that allows you to save records of interest to revisit later.

We will close the old standalone database in the relatively near future and redirect users to the new search interface. We will give users time to adapt to the new search experience in the coming months and recommend that you update your bookmarks in the meantime. To provide feedback about the Collection Search experience, please email us your comments. 

As we celebrate this accomplishment, we’d like to take a moment to recognize the contributions of the Friends of LAC, who help improve the accessibility of these files by transcribing additional information as part of LAC’s Co-Lab initiative.

As Canada’s national memory institution, this update makes our military history more available to everyone and it is one part of our work this month to honour those who served this country in times of war and peace.

 

Deacon Phillip W. Ravenel knows the history of the church he grew up attending. He knows Lovely Mountain Baptist Church is 135 years old and his great-grandfather, who helped build it, was part of the congregation that first formed in a small tent.

Many stories and memories can be shared by church members, along with physical keepsakes, but the small Black church in North Charleston does not have a system in place to record and archive its history.  

“Nobody thought about putting them in a safe storage space so a couple of generations from now we can look back and say, ‘This is how the church got started and these are the folks that attended it,’” Ravenel said. 

Lovely Mountain Baptist Church is just one of several Black churches in the Charleston area that doesn’t have a formal documentation system in place.

This is why Minister Lisa Robinson and Minister Anna Montgomery, who attend Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in North Charleston, hosted a conference to help Black churches start the archival process. 

Nearly 20 church leaders and members heard from archivists and preservation experts about best practices for documenting a church’s history during the Nov. 4 virtual conference. 

You can read more in an article by Kenna Coe published in The Post and Courier web site at: https://tinyurl.com/yhd23fhr.

Would you want this to happen in a cemetery where your loved ones are buried?

A lawsuit was filed on Friday on behalf of nearly 400 plaintiffs with loved ones buried at the Tildenville Oakland Cemetery in Oakland, Florida. The Tildenville Oakland Cemetery was established in 1947.

The lawsuit echoes concerns that have been voiced for the past several years. The lawsuit alleges the developer’s of a nearby subdivision constructed an additional entrance roadway, which detoured drainage in the area. The 380 families allege the water is now being dumped into the cemetery. Relatives describe graves and remains being submerged above ground after flooding.

It says the developer’s “approval and construction of the culvert to divert runoff water from the new drive into Longleaf at Oakland and dump the water, instead, into the Oakland Tildenville cemetery, the defendants desecrated the resting places of the families and the loved ones.”

The following announcement was written by TheGenealogist:

Ahead of Remembrance Sunday in the UK, when we remember the two world wars and later conflicts, TheGenealogist is marking Armistice Day by adding to its collection of Military records.

This release of over 40,000 Rolls of Honour, over 65,000 Medal awards and over 1.5 Million War Memorial Records significantly adds to the suite of fully searchable Military records on this family history website.

The new War Memorials can be searched from the TheGenealogist’s Master Search or by locating the memorial on the georeferenced maps displayed on their Map Explorer™, which also lets you search the area around where your ancestor lived.

[Attack on a Merchantman by Enemy Submarines]

For those with ancestors who were mariners and served in the Merchant Navy or Fishing Fleets, the Rolls of Honour and Medal Awards from The National Archives Series BT 339 will be especially poignant. 

The Rolls of Honour name the deceased and missing-presumed-dead from the ranks of the merchant marine fleets and fishing trawler crews who were employed on minesweeping and patrol duties during World War II (1939-1945) and further years up to 1953.

The list of Medal Awards from 1866 to 1970 includes Mercantile Mariners recognised for gallantry and service. Among these honours is the Albert Medal, initially awarded for saving lives at sea.

Additionally, the Mercantile Marine Officers Nominal List 1916-1920 records recipients of the Order of the British Empire, Distinguished Service Cross, Distinguished Service Order and Distinguished Service Medal, along with issues of the London Gazette listing many other medals (such as the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal and Commendations) citing the deeds of gallantry these Mercantile Marines performed. The images of these records include the details of these deeds, some of which reveal intriguing stories of shipwrecks, shark attacks and gallant heroes.

Read TheGenealogist’s feature article: Rolls of Honour for Unsung Heroes of the Rolling Sea

https://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/2023/rolls-of-honour-reveal-unsung-heroes-of-the-rolling-sea-6860/

About TheGenealogist

TheGenealogist is an award-winning online family history website, which puts a wealth of information at the fingertips of family historians. Their approach is to bring hard to use physical records to life online with easy to use interfaces such as their Tithe and newly released Lloyd George Domesday collections. 

TheGenealogist’s innovative SmartSearch technology links records together to help you find your ancestors more easily. TheGenealogist is one of the leading providers of online family history records. Along with the standard Birth, Marriage, Death and Census records, they also have significant collections of Parish and Nonconformist records, PCC Will Records, Irish Records, Military records, Occupations and Newspaper record collections amongst many others.

TheGenealogist uses the latest technology to help you bring your family history to life. Use TheGenealogist to find your ancestors today!

This article is not about any of the "normal" topics of this newsletter: genealogy, history, current affairs, DNA, and related topics. However, it is important news for those of us who value our online privacy in order to protect ourselves from hackers, ransom thieves, credit card thieves, and government spies:

Encrypted messaging service Signal is now testing usernames, which will offer people a more private way to share their contact details on the app. Signal kicked off the public test today through a new beta build available in its community forums. "After rounds of internal testing, we have hit the point where we think the community that powers these forums can help us test even further before public launch," says Signal VP of Engineering Jim O'Leary. 

The development is a big deal since Signal -- an end-to-end encrypted messaging app -- has long required users to sign up with a phone number. That same number also needs to be shared in order to message other users on the app. This can be problematic since sharing your phone number exposes you to privacy and hacking risks. For example, a contact on Signal could choose to call and message your number over an unencrypted cellular network or pass off the number to someone else.

Fans of British folklore are championing a campaign to safeguard a unique archive cataloguing traditions from Britain and Ireland. The collection – of more than 20,000 books, 4,000 tape cassettes and 3,500 hours of reel-to-reel audio – has been amassed by one man. David “Doc” Rowe is a 79-year-old folklorist who has travelled the UK since the 1960s, visiting calendar customs such as the Straw Bear Festival, the Krampus Run or the Hunting of the Earl of Rone.

Director Rob Curry and actor/director Tim Plester set up the crowdfunder, which has been supported by Eliza Carthy, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman. The co-directors previously collaborated on two acclaimed documentaries about the British folk scene – Way of the Morris and The Ballad of Shirley Collins. They started work at the end of lockdown on a film about Rowe and his annual odyssey around the rituals of Britain, then expanded the project to help him find a permanent home for his archive.

“There are few collections of working-class histories of the British Isles,” says Curry. “The opportunity to save one of this scale is worth anybody’s money.”

The archive is currently stored in a former pharmaceutical unit in Whitby, North Yorkshire, a repository that puts Plester in mind of another British institution. “Doc is like Doctor Who. His storage facility has a small door into this Tardis-like space, and going through his archive is like travelling through time and space.”

Like the Doctor Who show, many events recorded by Rowe are extremely creepy. The trailer for Plester and Curry’s documentary evokes the current love of folk horror, dramas that use the aesthetics and style of folklore, such as this year’s cult hit Enys Men and the TV series The Gallows Pole.

“We do embrace that Wicker Man element as filmmakers,” says Curry. “There’s a theory that the British love folk horror because we were the first country to industrialise, so we are most disconnected from our agrarian roots.”

Plester says that, as a child growing up in the village of Adderbury, he was terrified by the morris men’s fool, a performer who interacts with spectators during a dance. “He prided himself on scaring us – it’s part of the bag of these traditions. They’re an opportunity for anarchy, for communities to take back the streets for a day.”

You can read more in an article by Alice Fisher published in The Guardian at: https://tinyurl.com/3zeaeynf.

The following announcement was written by Findmypast:

Remember all of your wartime ancestors this weekend with millions of new records 

Plus, explore most of Findmypast’s records, including newspapers, for free*  

Britain, First World War Campaign Medals 

Over 6.5 million new records have been added to Findmypast this week, in the form of this brand-new collection. It contains the names of men and women who were awarded campaign medals during the First World War. You’ll typically find their name, rank, regiment or unit, medals awarded, theatre of war, and any additional notes. 

Cheshire, Macclesfield WW1 Hospital Records 

This second new collection includes 1,880 hospital records from Macclesfield in Cheshire, covering the years 1914 to 1918. The transcripts include a name, birth year, event date, place, and details such as rank, service number, regiment and unit or corps, plus an admission and discharge date. 

Crimean War Causalities 

Rounding off the trio of new military records is an update to Crimean War Causalities for 1853-1856. The 5,893 new records can include a name, date, soldier number, rank, regiment, in addition to a description of the casualty and the action it was caused by. 

Newspapers 

Did your ancestors make the news? One new title, updates to a further four, and 138,191 new pages make up this week’s newspaper release.   

New titles: 

·         Ulster Star, 1957-1987, 1989-1999 

Updated titles: 

·         Belfast News-Letter, 1994 

·         Mid-Ulster Mail, 1922, 1926, 1938, 1941, 1943, 1949, 1952-1957, 1978, 1985-1986, 1990, 1996-1998 

·         Western Evening Herald, 1988 

·         South Wales Daily Post, 1995 

* Free access to Findmypast runs from 10:00 GMT on Thursday 9 November to 10:00 GMT on Monday 13 November. After the free access ends, you can only view most family tree hints, newspapers and records with a valid subscription. Almost all of Findmypast's family tree hints, newspapers and records are free to access. The 1921 Census of England and Wales and Tree Search are not included in the free access period. To view any excluded resources during the free access period, you'll need a valid subscription. 

Most every schoolchild in the U.S. has heard the story about the First Thanksgiving celebrated in Plimoth, Massachusetts.

NOTE #1: It wasn't the first Thanksgiving held in North America but that is another story for another time...

Most school children are taught that the first Thanksgiving was held in 1621 with the Pilgrims and Indians holding a feast that celebrated the bountiful harvest of the first summer in the New World. 

Note #2: The people we call "Pilgrims"never used that word to describe themselves, but that is another story for another time...

The previous year, the (so-called) Pilgrims sailed to North America aboard the Mayflower. The story told to schoolchildren is that the Pilgrims were originally members of the English Separatist Church (a Puritan sect). Well, that story is mostly true. However, it seems that most of the people on board the Mayflower were non-Pilgrims, non-Separatists who were hired to protect the company’s interests. Only about one-third of the original colonists were Separatists in search of religious freedom.

While all the Mayflower passengers did suffer through a terrible winter in their first few months in what is now called Plymouth, the springtime planting resulted in an excellent harvest in the late summer and early autumn. In addition, members of the small community had excellent luck in obtaining meat and fish as the forests and the sea was well stocked. The Native Americans also helped greatly in helping the new settlers learn how to hunt, fish, and also to cultivate crops.

It seems the Native Americans weren't always so friendly, however. In addition, this wasn't the first encounter the natives had with Europeans. Adventurers, fishermen, and an occasional pirate had been sailing up and down the east coast of North America for many years and often had met with Native Americans. 

Earlier visitors and immigrants included the Spanish in 1565, English settlers in Roanoke in the 1580s, the English settlement Jamestown in 1607, an English settlement on the coast of what is now Maine in 1607 and 1608 (which then failed and was abandoned), and probably numerous others that were not well documented or remembered.

In 1605, the French explorer Samuel de Champlain sailed past the site the Pilgrims would later colonize and noted that there were "a great many cabins and gardens." He even provided a drawing of the region, which depicted small Native towns surrounded by fields. Captain John Smith, who coined the term "New England," wrote about 1615 that the Massachusetts, a nearby indigenous group, inhabited what he described as "the Paradise of all those parts." 

We can assume that the English settlers to Plimoth in 1620 did not arrive to find a barren land.

Many of these early meetings between the natives and the European invaders were friendly while others were not. The different groups fought a number of battles prior to 1620. However, perhaps the worst problem of all was the infectious diseases that natives received from the Europeans. 

According to an article by Peter C. Mancall, published in the CNN web site, "The absence of accurate statistics makes it impossible to know the ultimate toll, but perhaps up to 90 percent of the regional population perished between 1617 to 1619."Yes, that's before the Pilgrims ever set foot in Plimoth.

Peter C. Mancall also writes, "The epidemic benefited the Pilgrims, who arrived soon thereafter: The best land had fewer residents and there was less competition for local resources, while the Natives who had survived proved eager trading partners." 

As a result, the settlers at Plimoth had few battles with the natives and were able to seize all the land and resources for themselves.

You can find many stories about what really happened before, during, and after the English settlement at Plimoth by searching the Web. Here are a few web sites to get you started:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States)#History

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/health/pilgrim-survival-disease-conversation-wellness/index.html

https://historyofmassachusetts.org/the-first-thanksgiving/

https://wilstar.com/holidays/thankstr.htm

There are many more web sites describing the full story of the Plimoth settlement. Start at your favorite search engine to find more.

The Investigative Genetic Genealogy (IGG) Center is a relatively new addition to Ramapo’s campus. Few would suspect such a monumental step forward, for the field of IGG is tucked away on the first floor of the Learning Commons. The center is the first of its kind “to offer case work, research, and hands-on education in [IGG],” according to a press release.

The developing field of IGG gained prominence in 2018 when it was used to solve the Golden State Killer case. An article in Forensic Science International defines IGG as “the use of SNP-based relative matching combined with family tree research to produce investigative leads in criminal investigations and missing persons cases.”

IGG Center Assistant Director Cairenn Binder described the process as two steps. The first is an outsourced lab process including extraction, genotyping and bioinformatics of a DNA sample.

The center then receives a file that they can upload to the databases GEDmatch and Family Tree DNA for an ethnicity report and a match list. The center uses these tools “to reverse-engineer the family tree of the person that [they’re] trying to identify.”

You can read more in an article by Rebecca Gathercole published in The Ramapo News at https://tinyurl.com/42tntha3.

The following announcement was written by the University of Maine:

Raymond H. Fogler Library Special Collections has published oral history recordings from MF144, the “Women in the Military” collection of the Northeast Archives of Folklore and Oral History. The full collection features recorded interviews with nearly 70 female military veterans serving between World War II and the Gulf War. Forty-nine of these interviews were published in the institutional repository, DigitalCommons@UMaine, in advance of Veterans Day, 2023.

Between 2000-2003, the Maine Women Veterans Oral History Project collected oral interviews with female veterans through a collaborative effort of the Maine Commission on Women Veterans and the University of Maine Women Studies and Maine Studies programs. The collection includes interviews with Mainers who were among the first American women to join the U.S. armed forces during World War II as members of the Women’s Army Corps (WACs) and Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). According to the USO, nearly 350,000 women served in uniform during the Second World War.

“The collection was largely created by undergraduate students conducting the oral history interviews as part of their course work,” said Kimberly J. Sawtelle, of Fogler Library. “It provides valuable first-person accounts about individual women’s military experiences. Interviewees discuss not only the training they received, but also the social stereotypes they had to overcome to succeed.”

The collection can be accessed online through the library’s ArchivesSpace database or DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, contact the Special Collections and Projects Department  by email, um.library.spc@maine.edu, or phone, 1-207-581-1686.