As part of a philanthropic initiative to make history that is at risk of being forgotten available to everyone for free, Ancestry announced yesterday it has published and made freely available the collection, US, WWII Japanese Americans Incarcerated in Confinement Sites, the first comprehensive list of over 125,000 persons of Japanese descent who were unjustly imprisoned by the US Army between December 1942 and January 1948. Originally compiled by the Irei Project, the list of names was first published in a 1,000-page book at the Japanese American National Museum and as an online monumen ..read more

This month, Newspapers.com has added more than 350 newspapers, including more than 50 from British Columbia, six from Alberta and two from Ontario. The majority of the new additions are for 25 American states, along with a number of Black history newspapers. Checking a number of the newly added Canadian newspapers, it appears that most of the issues were published in this century. The issues for the Orangeville Sun in Ontario, however, were published from 1871 to 1933, and the Orangeville Banner issues were published from 1898 to 2016. The Orangeville Banner in Ontario was more than a small-to ..read more

To mark Anzac Day, MyHeritage has made all of its 130 million historical records for Australia and New Zealand free to access from April 23 to 28. Australian newspapers, numbering 1,705 titles and covering every state and territory, are included in this free-access offer. MyHeritage also hosts many military collections, including the Anzac Memorial records and the Australian World War II Nominal Roll, 1939–1945. Visit myheritage.com/oceania to start your search. You’ll be asked to create a free MyHeritage account to access these records. The post Free access to Australian and New Zealand reco ..read more

A Legacy Family Tree Webinars membership at full price is a very good deal. At half price, it’s a fabulous deal! In celebration of their fifth successful 24-hour Genealogy Webinar Marathon and for having set new records of the number of genealogists watching the webinars, Legacy Family Tree Webinars is offering a one-year membership for just US$25 (about CDN$35) — down from US$49.95. A membership provides access to all 2,100+ classes and 8,400+ syllabus pages. It also gives you access to the members-only series, “The Best of Elizabeth Shown Mills: Genealogy Problem Solving.” This discount off ..read more

Thanks to John Reid’s blog post on Anglo-Celtic Connections, I learned yesterday morning that Ancestry has added Ontario death registrations for the year 1950. Subscribers can now explore more than 43,000 newly added Ontario death registrations. These records are from the Archives of Ontario. I check Ancestry’s new and updated collections almost daily, but I overlooked this one because there’s a wee, but significant, typo in the name of the collection. The updated collection, Ontario, Canada, Deaths and Deaths Overseas, 1869-1949, should actually say, 1869-1950, and I expect that will be corr ..read more

Four of Ontario Ancestors’ branches will host a free virtual meeting this week, and they are all open to the public. The Toronto Branch’s meeting, featuring two presentations, is hybrid, so you can choose to attend in person or watch online. The following times are in Eastern time. Monday, April 22, 7:30 p.m. — Toronto Branch When Family Treasures Turn Out to be Genealogical Road Signs by Marian Press Leveraging Handwriting Technology in Genealogy by Alison Lau Alison Lau, General Manager, Canada, for Ancestry.com, will deliver the feature presentation. She will provide an overview of how Anc ..read more

Kudos to the board of directors at the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO) for spending considerable time this winter developing a strategic plan for the next two years. Double kudos to BIFHSGO for publicly sharing their re-affirmed mission, vision and values, along with the goals they hope to attain in 2024-2026, on the About Us section of their website. Their work may help inspire other genealogical societies to update or develop their own goals. BIFHSGO’s goals include the following: Increase partnerships with other genealogy organizations to share informatio ..read more

Some of the bijoux I discovered this week. Blog posts More collections added to FamilySearch Labs by John Reid on Anglo-Celtic Connections. What’s New Online at the Library of Congress: April 2024 by Carlyn Osborn on The Signal. Exploring New Hampshire Newspapers in Chronicling America by Joanna Colclough on Headlines & Heroes. Tax Records are Better than Early Census Records by Rick T. Wilson on My Family Pattern. Dutch Genealogy News for April 2024 by Yvette Hoitink on Dutch Genealogy. BCG Announces First Certified Genetic Genealogist by Jean Atkinson Andrews on BCG Blog. Leaving t ..read more

The University of Winnipeg’s German-Canadian Studies yesterday announced that its Father and Son project received a three-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the country’s federal funding agency for research in history. Edward Henseler, former agronomist from Cologne, Germany, and his five-year-old son, Ulric, in Saint-Thomas-de-Caxton, Quebec, 1962. Source: Library and Archives Canada, PA-186362.  The grant will fund about half a dozen undergraduate and graduate research assistants. These researchers will dig into a trove of memoirs, autobi ..read more

A team in the Faculty of Social Science at Western University in London, Ontario has created a mapping platform that allows researchers to see how the people living in specific neighbourhoods have changed during the last 70 years. The UNI-CEN Canadian Neighbourhood Change Explorer allows researchers to track changes in census areas dating back to 1951. Click on a neighbourhood and you can find population details on everything from age to household income to education and transportation choices.  This screenshot of the UNI-CEN Neighbourhood Change Explorer platform shows the perc ..read more