Monday, February 25, 2013

Beta Sigma Phi children's party - Vancouver, BC, Canada 1953

Was your mum a member of the Beta Sigma Phi Sorority in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1953? 

You might be in this snapshot. I know who two of the children are, and can guess at a few others, but would love to hear from you if you recognize yourself or another. This photograph appears to have been taken in our family's back yard in Dunbar in Vancouver. 


Titled only "Sorority Party 53" in my mother's hand. Personal collection.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Postcard Craze - Postal History and Family History

I'll be giving an illustrated  presentation on Postcards, Postal History and Family History, Wednesday, March 13, 7:30 p.m. for the British Columbia Genealogical Society (BCGS) at the Edmonds Community Centre, 7282 Kingsway, Burnaby BC. This will be the BCGS' AGM so there will be a short business meeting beforehand, and there will be refreshments! All interested are welcome to attend.

During this presentation, I'll be talking about my favourite ways to use postcards to enhance, further and illustrate your own family history - as I've done with my own. For a bit of a preview, see the family related posts at my Postcard Craze website.

For example, here is a postcard I've collected showing the Shipham Church in Somerset, England which a number of my Adams/Day/Rogers/Tripp (and Martin/Salisbury) family members attended. This is St. Leonard's [Anglican]. Here is some information about the bell ringers now at St. Leonard's from the Shipham Parish website.

Shipham Church, 687. Unused black & white, divided back postcard.


Jeffrey L. Thomas has created a genealogy website for St. Leonards Church, Shipham, Somerset, England with photographs and listings from the church's early parish records, along with photographs of his own Hare family markers in the churchyard.

Saturday, February 09, 2013

Genealogy By The States - Connecticut: Wood/Heeley family, Bean Hill, CT, USA

Hidden Genealogy Nuggets Genealogy By The States blogging prompt for this week (5) is for the State of Connecticut. I'm just joining in now, but I'll try to keep up!

We are to blog about an ancestor or family connections to Connecticut. And if you don’t have any family connections to Connecticut, you are to find a Connecticut resource useful for genealogy research to highlight and write about.

Finding the birthplace of Mary Janet Wood in New England in 1858 and confirming the details was one of my first 'official' genealogical quests quite a long while ago. Mary Janet, daughter of Samuel Wood and Harriott Heeley, was my great grandmother. Her parents were both born in Yorkshire, England; her father was a weaver and her mother, a mill worker, and they emigrated separately to New England.  However, I believe they already knew each other as Harriott apparently came to the United States in 1856 with Samuel's daughter Elizabeth, from his first marriage.

We had family information giving Mary Janet's birthplace as 'Bean Hill' in New England. It took a while, but one happy day I found a mention of a  'Bean Hill' near Norwich, Connecticut on the early web. And indeed, I was able to obtain a copy of her birth record there from the City Clerk's Office in Norwich. Somewhat later I went on a great research trip to New England and was able to find more details of her family's life in New England. I recommend the Otis Library for Norwich area research. 



Mary Janet and her parents could not have stayed in Bean Hill too long, as by 1860, they were living in New Jersey. Later they settled in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada, where Mary Janet spent the rest of her life.

Ann Wood, one of Mary Janet's step sisters, married George Woodman in New Jersey in 1862, and they and their family settled in Rhode Island. I believe that several people in the photograph above must be among the Wood and or Woodman family members. Mary Janet is the older woman shown in the centre back of this photo. Her father Samuel is on your far left. I believe this photograph was taken by Mary Janet's son, my grandfather, Walter Scott. For more information on this family, please see my Scott family website or contact me.



Norwich area, Connecticut Genealogy Sources

Norwich Historical Society

Otis Library Local History & Genealogy

Old-Maps of New England has several maps of the Norwich, Connecticut area, including one from 1854 showing Bean Hill's location.  For other 1854 maps of the area, go to this page of 1854 Town & Village Map Prints - New London County, CT.




For more about the Genealogy By The States 2013 prompt series, see Hidden Genealogy Nuggets post here.  Week 6 will be for Massachusetts.

Sunday, February 03, 2013

Canadian Genealogy Blogging Prompts for 2013

I've had it in mind for a while to introduce monthly Canadian genealogy blogging prompts. What time could be better than our 8th blogging anniversary here at CanadaGenealogy, or, Jane's Your Aunt!

From the 15th of each month, I'll be blogging either about someone who lived in a certain Canadian province or terrritory, or about new or interesting resources for genealogy in a particular area of Canada, or about a special Canadian topic, like the long awaited release of the 1921 Canadian census in June. I hope to be supporting indexing of this at a Canadian site like AutomatedGenealogy.com right after Library and Archives Canada receives it.

Any blogger interested in family history and genealogy is welcome to participate. Just leave a comment please as I would like to read any and all posts. The prompts will be posted for the second week of each month, but do join in whenever you can.

Now I see that Jim Sanders over at Hidden Genealogy Nuggets has a very similar blogging prompt for the USA.  Hope he won't mind my following some of his prompts too as I have a number of relatives and others I'm interested in who lived in the USA.

My first three Canadian genealogy prompts will be: 

For the week of February 11th - British Columbia
For the week of March 11th -Yukon
For the week of April 8th -Alberta



Friday, February 01, 2013

Mum & Dad's Anniversary Today

Today, in 1946, was my parents' wedding day. They were married in Washington, DC, USA, while both were serving in the Canadian Army and posted to the Canadian Embassy there.

Their marriage record with a Return signed by the Reverend A. R. Bird is now on FamilySearch for all to see.1 They'd be happy. Now they could say 'We told you so!' as I once questioned whether their US marriage was a 'real' one. (At the time, there was lots of discussion and controversy about Canadians 'running off' to the USA to get divorced and re-married. I read all the news even as a little girl.)

In a past 'Smile for the Camera' post here, 'Wedding Belles', there are photos of them just after the ceremony, but these two I like as well. Mum and Dad did go to Philadelphia for a short honeymoon, then back to work. But my Na, Mum's mum, that same month arrived for a visit. And here you can see some of my love for cemeteries may well be inherited, as the USA's Arlington National Cemetery2 was one of the sights they showed her.

 Mum and Na at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, USA, February, 1946. Private collection. Photo labelled so in pencil in Mum's handwriting.


 Mum and Dad at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, USA, February, 1946. Private collection. Photo labelled so in pencil in Mum's handwriting.

Notes

1 FamilySearch: District of Columbia Marriages, 1811-1950, Index and Images, accessed 1 February 2013, Image 586 on-line, #290569, page 69,  Scott and Rogers marriage, 1 February 1946. Application for license, 28 January, 1946, License with Return certified by Reverend A.[Andrew] W. Bird.

2 Official Website of Arlington National Cemetery, USA