Do you have piles of photographs waiting to be identified and put into albums? Grab a stack and some archival, clear plastic sleeves and curl up in your favorite comfy chair. Start the project by sorting the photos by date into large plastic sleeves, grouping them by event, date, or person, and labeling them as you go. Don’t worry about arranging them and putting them into albums yet. Once you have this presort done, it’s easy to plan the layout of your photo albums. One more tip: Keep some extra empty sleeves around and when you get your photos developed or printed next time, just add them to the sleeves right away and you’ll have this step out of the way.

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by Sherry Irvine, CG, FSA Scot 

Back in February I wrote an introductory article about Ancestry.ca. Recently two census databases have been added, the national enumeration of 1901 and the 1906 census of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. These are added to the 1911 census data that was available from the launch of the site. It is the recent additions that I am considering in this article.

The Fourth National Census, 1901
The first census of the young nation of Canada was taken in 1871, four years after four colonies became Canada. Manitoba and British Columbia joined Canada in 1870 and 1871 and therefore missed being included in the census. By 1901, the year of the fourth census, there were seven provinces, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia, and the Territories, a vast area that included what became Saskatchewan, Alberta, the Yukon, and Northwest Territories. Continue reading →

from Michael John Neill

The picture said only John Ufkes 4H Steer 1933, and it got me to thinking. Have we really identified our photographs? The 1933 photograph only included my grandfather’s steer. The only human part of the picture was part of a leg and a shoe. The photograph was included in a collection of other photographs of my grandfather and was taken in front of their home. I knew the house was the one in which my grandfather grew up and never really doubted whose steer was in the picture. But what about in fifty years? Continue reading →

Keeping the Letterhead in the Family
I have been enjoying the weekly and monthly updates from Ancestry and have a tip of my own. While visiting a cousin recently, she produced an old pad of ‘steno’ paper with an elaborate letterhead across the top of the page that belonged to our great-grandfather. I took one sheet and had it scanned to a disc and now whenever I correspond with that side of my family I pull up the letterhead and use it as stationary. It is a lot of fun to have and I have gotten much positive feedback from family members.
 
Peg Sullivan
North Carolina Continue reading →

The year was 1829, and in Scotland, there was a catastrophic flood.  According to a paper online at the website of Fettes College, Edinburgh, Scotland, the Muckle Spate (large flood) of 1829, began on August 3, 1829 in northeast Scotland and was “the most severe catastrophic flood in modern UK history.” It extended across a large area of Scotland, from Inverness to Montrose, and devastated homes and agriculture in the affected areas. The Edinburgh Advertiser from August 11, 1829 provides detailed coverage of some of the affected areas, including the excerpt below: Continue reading →

Contributed by Sherry Wagner, Eastlake, Ohio
Sherry’s grandmother, Electa Johnson Nichols, taken when she was fourteen years old and just before it became socially acceptable for a girl to “bob” her hair like the 1920 flappers did. Electa was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1907 and taught first grade in the Cleveland School for thirty-five years. In 1930, she and a girlfriend drove her Ford from Cleveland to the Grand Canyon, up Pike’s Peak, and back. Their trip is recorded in Grandma’s journal which is a fascinating read. Photos of her mother’s hair show that she never cut it until the 1940s as it was to the ground.

 Click on the photographs to enlarge them.

Contributed by Christina
Christina found this photograph at a yard sale and would like to see it returned to the rightful family. The photograph has the name Frank Hadley Snell, Jr., born 12-09-1893, taken 5-16-1894 in Orange County, New Jersey. If you have any questions, please contact Christina at [email protected]

Last week many of you wrote and expressed an interest in the twenty questions Kim mentioned in her quick tip regarding sending questionnaires to family members. She was kind enough to share it with us (Thanks Kim!) and here they are: 

1. What is your full name, date of birth, and place of birth?
(Include city, county, state, and country)

2. Where do you live now? (City/State) How long have you lived there? Continue reading →

I and my co-workers at Ancestry would like to thank everyone who wrote in this week with their concerns regarding the new site. In response to your messages, Ancestry.com is making changes, some of which are in place already. I spoke to the product managers and this is what I found out today.

As requested by many of you, the Ancestry World Tree is now included in the search results through the Family Trees tab for exact searches, and no longer requires a separate search.

The new advanced search template is coming along and they expect to have a beta version ready for testing within the next couple weeks, likely sooner. We’ll post the announcement here once it rolls and the product managers have expressed the hope that you will be able to provide them with constructive feedback once it rolls live. Continue reading →

Arlington, VA – 8 August, 2006. The National Genealogical Society (NGS) is very pleased to announce that Paul Milner is joining the NGS Britain and Ireland Forum as co-leader.  Paul will join Sheila Benedict, CG, in leading the Britain and Ireland Forum, an NGS members-only Forum established to assist members with their research in England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. Continue reading →