My 2012 New Year's Resolutions

Happy Solstice!!!

Well, it's that time of year! Time to wrap up the old year and prepare for the new! Therefore, I've decided to create some genealogy-specific New Year's resolutions, which is something I've never done before. I feel like I have a lot of areas I could improve on, so I've got a lot of resolutions. These aren't specific goals, but rather are broad concepts of directions I want to take with my research.

The first resolution I thought of was inspired by a new-ish blog, The Paperless Genealogist. I plan to go paperless in 2012. I don't think this will really be that difficult, since my genealogy is already pretty much all online. But I do still have a couple folders of papers, and the worst are the post-its. I constantly jot things down on post-it notes, or write lists of names down. Sometimes I find these notes to myself months later when I don't remember what they mean anymore. So this has got to stop!

My second resolution was also inspired by another blogger: The Demanding Genealogist. In the last few months I've started citing sources (I know, I know, I always should have been doing that!). So my resolution is basically to keep doing what I've been doing: gradually go through all the information I have in my tree, adding sources to support each fact. Hopefully eventually I'll catch up and have my whole tree properly sourced!

Third, I want to collect stories. I've already got the basic family tree information from my grandparents, but I want to spend more time listening to their stories. I bet I'll get a lot more details filled in that way. This could also go along with looking at pictures with them and having them help me identify people. Somewhat related to this, I want to get in touch with more of my relatives like my grandma's siblings and my mom's cousins.

Lastly, I want to do more learning! I have my cozy little bubble of records I know how to use, and I know I'm missing out on a tonne of other information because of that. I'm comfortable with census records (me and the Canadian censuses are total besties!), Manitoba vital records (NOT Ontario vital records), and the Acadian/Quebec records that are compiled in the Drouin Collection (my French class helped a whole lot on that one). But land records, say what? Probate records? Huh? I have much to learn, is what I'm saying!

What are your goals for being a better genealogist in 2012? Share them in the comments or link to your own New Year's Resolutions blog post!

Holiday season update

I kind of dropped the ball on the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, didn't I? There were a few days in a row where I just had nothing to say about the topic (I've never travelled for the holidays, no one gives me fruitcake as a gift...), and then from there I just sort of forgot about it! So, I thought I'd give you an update on what I've been up to, and what you can expect to hear more about soon.

First of all, I got Jonas Aspinall's birth record. So, more on that mystery solving process soon!

I've also been working on my New Year's resolutions! I'll be putting those up in the next few days. Do you have any resolutions, genealogical or otherwise?

In only slightly related news, I've been getting back into my French studies. This is slightly related because the more French I know the more I can decipher from French genealogical records! But mostly I'm learning it because I live in Canada, and specifically in a French neighbourhood.

I've also been enthusiastically continuing my work on cleaning up WikiTree profiles. I've merged tonnes of duplicate profiles and corrected a few Acadian Myths. It's been quite fun!

I hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season!

Advent Calendar - December 12: Charitable/Volunteer Work

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

Sadly, I've never volunteered anywhere around the holidays. My schedule is always so hectic (all year, not just in December) that I can never commit the necessary time to volunteer work. So my charitable work generally comes in the form of a donation.

I often participate in a Christmas Cheer Board hamper. They are often organised by schools and workplaces, and everyone brings in some food, a toy, or a cash donation. This year, I'm organising the hamper for my department at work, which is a first for me. It's really great to think about how, through these donations that are so easy for us to make, we'll be making the holiday season special for one family who otherwise couldn't afford to do much celebrating.

If you have more than you need this holiday season, I really recommend donating to a Christmas hamper, or to a local homeless shelter. It can make a huge difference in the lives of those who have less.

Advent Calendar - December 11: Other Traditions

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

Whoops! I didn't realise this topic was coming, and already wrote about Yule for a grab bag topic. So, since I've already told you what Yule is, now I'll talk a bit about how the traditions are mixed in my household.

This only really applies to this coming holiday season, since a young adult living with her parents has little to no control over how holidays are celebrated in the house. Now that I live with Jonathon, I can fully celebrate Yule, while he celebrates a secular Christmas.

As I mentioned in my post about Yule, Christmas and Yule share a lot of symbolism and traditions, so there isn't really a lot of clashing of our celebrations. We open presents on Christmas morning, not Yule, because we were both raised that way and I have no desire to change that. I think I'll probably always be happy celebrating a sort of Yule and Christmas mixed together as one holiday. You can see my holiday shining through in the pentagrams hanging on the tree, and the books of Winter Solstice stories lying around the apartment.

Advent Calendar - December 10: Christmas Gifts

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

I think my family's Christmas gift tradition was pretty typical. When us kids went to bed Christmas Eve, there were a few presents under the tree, and when we got up Christmas morning, there were a whole bunch, including the ones from Santa and more from Mom and Dad, along with a huge, very full stocking for each of us.

One tradition we kept for a long time was the La Senza bear. Each year, La Senza comes out with a new teddy bear for Christmas. I don't know if they still do, but they always used to name them after composers. My first one was Schubert. We must have gotten those bears every year for about a decade. I still have them all. I wish I had a picture to share of them! I'll have to dig them out some time and take one. The bears were never wrapped; we would come out to the living room and see them right away sitting on top of the presents. I was always so excited to get my new La Senza bear!

As for my favourite gift now, it's definitely books. Whether actual books or gift cards for a book store, there's nothing I like better!

Advent Calendar - December 9: Yule

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

Today's blog prompt from the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories is a grab bag, meaning I can talk about whatever holiday topic I want! So today I thought I'd write a bit about Yule, since I keep mentioning it and a lot of people don't know much about it.

It can be a bit confusing since the word Yule is often used in relation to Christmas, but Yule is actually a name for the celebration of the Winter Solstice. I'm a Pagan, so the holidays I celebrate throughout the year mark the changing of the seasons, often called the Wheel of the Year.

In ancient times, before people knew about the movement of the planet and other bodies in the solar system, the Winter Solstice could be a cause of some worry, because it seemed that the Sun had been moving farther and farther away, and people didn't know for sure that it would come back. So they would practice rituals involving fire to try to bring back the Sun. These rituals have always continued in various forms, becoming traditions we recognize today, such as the Yule Log.

Nowadays, we know that the Sun is going to come back, but this is still a time of celebrating the return of the Sun and the start of the lengthening days. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, so we celebrate the fact that for the next 6 months the days are going to keep getting longer and longer.

Because of how much time Paganism and Christianity spent side by side in Europe, as the continent was gradually converted, Yule and Christmas share many traditions and symbols. The evergreen tree, the colours red, green, white, and gold, and the giving of gifts are all a part of both winter holidays. So I'd like to take this time to celebrate both the similarities and differences, and wish everybody a happy whatever-winter-holiday-you-celebrate!

Advent Calendar - December 8: Christmas Cookies

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

Every year, my mom makes fruitlet cookies (which I love) and shortbread cookies (which the rest of the family loves). When I was a kid she used to make sugar cookies, but stopped because it was so much work. So this year, Jonny and I decided to try our hand at sugar cookies. I can understand why she stopped.

It was the most frustrating thing I'd ever attempted. The dough stuck to everything, so you'd flour everything to stop the sticking, but then the flour would incorporate into the dough and the dough would crumble. It was awful. But oh my goodness, the cookies tasted so good I could almost forget how annoying the dough was.

The sugar cookies are quite thin, and cut with these plastic cookie cutters that are more like an actual mold, so you don't just get an outline, you get the lines etched on the cookie. Then we sprinkle them with that crystalized sugar stuff. So good!

Advent Calendar - December 7: Holiday Parties

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

Every year, my dad's side of the family all get together for a party. When I was growing up it was always Christmas Eve, but so many people had to leave early for other family get-togethers or for Midnight Mass that we eventually moved it earlier. Now it's always on the last Saturday before Christmas.

It's been held at a few different houses over the years, but for last few years it's been held at my parents' house (which, until this year, was my house too). My mom makes all kinds of hors d'oeuvres, as well as her popular meatballs, and other people bring their specialties as well.

The annual Christmas party is the only time I see a lot of people in my family, so I always look forward to it. I love seeing my younger cousins (1st cousins twice removed, technically) grow up from year to year.

Advent Calendar - December 6: Santa Claus

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

I don't really remember when I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I never had a traumatic discovery of lies. :) It's like I just gradually came to an understanding of Santa as more of a concept and a tradition than an actual person (oh dear, I sound just like Neil on The Santa Clause). And I was OK with that. Even though Christmas is no longer my primary winter holiday, I still see Santa as a very important part of my holiday celebrations.

Oh, and when I have a kid, I will most definitely tell them there's a Santa. I don't get this idea of parents telling their kids there's no Santa right away for the sake of "honesty". I don't personally know anyone who resents their parents letting them believe in Santa Claus. Come on, people!

Advent Calendar - December 5: Outdoor Decorations

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

My family was never real big on outdoor decorations. When I was a kid we had coloured lights around the edge of the roof, but the switch for them was kind of finicky, and eventually my parents just stopped putting them up. The one thing my mom still puts outside is the garland and ribbons on the railings of the front steps, and a wreath on the door.

That minimal outdoor decorating was pretty standard in my neighbourhood, but there are a few households known for going all out. There's one house a few blocks away from the house I grew up in that looks positively ridiculous for months around Christmas. They have a huge manger scene, reindeer and Santa's sleigh on the roof, more lights than you can comfortably look at, and lately some of those inflatable rotating snowmen that I find less than charming. Lots of people stop their cars in front of that house to take pictures of it every year.

Now I live in an apartment, so outdoor decorations are a bit more tricky (I don't think I even have a plug on my balcony). We do have these pretty little white lights hanging in the living room window, though, and our tree is in front of the window too, so if people were looking up to the sixth floor from the park that my windows look out on, I imagine it would look pretty. :)

Advent Calendar - December 4: Christmas Cards

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

My family's never been really big on sending cards, but we do exchange cards with a few cousins that have moved out of town, since we don't see them at the family Christmas party anymore. Cards that my parents received are propped up on the piano for the rest of the season for people to look at.

I would like to start sending more cards as a small way of showing people I don't keep in touch with very well that I am thinking of them. Even though I like the benefits of e-cards both economically and environmentally, I find they don't quite make the same statement that "I've been thinking of you even though we don't talk enough, so I went to the effort to mail you this card". E-cards are perfect for friends you see all the time, though. So there's my two-cents on that!

Now that I've started getting in touch with more distant cousins that don't live in Winnipeg, I look forward to sending more cards each year. I love the way genealogy can bring people together who live so far apart!

Advent Calendar - December 3: Christmas Tree Ornaments

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

Most of the ornaments on our tree when I was growing up were crafts. My sister and I were both Girl Guides, and we also bought crafts from other Girl Guides at a giant annual craft sale called the Caddy Lake Tea.

My mom does have a set of heirloom ornaments that she often doesn't even hang on the tree, for fear of a child knocking them off and breaking them. They're great big coloured balls, and they belonged to my great grandmother.

Nowadays my ornaments are changing a bit. We still have lots of snowmen and reindeer and whatnot in celebration of the secular Christmas that Jonathon and I both celebrate, but added to that are pentagrams made of pipe cleaners, and symbols of the Sun (because Yule celebrates the rebirth of the Sun). Although, many of our decorations have actually stayed the same, since so many common symbols used at Christmas are Pagan in origin, so they're the same ones used at Yule, including the evergreen tree.

December To Dos

I can't believe I forgot to write my December goals! This Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories stuff must be throwing me off by keeping me so busy. December's always a really busy month, so I'll keep my goals nice and modest:

• Figure out what's going on with Jonas Aspinall's tree, and get my information all cleaned up with all false connections gone.
• Go to the library at least once to work on my huge pile of record lookups.
• Put in several hours of scanning time.
• Go shopping for acid- and lignin-free photo albums for my grandma's photos.

Nothing too ambitious here, so I'm hopeful that I'll complete my goals this month. What do you hope to accomplish this December?

Advent Calendar - December 2: Holiday Foods

This post is part of a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

My family has Christmas dinner every year, with just the immediate family. It's basically your typical turkey dinner. Since I went vegetarian a few years ago, it's become slightly more complicated, in that there are two stuffings (one that was actually stuffed in a bird, one that wasn't), two gravies (one that involves meat drippings and one that doesn't), and stuffed acorn squash.

My extended family on my dad's side also gets together on the Saturday before Christmas. It used to be Christmas Eve, but people were so busy we decided to move it earlier. On that night I see all my aunts and uncles and cousins, many of whom I don't see the rest of the year. Most of the meal consists of hors d'oeuvres that are soooo yummy.

And that's not even getting into the cookies... those are for another day!

It's Data Backup Day!

The first of every month is Data Backup Day. So let's talk about backing up our genealogy data! I haven't been real good about this, to be honest. It was only a few months ago that I got back into genealogy, after years of university taking up all my time. When I started in high school, it was pretty much hand drawn family trees for me, along with piles of unorganised notes, and at some point I entered my info on a couple of online family tree sites (though I don't think I ever got everything up on any one site).

Now, I do most of my work on WikiTree, finding information online and putting it straight into my profiles. I hardly use paper at all, except for taking notes at the library. Unfortunately, this has resulted in me having most of my data either only on a website, or only on my computer, which is not a good state of affairs.

So, here are the things that I should be doing on a regular basis to make sure my data is all good and secure:

• Back up my blog. This is an easy one, at least on Blogger. If you don't know how to export your blog, google it, with the name of your blogging platform. Lots of people have written about it. I think I'll start doing this once a month.
• Back up my family tree. This one is huge. If all my online data disappeared tomorrow, I would lose pretty much everything. It would take me months to get back to where I am now. Luckily, most places that let you keep your family tree online (WikiTree, etc.) have an easy way to export your GEDCOM, so you can have a backup on your computer or some kind of external storage. I might do this even more than once a month, given how often I add to it.
• Back up my scanned photos. Until a couple of days ago, my scanned photos, representing many, many hours of work, existed only on my desktop computer. I couldn't even copy them to my laptop, because I didn't have a flash drive big enough, and I was too lazy to do it in a bunch of chunks. Luckily, I now have a 32GB flash drive (omg it's so tiny!), which should take a while to fill up. I'll be backing these up every time I scan another batch.
• Back up my bookmarks. Often, we bookmark sites we find that have goldmines of genealogical information on them. Luckily, this is an area I've had mastered for years. I recommend Xmarks, which is what I use, but most browsers also have their own built-in bookmark backer-uppers (yeah, I'm pretty sure that's a word). With Xmarks, every time I bookmark something, it gets automatically backed up to my online account. Another great thing about it is you can have multiple computers hooked up to the same account, so your bookmarks are synced between all of them! You can also access your bookmarks at the library just by going to your online account. This is all taken care of automatically, so I don't even have to think about it.

One thing to consider is that you should not only have two copies of your data, but those two copies should not be in the same physical place. One copy on your computer and one on the Internet is great. One copy on your computer and one on your flash drive that you keep at home is not so great. In the event of a fire or some other natural disaster, all copies could be destroyed at once. I'm a bit worried about this right now, since I also have original photos in my apartment along with the digital copies.

For data that you aren't backing up on the Internet, I recommend having a copy on a flash drive or DVD that you give to someone else for safekeeping. For example, when I'm done scanning all my grandma's photos, I'm going to give her a copy of the files on DVD. That way, a copy is always safe. Even if you just have a flash drive or external hard drive with a copy of all your data on it that you keep in your desk at work, that's providing another level of security for your data.

I hope this post hasn't been to heavy! Once you get into a routine, it's really easy to have all your data secured, and it can really put your mind at ease. What else do you recommend for genealogists' data backup routines?

Advent Calendar - December 1: The Christmas Tree

This is the first post in a series for the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories. See all my posts in this series.

Growing up, my family always had the same artificial Christmas tree. It's about 6.5 feet tall, and fairly bushy. It loses pine needles all over the carpet every year, but somehow it still looks good and full. Every year, usually some time in November, my dad would drag the tree out of the back room and set it up. I think my sister and I did most of the decorating, with my mom helping to make sure we "did it right". Oh, moms. The decorations are a combination of some storebought ornaments and a whole lotta crafts made by Girl Guides.

That tree is still the one at my parents' house, but my sister and I recently moved out, so we've got our own trees, now. This is our first Christmas away from home. Jonathon and I bought our own artificial tree. It's 7.5 feet tall and unbelievably wide. When we started to set it up in the apartment we were afraid it wouldn't fit, but we eventually figured it out.

My mom let my sister and I each take some ornaments from the family collection that are special to us, so we won't be starting out with nothing on the tree. We'll probably buy a few things each year to add to it, and one day we'll have a kid who can make crafts to hang on it. And so the cycle continues.

Here's Jonathon putting the angel on top of the tree last year:

November Wrap-Up

It's time to see how I did on my November goals! (Hint: Better than October, but still not perfect.)

• Find all census records pertaining to my great grandparents (includes 1881, 1891, 1901, 1906, 1911, and 1916 Canadian censuses, and any applicable records in other countries). Link to them on WikiTree and download the images. Done!
• Finish scanning the pictures I've received from my mom's side of the family. Work on getting some of them up on WikiTree. Still not done. I did get through another album, though, plus the loose pictures. Now I really need to get some acid- and lignin-free albums to move these to, because these old albums are absolutely brutal.
• Focus on filling in all descendents of my great great grandparents. Try to get in touch with more distant cousins to help with this. Some good progress made here. I've got pretty much all of the descendents of my great grandparents done (one of them is a mystery cousin that may prove challenging). I've got a pretty good list of descendents of Narcisse Daigneault and Domitilde Perras. Realistically I can't fill this in much more without finding some distant cousins to help fill it in.

So, not too shabby this month! I'm just gonna keep working on that scanning until one month I can announce that I've finally finished it... and then I'll start on another set of family photos.

How did you do on your goals for this month?

Jonas Aspinall's mistaken family tree

Jonas Aspinall, b. 1857 in Chester, Cheshire, England

I made an unfortunate discovery at the library on Saturday. I was there using Ancestry Library Edition to find some sources, and one person I did a search on was Jonas Aspinall. Jonas is my great great grandfather. I got as far as him in my tree through first hand knowledge from my grandparents. As I got in touch with some of my second cousins, I was sent trees that had his ancestry filled in for quite a few generations. I figured I'd hit the gold mine.

Unfortunately, it looks as though someone may have made a mistake somewhere along the way, which led to a whole tree that probably isn't connected to my family.

Jonas' father's name was also Jonas Aspinall. I know that for sure from his marriage record, which lists the fathers of the bride and groom. According to the trees I've seen, his mother's name was Ann Kangley, and his father's parents were Jonathan Aspinall and Hannah Stake. However, on Ancestry I saw two marriage records for people named Jonas Aspinall (the age of the older one). One was to an Ann Rangley (maybe Kangley was a typo?), and showed Jonas' father as Thomas Aspinall, and the other was to Susey Sykes, and showed his parents as Jonathan Aspinall and Hannah Stake.

So, what this tells me is that either my 3x great grandmother was actually Susey Sykes, and Jonas Sr.'s genealogy is correct, or Ann Kangley (or Rangley) is correct, and the rest of the family tree is wrong. Unfortunately, I suspect the latter is the case. I found a blog called Aspinall Family History that has the genealogy of the Jonas that married Susey Sykes. It lists their children, and there is no Jonas among them. Granted, he could just be missing from this site, but my hopes aren't very high.

So, I ordered the birth certificate for the younger Jonas Aspinall. Ancestry only had the FreeBMD index, not the whole record, so I had to order it from the UK on the GRO website for something like £9.50 (thank goodness the GBP isn't as insanely higher than the CAD these days). It should ship this Thursday or Friday, so hopefully I'll have it by the end of next week.

With any luck, the birth certificate will state the name of Jonas' mother, and from there I'll know for sure whether Thomas Aspinall or Jonathan Aspinall is my 4x great grandfather.

This just goes to show that you can't assume you've found the right person based on name alone. Every relationship must have a record proving that link. I find that marriage records are great for that, as they often include the names of both parents of both the bride and groom, and if you've already got the names of the bride and groom, you can be pretty confident that you've got the right record.

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2011

I just recently learned of the Geneabloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, and have decided that it looks like fun! So you can expect way more posts than usual during the month of December. Every morning I'll be writing about another topic that has to do with my memories of Christmas growing up. I'll also throw in a bit about my present day Yule celebrations.

Regular posts will continue pretty much as usual, but perhaps a bit less frequently what with all the Advent Calendar posts. I don't want to flood your feed reader, after all!

If you'll be participating in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, feel free to leave links to your posts in the comments of mine, so I can read them. If you celebrate something other than Christmas (as I do), I'd be especially interested in learning more about your celebrations!

Cleaning up WikiTree profiles

Since my posts here have been a bit less frequent in the last few weeks, I thought I'd talk a bit about what I've been doing lately. I guess the reason there have been less posts is that I haven't been focusing a lot on actual research. I've still been busy, though! I've done quite a bit of scanning (the last Scanfest was really productive for me!), and I've been adding more sources to various individuals in my family tree, mostly by searching through lots and lots of census records.

Another thing I've been spending some time on is specific to WikiTree. In case you're not familiar with it, WikiTree is an online, collaborative family tree project. I wrote more about it in a previous post. One difficulty in such a design is that when a bunch of people create their family trees, especially through GEDCOM imports, you end up with a bunch of profiles describing the same person.

I noticed that there's a group of people on WikiTree trying to clean up the duplicate profiles of European aristocracy, and decided to take on a similar effort myself. So lately I've been making lists of profiles of my Acadian ancestors, and planning out where merges should be made.

So far, I haven't really done any actual merging at all. The trouble is, I'm not the one in charge of all these profiles, and the people who are aren't very active on WikiTree, apparently, so it's been tough to coordinate things. I'm planning to request supervisor status, which will allow me to merge open profiles (which most of these profiles are, thankfully) without being on their trusted lists. So here's hoping that works out!

On a related note, I now have over 600 people in my family tree! I can't believe how much it's been growing lately! I've been adding a lot of descendents of my ancestors lately, and every time I do I hope that it will connect me to someone else who's working on their family tree and is my distant cousin. It's so exciting!

Fabianna Perras

I've come across an interesting mystery that's something new to me. I've been tracking the family of Raphaël Perras and Marie Auxilia Beaudin through the censuses. Raphaël and Auxilia moved from Quebec to Manitoba in the 1870s, and had a family in St. Francois Xavier.

The one child that's causing me problems is Fabianna Perras. Fabianna is recorded as Raphaël's and Auxilia's daughter in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. She was born in 1899. However, the 1906 census records a son named Falianna (looking at the original image, it could be Fabianna). While the transciption put his age at 7, which would make him born in 1899, when I looked at the original image it pretty clearly says 4.

So, are these the same child? If so, is Fabianna a boy or a girl? Was he or she born in 1899 or around 1902? Or, did this family have a daughter named Fabianna, and then a son named Fabianna or Falianna? That doesn't seem very likely, since they never both appear in the same census, and the daughter was obviously alive in 1906 since she is in the 1901 and 1911 censuses.

Another hint appears in the 1916 census, where once again we find Fabiana, a daughter. Here she is 17 years old, so born in approximately 1899. Therefore, I think it's safe to say that the 1906 census is simply wrong.

It's a strange error to make, though. This isn't a Quebec census, where fils (son) and fille (daughter) are abbreviated very similarly, making transcription of gender difficult. This census is in English, and quite clearly says "son".

Veterans' Week - Joseph Carmel Lavoie

The veteran of the day in my family tree today is Joseph Carmel (J.C.) Lavoie.

J.C. (often called "The Major") was my great grandfather. He was born on February 15, 1878, in Quebec, the son of Jean-Baptiste and Philomene (Gagne) Lavoie.
J.C. fought in World War I. Unlike the other people I've profiled this week, he was a professional soldier, not a farmer that went to fight for the war. At the time of the war he already had military experience, and had the rank of lieutenant.

Luckily for me, J.C. survived the war, came home to his wife, Alice Bard, and had 8 children, including my grandfather, Louis. J.C. died on November 2, 1960, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Well, that about wraps up Veterans' Week for me, since I think I've run out of relatives who fought in a war, at least that I know of. I seem to recall that my grandfather, Louis Lavoie, fought in WWII, but I have not yet done the necessary research to find any records related to that. (It's a bit harder to get records for people who lived through WWII.)

As always, feel free to share links in the comments if you've written posts this week about your veteran relatives.

Veterans' Week - Leslie Austin Angus

The veteran of the day in my family tree today is Leslie Austin Angus.

Leslie was my great grandfather. He was born on April 9, 1893, in Drayton, Pembina, North Dakota, the son of Robert Byron Angus and Julia Orange Johnston. He is one of my few relatives to have been born in the United States. Several lines of my family on both sides moved to North Dakota and then back into Canada, at a time when that area was great for homesteading. By the time Leslie joined the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, he was living in Barwick, Ontario.

Leslie fought in World War I. He survived the war (lucky for me!), and went on to marry Mildred Grace Watts and have 8 children, including my grandmother. He died on June 3, 1974, in Fort Frances, Ontario.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Veterans' Week - Phillippe Daigneault

The veteran of the day in my family tree is Phillippe Daigneault.

Phillippe was my first cousin twice removed, the cousin of my paternal grandmother. He was born on July 31, 1894, in St. Francois Xavier, Manitoba, the son of Emilien and Sarah (Hogue) Daigneault.

Phillippe fought in World War I. The record of this is held by Library and Archives Canada. I don't know when he died, whether it was in the war or much later. He was recruited in 1917, which is after the last available census (1916), so I guess I won't know for sure until later censuses are released.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Veterans' Week - Lucien Richard

Yesterday, for my first Veterans' Day post, I wrote about Gerard Richard. Today's veteran is Gerard's younger brother, Lucien Joseph Arthur Richard.

Lucien was my great uncle, the brother of my paternal grandmother. He was born on August 30, 1924, in Manitoba (probably in St. Francois Xavier), the son of Alphonse and Bertha Richard.

Lucien was a rifleman in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, R.C.I.C., unit, in World War II. He died on August 15, 1944, almost making it out of the war. The record of this is held by Library and Archives Canada.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Veterans' Week - Gerard Richard

I just learned from Genealogy Canada that this week is Veterans' Week. That gave me an idea for a short series, so this week I will be sharing the military service records of my relatives who fought in World Wars I and II.

Today's veteran is Gerard Joseph Lionel Richard. He was my great uncle, the brother of my paternal grandmother. He was born on May 22, 1919, in Manitoba (probably Sainte-Anne). He was the fifth child of Alphonse and Bertha Richard.

He was a trooper in the British Columbia Dragoons, R.C.A.C., unit, in World War II. On April 18, 1945, at the age of 25, having almost made it out of the war, he died. I don't know how, as I haven't yet ordered the full record from Library and Archives Canada.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Finding Mary Elizabeth Prince's parents

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my troubles confirming the parents of Mary Elizabeth Prince. I had found a census record from when Elizabeth was young, in which she was living with her parents, but I couldn't be sure it was the right family, because I didn't have anything definite linking her to her parents. I'm happy to say that that has changed.

On FamilySearch, I found a death record for an Elizabeth Peterson, who's father's name was Henry Prince. This is definitely my ancestor, since she has the right birth last name, married name, and birth year, and died in an area of Ontario that many of my ancestors on that side of the family lived in. And the father's name is Henry Prince, which matches the name of the father on that census record I'd found.

As further confirmation, that death record says that Elizabeth's mother's name was Elson. The census only had the first name, Sarah Jane, so this didn't prove anything right away. But then I found this 1881 census record for the family. It includes Henry and Sarah Jane, along with a bunch of their children (not Elizabeth, since she was already married), but it also includes two other people, whose relation to the family I can't be sure on since the 1881 census doesn't specify this. Their names are Mary Elson (age 75) and James Prince (age 33). Now we have the connection to the Elson surname. I wonder if Mary is Sarah Jane's mother. It certainly seems promising! And James could be a brother of Henry's, perhaps.

So, in conclusion, Henry Prince and Sarah Jane Elson are my great great great great grandparents! And I'm a tiny bit German! Neat! Genealogy can be such a satisfying hobby. :-)

November To Dos

It's time for another month's goals. Last month I didn't quite achieve all my goals, but I learned about what does and doesn't work for me, and I think the to do list helped to give me some direction. Here's what I plan to do in November:

• Find all census records pertaining to my great grandparents (includes 1881, 1891, 1901, 1906, 1911, and 1916 Canadian censuses, and any applicable records in other countries). Link to them on WikiTree and download the images.
• Finish scanning the pictures I've received from my mom's side of the family. Work on getting some of them up on WikiTree.
• Focus on filling in all descendents of my great great grandparents. Try to get in touch with more distant cousins to help with this.

Wish me luck! And what about you? What do you want to accomplish in November?

Happy Samhain!



Mildred Grace Watts, my great grandmother

 I know I already posted today, but I couldn't let a holiday go by unacknowledged! Happy Hallowe'en, Samhain, or whatever else you celebrate today!

I celebrate both the secular holiday Hallowe'en, and the Pagan holiday Samhain. Samhain is the best holiday for me to post about on this blog, because much of it centres around honouring one's ancestors. So today, while I consume unhealthy quantities of candy while dressed as a Star Trek character, I will also be displaying images of my ancestors and honouring their memories.

So, it's particularly appropriate that today I confirmed a connection in my family tree, which led me generation further back in my maternal line. (I'll be posting about that soon.) So I am now Lianne, daughter of Janice, daughter of Joyce, daughter of Mildred, daughter of Alice, daughter of Elizabeth, daughter of Sarah Jane.

What do you do to celebrate this time of year, whether you celebrate Hallowe'en, Samhain, or some other holiday?

October Wrap-Up

It's time to see how I did on my October goals!

• Look up all relevant records in the 1911 census, save copies of them, and link to them from all related profiles on WikiTree. I've already looked up most of these; I just don't keep good track of them. I did work on this, but I didn't finish. The problem is that I get distracted too easily. If I'm looking up one person's 1911 census record, I'll try to follow them through every census. So maybe instead of focusing on a year, I should focus on a family.
• Scan all of my grandma's photos that she lent me. I've already done a couple of the smaller albums, and they didn't take too long, so this should be doable. Again, progress, but no completion. I still have one big album left from the original pictures, plus my grandma's since given me another huge album and a shoebox. The shoebox is a total gold mine! I'll definitely be sharing pictures from there!
• Go to St. Francois Xavier to photograph tombstones. This depends on my partner being available to drive me, since that would be a very, very long bike ride (I live in Winnipeg). This did not happen. It may have to wait until spring now, because photographing tombstones in the winter is neither easy nor fun. I'll also be planning a trip to Minnedosa in the spring, where my grandpa grew up.
• Spend an evening at the library using Ancestry Library Edition to check U.K. census records. I did do this, and had great luck! I also had great luck with some Quebec vital records. Ancestry Library Edition is awesome.
• Focus research on the sixth generation (3x great grandparents), since I just finished the fifth and I'm trying to fill in my gaps. I currently have the names of 16 of the 32 people in that generation. I made quite a bit of progress here! I have at least the names for 28 of my 32 3x great grandparents! I've also been focusing a lot on finding descendents of my ancestors, going for a bit more breadth instead of just depth.

So, overall, I may have been a bit unrealistic with my goals (or maybe I just get distracted too easily). But I did make progress on things I wanted to make progress on! And I learned a lot about the way I research, which should help me to make better, more achievable goals in the future.

I'll be posting my November To Dos first thing tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Finding Philomene Gagné's parents

Philomene Gagné is my great great grandmother, and she has long been one of my brick wall ancestors. Until now!

I've just recently started branching out into types of records other than the census, because I know that, as much as I love the nice, simple census records, they can't tell me everything. So, I recently got around to looking Philomene up in the Drouin Collection, which is a collection of Quebec vital records from 1621 to 1967. Searching for her, along with the name of her spouse, Jean-Baptiste Lavoie, I found their marriage record right away. (Here's where I saved the record image on Wikitree.)

Philomene and Jean-Baptiste married in 1856. Other details are very difficult to make out on records from the Drouin Collection, because they tend to consist of messily handwritten paragraphs. However, I was able to determine that Philomene's father's name was Louis, and her mother's name is something along the lines of Marie Chantale Thalbot.

I already had a list of 1852 census records that could possibly have been Philomene, when she was 13/14 years old. So I went through those, checking to see if any of them had parents that matched the marriage record. I found this one. Philomene's parents in this census record are Louis Gagné and Marie fse Talbot. (fse? Maybe Francoise?) So, I don't know what's going one with Marie's middle name there, but it appears that I've found the correct census record!

WAH-BAM! Brick wall smashed!

Tuesday's Tip - GenForum

I had to share this, because lately I've been having an amazing amount of luck on this site. GenForum is a forum run by Genealogy.com. It has subforums for seemingly ever surname, as well as for countries (and every U.S. state), and a bunch of general genealogy topics.

There must be a whole lot of genealogy angels on that site, because I've posted questions twice, and both times I've received an answer within a day or two, solving a problem that I've been working on for months. So if you've got a brick wall ancestor, I highly recommend you post your question on the relevant surname forum, and on the relevant country forum (the country forums tend to be more active and I've had more luck there). Post everything you know about the ancestor and immediate family, and you'll be amazed what people will find for you.

And of course, if you're a skilled genealogist, I recommend you spend some time reading people's questions on the forums, and hopefully helping people out. It would be a great way to give back to the community.

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon!

This post will be updated throughout the day. Scroll down to see the latest updates! For my regular readers, the next genealogy post is scheduled for Tuesday morning.

Good morning (or whatever time it is where you are)! It's 7:00am here in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and I'm ready to start what should prove to be an interesting 24 hours of reading, with some blogging thrown in for good measure. This is the time I normally get up on weekdays, so it's not so bad, but it's definitely not how I usually start my Saturdays. However, I went to bed a bit early last night, so I'm hoping I'll have the energy to make it through to the very end. This is my first read-a-thon, so we'll see!

My goals are as follows:

• Make it through all 24 hours.
• Read 1000 pages. (I have no idea if this is doable, as I don't know my reading speed. But my books are easy, so I'm aiming high!)
• Update this post with my progress every 2 hours.
• Participate in several mini-challenges.
• Comment on several other participating blogs.
• Don't have any university student-style mental breakdowns from lack of sleep.
• Don't die of candy consumption.

My reading list:

• The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket (337 pages)
• The Grim Grotto (A Series of Unfortunate Events #11) by Lemony Snicket (323 pages)
• The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events #12) by Lemony Snicket (353 pages)
• The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket (337 pages)
• The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade (281 pages)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon (graphic novel) (136 pages)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughan (graphic novel) (120 pages)
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 3: Wolves at the Gate by Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard (graphic novel) (136 pages)
• The Ghosts of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright (130 pages)
• Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth by Christian Nadeau (in case I'm in the mood for some light non-fiction) (138 pages)
• The Ashes of Eden by William Shatner (audiobook; read by William Shatner!) (If I complete it, I'll give myself 309 pages, because that's how long the hardcover version is.)
• Anything else on my shelves I feel like reading if these aren't doing it for me!

Notice that there are no long books! I think my only chance at making it all the way through the next 24 hours is to avoid spending too much time or effort on any one book, hence the choice of extremely easy reading material. I'll be starting with The Ghost of Ernie P.

Oh, and here's a picture of my snacks I have planned for the day! So much yumminess of the effortless-to-prepare variety!

So, without further ado, let's read!

Introduction Meme:

My primary reading spot for the day

1)Where are you reading from today?
My apartment in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

2)Three random facts about me…
I'm a trekkie, I'm my family's genealogist (hence the blog), and I graduated university last year.

3)How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?
11

4)Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?
1000 pages, and to make it the whole 24 hours.

5)If you’re a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?
This is my first time! I'm quite excited!

9:00 Central Time (2 hours down):

What are you reading right now? The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright

How's that going? It's pretty good. Surprisingly scary for a kids' book. Betty Ren Wright was one of my favourite authors when I was a kid, and I'm glad to know I can still enjoy her now.

Books finished so far: None yet.

Pages read these hours: 122 (almost a whole book!)

Total pages read: 122

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:44

Total time spent reading: 01:44

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:16

Total time spent blogging: 00:16

Food consumed: None yet. Starting to get hungry though!

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme

11:00 Central Time (4 hours down):

What are you reading right now? The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade (I also  finished volume 1 of Buffy Season 8 during the last 2 hours.)

How's that going? Good so far. Funny, and nice easy YA reading.

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon

Pages read these hours: 164 (finished first book, read a graphic novel, started another book)

Total pages read: 286

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:42

Total time spent reading: 03:26

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:18

Total time spent blogging: 00:34

Food consumed these hours: A bowl of fruit salad, a few grapes, and a few Rainbow Twizzlers.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme

The first volume of Buffy Season 8 was SO GOOD. It was awesome and had references to the show ("As a friend of mine once said, I'd like to test that theory.") and was just really perfect. In one frame there's a girl in the background reading Fray. AWESOME. Also, I'd like to share two quotes I enjoyed:

Awesome quote 1:
Scottish Slayer: That were a wee bit repulsive.
Buffy: Went okay. 'Cept I feel a little weird about using a crucifix to kill someone.
Scottish Slayer: Yeh dinno much about religion, do yeh?

Awesome quote 2:
Buffy: One slayer fighting alone is formidable. Two is formidabler. Or... Three? Mega-formidable. And after mega, it goes mondo, then super, hyper, beaucoup d', crazy, stupid... It gets exponentially prefixy.

13:00 Central Time (6 hours down):

What are you reading right now? The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

How's that going? Good. I'm enjoying the story. I'm not sure why I'm reading so slowly, though. The font doesn't look that small...

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon

Pages read these hours: 88

Total pages read: 374

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:40

Total time spent reading: 05:06

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:20

Total time spent blogging: 00:54

Food consumed these hours: Some grapes.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme

15:00 Central Time (8 hours down) (Holy crap, already?!):

What are you reading right now? The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

How's that going? Good. Alona is infuriating, but kind of in an endearing way? Will is adorable and I kind of want to hug him.

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon

Pages read these hours: 98

Total pages read: 472

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:52

Total time spent reading: 06:58

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:08

Total time spent blogging: 01:02

Food consumed these hours: Some grapes, and this vegetable medley salad thing from the Safeway deli.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme (several have said you can only win if you're in the US, and anyway I'm still enjoying the non-stop reading).

17:00 Central Time (10 hours down):

What are you reading right now? Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon

How's that going? WONDERFUL. I am loving Buffy Season 8 so much. (Also, Ghost and the Goth was great. I'm glad to hear that there's a sequel!)

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

Pages read these hours: 111

Total pages read: 583

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:52

Total time spent reading: 08:50

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:08

Total time spent blogging: 01:10

Food consumed these hours: A bowl of raspberries, and some tortilla chips and hummus (which are really hitting the spot because I just recently became extremely hungry!).

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme.

19:00 Central Time (The Halfway Point!):

What are you reading right now? The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket

How's that going? OK. I'm definitely enjoying the series, but I guess I'm discouraged by the length, even though it's still short and easy reading, because it's longer than anything I've read in the read-a-thon so far.

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon

Pages read these hours: 136

Total pages read:719

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:34

Total time spent reading: 10:24

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:11

Total time spent blogging: 01:21

Total time spent sleeping: 00:15 (I didn't even want this to be something I had to keep track of! It was an accident! Luckily, my boyfriend happened to notice I'd dozed off and woke me up, to which I responded with "Crap! Crap!" and lots of arm-flailing.)

Food consumed these hours: More tortilla chips with hummus, and a few Rainbow Twizzlers.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme.

Mid Event Survey:

1. What are you reading right now? The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket
2. How many books have you read so far? 4!
3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 3: Wolves at the Gate, because the first two volumes were awesome! Buy I'm trying to spread out my limited supply of graphic novels!
4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? Nope! I almost had a dog-sitting gig today, but they cancelled, which worked out well.
5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? I had to move to the bedroom for a bit when my boyfriend got home and wanted to watch TV (our apartment is small), which caused me to briefly fall asleep! So I didn't deal with it all that well!
6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? How quickly time goes by!
7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? More mini-challenges that Canadians can win! And other people who aren't United Statesians!
8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? Remember to put more can drinks in the fridge the day before. Doh!
9. Are you getting tired yet? My brief nap kind of made me groggy (I don't nap well), but other than that I've been feeling fine. :)
10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Graphic novels. Seriously.

21:00 Central Time (14 hours down):

What are you reading right now? The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket

How's that going? Great. But gah, so many mysteries and so many unfortunate events and a sneaking suspicion that none of these mysteries will be solved and I will end up banging my head against my book in frustration!

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon

Pages read these hours: 149

Total pages read: 868

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:52

Total time spent reading: 12:16

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:08

Total time spent blogging: 01:29

Total time spent sleeping: 00:15 (and I don't intend for this number to go up, either)

Food consumed these hours: A cup of Acai Mango Zinger tea (darn my preference for caffeine-free teas!) and some celery sticks.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme, Mid Event Survey.

My tummy kind of hurts. I'm in that weird place where I kind of feel hungry all the time, but none of my food seems appetising. The celery sticks seem to be working ok in this situation, but at some point I really should eat something more substantial.

23:00 Central Time (16 hours down):

What are you reading right now? Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth, by Christian Nadeau.

How's that going? I just started, so it's too soon to tell. I have my worries about non-fiction, especially this late in the game, when I'm starting to get a bit drowsy, but it's only 138 pages, so how hard can it be?

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon
The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket

Pages read these hours: 144

Total pages read: 1012! Goal accomplished with 8 hours to spare! :)

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:48

Total time spent reading: 14:04

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:12

Total time spent blogging: 01:41

Total time spent sleeping: 00:15 (and I don't intend for this number to go up, either)

Food consumed these hours: A cup of Acai Mango Zinger tea and some celery sticks.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme, Mid Event Survey.

01:00 Central Time (18 hours down):

What are you reading right now? Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth, by Christian Nadeau.

How's that going? It's a bit boring. I have a minor in philosophy and still this guy's philosophy talk is making me drowsy. Although I guess the fact that it's 1am could be contributing to that...

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon
The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket

Pages read these hours: 53 (Eek! Not so good!)

Total pages read: 1065

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:55

Total time spent reading: 15:59

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:05

Total time spent blogging: 01:46

Total time spent sleeping: 00:15 (and I don't intend for this number to go up, either)

Food consumed these hours: A bowl of fruit salad.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme, Mid Event Survey.

Let it be known that hour 18 is when this got difficult. My eyelids are getting seriously heavy. But I will not give in! Only 4 hours until my scheduled energy drink!

03:00 Central Time (20 hours down):

What are you reading right now? Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth, by Christian Nadeau.

How's that going? Boring. Hopefully I will be done by my next update. I know I could just switch books, but I almost never give up on a book and I'd like to just get it over with.

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon
The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket

Pages read these hours: 45 (Definitely a result of the droopy eyelids. I keep rereading the same paragraph several times.)

Total pages read: 1110

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:57

Total time spent reading: 17:56

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:03

Total time spent blogging: 01:49

Total time spent sleeping: 00:15 (and I don't intend for this number to go up, either)

Food consumed these hours: A can of Ginger Ale, a Crunchie, and some Rainbow Twizzlers (are we seeing a downward spiral here?).

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme, Mid Event Survey.

I just realised that I had some crazy math somewhere along the way, where I lost a couple hours and my totals made no sense. It's all fixed now! :)

05:00 Central Time (22 hours down):

What are you reading right now? Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 3: Wolves at the Gate by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon

How's that going? AWESOME. Several times I have had to focus very hard to keep my laughter from being out loud and thus waking up the boyfriend. Dracula facepalming himself and saying "Oh balls" is surprisingly hilarious. And just as I was thinking how I don't remember Dracula being racist in the show, Xander's like "You know, I really don't remember you being this racist..." Oh my goodness. This is very refreshing after the lack of fun that was reading about Stephen Harper.

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon
The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket
Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth by Christian Nadeau

Pages read these hours: 96

Total pages read: 1206

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:47

Total time spent reading: 19:43

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:13

Total time spent blogging: 02:02

Total time spent sleeping: 00:15 (and I don't intend for this number to go up, either)

Food consumed these hours: Two thirds of a Rock Star beverage. Oh. My. God. Why did I not throw caution and money to the wind and drink these every day during university?

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme, Mid Event Survey.

Get Up Offa That Thang Mini-Challenge:

I just did the Get Up Offa That Thang Mini-Challenge, and it was so much fun! I danced to the following songs:
1. Lil Mama - Lip Gloss
2. Rusted Root - Send Me On My Way
3. Weird Al - White and Nerdy

07:00 Central Time (The End!):

What are you reading right now? The Grim Grotto (A Series of Unfortunate Events #11) by Lemony Snicket

How's that going? Swimmingly.

Books finished so far:
The Ghost of Ernie P. by Betty Ren Wright
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1: The Long Way Home by Joss Whedon
The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 2: No Future For You by Brian K. Vaughan and Joss Whedon
The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10) by Lemony Snicket
Rogue in Power: Why Stephen Harper is Remaking Canada by Stealth by Christian Nadeau
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 3: Wolves at the Gate by Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon

Pages read these hours:128

Total pages read: 1334

Time spent reading these hours (hh:mm): 01:47

Total time spent reading: 21:30 (Yay! Nice and round!)

Time spent blogging these hours (hh:mm): 00:13

Total time spent blogging: 02:15

Total time spent sleeping: 00:15

Food consumed these hours: The last third of a Rock Star beverage.

Mini-challenges completed so far: Introduction Meme, Mid Event Survey, Get Up Offa That Thang, and coming up next, the End of Event Meme.

End of Event Meme:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Around hour 18.
2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8!
3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? More mini-challenges that aren't for US residents only would be nice.
4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? I enjoyed having the cheerleaders commenting on my post.
5. How many books did you read? 7! I can't believe it!
6. What were the names of the books you read? The Ghost of Ernie P., Buffy the Vampire Slayer Volumes 1-3 (I won't type them all out again...), The Ghost and the Goth, The Slippery Slope, and Rogue in Power.
7. Which book did you enjoy most? Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 3
8. Which did you enjoy least? Rogue in Power
9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? I wasn't a cheerleader. Just keep doing what you're doing!
10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? I will definitely participate again, as a reader.

Here's a quick round-up of my final stats for easy looking!
Books read: 7 and a bit
Pages read: 1334
Time spent reading: 21:30 (Wow!)
Time spent blogging: 2:15
Time spent sleeping: 00:15 (Whoops!)
Mini-challenges participated in: 4

Averages:
Average pages per book: 190
Average pages per hour: 56
Average time spent reading per hour: 53.75 minutes (not bad!)

Well, that's all folks! Now, I hope I didn't drink that energy drink too late in the game, jeopardising my ability to sleep through the day... G'night! / G'morning!

How to find vital records in Manitoba

The province of Manitoba's Vital Stats site is an amazing resource for people who have ancestors in Manitoba. Birth records up to 100 years ago, marriage records up to 80 years ago, and death records up to 70 years ago are available for searching. Unfortunately, most of my family lines were not in Manitoba yet that long ago, but a few of them were, and this site has been extremely useful for those families.

First, select which type of record you want to search for: birth, marriage, or death. Next, you can search by any combination of the following fields: last name, given names, place (city), and date (year). I recommend leaving some fields blank if you don't find what you're looking for right away. You could have a date wrong, or they could have a name spelled wrong (that's happened to me).

It can also be useful to do more general searches. I searched for all birth records with the last name Daigneault in St. Francois Xavier, and found not only the birth records for most of the Daigneaults I already had in my tree, but also some others, who probably died as children, since they weren't in any census records.

Unfortunately, you don't get all the information for free. You'll get names, dates, and locations. For birth records you'll usually get the mother's name. To get the rest, you can order the record, which costs $12. I haven't ordered any yet, so I can't say much about what you get then (I'll update this post when I do order some). $12 a record adds up fast, so I haven't decided which records I want to invest in right now. I'll probably start with records pertaining to my direct ancestors.

Even if you can't afford to order a bunch of records, this website is extremely valuable. Without paying a cent you can find exact dates of birth, marriage, and death, and often you can find middle names you didn't know about, or find out that what you thought was an ancestor's first name was really their middle name. (That happens a whole lot in my French ancestry, where pretty much every child was named Marie or Joseph, and they went by their middle names to tell them apart. Way to go, French Catholics, with your crazy ideas!)

Note: I have not actually looked for these at the Manitoba Archives yet, so it's quite possible that you can view the records there in full for free. I'll have to plan a day trip there sometime soon!

Photo scanning adventures!

I got a photo scanner! Actually, I got it a couple of weeks ago, and just hadn't gotten around to finishing this post until now. :) In the past, I've only had a three-in-one printer, so I didn't do any large-scale scanning of old photographs and whatnot. But now, I have the Epson Perfection V330 Photo Scanner. And oh baby, I'm gettin' my scan on.

So far, my only complaint is speed. If I'm scanning a fairly large picture at a fairly high DPI (dots per inch), I have to wait for several minutes for each picture. It seems like the actual scanning happens pretty quickly, but then it takes forever for it to create the file, or whatever it's doing after the scanner stops buzzing. Also, the .tif files take up a tonne of space.

On the other hand, take a look at this:

 

This is a scan of a very small, very old picture (around WWI). And it looks freaking amazing. The man in the back row, second from the right, is my great grandfather, Leslie Austin Angus.

Dewey's 24 hour readathon

Disclaimer: I am using my power as the author of this blog to do something I wouldn't normally do: make an off-topic post! The reason for this is, quite simply, that I don't have a book blog on which to post this, and I figure a lot of genealogists are probably big readers too, so you might just find it interesting!

October 22nd is the date of the next bi-annual Dewey's 24 Hour Read-A-Thon. I just recently found out that this exists, and it made me indescribably happy.

Basically, it means spending as much time as possible reading during a set 24 hour period. Here in Winnipeg it starts on the 22nd at 7:00am. The website has a list of all the start times based on your location.

For those of you who are annoyed by this off-topic post, I promise that this is one of only two such posts that will occur around this event. When the challenge begins, I'll write another post, which I will just update (probably hourly) throughout the day, so I won't be flooding your feed reader or anything.

I hope that some of you will join me in this exciting challenge! Let me know if you plan to, and we can watch each other's updates and cheer each other on!

Newest member of the family: Tyler Jeff Janz

There's a new person in my family tree, but not in the form of a baby. My sister, Stephanie Lavoie, got married on Saturday! So Tyler Jeff Janz is now my brother-in-law, and my sister's name is now Stephanie Janz. The picture below contains, from left to right, my parents (Gil and Janice Lavoie), Stephanie Janz, Tyler Janz, me, and my partner, Jonathon Laudinsky. I hope Tyler won't mind me working on his genealogy, because I fully intend to have nieces/nephews that enjoy genealogy!

Phillippe Albert Olivier Richard

The following is paraphrased from the Frank J. Richard papers, which are currently held at the Institute for Regional Studies and University Archives at North Dakota State University.

Phillippe Albert Olivier Richard was my great great grandfather. He was born on February 6, 1865, in Mont Carmel, Quebec, the third of eight children of Francois Alexis "Alex" Richard and Elisabeth Levasseur.

When Albert was 12, he went with his family to Holy Cross Mission, Dakota Territory (in what's now North Dakota). The family farmed in the southeast quarters of section 9, Pleasant Township, Cass County.

Albert married Arthemise Ducharme when he was 22, on July 26, 1887. (According to what Frank wrote, they were second cousins. Arthemise's ancestry is still a mystery to me, so I'm hoping that fact will help.) They moved in with Albert's parents, until 1887, when they took over because Alex and Elisabeth moved to Willow City. Albert and Arthemise were left to care for Emma and Emile, two of Albert's younger siblings, as they were going to school nearby.

On June 25, 1888, Arthemise gave birth to twins, who both died 3 weeks later. The next year, Alphonse (my great grandpa) and a twin sister were born, and the twin died immediately. Over the next 14 years they would have 12 more children, 3 of whom died as infants or young children, one of whom died at 15, and two of whom died at 25 of influenza.

In the fall of 1898, the family moved to St. Francois Xavier, where Albert and Arthemise lived for the rest of their lives. The land they lived on had been the home of Cuthbert Grant from 1824 to 1854.

Arthemise died suddenly of a heart attack on January 11, 1935, and 5 years later, on July 2, 1940, Albert died of tuberculosis at the St. Vital Sanitarium. They were both buried, near many of their children, at St. Francois Xavier.

Free access on Ancestry.ca

This is just a quick note to pass on some news: Ancestry.ca is offering free access to some of their databases for 15 days! Each day they'll be adding another database, and each one will be available for free until October 15.

So far, the available databases include the Social Security Death Index, the Ireland Griffith's Valuation, 1848-1864, and the California Marriage Index, 1960-1985.

Be sure to keep checking back to see what records are available each day! Personally, I'm hoping for some 19th century England census records. What about you?

October To Dos

I've been inspired by another genealogy blog, Tonia's Roots, to try writing To Do posts to keep myself on track. I'm going to try for monthly. At the end of the month, I'll post an update on how well I did. So, without further ado, here's what I hope to accomplish in October:

• Look up all relevant records in the 1911 census, save copies of them, and link to them from all related profiles on WikiTree. I've already looked up most of these; I just don't keep good track of them.
• Scan all of my grandma's photos that she lent me. I've already done a couple of the smaller albums, and they didn't take too long, so this should be doable.
• Go to St. Francois Xavier to photograph tombstones. This depends on my partner being available to drive me, since that would be a very, very long bike ride (I live in Winnipeg).
• Spend an evening at the library using Ancestry Library Edition to check U.K. census records.
• Focus research on the sixth generation (3x great grandparents), since I just finished the fifth and I'm trying to fill in my gaps. I currently have the names of 16 of the 32 people in that generation.

Wish me luck!