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!