Candice McDonald

52 Ancestors: Week 4 – I\’d Like to Meet John Wellington McDonald

John McDonald and his daughter Marion This week\’s 52 Ancestors prompt is \”I\’d like to Meet\”. I have more than one ancestor I\’d love to sit down with: My 6x great grandfather Michael BASTARCHE DIT BASQUE. His and his brother Pierre were deported by the British from Acadia to South Carolina in 1755. They fled and wentContinue reading “52 Ancestors: Week 4 – I\’d Like to Meet John Wellington McDonald”

52 Ancestors: Week 3 – Unusual Names

This week\’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompt is Unusual Name. I have not been blessed in my own research with many unusual names. My maternal French Canadian side has a fondness for the names Joseph and Mary/Marie that borders on the ridiculous. My paternal side has heavily favoured the names James and John. My recently discoveredContinue reading “52 Ancestors: Week 3 – Unusual Names”

52 Ancestors: Week 2 – The Challenge of Organization: Forms and Charts

https://pixabay.com/en/cluttered-desk-dirty-education-1295494/ This week\’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompt is \”Challenge\”. I have two great grandfathers by the names of John MCDONALD and James DOUGLAS that are challenges. I have yet to find which cabbage patches they came from. My biggest challenge however, is organization. I\’m sure I\’m not alone on that one, so I\’ve decided toContinue reading “52 Ancestors: Week 2 – The Challenge of Organization: Forms and Charts”

52 Ancestors: Week 1 – First Nominal Census in Canada

http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_c2474/7?r=0&s=4 Amy Johnson Crow has started a new year of her 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks prompts. Each week for 52 weeks, Amy gives a theme for participants to write about your family history. You don\’t have to be a blogger to join in. The point is to get yourself writing abut your ancestors. My blogContinue reading “52 Ancestors: Week 1 – First Nominal Census in Canada”

Manitoba Ancestors: Manitoba Church Records on Family Search

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Souvenir_of_Winnipeg_(1889).jpg Church records can be a goldmine of information for genealogists. Not only will you get that valuable birth, marriage and death information, but you can also get names of extended family. These records can also pre date civil registration and census records, getting your family further back. The problem with church records is thatContinue reading “Manitoba Ancestors: Manitoba Church Records on Family Search”

Military Ancestors: The weekly newspaper "Canada"

https://archive.org/details/canadaanillustr01unkngoog I came across a rather interesting, and rare, resource this week. During the first World War, a newspaper was published in London England called \”Canada: An Illustrated Weekly Journal for all Interested in the Dominion\”. Part weekly newspaper, part gazette, this fascinating resource is so rare that I had a hard time even findingContinue reading “Military Ancestors: The weekly newspaper "Canada"”

Ancestors in Service: Porters and Domestics Records through the LAC

My apologies for the absence of late. It\’s an awful thing when the daily demands of your non genealogy life gets in the way of doing what you love. I\’ve been on holidays this week, and I\’ve made it a genealogy stay-cation. Though I haven\’t broken through any brick walls in my personal family research,Continue reading “Ancestors in Service: Porters and Domestics Records through the LAC”

Hone Your Skills With Transcribing and Indexing

One of the most frustrating aspects of genealogy is handwriting. In a perfect world, all the documents we come across would have been written in a neat legible hand. In reality, we are invariably going to come across a document where the handwriting looks like a snake fell in the ink pot and slithered drunkenlyContinue reading “Hone Your Skills With Transcribing and Indexing”

Taking the Time to Browse Part 2: Ancestry

In this series of posts, we are looking at websites where you might be missing information by not browsing through record sets. This post is about Ancestry. Now unlike Family Search, Ancestry doesn\’t usually have browse only collections. At least none that I could find in Canadian record sets. What you want to do isContinue reading “Taking the Time to Browse Part 2: Ancestry”

Taking the time to Browse Part 1: Family Search

Indexed collections on various websites can take you many generations back in a relatively short period of time. In our excitement, we can sometimes forget about \”hidden\” collections. There\’s a whole host of record sets that haven\’t been indexed. If you stick to name searches, you\’re never going to get hits from these collections. TheyContinue reading “Taking the time to Browse Part 1: Family Search”