Thursday, September 27, 2007

World Blog Day - The Environment- October 15, 2007

What a cool idea!

October 15th, 2007 bloggers around the world wide web unite to discuss a very important issue - the environment. In Canada, where I live, concern about the environment is often said to be the most important issue for Canadians.

Each blogger is to put their own stamp on the topic, but our aim is the same - to have everyone talking towards a better future.

Here are 3 ways to participate:

Post an environment related piece on your own blog on Blog Action Day.
Donate to an environmental charity.
Promote Blog Action Day around the web.
Analyzing Historical Photographs
with M. Diane Rogers
Puzzled by some of your family photographs?
Burnaby Village Museum presents 'Analyzing Historical Photographs’ with M. Diane Rogers of the B.C. Genealogical Society.
Learn about extracting genealogical and historical information on your loved ones from grandmother's box of unidentified photos. A hands-on look at different kinds of photographs and what they can tell you.

Thursday, October 11, 2007 7-9 pm at the Burnaby Village Museum $10.00 Super Sleuths Genealogical Workshop #3

Pre-registration a must! Call the Museum office at 604-293-6500 or register on-line: http://www.burnabyvillagemuseum.ca/

Burnaby Village Museum: 6501 Deer Lake Avenue, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada V5G 3T6

British Columbia Genealogical Society: http://www.bcgs.ca/

Closure of the Family Records Centre, London, England

Many family historians and genealogists, including members of the international Federation of Family History Societies, continue to protest the planned closure of the Family Records Centre in London, England. The timetable for this closure was accelerated with little notice to users.

No longer will there be free access to the index books for birth, marriage and death registrations for England and Wales. The promised provision of a new on-line digitized index is still a long, long way away---the project is at least a year behind schedule--- and likely will involve a cost to researchers.

For genealogists and family historians overseas like myself who have English and Welsh ancestors this will be a blow, as it is to researchers in England and Wales.

I have been lucky enough to visit the Family Records Centre on my past travels; on these trips I've used other research institutions nearby too. This has always made my London visits 'genealogically worthwhile'. The London tourist trade will likely lose my custom in future, but there are other consequences for overseas researchers.

The much appreciated volunteers involved in the on-line FreeBMD project which most overseas researchers depend on relies on visits to the Family Records Centre to photograph the many unreadable handwritten registration index pages. These volunteers have been scrambling to photograph as much as possible before access is denied at the end of this week.

For more about this, see the Federation of Family History Societies website: http://www.ffhs.org.uk/archives/gro/civil-reg-0707.php