Sunday, November 29, 2009

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Famous (?) Look-alikes

Well, Randy Seaver had a really fun exercise for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun this weekend using the facial recognition tools at MyHeritage.com. This is free; you don't even have to register to make a collage like this for fun. Since I was out dancing last night, I've added my post this morning.

Not sure what this proves and I'm afraid I recognize almost none of these celebrities - but I just couldn't resist adding Burt Reynolds in...sigh.... (We do both wear glasses.)





Friday, November 27, 2009

Na's Butterscotch Crisps - Geneabloggers Holiday Recipes

Mum and Na on a chilly day in Newdale, Manitoba, Canada, c. 1919. Looks like a great day for making cookies together. (Love those muffs! Warm hands! )

Geneabloggers is sponsoring a Holiday 2009 Recipe Contest and Cookbook. The deadline is Friday, December 4, 2009 at 11 pm and there's a special form to fill out here.

My Na, I'm sure, never missed a chance to pass on a recipe she liked, so here is one of my childhood favourites - a cookie recipe that easily makes enough for a party.


BUTTERSCOTCH CRISPS (Ice Box)
6 dozen

1 cup shortening
2 cups Brown sugar
2 eggs, unbeaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 ¾ cups A.P. (all purpose) flour
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts

Cream shortening (part butter) and sugar until light. Add unbeaten egg and vanilla.

Beat well. Sift flour, soda, cream of tartar and salt. Add to creamed mixture. Blend well. Add nuts.

Shape into rolls, wrap in waxed paper. Chill until very firm. Slice thin and bake on ungreased sheet 375° - 8-10 minutes.


When I was little, ice box cookies were a real ‘convenience’ to busy mums and grandmas. Before a party, this recipe would be made up and left rolled in the ‘fridge till time to get ready. No, I’m not old enough to remember ice boxes, although we did have a cool cupboard, but still we always called them 'ice box cookies'.

This is one of a number of recipes I have written out by my Na, my maternal grandmother. I sure remember these cookies. I love butterscotch and Na always used at least some real butter in her baking. (Notice she doesn’t say how much? Might depend on the budget!) But so good!

Na was Amy Estella (IRWIN) SCOTT, born in 1884 in Newdale, Manitoba, Canada; she died in 1983 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Canada's Home Children - Still Waiting for Recognition

Marchmont home, Belleville, Ontario. A group of boys from Miss MacPherson's home (London, England). April 1922.

Photograph: Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau, Library and Archives Canada C-034837. Public Domain.

Today the Australia government is apologizing to the "forgotten Australians" - those who as children were in government homes between 1930 and 1970. ["Ordeal of Australia's child migrants" by Nick Bryant.
BBC News, Australia, published Sunday, 15 November 2009.]

This includes many sent from Great Britain to Australia as child migrants in a great number of organized emigration schemes supported by governments and other agencies. Thousands of British children were also sent to other parts of the Commonwealth, including Canada and South Africa and there have been calls for some time for other governments to apologize, including the British and Canadian governments. I was surprised myself to see the comments attributed to Alykhan Velshi, spokesman for Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, saying that the child migrants' experience was "different" in Canada. ["Canada won't apologize to British home children" by Gloria Galloway, with a report from the Associated Press. Globe and Mail, published Monday, Nov. 16, 2009. See also "Canada shows no sign of apology to migrant children" by Tiffany Crawford, Canwest News Service. Published Global News, Monday, November 16, 2009 ]


It appears that the British government is seriously considering an apology, but that Canada will not, although Canada may be willing to approve some kind of commemoration. Right now, there is a bill in the Canadian Parliament to have 2010 designated as the Year of the British Home Child in Canada which, according to information in the Globe and Mail today, Canada's Immigration Minister Jason Kenney supports and according to Global News, Alykhan Velshi, spokesperson for the Minister, has said the request for a Canadian stamp honouring the home children has been approved.

From the 1860s to the 1940s, some 100,000 children were sent as 'child migrants' to Canada. Here they were known as 'home children' - the term used by most researchers in Canada today. Certainly not all were treated badly in Canada, but even those who found new and happy homes, usually lost their connection to family in Britain, or in some cases, even to other family in Canada - siblings were often separated - a loss which many regretted and which their descendants are still working to correct.

Since this is a topic of interest to many in Canada and now is in the news, I'm including here a selected list of sources of information and a very selective timeline.

The primary research and information website now is the British Home Children Descendants site.

My list is not exhaustive, but is meant to get you started if you are interested in this aspect of Canadian history, or if you are descended, or connected, as I am to a 'Canadian home child'.



BOOKS – most available at the British Columbia Genealogical Society's Walter Draycott library.

New Lives for Old: The Story of Britain’s Child Migrants by Roger Kershaw and Janet Sacks (Kew, Richmond, Surrey, England: The National Archives, 2008).

Researching Canada's Home Children by John D Reid (Toronto: Heritage Books, 2005, with the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa).

The Golden Bridge, Young Immigrants To Canada 1833-1939 by Marjorie Kohli (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2003).

The Quarriers Story, One Man's Vision Which Gave Over 40,000 Children a New Life by Anna Magnusson (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2006).

The Little Immigrants: The Orphans Who Came to Canada by Kenneth Bagnell (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1980).

The Home Children edited by Phyllis Harrison (Winnipeg, Manitoba: Watson & Dwyer Publishing Ltd., 1979).

Barnardo Children in Canada by Gail H. Corbett (Peterborough, Ontario: Woodland Publishing, 1981).



RECENT ARTICLES

“Shipped to Canada” by Janet Sacks, Who Do You Think You Are? July 2008, pp. 26-31.

“Tracing Child Migrant Ancestors” by Roger Kershaw, Who Do You Think You Are? July 2008, pp. 32-33,

‘Home Children’ feature, Anglo-Celtic Roots, British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa, Summer 2008. Includes “The BIFHSGO-LAC Home Children Program by John Sayers, “Remembering Brockville’s Scottish Orphans” by Carol Arnett, “Henry Gilchrist: A Quarriers Home Child” by Bryan D. Cook and “John Harold Russell: A Home Child Success” by Joyce C. Fingland.

“Finding Dorothy” by Judy Hassall, The British Columbia Genealogist, March 2007, pp. 35-38.

“Childhood Lost: The Story of Canada’s Home Children” documentary, directed by Donna Davies. Produced by Cellar Door and Ocean Entertainment, 2004. Shown on Knowledge Network, Sept 2008.



WEBSITES AND MAILING LISTS:

British Home Children Descendants: http://www.britishhomechildren.org/

The Golden Bridge (Scottish child emigration):
http://www.iriss.ac.uk/goldenbridge/migration/transcripts.html


Home Children, Canadian Genealogy Centre: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogie/022-908.009-e.html

Home Children Project, British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO): http://www.bifhsgo.ca/home_children.htm

Young Immigrants to Canada, Marjorie P. Kohli: http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/homeadd.html

The British Home Children, Perry Snow, author of Neither Waif Nor Stray:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~britishhomechildren

Home Children, Carol Russell, TweetyBird’s Genealogy: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tweetybirdgenealogy/homechild.html

Emigration, see Section 18 - Child Emigration, National Archives of the U.K.:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/RdLeaflet.asp?sLeafletID=292&j=1#18

Child Emigration, Your Archives, National Archives of the U.K.: http://yourarchives.nationalarchives.gov.uk/index.php?title=Child_Emigration

Home Children, Olive Tree Genealogy: http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/can/ont/homekids.shtml

“Thy Children Own Their Birth: Diasporic genealogies and the descendants of Canada's Home Children” by Andrew Morrison, 2006. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham, England. Full text available on-line: http://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/archive/00000276

BritishHomeChildren Rootsweb E-mailing list: http://lists.rootsweb.ancestry.com/index/intl/CAN/BRITISHHOMECHILDREN.html

‘CHILD EMIGRATION’ AGENCIES

Barnardo’s – Making Connections: http://www.barnardos.org.uk/fosteringandadoption/fosteringandadoption_resources/fosteringandadoption_making_connections.htm

Barnardo’s Photo Archive: http://www.barnardos.org.uk/resources/photo_archive.htm

Quarrier’s, Genealogy: http://www.quarriers.org.uk/about/genealogy

Fairbridge Farm School, Fintry, BC: http://www.fintry.ca/history/fairbridge.php


‘HOME CHILDREN’ RESEARCH RESOURCES

Note* Some records may be restricted, for example, to proven direct descendants only. Some research may involve a fee.

The National Archives of the UK - Home Office, Poor Law Union and Board of Governor records (Some available at local archives, including workhouse records). Also passenger lists, outbound (see http://www.ancestorsonboard.com/ )

University of Liverpool, Special Collections -National Childrens Homes, Barnardo’s and Fairbridge Society records

Barnardo’s - case files, including some for Macpherson and Marchmont children, 1882-1939. Fee for search and copies.

Catholic Children’s Society Archives –records of homes and emigration, registers of Roman Catholic workhouse children, 1870-1920; generally 100 year closure rule

Fegan’s Homes - contact Douglas Fry (dvfry@primus.ca ) for an initial search of his Canadian home records database. Nominal fee.

Library and Archives Canada – inbound passenger lists, Home Children Database, copies of Inspection reports of the Immigration Branch Central Registry (1892-1946) and the Juvenile Inspection Reports (mainly 1920s – see index on TweetyBird Genealogy), and also the Middlemore Home records (see BIFHSGO website for index)

Archives of British Columbia – various records of Fairbridge Farm Schools in B.C. for example, administration 1935-1961 – case files of “student trainees”, pages from punishment book (1944-46 Cowichan Station), files of the Fairbridge Alumni Association and the Old Fairbridgian Association (1935-51). Also copies of some federal files.

Also U.K. and Canadian newspapers – for instance, ‘Newspaper clippings regarding home children’ TweetyBird Genealogy:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tweetybirdgenealogy/newspaperclipcanada.html

And the publications of each group involved, for example, the Canadian Barnardo magazine “Ups and Downs” (see TweetyBird Genealogy for a list of known copies) and the Fegan’s Homes newsletters (being reprinted & indexed – see Global Genealogy: http://globalgenealogy.com/countries/canada/home-children/resources/101041.htm )

For more research information, see

Young Immigrants to Canada, Marg Kohli: http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/homeadd.html

Home Children, Canadian Genealogy Centre: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogy/022-908.009-e.html

New Lives for Old by Roger Kershaw and Janet Sacks. (Includes also information on British child emigration to Australia and on World War II child evacuees)

For more historical information, see various reports concerning home children on microform from Canadiana.org (previously the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions). A few available free at Early Canadiana Online, for instance, “Canadian homes for London wanderers” by Annie Macpherson (original - London: Morgan, Chase & Scott: [1870?] ): http://www.canadiana.org/eco.php








TIMELINE


- Maria Rye buys property at Niagara on the Lake.

1869 - Rye brings first group on the ‘Hibernian’ - 100, aged 5 to 11.

1870 - Annie Macpherson brings 2 boys to Canada;
Marchmont Home at Belleville, Ontario set up.

- Father Nugent brings 35 children to Canada – 2 girls are 8; most 10-16.

1872 - Marchmont’s Blair Atholl farm opens at Galt, Ontario.

1872 - First group of Quarrier children to Canada – 64 boys.


1873 - First group of Middlemore children to Canada – 29 children.


1873 - First Stephenson group of children to Canada – 35 boys & 14 girls.


1874 - Local Government Board in Britain appoints Andrew Doyle to report on inspections. Many concerns covered in British papers.


Abt 1878 - All Quarrier and some other Scottish, and later Barnardo children go through Marchmont Homes. Ellen Agnes Bilbrough in charge. (Home closed 1925.)


1883 - First group of Barnardo children to Canada – 72 girls – one is four years old.

1884 - Fegan’s first group of childen to Canada – 10 boys, then same year 50 more.

1887 - Barnardo Farm set up at Russell, Manitoba.

1888 - Southwark Catholic Emigration Society opens home in Ottawa, Ontario.

1895 - George Everitt Green, Barnardo boy, found dead in Owen Sound, Ontario, inquest – cause: neglect, starvation, violence. Manslaughter trial – no decision?

1896 - Barnardo Home in Winnipeg, Manitoba opens.

1897 - Ontario passes ‘Act to Regulate the Immigration into Ontario of Certain Classes of Children’ – requires licensing and inspection four times a year.
- Catholic Emigration Society opens farm at Makinak, Manitoba.

1903 - Catholic Emigration Association formed – after a fact finding mission and report, sees spiritual, moral and material advantages for child emigrants to Canada.

1915-1920 - No organized child emigration.

1920 - British child emigration resumes – 581 children sent away.

1922 - Empire Settlement Act – Britain and Canada agree to pay $40 towards cost of sending each child overseas.

1924 - Canada – order in council prohibits unaccompanied emigrants under 14.

1935 - Fairbridge Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School opens at Cowichan Station, British Columbia.

1938 - Fairbridge Farm at Fintry in B.C.’s Okanagan opens.

1938 - Last? Quarrier group arrives on the ‘Duchess of Bedford’.

1948 - Fintry Farm closes.

1948 - Last ‘Barnardo boy’ arrives by air.

1949 - All Fairbridge farm schools close.


Sunday, November 15, 2009

84th Edition - What the Carnival of Genealogy Means to Me

Carnival of Genealogy Poster - courtesy footnoteMaven.

It’s time for the 84th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy. Created and managed by Jasia at Creative Gene, the Carnival is now three years old.


This Edition’s topic - What the Carnival of Genealogy Has Meant to You - was an opportunity to look back and reflect on when you first discovered the COG and when you first participated in it.

I think we genea-bloggers need to think a bit more about our own history – even Jasia isn’t sure how many people have participated over the years - and this topic is a way to ensure that we take note of the Carnival of Genealogy’s heritage.

My first Carnival post was on the last day of 2007. I’d been blogging since 2005. There weren’t many genealogists blogging then, but by late 2007, there were a good number and, after I met Thomas MacEntee of the Destination: Austin Family on-line, I was encouraged to enter the 'Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories'. I’ve always loved Christmas, so writing about it came fairly easily. Then it seemed very natural to participate in the Carnival of Genealogy with some of the same people. Very appropriately my first post was in the 2008 New Year’s Resolutions - the 15th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy hosted by Jasia. I believe I’ve participated in 27 since.

One of my very favourite Carnival topics was the 41st Edition in February 2008, ‘Dinner Guests from the Past', hosted by Jasia. My own post was 'Vancouver Style’, of course. (That's my home!) All these posts involved some thought and quite a bit of imagination as you'll see when you have a look.

In September of this year, I was the host for the 79th Edition, ‘Reunions’. This experience helped me to appreciate all Jasia’s hard work, but it was also a lot of fun for me and a great read for all! I’d certainly like to host another in 2010.

Since I’m intending to publish something for my family in a year (or two), Carnival topics have been a great way for me to organize shorter articles which can be developed further later. One Carnival, the 45th Edition hosted by Jasia in April 2008, ‘Cars as Stars!’ for which I wrote about 'Jenny, the Rogers' Family's Star Car!', is a favourite of my baby bother – he still has that car – so that’s one I worked up into a longer piece.

I certainly recommend that genea-bloggers participate in this Carnival. It’s a great way to ‘meet’ like minded people on-line and to have your own writing noticed by others. I love writing and reading posts with photographs, and any about women's history as well, but you’ll find yourself ‘stretching’ once in a while to write about an unfamiliar or even an uncomfortable topic. It’s much easier to do that in a familiar Carnival structure and from Carnival of Genealogy participants you’ll get supportive and helpful comments.

In fact, I think participating in the Carnival of Genealogy is a bit like getting together with family and old friends. When it’s late in the day, you all get to talking and laughing (usually) either sharing memories about the olden days’ – with all the ‘remember when s’ – and the ‘did you ever? s’ – or maybe you're all hotly debating what you think the future holds. This is just what we’re doing here in the Carnival of Genealogy. Come join us!



BATES, SCOTT family get together, in Montpelier, Vermont, at the Bates home, c. 1920.

Shown are - Front: Janet Muriel Scott, my mum, from Newdale, Manitoba, Canada; Edward Wallace Bates, my cousin.

Second row: Jeannette Bates, my cousin; May Janet (Wood) Scott from Nottawa, Ontario, Canada, born in Bean Hill, Connecticut, USA, my great grandmother; Amy Estella (Irwin) Scott from Newdale, my grandmother; Annie Pollock Scott, my great aunt, also from Nottawa.

Back: Hariotte Alice Louise, Hattie, (Scott) Bates, my great aunt, born in Nottawa; and Edward Kimball Bates, Hattie's husband, with their younger son, Kenneth Scott Bates.

Postcard, Made in Canada, black & white, unmailed. I believe the photographer was my grandfather, James Walter Scott from Newdale, born in Nottawa. People identified by Amy Estella Scott in the 1960s.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Treasure Chest Thursday - Samuel Wood, Ontario Canada c. 1905

Samuel WOOD, weaver, bee keeper, born 1820, Linthwaite, Yorkshire, England. He lived in Bean Hill (Norwich), Connecticut (1850s) and in Newark, New Jersey (1860s), and then near Nottawa, Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada where he died in 1908.

Embroidered frame made likely by either one of his daughters, Mary Janet (WOOD) SCOTT, or by one or both of her daughters, Harriott or Annie.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Smile for the Camera - The Adamsons and Scotts in Saskatchewan, circa 1920

Photograph identified in writing by Amy Estella (Irwin) Scott (1884-1983) as Shrine - Eurolite to Regina. Mr. Adamson and Muriel.
Note: In about 1960, my grandmother, Amy Estella Scott, showed me her photographs and identified them for me. At that time, I wrote down the names of people, places, etc. as she recalled them then. If anyone can shed any light on the place name? 'Eurolite', please let me know. The italicized identifications here were written on the photographs in my grandmother's hand,
earlier than 1960. The other names, etc. were added in my hand when we went through her photographs in about 1960. All photographs black and white; personal collections.

The theme for the 18th Edition of Smile For The Camera is 'Travel' - Show us your family and how they traveled.

My mum who was born in 1914 in Newdale, Manitoba, Canada, used to tell me about the road trips her family made to visit relatives in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario in Canada and in Vermont in the U.S.A.

She didn't recall a lot of details, although she had some cute stories - mostly about the relatives!



These three photographs were taken during a trip to Saskatchewan - I think, in about 1919-1920. The Scotts and Adamsons would have travelled by automobile, although I don't have a photograph I can identify (yet) as the one used on this trip. Besides Regina, they likely visited both my 'Auntie Grandma' (my mum's aunt, Maggie (Irwin) Drummond and her family at Belcarres and my mum's great aunt, Maggie (Carmichael) Graham and her family at Aberdeen.

What I'd like to stress here though is that Mum's family very often travelled with friends, or sometimes relatives. On this particular trip, they were with friends, Isabella (Waddell) and Charles Mitchell Adamson from Newdale.

Charles Mitchel Adamson was born in Pictou, Nova Scotia, in 1869. Isabella (Isabelle) Waddell was born in Ontario. They were married in 1898 in Manitoba. From about 1919, Charles owned the Dominion House on Main Street in Newdale. (His brother, John David Adamson, also lived in Newdale.) The 1916 Canadian Prairie census shows Charles and Isabella's family living together as: Charles M., boarding house keeper, aged 44; Isabella, 41, Elsie, 17; Rena, 15; Wilfred, 18; and Laurence, 10. It doesn't appear from these photographs that any of the Adamson children were on this trip.

[1916 Canadian Census, Manitoba, District 5, Sub District 10, Township 16, Range 20, W1. Source: 1916 Canada Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta database on-line. Manitoba, Marquette District 10; page 20; Family # 176. Digitized from Library and Archives Canada microfilm roll: T-21927. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2009. Accessed November 2009. See also Newdale 1870-1970, (Newdale Historical Society, 1970) and Waddell and Scott files, personal collection. ]


Photograph identified in writing by Amy Estella (Irwin) Scott (1884-1983) as Parliament Buildings, Regina [Saskatchewan, Canada]. J.W. Scott, Janet Muriel Scott.



Photograph identified by Amy Estella Scott (1884-1983) as Regina Fair, Mr. and Mrs. C. Adamson, Amy Estella Scott, Janet Muriel Scott.