Sunday, June 27, 2021

Sunday Strays - Victoria BC Canada- a 'Movie Snaps' street photograph

Here's another stray photograph from my collection. Sad to say, but no names at all.  The Movie Snaps stamp is on the back though with the address and phone #. And a #   7717

On the back is written in pencil - "To Mother hope you like it"



Certainly looks like 1940s/early 50s clothing to me. Someone doesn't look too happy there. A nice early fall - or more likely - an earlyish spring day in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada?

According to David Mattison's Camera Workers, the British Columbia photographers database, Movie Snaps was in business at 707 Yates St., Victoria from 1949 to 1951. 

The City of Victoria Archives doesn't seem to have any 'Movie Snaps' photographs listed, but there are online photos of Yates Street theatres

Sunday, May 23, 2021

Scots in Canada! The Scottish Indexes Conference

This weekend I was at the 10th Scottish Indexes Conference - not only to learn and enjoy, but also to talk about 'Scots in Canada'. 

The next Scottish Indexes Conference will be 10 July 2021 and you can register starting - now (free)! 

If you are doing Scottish genealogy and are not taking advantage of Scottish Indexes, do go there today and see all they offer - no charge, no need to login in. The latest news is that they've added another 107,729 records to their 'Criminal Database' - a research 'gold mine', as we say in British Columbia. And check out the Learning Zone where there's information on all the databases, and read the blog too.


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My Drummond cousin, William, in Saskatchewan, Canada, about 1915.

'Scots in Canada' is a topic 'close to my heart'. 

My own Scottish ancestors came in the 1830s/1840s and settled in the areas that became Victoria and Simcoe County in Ontario. (Scott/Gilchrist/Carmichael)  And many other Scottish relatives came as well, as did William's father, Alexander Steele Drummond, born in 1878 in Edinburgh.  

I will say it was very very hard to choose which Scottish-Canadian topics not to talk about at the Conference. Scots have been coming to Canada for a long, long time. Some think the first might have come with the Vikings (or even been 'Viking'). 

For this Scottish Indexes Conference, I wrote up a web link/book list - it's only about the topics I chose for this talk. But I hope it will be useful to some. 

I've received questions since, and expect to answer them all in the next few days. Let me know if you don't hear from me :-)  Or if you'd like a copy of the list. 

This is a holiday weekend here in Canada as it is in Edinburgh, Scotland. In Canada, we're celebrating both the birthday of Queen Victoria and of our own Queen Elizabeth II - and the start of summer! 

Happy Victoria Day, everyone! 







Sunday Strays - Unidentified girls at the beach - old fashion swimsuits...

 A lovely summer? photograph - no information at all with it. 


The location looks faintly familar to me. Please let me know if you have a guess!