I Missed My First Blogaversary!

I have been too busy to even notice that I have been blogging for a full year now, my blogaversary was yesterday and I missed it. I knew it was in February but I took my blogaversary icon off my site when I did my Christmas redecorating and forgot about it.

I started this blog a year ago because Sheri at Twig Talk and I belonged to the same genealogy group and she was always posting about blogging and how rewarding it was. Well, that group that we belonged to is now at another site and Sheri and another member, Norma, started their own group, Seeking Our Twigs. Since I was a regular, Sheri decided to make me a manager as well. So we three are managing a group of eleven members. We usually talk about the weather and other things going on in our lives, but we do brainstorming there as well. I follow the group in Google Reader, the same way that I follow the blogs. I don't miss the larger group at all since I've left, it has been replaced by a much larger group, Geneabloggers, where every member has their own website. I don't have to decide, I can be a big fish in a little pond as well as a little fish in a big pond!



Creative Commons License
Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Who Is "Genealogy" And What Can We Do To Protect Our Blogs?

Thomas MacEntee brought this subject to our attention last summer on the group on Facebook as well as at Geneabloggers. Splogs are created to direct traffic to their site which is full of stolen content. I was on Your Family Tree, a splog that Thomas MacEntee alerted us about and it was like deja vu, a lot of blog posts that I've read before. I haven't seen any of my posts out there yet but I searched and found a Follow Friday Geneabloggers post that mentioned my blog. I didn't take time to go through over 1800 genealogy posts that were there, so there probably is one. To people that aren't bloggers, the site looks like an authentic research site, but once you start searching, it is obvious that none of the material on the site is original.

I have posted my Creative Commons License on my website but I don't think anyone from these sites actually go to the sites to read them, so I am going to be putting my license on every blog post. It clearly states that it is not to be used on a commercial website. I hope that this makes them think twice about adding my content to their sites.



Creative Commons License
Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

2010 Winter Games Coming Soon...

The Geneablogger's 2010 Winter Games is starting in a few short days, time to get into shape. First thing I had to do was make my flag. I went to We Are Multicolored and created my flag. I decided on this flag, which represents Canada, where I was born and live, Great Britain, representing my English and Scottish roots, France, where my French-Canadian ancestors came from and my German ancestors are also represented with the British flag for my loyalist heritage.


Now that I have decided on my flag, I have to decide on which event or events I will be entering, I've never been very athletic, but these games focus on skills and endurance rather than physical strength. 

Another Somber Anniversary

Today is the anniversary of my father, Earl Douglas Hines`death 1926-1996 as well as my maternal grandmother, Ruby Fairbairn Allison 1912-1995.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Super Bowl of Genealogy

It's Saturday Night - time for some Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver!!

So, your mission, if you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible theme), is to:

1) Tell us about your dream game of the Super Bowl of Genealogy!

* Where would it be played?
* What teams would play?
* Who would be the head coaches?
* Who would be the stars of the game?
* Who would win?
* Who are the cheerleaders?
* If you were playing in the game, what would be your dream play?

2) Who do you think will win the NFL Super Bowl Colts-Saints game on Sunday? Your score prediction, please!

3) Post your thoughts on your own blog, on a Facebook comment or Note, or as a comment on this blog post.

My Superbowl would be played at Ellis Island and I would have the following teams: the Ancestry Factfinders vs the LDS Fanatics. Of course, the star of the Ancestry Factfinders would be Vital Stats and the star of the LDS Fanatics would be Census. Rootsmagic is coaching the Factfinders and PAF is the coach for the Fanatics. I believe that the Factfinders would dispell the Myths of the Fanatics with source citations and tackle the LDS Fanatics' Census and whack it for all it's worth.
Cheering on the Factfinders are all of the genealogists and family historians intersted in discovering the truth, and cheering on the Fanatics would be all of the Mormons trying to baptize as many people as possible. The Factfinders team would finally break down the Brickwall and make some connections with the Statue of Liberty play for a winning touchdown.

I think the Colts will beat the Saints 28:21.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

At least that's what I have found this week when my cousin Judy, guest author of the Remembrance Day post "Yield Not To Difficulties", suggested that we start doing our research of our common lines together. We've been sending emails a couple of times a day sharing documents and thoughts, correcting errors and finding sources to support the facts. I have a lot of documents, but she has her mother still living and with a wealth of family history and photos and a great memory.

We are concentrating on one of our common lines, her maternal grandmother, and my maternal great-grandmother and paternal great-grandmother, the Doans. We would like to find sources to support the facts and family stories so that the rest of the family will benefit from our research as well. Judy has already submitted one correction to the Doane Family Assn. genealogist with sources. The next supplement will contain the correction.

I created an online Google notebook to share with Judy that I can use on a smartphone when an idea pops into my head while I'm away from the computer. I can also record any notes in it when I am out at the library. The only problem with this notebook is that we can't use it to share images, so I made a group notebook on Springnote for this purpose. We also share our discoveries with family with updates on Facebook.

Hopefully, between the two of us, we will find some of the answers we are looking for.

Who Was Harriet's Father?

I have recently found my 3rd great-grandfather's obituary in The Essex Free Press. Linus Clark Doan was married three times and had eight surviving children. The mystery is that one of the surviving children, Allen Clark, or AC as he was known, (my maternal great-great-grandfather) swore out an affidavit that he was the uncle of my granduncle, Harriet's son, and was present shortly after his birth, but there's no mention in the obituary of my paternal great-grandmother, Harriet Fernetta Doan.



I looked in the archives for my great-grandmother's obituary because it might solve the mysery of who her parents were. The front page of the paper where it is doesn't display, just an error page. I know it's there because the death announcement is in the paper. I can even see a thumbnail of the front page so I know it is on microfilm.

What I do know about Harriet Fernetta Doan Hines is in the censuses. She was born in Ohio on December 4th, 1854 and came to Ontario in 1855. She was married on May 18, 1872 to John Haines in Welland, Ontario. By 1891 census the family was in Aldborough Twp, Elgin County still listed as Haines. By 1901 census, the family was in Maidstone Twp., Essex County listed as Hines. She had thirteen children, five sons and eight daughters. Harriet Doan Hines died on December 20, 1935 and is buried at Woodslee/Jarriet Cemetery, where most of her children are buried.

Was she born before Linus met Hannah Maude, his first wife? Was Hannah sent to Canada by her parents because of a scandal ? Who was my grgrgrandfather, if not Linus Doan?

Doing A Little Redecorating Today

Now that I have decided to make Blogger my main blog, I see that they added a feature that I liked about Wordpress, adding pages. (Maybe someone at Blogger read my post??) So I have been creating some new pages. I have my surnames, which were at the bottom of my blog, had to do a lot of scrolling to get to them, so I put them on a separate page. Then I made an About Me page and now I think I'll make a page for the Geneablogger's Winter Games coming up.

I want to add some colour to my blog as well, it is too plain for my liking. I haven't decided if I want to change the background colour or add a picture to the page, so I'll be experimenting today.

Surname Saturday - Desbiens

I am searching for any of my grandmother's sibling's family. My grandmother, Josephine, was born in Essex County in 1897. Her family was from the Charlevoix Quebec area and came to Essex County, Ontario about 1890. John Desbiens and Celina Tremblay had a large family but I don't know much about them other than what I have from obituaries. As far as I know, three of her oldest siblings were born in Quebec, the rest were born in Essex County.

John and Celina Tremblay Desbiens' family:

Marie Louise, born 1884, died before 1891 census
Joseph, born 1885, married Aurize Laliberte in Belle River on Oct. 15, 1912, she died a year later during choldbirth
Emile,born 1890
Louis Thomas
Medard married Marie Girard in Bele River on Oct. 20, 1914
Eugene, born 1893
Delia, born 1893
Adelina Debrah
Ercules
Josephine, born 1897, married Wm.E. Hines, Oct. 6,1917
Celina married Walter Randall in Belle River on Jan.16, 1912
John J.,born 1901
Eva, born 1905

If you are researching these families or have any information about them, please leave a message or contact me.

1921 Enumerations in Canada

I found an article in the local newspaper archives about the coming enumerations in Canada in June of 1921 and I can't wait for it to come out. According to the article, the census is supposed to collect more agricultural information about the individual families, not just the farmers, but anyone who has a backyard garden has to show how much produce the garden yielded, even if there was just one plant, they wanted to know about it.

Here's a transcription:

Information About Census

Arrangements are already going forward under the direction of the Dominion government preparing the way for the official census of the whole of Canada immediately after June 1st. In order that our readers may have some idea of what to be prepared for in the way of questions, we have summarized the following information to think over in the meantime. The enumeration will begin by finding out exactly every man, woman and child in the Dominion at the hour of midnight when May 31st is giving place t0 June 1st. If you have a patch of garden no bigger than a man's hand that grows one currant bush capable of producing one quart of berries, that quart will swell the total. If you have a brood of the most tiny chickens. so will they. For not only must the farmer make complete returns of almost every blade of grass, but so must the town folks of the products of their gardens and their hen houses. The Essex enumerators have received implicit instructions from Ottawa about making the census.There are really four forms to be filled in as follows: 1. Covering the ordinary household or place of permanent residence. 2. Covering deaf mutes and blind people. 3.Covering business firms, giving the class of business (wholesale, retail or manufacturing) and the kind or nature of the business. Covering products other than those grown on farms. So that the Essex people will have to supply details as to the number of horses, mules, cattle, poultry, bees, gardens, and hot houses, fruit trees and fruit. They will have to tell the number of apple, plum, pear and cherry trees that flourished in their back yards during 1920, and the tonnage of each fruit tree harvested, also how many quarts or boxes of small fruit such as grapes, strawberries and raspberries they gathered in. The ordinary form (No.1) which the enumerator will fill in at every house has some 34 details to be filled in as follows: Names of each person in the house, street, town. Is the house owned or rented. If rented, what rent.Class of houses. Materials of construction.Rooms occupied by family. Relationship to head of family. Sex, single or married. Age last birthday. Where person born. Where father born.Where mother born. If born outside of Canada, year of immigration. If a foreigner, year of naturalization. Nationality, racial or tribal origin. Can speak English. Can speak French. Can speak any other language. Religious denomination.Can read. Can write. Months at school since September 1920 (children). Chief occupation or trade. Employer, employees working on own account. Total earnings in past twelve months.If out of work on June 1st,1921. Number of weeks unemployed in the past twelve months. Number of weeks unemployed from June 1st 1920 because of illness. The enumerator has to go into every house in Essex to get this information. The principal is simple, where a man sleeps, there will his census be taken. The census enumerators are very insistent that peoples should understand that facts or answers given to enumerators my not be used except for statistical compilation ( the rest is illegible).