52 Ancestors: Week 28 - Acadian Research

This week's 52 Ancestors prompt is "Reunion". If you have Acadian Ancestry, then you probably know that this year is the Congres Mondial Acadien (CMA). Held every four years, it is a huge celebration for those with Acadian roots. Each one is hosted by a different region of the original Acadian settlers. This year's celebration runs from August 10 to 24, and the host communities are spread across Prince Edward Island and southeastern New Brunswick. I'm a little disappointed not to be able to go, as my maternal side settled in Shippegan and Memramcook. Along with other special events, there are family reunions scheduled across the host areas. These reunions are held for any descendants of a particular Acadian surname. So far the list of reunions scheduled are:

• Arsenault
• Babin
• Babineau(x)-Granger
• Barrieau/Barriault
• Belliveu/Beliveau
• Boudreau/Boudrot/Boudreault/Boudreaux/Budrow
• Bourgeois/Bourjeois/Bushway/Bushwa/Blaise/Burgess
• Breau/Breault/Breaud/Breaux/Bau/Braux/Breault/Braud/Bro/Brod/Brot/Brough/Brow/Browe
• Broussard
• Caisse/Caissey/Quessy/Roger
• Chevarie/Chavarie/Cheverie/Chevary/Etcheverie/D'Etcheverie
• Cormier
• Cyr
• Daigle/D'Aigre/Desgre/Deagle
• Damour/D'Amour/D'Amours
• Duguay/Dugue/Dugay/Dougay
• Forest/Foret/Forrest
• Gaudet
• Gauvin/Gauvain/Govan/Govang/Gavin/Govin
• Girouard/Giroir/Gerrior and the Acadians of Tor Bay
• Goguen/Bristol dit Williams
• Granger
• Guedry/Guidry/Gaidry/Geddry/Jeddry/Labine/Labean/Petipas/Pettipas/Pitts
• Hache/Hachey/Hachez/Hashi/Hashie/Ache/Achee/Gallant/Galland/Gallan/Galan
• Hebert
• Landry/Londere/Landre/Laundry/Londre/Londry
• LeBlanc
• Leger/Legere/Trahan
• Mallet/Mallais/Malley
• Maillet
• Martin
• Melanson
• Morin
• Richard
• Robichaud/Robicheau/Robichaux/Robicheaux/Robichon/Robichung/Robshaw/Robertshaw/Robinson
• Roy
• Thibodeau/Thibodeaux/Thibaudault/Thibault/Thibaut/Thibeault

If your tree is like mine, you would have a hard time deciding which ones to go to! I have most of these surnames in my tree.

There's still time to plan your trip. You can visit the CMA's website to get all the details. Even if going isn't in the cards for you, it doesn't mean you can't spend some time researching your Acadian ancestors instead. So I decided to list some great websites to further your Acadian research.

Nova Scotia Archives

This is a great resource if your researching your earliest Acadian ancestors. New Brunswick used to be part of Nova Scotia, so a lot of the Acadian research you want will be part of the Nova Scotia Archives. While not everything they have is online, they have some great online collections. I wrote a blog post back in 2017 on their online Acadian collections. You can see my post here. mt particular favourite in the digitization and indexing of The Registers of St. Jean-Baptiste, Annapolis Royal, 1702-1755 in the collection called An Acadian Parish Remembered.

Acadian & French-Canadian Ancestral Home

This website is run by Lucie LeBlanc Consentino. Lucie is a well respected Acadian speaker and researcher, and her website has fully sourced information on Acadians both pre and post deportation. She has compiled information on:

• Cemeteries
• DNA
• Census records
• History
• First Nations and Metis
• Deportation Records
• Book Lists
• Newspapers
• The Jesuits
• Research Aids
• Births, Marriages, and Deaths

If you descend from the LeBlanc family, Lucie has also compiled information on them as well. 

Acadian-Cajun Genealogy & History

Run by Tim Hebert, this is another amazing website to help further your research. Tim gives detailed information on the history and life of Acadians and Cajuns. Among his gems are:

• Census transcriptions
• Links and microfilm numbers at provincial archives for church records
• Information on obtaining notarial records
• Genealogies
• How-to's
• Links to other websites

This website does not appear to have been updated in quite awhile, so some information is out of date. However, it is a fantastic starting point for your research.

Les Amis de Grand-Pre

This society promotes Acadian culture and history in the Grand-Pre area. On their website you can access information such as articles, maps and transcriptions of records from the region. In particular, you should look at their transcriptions of the only 3 surviving registers of St-Charles-des-Mines. There are both English and French versions, so don't worry if your French isn't very good. To help you out, here are the links to the PDFs of the English versions:

• Baptisms of St-Charles-des-Mines
• Marriages of St-Charles-des-Mines
• Burials of St-Charles-des-Mines

You'll also want to look at the births, marriages, and deaths for St-Joseph-de-la-Rivière-aux-Canards. There is some dispute as to whether the people here were part of the St-Charles-des-Mines parish, or were a parish of their own. These entries are a compilation of other sources.

These are just a few sites to help your research. Check out my tab of Acadian Research Links for more sites. If you have any to add, feel free to provide links in the comment section.

52 Ancestors: Week 27 - Finding Ancestors in Yukon Newspapers

This week's 52 Ancestors theme is "Independent". When I think independent, the first thing that comes to my mind is those that settled in the Yukon. Whether the attraction was the gold rush in last years of the 19th century, or homesteaders going off the grid in the 20th and 21st centuries, the Yukon has always attracted those with an independent spirit.

One of the problems with Yukon research is that the records just aren't there like in the more settled areas of Canada. According to Statistics Canada, the population of the Yukon in 2017 was estimated to be just under 40,000. That's present day. Can you imagine how sparsely populated it was in the late 1890s, when 100,000 gold seekers descended on the area in the space of 3 years.

Though civil registration started in the Yukon in about the same time as the Gold Rush, it was sporadic at best. It wasn't until about 1930 that it was a standard practice to record births, marriages and deaths. Early church records are dependent on the diligence of the missionaries. Anyone who has tried to research missionary church records in other areas of Canada know that they can be haphazard at best, and non existent at worst.

Newspapers were an important source of information for the sparsely populated areas in general. I imagine they would have been especially important for those in the Yukon. Even if your ancestor didn't permanently settle in the Yukon, newspapers might your best chance of finding a record of them while they passed through. Here's a few interesting tidbits I found looking through Yukon newspapers:

In Dawson City in 1903, there was a growing problem of "women offenders":

Apparently in 1901 in Whitehorse, a Mr. Fred Trump felt the need to let everyone know that he no longer employed a Mr. Ernest Levin, and was no longer responsible for the man's debts:

Here's one about a young man having his feet frozen from the Klondike Nugget in 1898. He had falsely been reported dead in Seattle newspapers.

So where to find newspapers?

Google News Archive
This is an underused resource by many genealogists i general. They have several runs of digitized newspapers from the Yukon. These are not complete runs by any means. However, the digital images are incredibly clear and sharp. I've provided links to the newspapers I've found:

• Dawson Daily News  1901, 1903-1924
• The Dawson Record 1903
• The Yukon Sun (Dawson) 1899-1904
• The Yukon World (Dawson) 1904-1905
• The Weekly Star (Whitehorse) 1903 and 1904
• Whitehorse Star 1901-1904

Yukon Archives

The Yukon Archives has both microfilmed and original newspapers. Along with Yukon newspapers, they also have collections of newspapers from cities in North America that were also affected by the Gold Rush. They participate in inter library loan, which is exciting. You can find their contact information here. This is what their website says about their newspaper collection:

...The newspaper collection consists of over 50 individual mastheads, including the Dawson Daily News, 1899-1953; Klondike Nugget, 1898-1903; Yukon Sun, 1899-1904; Whitehorse Star, 1901-to date, and other early Yukon newspapers in their original form and on microfilm. To augment local coverage, the Archives has microfilm of 1897-1898 papers from major North American cities which were affected by the Gold Rush; such as Seattle, San Francisco, Edmonton and Vancouver. The Archives also subscribes to more than 40 northern oriented current newspapers, including Yukon community papers...

The Yukoner
This free history magazine has biographies, historical accounts, photos and stories. They were 32 issues, and they are free to download from the site.


Canadiana
Of course Canadiana would have digitized newspapers. Is there anything this site doesn't have? A search of Yukon newspapers gave me:

• Yukon Daily Morning World The years stated say 1853-1855, but what I saw were dates in the early 1900's
• The Klondike Nugget 173 issues from 1898-1900
• Klondike Morning Times 2 issues from 1897

While searching for your Yukon adventurer, don't forget to check out Northern British Columbia and Alaskan newspapers. Both places often reported on what was going on in the Yukon. This is especially true not only during the Gold Rush, but when the Alaska Highway was being built.

52 Ancestors: Week 26 - Historic Maps at Island Imagined

This week's 52 Ancestors prompt is "Legend". This was a tough one for me with the parameters I set myself of focusing on research sources instead of my personal family history. So I started thinking and realized that the explanation of symbols on a map is called the legend. I remembered a site I had come across for historic maps, and decided to highlight them this week.

IslandImagined is a collaboration between the Prince Edward Island Public Archives and Record Office, the Prince Edward Island Museum and Heritage Foundation, and the Robertson Library of the University of Prince Edward Island. The site has digitized maps from all three institutions going back to as early as 1574. Though they mainly feature PEI maps, I've also found maps for other provinces as well.

http://www.islandimagined.ca/

You have the option of browsing their collection of over 1,000 maps by browse all, atlases, by county or by type. You can also search for something specific by using the search bar at the top right

Atlases
There are three atlases that have been digitized on the site:

• Roe Brothers Atlas - 1878
• Meachams Atlas - 1880
• Cummins Atlas - 1928

Pick which Atlas you like to look at, and then they have provided links for each map in the atlas. Nice feature, as there is no scrolling page by page. 

The Roe Brothers Atlas features maps of PEI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Confederation was only 11 years old when this was published, so these are an interesting look at a very young Canada. 

Meachams Atlas give detailed maps of Prince Edward Island. It acts as a directory, giving historical sketches of the province. It has a Patron's Directory, biographical sketches, and details about landmarks. It even has a map of the Province of Manitoba. Again, this is from a time when Canada was young, so the two maps of the Dominion of Canada (East and West) are an interesting look.

The Cummins Atlas also focuses manily on PEI, but you can also find maps of each province, and countries around the world. They even have one of the Western Battle Front from World War I. The one I found quite interesting was a world map titled The World Showing Principal Nations' Colonial Posessions.

by County

Here you can browse by three counties: Prince, Kings, and Queens. Select a County, then narrow your search further by the menu on the right. The options are 

• region
• city
• subject 
• genre

 I did notice mixed in there some Nova Scotia and New Brunswick maps.

by Type

This one is my favourite, as you can see just the incredible range of maps offered:

• boundary maps
• cadastral maps
• chorographic maps
• fire insurance maps
• geographical maps
• geological maps
• historical atlases
• plans
• topographical maps

You can then narrow by county, region, city, and/or subject. There are some great finds in this collection. Among the chorographic maps I found a 1757 map of Acadia in French. If you have Acadian ancestry, as I do, then you know one of the challenges can be reconciling the Acadian French place names with their English counterparts today. This map will help me pinpoint ancestor locations.



Next to the Browse tab is the Interactive tab. You have three options here: Map Overlays, Map Timeline, and Island Timeline.

Map Overlays
What a cool feature! There are four digital maps that you can click on, and they will overlay it on a Google Maps image. The four maps are:

• Plan of Lot 34 (No.90). Montgomery estate. Working Plan (undated)
• Plans of Lots 33, 34, 35 (1835)
• Charlottetown, Fire Insurance Plan (1917)
• Meachams Atlas. Lots 33 and 34 (1880)

Map Timeline

This looks to be a work in progress. It took me a few minutes to figure it out. What you want to do is scroll the blue box above the years at the bottom of the timeline

http://www.islandimagined.ca/maptimeline

As you scroll through the years, maps will pop up.

Island Timeline

This one works the same way as the map timeline. However, as you scroll through the years blue dots will appear with a subject heading. Click on the blue dot and it will give you an event in the Island's history. 

http://www.islandimagined.ca/timeline

If you're a trivia buff like I am, you'll love this feature.

The tab next to Interactive is Learn more. You can choose FAQ, Learning Guides, Working with Maps, Articles, and Online Books.

FAQ

As the title suggests, this gives answers to general questions about the site itself.

Learning Guides

There are four guides here in both English and French for you to familiarize yourself with using maps in your research:

• A Brief Guide to Map Elements
• Mapping the Discovery and Development of Prince Edward Island
• Cartographic records and genealogical research
• Maps as resources for Landscape and Land Use History

Working With Maps

This page appears to be a work in progress.

Articles

There are links to six articles. They deal with history, maps, and land records. These can be downloaded as PDFs to your computer. The article titles are:

• Burke, A. E. (1899, October). Jacques Cartier's first voyage and the landing at Cascumpec. Prince Edward Island Magzine. 1(8), 294-298.
• Prince Edward Island in 1765. (1901, June). Prince Edward Island Magazine. 3(4), 121-126.
• Prince Edward Island in 1765 - Continued. (1901, July). Prince Edward Island Magazine. 3(5), 169-172
• Boylan, J. (2005, Fall/Winter). The Best Laid Plans: Fire Insurance Mapping on Prince Edward Island. Island Magazine. 58, 23-27.
• Coles, A. (1989, Spring/Summer). A Beginner's Guide to Island Land Records. Island Magazine. 25, 35-41.
• Holman, H. T. (1988, Fall/Winter). Panorama for Sale: The Bird's Eye Views of Prince Edward Island. Island Magazine. 24, 14-18.

Books Online

This section has links to some historic books relating to Prince Edward Island. Clicking the links will take you to a viewer where you can scroll page by page. The books included are:

• Douglas, R., & Geographic Board of Canada. (1925). Place-names of Prince Edward Island with meanings. Ottawa: F. A. Acland, Printer to the King.
• Rayburn, A., & Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical Names. (1973). Geographical names of Prince Edward Island. Ottawa: Information Canada. 
• Chipman, W. (1924). The Life and Times of Major Samuel Holland, Surveyor-General, 1764-1801. Reprint from the  Ontario Historical Society Papers and Records XXI.
• Official motor guide of Prince Edward Island. (1928)
• Automobile routes with road map and mileage chart. (1935).