Cemeteries in Quebec, Canada

My family just got back from a 4 day trip to my in-laws house in Lambton, Quebec, Canada. Is anyone else researching Quebec, Canada? Are you having trouble finding information on the cemeteries there? I have been. Even on the online maps, the cemeteries may be greyed areas, but they don't say the name of the cemetery. It made it hard to research ahead of time where I wanted to visit.

While there, I got my "boys" to go to three cemeteries with me. I already knew where they were and had even briefly been to 2 of the 3. My husband didn't understand why I was taking so many photos, but the first and last names all seem so common that once I get there I'm confused who I'm looking for. What's the problem with taking lots of photos anyway? They're all digital, so they're free. I was already looking at all the stones so it didn't take that much more time to snap a quick photo to study on the computer when I got home if it was a surname I was researching. Since the Drouin collection on Ancestry generally stops at 1930 (at least in the parishes I've been working in), the gravestones seem the easiest way to find the more recent dates. Maybe I should redefine "easiest". Easiest given that you don't mind driving 5-1/2 hours, have nice in-laws that let you use their house there for free and can whine enough to get your family to let you spend some time in the cemeteries. Ha-ha!

So, the verdict is in. I did take a lot of photos of people that I can't connect to the family right now but I also found a number of his direct ancestors and siblings of them.

I've started working on putting them on FindAGrave already. That site is sure hard to use for Canada. It lumps all the provinces together so you can't search on just Quebec when you're looking for a cemetery. Also, the cemeteries are getting put in inconsistantly. Some are "Blah Cemetery", some are "Cimetiere Blah" and others are "Cimetière Blah" (the last one with the accent is correct as far as the French goes, but not so sure it's correct on FindAGrave). Then, the accents on the names are another whole matter. I guess I'm entering them without them, but I hate doing so. When I started to post the photos, I even found that someone else had listed some of the names that I took photos for, so I posted the photos to go with those listings and am glad I could help someone else.

If anyone knows of a great site to see maps of Quebec towns with the cemeteries displayed, please post it to the comments! That would sure help make the most of a limited amount of time if some of the location research could be done ahead.

Free access to old newspapers

I've recently been enjoying the free newspapers at Fulton NY Postcards (don't let their website name fool you). They have tons of old New York newspapers scanned and available for browsing or searching. This includes papers from Glens Falls, New York. I even found some need obituaries from other areas of New York too.

I was particularly taken by this gem that I found about my second great-grandfather, Deranzel Henry, who rescued a drowning boy in the Battenkill River.



Since I'm writting about free access, Footnote is giving free access to their newspaper collection this month, so make sure to go do some searches before May is over.

Vermont Vital Records coming to Ancestry

In my last post when I was discussing the New Hampshire vital records project (which the births are now indexed and online on Family Search), I mentioned that I was hoping for Vermont to be next.

Well, although it's not free for all on Family Search, I did receive a promotional email from Ancestry.com stating that Vermont vital records were coming soon. I'm excited that this great resource will soon be available. Horray!

In the meantime, did you know that the Vermont State Archives are willing to look up a record for you for free? Click here and then chose the Informational Copies link on the right to download a form to fill out and email back.

They've often emailed the record back within a week of my requesting it. Kudos to Vermont! I wish more states were as kind to genealogists as you are.

Genealogy Rip-Offs!

Dick Eastman posted a great article today on Genealogy Rip-offs. He actually lists some of them to stay clear of. It's worth your time to read. It's shameful what some people will do to get money.

You can read the article here on Dick's blog.

Druin collection now indexed! Hooray!

Ancestry announced yesterday that their Druin collection in their World subscription is now INDEX! I am so excited. I sat down last night and found baptism and burial dates for a number of my husband's ancestors.

The Druin collection is Canadian church records from 1850 to 1967. I had mentioned a while back that I had been browsing through parishes to find all the children and such. The problem with browsing that if they moved, you don't always know what parish to look through. Now with the index, that is greatly simplified.

It's a great day for Canadian researchers!

Ancestry Drouin collection

Ancestry putting Rootsweb under it's domain

There has been lots of buzz in the genealogy community in the past few weeks about Rootsweb. Ancestry, who is the provider of Rootsweb, has decided to move all the Rootsweb services under their Ancestry domain name. A lot of it looked like increasing their rank by increasing their page views. Many, however, took the view that Ancestry was trying to steal the free resources on Rootsweb and moved their USGenWeb pages elsewhere (although Ancestry denied this would happen).

There is a neat article on Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings blog that shows the trends of visits to the various genealogy sites that I found quite interesting. Check it out:

Genea-Musings: 5-year statistics for Ancestry.com traffic

Free Online Sample of Discovering Family History Magazine

There's a new magazine from the publishers of Family Chronicle, History Magazine and Internet Genealogy. It's called Discovering Family History.

It's more designed to help get people started with the basics of research, but even more advanced genealogists may find some useful ideas.

You can download a free issue at their website at http://www.discoveringfamilyhistory.com/freepreview.htm.