Fille du Roi as Occupation?

 

If you have roots in 1600s Quebec, you likely have a few Filles du Roi or Filles a Marier on your tree. 

 

I did the genealogy of the family of a friend and they had many Filles a marier and Filles du Roi on their tree. I wanted to highlight them in my genealogy report. I found that the easiest way to keep track of them and make a list was to put Fille du Roi or Fille a Marier as an Occupation fact for that person. 

I am a big fan of the free program FT Analyzer for it's great features. I downloaded the gedcom for the above tree and uploaded it to FT Analyzer, then clicked on Occupations...

You can see that on this tree there are 10 Filles a Marier and 8 Filles du Roi. Clicking on the the occupation will give a list of persons with that occupation. This one is for the Filles a marier.

Although I have no Filles du Roi, I find it handy when looking on my tree for my ancestors that had a certain occupation.

The trick is to be consistent with how you write the occupation. You can see in the sample above I wrote the occupation mason three ways... mason, maçon, maitre maçon, whereas I was more consistent with the soldiers, starting the occupation with Soldat.

Filtering your Tags in your Ancestry Tree.

 

You have used the Tag feature in Ancestry - so how can that help you?

When I establish a DNA match or connection on my Ancestry tree I make sure to tag either the match or the connection, or sometimes both. 

I wanted to find all the people on my tree that have DNA connections, or are a DNA match, so I used the Tag Filters

Go to Tree View on your tree. It doesn't matter if it is family view or pedigree view.

Click on Tree Search (top right), then Filters.

Then choose DNA tags, and you can choose one of three... common ancestor, connection or match. I didn't necessarily want to know the common ancestor, but the person in my tree that the match is descended from. So I will choose DNA Connection.

Click Done. I get a list of all the 15 people I tagged as a DNA connection.

You can do this with all your Tags. I made custom Tags for people that I have found their will. 

I Tag someone when I have ordered their will and change it to Have Will when I receive it. So using the filter Have Will gives me a list of those 11 ancestors.

You can use one of the many pre-set tags that are offered in the four different categories, or you can create custom tags for whatever suits your purpose.

Media Files in Family Tree Maker

 

I have seen people commenting many times in genealogy Facebook groups that they don't like to upload their gedcom to FTM because they can't get the media. That's because all has to be done from the Family Tree Maker program. 

Here is how to get media attached to people on Family Tree Maker.

First open Family Tree Maker and  make sure your uploader is up to date.

Next, make sure you are logged in to Ancestry.

Here some people make the mistake of going to Ancestry, downloading a gedcom of their tree, then importing the tree into Family Tree Maker. You can do that, but you will not get the media files. 

 

Next go to the Ancestry leaves in the top right hand corner and click on Download from Ancestry.

From the new screen you choose your tree that you want to download and follow instructions. This takes a long time when it comes to the downloading media part. You can do other things on your computer in the  meantime, just don't close the FTM screen.

When I downloaded my FTM program I saved the folder in Documents. All the media that downloads with my tree goes in that Family Tree Maker folder creating another folder named the same as your tree... here is it named Seale Family Tree Media

Once the program is finished downloading the media, you are set to go. When you click on a person you can see the media for that person. Here I chose my 2x ggf Andrew Smith Tait. You can see he has 20 facts and 16 media.

Any records, images, and stories will download with the tree. Since they are now downloaded onto your computer, they are there to stay, even if you do not renew your membership. The only thing it seems that does not download are all the Web Links I had attached to each person. 

One thing I WISH I had done from the beginning of time, is rename the media as it was attached in Ancestry. Now, for example, in the Seale Family Media Files folder there are 93 images named Lancashire, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1911. I would have to open each one to see who it belonged to. Something to add to my To Do list. 

How to search newspaper articles (and more) at BAnQ

 

Many people are finding it daunting to search for newspaper articles at BAnQ. It is not just the language, but also the format. Here I will try to help you navigate the site, as I know in genealogy it is much more rewarding when you can find what you want by yourself. 

To check availability go to the List of Newspapers and click on the area you are looking for and you will get a list of available titles and years. There is no point searching for what is not there. With that in mind, be aware that some articles may have been published in a larger city newspaper. My ancestor had lived most of his life in the Sherbrooke area but his retirement years were spent in the US with his daughter. His obituary was in the Sherbrooke papers. (note: most English Eastern Townships news will be in the Sherbrooke papers)

Getting there

First of all, since most of the site is in French, I recommend searching using the Chrome browser, as you can easily translate into English or any language with just a click. 

In the search bar of your browser type banq numerique to bring up the site. Right click anywhere on the page and choose Translate. If it does not come up as English or the language you want, click on the three dots and choose your language.

In the Search bar where it says All, click on the dropdown menu and choose Quebec Heritage / Reviews and Newspapers. Now you can either type a name in the search box, or just leave it blank, then click on the search symbol.

Searching the website

First search by name. Then to reduce results use the filters on the right of the red bar. Clicking anywhere on the red bar will open or close the filter section. Use Proximity Search to find the two keywords together. Click on Title to choose the newspapers for your area (you can choose more than one). Start to type a title, or use the scroll bar on the right. Click on the Date filter to choose the year, or a range of dates for an obituary or article. Give it a minute to load the whole paper and it will go to the first page the name appears on - which may not be the page you want. Then scroll down, checking for the highlighted words until you find what you are looking for.

A regional paper might not have an obituary column, but it may be written under the town name. Taking Sherbrooke again as an example... the births and deaths column may list only Sherbrooke residents, but I found a nice long obituary under Waterville, the village where they lived. 

Sometimes the newspaper did not digitize well because the print may be too blurred for the OCR software (Optical Character Recognition). Then it is recommended to browse the newspapers you think the article or obituary may have appeared in. 

With no name in the search box, follow the above steps to choose Title and range of Dates. With, or instead of the Title, you can try Place Represented. Once I choose a newspaper, I always go to the front page first to see if there is an index telling me which page the obituaries are on. Some older papers have no index and you have to browse each page.

If you are searching for an accident or other than an obituary, use those keywords in your search.

Once you get used to navigating the site, there is so much more to explore than newspaper articles. Another thing to try is use the top drop down menu to look at notary records, maps and plans or texts. Using texts I searched Ile Reaux and came up with some interesting old documents about where my ancestors lived. Searching a New France surname could bring up affidavits, certificates, guardianships, and trials! 

Use your imagination for keywords and don't limit yourself. 

Note:  If you are a resident of Quebec you can register for a free subscription, which will allow you to save your searches, borrow digital books, and gives you access to all their remote services. There is a charge for non-residents. 

Searching on a mobile

Using a mobile phone is a little different than on the website but you pretty much navigate as above. Clicking on the red bar takes you back and forth to the filters and the results. Again, if you use Chrome you can use the translate to switch to English.

Use Ancestor Projects to try to break your brick wall

 

When you upload your dna data to GEDmatch you may get an overwhelming amount of matches from just about every genealogy dna company.

There is a way to narrow down the pool and connect with those that may hold the key to your success in breaking your brick wall. GEDmatch has many tools to help you, and I like the Ancestor Project tool. 

Ancestor Projects is still marked as new though it has been around for a little while now, and there are many projects to choose from. There are DNA projects for countries, areas within a country, surnames, ethnic groups, etc. 

I have joined a few, one being the county in Ireland where my Seale family is from. I also joined a group for Lanakrshire, Scotland as I am stuck on my Thomson line in and around Glasgow.

Here's how it works.  Under DNA Applications click on Ancestor Projects. 

Scroll down to the projects available, looking at the name of the project and the description. When you find one that may help you click the Join button, answer the questions and give your GEDmatch number. You will hear back from the group within a day or two and then follow their instructions. 

Most of these projects are connected to a Facebook group or a website, where you can connect with your matches within that group. Others you may have to email the administrator. 

TIP: If you are trying to go waaay back you may try lowering the threshold to 5 or 6.

Notes and Comments on Ancestry

NOTES

On your tree at a person’s profile you can click Tools, View Notes, and you can write anything you want there. Only you can view the notes, and the people that you invite to be Editor on your tree. No other people can see your notes.

View Comments will give you the same box and you can choose Tags, Notes or Comments.

COMMENTS

Many of us have had this experience…

You know, with evidence, that a line on your tree is correct and you see other people have put the wrong people on their tree. I have seen trees with right guy with right wife and right children and right dates, but with wrong parents. Or right parents and wrong wife. Others have perpetuated these errors. What do you do?

This is how I handle this situation.

First I message the people and gently, politely tell them what is wrong, why I think so and ask if they could please make changes. After a while when I see the message is read, they don't reply, and no changes are made I will send another message saying if they want I can email them the evidence. Still no change? Then I take measures they may not like.

On their page I go to Tools, View Comments and there I write a comment detailing why it is wrong. Then a number shows up by the person’s name letting people know that there is a comment there. Anyone else researching that person can read the comment and know there is a discrepancy. They will see who made the comment and can then message them for clarification. 

UPDATE 2023: Ancestry made changes to the Comments feature and now tree owners can delete comments on a tree they own. Argh! 

The great thing about this… the tree manager can not delete the comment. Only the person who writes the comment can edit or delete it. The tree manager can hide the comment, but it is only hidden to them, not to others looking at their tree.

If the tree manager asks me to delete the comment I reply that I don’t want others copying the errors and I will delete the comment  once they make the appropriate changes to their tree. Or if they say nothing and I go back and the changes were made I will delete the comment and thank them.

Sometimes I write comments on a profile myself. I do this if I am not sure of something, or if there is a discrepancy in dates or names. This way anyone looking at my tree can see the comment, whereas if I wrote a note no one would know.

What would you use notes and comments for?

Publications from the National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland has a collection on Internet Archive with thousands of items comprised of books, maps, manuscripts and more. 

Use the small search box on the left to search the collection. Click on the lines to the left of the sort bar to see list view.

 

The items include, but are not limited to...

Directories and Almanacs

The Border Counties Directory

Family Histories and Genealogies

County Registers 

Military Lists (army, navy, air force)

Honor Rolls

Dictionaries

Relevant Link

National Library of Scotland 

Related Post: Scotland Genealogy Resources 

   

Merge, Split, Save and Tag

There have been a lot of people asking lately if it's possible to merge or split trees on Ancestry. The short answer is no.  

The long answer is, it can be done, sort of. 
You can merge and split your trees with programs like Family Tree Maker, but not with other people's trees (unless they send you a gedcom file) and not at all with Ancestry.

So the question is: 

I saw another tree on Ancestry with my family and they have people I don't have on mine. Can I merge their tree with mine so I don't have to add each person one by one?

Merge in Ancestry is for merging two people on the same tree. An example is you have a child named Susanna on your tree. After attaching a family census it adds a child named Susan to your tree. When researching each child you realize that Susanna and Susan are the same person. Or it may add another wife to your tree, but it is the same wife with a similar name. You go to Tools> Merge with Duplicate. Type the name of the person to merge with. Then you can choose which name and facts you want to keep. 
Sometimes the name is the same, so I add the word NOT to the first name so I know which one to choose.

But what you CAN do is Save. Save, as in save to tree and as in save a lot of time.

First check the evidence and sources the other tree has on each person. If there are no sources, forget about it. That tree manager may have copied from another tree. See if you can find a tree with real sources. Do not just save people to your tree willy-nilly. If you have to delete all these people after, that you DO have to do one by one. Believe me, we've all been down that road! Once you are convinced that branch belongs on your tree you can proceed.

There is an option on a person's profile page under Tools called “Save to Tree”. Say, for example, you have John Seale on your tree but not his family. If you don’t have John Seale, but you believe he belongs there, you add him to your tree.

Then go to John Seale on the other tree and under TOOLS choose SAVE TO TREE. 

You then choose your tree and the person you want to save it to, in this case the John Seale. 

Then it is like saving a census... you can save that persons parents, spouse and children. In the facts column it saves only their BMD info ... but! Under Sources it will only say Ancestor Family Trees, and nothing from the gallery... no documents, censuses, photos... nothing. You would have to source each person manually. You should ALWAYS do your own research anyways. Verify by searching for BMD, and other records.

Here is where Tags come in handy.
You are doing your due diligence, finding proof that each person belongs in that family, and you come to one person (say Child 3) you can't find a record for.  That does not necessarily mean it's not right, just that there may not be records for that year at the church, or something like that. You want to remind yourself, and tell others looking at your tree, that this person's info is unverified. At Child 3's profile page, under the birth and death at the top, is the Tag symbol in blue. Click on that.     

There are many tags you can choose from under four drop-down categories that open on the right, or at top of the list you can choose to create your own, depending what you want the tag to tell you.
In this case we are going to tag Unverified.

Once the person is proven yea or nay you can change the tag to Verified (or whatever), untag, or delete the person altogether if he is proven not to belong to this particular family. 

Once you have added John Seale and proven he belongs on your tree, if it is a new branch you next go to John's father and repeat the process. This will add all John's siblings and their info to your tree. Add the mother's father and repeat with him to get her siblings and his parents and spouse. You can keep adding families in this manner, climbing up the tree. 

Remember to Always Verify the information you copy by finding sources, and use the Tags if you can't verify right away. 

Genealogy gems found in Newspapers

Newspapers can yield much more than birth and marriage announcements and obituaries. Not every newspaper prints the same columns in every issue or every year, but I have found ancestors listed in unexpected ways.

Sometimes you know of an event to do with your ancestor, but you don't know the date it occurred. 

I knew from censuses that one great-great-grandfather was a victualer, but since when? Then I found in the newspaper when he bought and sold his license under License Transfers in Liverpool.

I knew that another great-great-grandfather sold his farm and moved in to town, but I didn't know when. I found it under Property Transfers in the regional newspaper.

My great-great-grandmother traveled from Montreal to Bisbee, AZ when her daughter died and spent a night in a hotel in Tombstone. Look for Hotel Arrivals. 

Under Shipping News or equivalent the newspapers sometimes printed a passenger list...

My great-great-grandfather King's siblings immigrated to Australia. His sister's husband died in Melbourne in 1910 and this was in the newspaper a couple months later... 

Returns of banks in Aberdeen newspapers give ancestor name, address and occupation...

Below is a list of just some of the newspaper columns where you may discover your ancestors. How many can you find? 

Download the list and keep it handy when researching your relatives. 

Relevant Links

List of Common Newspaper Columns

Not all newspaper sites are equal

I have been scouring newspaper sites for many years, hoping to find word of my ancestors. To help you search and pick out words and names from the billions of pages the providers use an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program to scan the pages looking for your keywords. The problem is not always which program they use, but the condition of the newspaper and the quality of the scan. 

I was frustrated recently looking for a 1990 death notice in the Times Colonist for Vancouver Island. The whole of the issue I needed, and a few others in the same month, were not scanned properly and the bottom third (including the index and the family notice sections) are so blurry they are unreadable. I told support of this, they acknowledged my concerns but I haven't heard anything else yet. I'm hoping it gets fixed before my subscription runs out.

And other times it just well may be the program. For my British ancestors I have used the newspaper section at Find My Past and Newspapers.com. Using filters (place, date, etc) help to narrow the search, but sometimes I still get no results. Then I try British Newspaper Archives, which is free to search. If I get what seems to be a good hit, I make note of the newspaper issue, date and page then browse to that issue and page in another site. 

Newspapers.com may have only one newspaper for Liverpool, as opposed to six at FMP and five at BNA, but after years of searching for an exact date or cause of death for my 2x great grandfather, that's where I found it. 

Remember too that other nearby city papers may print the same news.

You can read about the tragic death of George Singleton here. 

Getting more from a census

When I get a census record for an ancestor, first thing I do is read the instructions to the enumerator. They usually give the date the census is to be taken, plus who to count and there may be instructions regarding age. At Ancestry once you've clicked on a result for one of the censuses, while still at the Record part click on the title of the record...  

When the search window opens, scroll down to the About section. 

Or you can go to a site that has free censuses, most will have info about how they were collected and any special instructions. Family Search also has info on the censuses. Also check for schedules of each census, which ones survived, and where to find them, and if there were any issues with that census.

Library and Archives Canada, Censuses

Now I'm ready to record all the information across the line.. age, religion, occupation, etc... whatever was under each heading. 

Next I check that census page plus a page or two on either side to see who their neighbours are. Often family members, or a future spouse lived close to one another.  

I also record the name of the enumerator. Then I check the first and last pages of that enumerator's section to see what notes he wrote.  I could not find my 2x great grandfather on the 1851 census for Frontenac, Ontario. I knew their daughter's future husband was a close neighbour so I checked that family on the census. They and some of their other neighbours were there, just not my ancestor nor his direct neighbours! Why? I then went to the page of that section of the census where the enumerator wrote his notes... 

"I beg most respectfully to state for the consideration of the gentlemen composing the Board of Statistics, that owing to the unprecedented fall of snow, and the ruggedness of this part of the country, coupled with the very limited number of cross roads open, I experienced great difficulty in procuring the required information, twenty four days is the amount of time I spent in completing the census of this district."

Well, if he did procure the information of my ancestor's family and their neighbours in those twenty-four days, he didn't include them on the forms. Luckily I found my 2x ggf in the 1855 directory, though that doesn't tell me who else was living there. 

Relevant links

US Census Enumerator Instructions, per year

Canada Census Enumerator Instructions, per year

Scotland Census Enumerator Instructions, per year

The first Commonwealth of Australia census 1911

Censuses of Great Britain

Maximizing a Search in the Canadiana Collection - Part II

At Canadiana.org we will take a look at the section for Early Canadiana Online. 
This section holds full text content about historical Canada, including books, magazines and government documents. These works are from the time of first European settlers until about 1950s, and span 21 European and Aboriginal languages. 

Canadiana.org

This section is for you if your ancestors were early arrivals, in the fur trade, or if you have Metis or Aboriginal ancestors (also check Aboriginal newspapers in Part I). The various medical journals may hold names of ancestors or tell about epidemics that occurred. Here is where you will also find treaties and acts of government.

This time I searched for my husband's Nolin family as they have been in Canada a long time and entered in the fur trade. A few were famous interpreters at trials and meetings. This shows how many Nolin results are in each collection in this section...

I chose Hudson's Bay Company, as that would give me results for the Nolin family that worked and lived in that area. The last entry on page 1 interested me... 

The Hudson's Bay Company's land tenures.. 

At the top I click on the page numbers that match my search and the second one gives me lot numbers that were granted to Augustin and Jean Nolin. 

Hudson's Bay Company Land Tenures, pg 153

When finished browsing use the "back to results" link, otherwise the browser back button will just take you back to the last page you looked at.

I tried a search for Seale, not expecting too much, as it usually reads as "scale". 

I filter my results on the left. For the "search in" menu I choose text. I change the year span to when my ancestor arrived. I then checkmarked the "Genealogy and local history" collection.  Using the filters cuts the number of results to a more manageable size, making the task less daunting. You can also use the minus sign in your search. I was getting many results for "voters lists" which I've seen before and don't need. When I type in the search box "Seale -voters" the number of results went down by about a third. Adding "-directory" again lessened the number of results. Seems like you can keep adding minus keywords to pare down your results. You can also use the plus sign, but I find it doesn't work as well.

Some results were militia lists, but one result looked promising as my "Seale others" lived in that area...

History of the counties of Argenteuil, Quebec and Prescott, Ont., 

from the earliest settlement to the present

There are 3 pages which match my search. Good thing I looked as here they talk about George Seale, the brother of Joseph. I have Joseph on my tree but not George. This tells me about the lands he bought and sold, who and when he married, how many children he had and some of their names, etc. Now I can add George to my tree and do more research on him.

As always, I add the URL to the web link section in the Sources column on their profile page of my Ancestry tree.

You can search your ancestor's place name too and remember the program may not be properly reading the keyword you type, like my seale vs scale, or your ancestor name may be there but too faded to read. 

From the home page you can choose a collection of interest and click browse a collection. 

This is useful when you don't really know what you're looking for and want to see what is available. You may come across some American publications.

When you choose a result you will be in the View tab by default, and clicking on the About tab will give you information on the publication you are looking at. 

You can search within the document on any page.  

Happy hunting!

Relevant Links

Early Canadiana Online

Hudson's Bay Company Land Tenures

Related Post

Maximizing Your Search in the Canadiana Collection - Part I

Maximizing Your Search in the Canadiana Collection - Part I

When searching the now free Canadiana website, there are three main areas to explore. Canadiana Online, Heritage and Early Canadiana.  Heritage is more genealogy specific and is covered by Lorine at Olive Tree Genealogy.


Here we will talk about Canadiana Online. This includes three sections : monographs; series...periodicals, annuals and newspapers; and government publications. 

If your ancestors were part of a group (political, religious, trades, social, etc) you may find them mentioned in a journal published by that group, as they often included a Personals column or a list of members or subscribers. I previously found a relative in the Canadian Militia Gazette.

You can type your ancestor name in the search box at the top and you may get way too many results to check. I typed my surname Seale and got 4695 results. Hmmmm. 

Besides getting too many results, your ancestor name may not be recognized in some cases. My Seale surname often gets read as scale or "the seal of", and my Mavor surname gets read as the mayor. That makes for many useless results. But remember, when you're looking for something specific you often come across a surprise!

I found this publication, The Civilian, and thought one or two of my people should be mentioned in an issue as they were civil servants.

The Civilian was a fortnightly journal devoted to the interests of the Civil Service of Canada. It was published from 1908 to 1921, but not by the government so it's under series, not government publications. We will use this as an example of how to navigate.

The Civilian was on the 7th page of results. I click on it and get that journal. It opens on page 279, the first page of that issue... no mention of Seale. The matching result is supposedly on page 282, which I click on and still no Seale... it's "scale". 

Next I click on the name of the journal, circled in red above, and that gives me all the issues of The Civilian. At the top left it says there are 300 available issues. If you click on the About tab, it gives info on this journal in the notes... range of dates published, any errors or special issues, etc. 

I type Seale in the search again and it gives me all the issues with their page match.

This gives me a more manageable 18 results. I know my great grand uncle was a civil servant and died in March, buried in April in 1921. There are issues for this period. So I clicked on the April 1921 issue and it opens on the first page of that issue by default, but there is a matching result on page 168. Click on that link...

Whoohoo... it's actually Seale this time and Williams death notice is there. I copy the URL and add it to the Web Link section in the Resources column on his profile page of my Ancestry tree. 

Other results are City of Kingston Directories (including Barriefield where my Seales lived) and I found the Quebec Seales in military journals, but there was a surprise result. There are some Seales on the Voter's List of the Town of Gananoque!?!

On the top left it says there are three images that match. There is Robert who is a blacksmith, Ann who is a widow, and on the third image are John A and James.  None of these people are in my Seale family, but Gananoque is not far from where they lived.This gives me another path to research as most Seales I have come across in Canada are from the same big family in Laois, Ireland.

You don't have to search by ancestor name. Try searching by the place your ancestor lived, by their trade, or by a society they may have belonged to. When I searched Waterville one result was a Waterville Cookbook, with some submissions by relatives.

You will find many newspapers and journals, in several languages, in this collection that you won't find anywhere else. At the Online Collection page, instead of typing a name in the search scroll down to the Series section and click browse this collection. 

When you find one that interests you click on it, then click on its name at the top left to learn more about that publication and the issue dates available. Then you can do a name or place search from there. 

You can narrow your search by changing the date range on the left to dates your ancestor was there. Also use the other filters... search in text, language, which collection. 

UPDATE:

I was doing a search today and now discovered can also use the minus sign in your search.  That will help filter your results. When you have many results for the same source, like directory, you can search "name -directory" . Another frequent flyer is "Bill: an act..." so you can filter it out also by searching "name -directory -bill". Seems like you can keep adding minus keywords to pare down your results. Similarly the plus sign works so you can search "name +place -directory". But the plus doesn't work as well.

Happy hunting!

Relevant links

Canadiana Online

Related Post

Maximizing a Search in the Canadiana Collection - Part II