William Bruce Hillman's Blog – July 2009 Archive (9)

The Canadian Government has begun hearings on changing the copyright laws in this country. It is of great interest to those genealogists who are thinking of writing their research into book form. For example, Douglas Fevens found that his “Fevens- A Family History” was digitized by Google books without his permission. He writes in a letter to the editor to the University of Wisconsin:



“I wrote a book in 2004. It was not created to become a bestseller; only 200 were printed. But it… Continue

So far my blog "The Hillman's of Elgin County" has repayed the time and effort I have put into it for the last two years. Last year a first cousin on my mother's side got in touch with me through the blog. I had not seen her since the early 1960's. My memory of her was of a little girl and it was quite gratifying to see and her from her and to find out about the rest of my uncle's family.

Just this morning a second comment on my blog was from a daughter of my uncle Bruce's widow. Uncle… Continue

While reading through Randy Seaver’s blog “Genea-Musings” I decided that I would try the Saturday Night Genealogical Fun challenge and google myself. A little ego boosting here.

Well what a novel experience. My face book page appears- no surprise there. Also my blog posts on Genealogy Wise - that was quick. Posts from my own blog “The Hillman’s of Elgin County”- again no big surprise.

Googling William Bruce Hillman comes up with 56,600 matches while googling just William Hillman… Continue

From the Ontario Ministry of Culture press release:

“We have completed negotiations for a two year license for Micromedia ProQuest’s Ancestry Library Edition. Ancestry is a genealogy research tool with data from census, military records, court, land, probate, vital and church records, passenger lists, etc. It covers Canada, the US, UK, and some European countries. The license covers Authorized Users of public libraries (i.e., library cardholders, walk-in patrons while they are on-site and… Continue

Up here in the frozen north we take great pains to point out the differences in how Canadians and Americans approach things. No better example is in how each country gained independence from Great Britain.

In the United States the people grabbed their muskets and shot at the British. In Canada we grabbed our lawyers and threw them at the British. Through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the British were quite use to people grabbing muskets , guns, spears , or whatever was laying… Continue

For genealogists one of the primary sources for research is the local newspaper. Increasingly many of the major dailies are finding themselves online. Lots of luck for the newspapers of Middlesex and Elgin Counties. How are you with 20th century technology?

For Elgin County the Elgin County Library has microfilms of the St. Thomas times Journal, the Dutton Advance, and the West Lorne Mercury Sun.

For Middlesex County the London Public Library has microfilms of the London Free Press,… Continue

One thing that you begin to notice as you research you ancestors is that they seem to view the border as not there at all. Searching the border crossings at Ancestry.com is a good way to track some of these elusive people. Not only that, if you look at the document closely it may also give you a bit of an insight as to what they looked like (I found that my maternal grandfather whom I never knew as he died in 1935 was 5’8” with blue eyes and brown hair). Since I have never been able to find… Continue

Many times I and others have bemoaned the fact that we did not pay more attention to family stories our grandparents told. Nuggets of information went missing that would have saved us hours of tedious research. But then again maybe not.

Grandpa used to love to tell me of his grandfather’s trek from southern England(on foot of course)to Glascow on his way to Upper Canada(Ontario). On the way he met a Scottish lass(his grandmother). A great tale worthy of a dime novel.

Unfortunately, it… Continue

Taking a page out of Chris Dunham's blog or book (is there a difference?).



Top Ten Reasons for coming to Canada.



10. British cannon was very persuasive.

9. Escape the noose for sheep steeling, cattle steeling, and what ever wasn’t tied down.

8. With a city named London the weather should be about the same - right!!!

7. The streets were paved with gold or at the very least good oak.

6. Improvement in standard of living. The outhouses here were of top… Continue