Canadian Genealogy

Canadian Military Records Course Updated
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Canadian Military Records Course Updated

The update for “Canadian: Military Records” has just been released! The course has been rewritten and updated by Drew von Hasselbach, PLCGS. Drew is a mentoring professor for our Canadian Records Certificate and our German Records Certificate.   Military records constitute a major source of genealogical material in Canada. Emphasis during this course is on the correlation between personnel records, land transactions, and nominal roles from the period of New France to the Korean Conflict. Upon course completion of this six-module course, students will gain the ability to trace an ancestor’s military history. This involves searching through various record groups at Library and Archives Canada and provincial archives. The search can commence from a nominal role and extend to land acquisition or pension records, including those of individuals who opposed the government. The course also discusses using other sources such as medal registers, battalion histories, and militia pay lists.  What You Will Learn: Throughout the course you will discover where to find records from various sources. These include pension records, service files, and military college records. You will be exploring major and minor battles on both Canadian grounds and overseas. Beginning with Pre-Confederation conflicts, the course continues with the formation of the Permanent Force, the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, and the rebellions of the Canadas.  You will continue with 19th.  Century conflicts which include the Fenian Raids, the Red River Rebellion, and the North-West Rebellion of 1885. Government sources, land grants, and archival records are where you will ancestral information. Within…

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Canadian Newspaper Records

Newspapers are a valuable resource for genealogists. You will find they contain much more information than birth, marriage, and death notices. They are also full of historical details that will bring your ancestor’s lives to life! Canadian: Newspaper Records has been fully updated and rewritten by Drew von Hasselbach, PLCGS, and is now available for students.  What You Will Learn: This six-module course begins with a brief history of newspapers in Canada, newspaper vocabulary, and how newspaper articles, advertisements, and social pages can be used by genealogists in their research. You will learn how to locate and use newspapers to your best advantage. The discussions include what information is included in many of the different columns such as social notes, business and farm news, and the classified sections. Police reports and legal notices are also among some of the articles that are examined. Not all newspapers are created equal! Some are focused on specific institutions or topics; others are geared towards different ethnicities or religions. Some aren’t even newspapers as we know them! You’ll also look at newsletters, periodicals, journals, and historical society publications. Upon completion of the course, you will have learned the skills needed to confidently use newspapers to seek out important genealogical information. These skills include OCR-powered keyword searches, Boolean operators, filtering techniques, and how to evaluate the content in various newspapers.  Each of the modules contains a comprehensive list of websites for further research along with exercises to practice your newly formed skills. This advanced level…

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