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5 January 2020   Click here to View this email in your browser 
Membership News

The annual membership fee for the Québec Genealogical eSociety will be increasing to $50, effective 1 February 2020.
 
Your participation makes this society possible, consequently we are offering a shop-early promotion of $45 if you renew before 1 February 2020. With your shop-early purchase, you reserve your membership renewal @ $45 instead of $50, regardless of when your membership renewal is due. For example, if your membership is due in June 2020 and you renew before 1 February 2020 @ $45, your membership expiration date will be June 2021.
 
As we enter our third year of existence we face increased operating costs to support access to the BMS2000 and PRDH databases. In addition, we must update our website’s content management system as the current version is nearing the end of its service life.
 
$50 is still good value for your money with a 12-month membership in a worldwide genealogical society that provides family historians with free on-line access to Quebec’s premier genealogical databases, as well as other resources and opportunities to learn and to share your own knowledge and discoveries.
 
You can renew your membership at any time by logging on to the Québec Genealogical eSociety website at http://www.genquebec.com and, under the Account  main menu, clicking on the Membership Renewal sub-menu. 

2019 Members' Survey
Thank you to all who participated in our annual survey. We value your input, which indicates we are on the right track. Common themes where you offered suggestions or voiced your concerns are:
 
1. Databases: Many of you asked for our society to provide access to the Drouin Institute (Genealogy Quebec), Parchemin, and Mes Aieux databases. Your membership fees provide income which supports the cost to purchase vouchers for the BMS2000 and PRDH databases, and our other operating expenses. Currently, the added cost to gain access for our members to all or any one of the Drouin Institute, Parchemin, and Mes Aieux (YourFolks.com) databases is beyond our financial capability. For example, three single-use licences for Genealogy Quebec, which will result in members queuing to access the Drouin Institute records, will cost $3,000 per year while access to the Parchemin database is $3,900 per year. We will certainly consider your requests in the future!
 
2. BMS2000 and PRDH Help: In response to our members having trouble using the BMS2000 and PRDH databases, there is a recorded webinar titled “Diving into the Databases - BMS2000, PRDH, and Fichier Origine” that may help you. A handout with tips on how to improve your searches is also provided. Under the Webinars main menu tab click on the Past Webinars sub-menu tab then scroll down to “Diving into the Databases”.  In the upcoming weeks we will also put this webinar and handout on the Databases page for your convenience.
 
3. Accessing and using our website: For those who have difficulty accessing our website or the services within, remember that there are website orientation webinars at the beginning of each month. We encourage you to take advantage of these sessions to resolve your specific problems. Notification of these webinars is located in the Upcoming Webinars sub-menu tab, in our eSociety’s Calendar, and in the eNewsletters.

To help with your research, our aim in 2020 is to provide more "How To" webinars!
Webinars

FamilySearch

 

Date and Time: Wednesday, 8 January, 2020 - 19:00 EST

Presenter: Marcel Blais

FamilySearch is the largest genealogical organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources and services to learn more about their family history. Marcel Blais will give you a live demonstration of
FamilySearch, including how to create your family tree and how to find out more about your ancestors in Quebec.

Click here to register:
http://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3148524516347033089
 

New Member Orientation

 

Date and Time: Monday, 13 January 2020 - 19:00 EST

Presenter: Johanne Gervais

This webinar is scheduled for the second Monday of every month. Join us to help familiarize yourself with all the features of the eSociety including using the Resource Links, Members' Forum, and the PRDH, BMS2000, and Fichier Origine databases.

To register for this webinar, go to our Upcoming Webinars page on our Website.

The Scots in Montreal and Quebec

 

Date and Time: Thursday, 13 February, 2020 - 19:00 EST

Presenter: Gillian Leitch

The Scots have played an important role in the development and history of Quebec since the advent of British control of the region after 1759. This presentation will provide an overview of the settlement of the Scots in the province (with an emphasis on Montreal), the development of their own cultural institutions such as the Presbyterian Church, voluntary associations such as St. Andrew’s Societies, the Sons of Scotland, and sports clubs organizing curling, golf and shinty. There are a number of resources available to the family researcher, looking for information on their Scottish-Quebec ancestors. These will be discussed, including the use of private or associational archives such as the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal.

Click here to register: 
http://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/8011358782366639105

 

Don't forget our Past Webinars page on our website has recorded webinars that you can view at your leisure. 


If you would like to share your genealogical interests or expertise in a webinar, please let us know. We are looking for speakers for our 2020 webinar series.
http://www.genquebec.com/contact
Resource Links
Administrative Region 12 - Chaudière-Appalaches


 
The Chaudière-Appalaches administrative region stretches along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River for over 200 km. It is bordered to the northeast by the Bas-Saint-Laurent region, to the southeast by the United States (State of Maine), to the south by the Estrie region, to the west by the Centre-du-Québec region and to the north by the Capitale-Nationale region, separated from the latter by the St. Lawrence River.
 
Chaudière-Appalaches comprises most of what is historically known as the "Beauce". It is named for the Chaudière River that crosses it from south to north and the Appalachian Mountains that make up its southern part.
 
The main cities in the region are Lévis, Saint-Georges, Thetford Mines, Sainte-Marie, and Montmagny.

Côte-du-Sud is a historical and cultural region that includes the regional county municipalities of Bellechasse, Montmagny and L'Islet. The Côte-du-Sud was one of the first regions to be colonized at the beginning of New France. Indeed, the first seigneury of Côte-du-Sud was granted to Jean Pelletier in Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies in 1656. Later, other settlers settled in Côte-du-Sud, bringing the population at the end of the French regime to about 10,000 out of the 60,000 inhabitants of New France. During the nineteenth century, the lack of land forced the inhabitants to emigrate. With the advent of the railway, the opening of new settlement lands elsewhere made the region a land of emigration. As a result, the population stopped growing and even decreased. Today, this region still has a negative migration record.
 
The Lévis region is located at the junction of the St. Lawrence and Chaudière rivers, across from Quebec City. The Lévis region, with more than 130,000 inhabitants, is the most important economic hub for the Chaudière-Appalaches. It is there that the population growth in the Chaudière-Appalaches is the strongest. Since the very beginning of New France, Lévis has occupied a strategic position. Lévis has been the site of many battles, from the confrontations with the Amerindians to the War of 1812.
 
The Beauce is a cultural and historical region of the Chaudière Valley that has a strong identity. Since the beginning of the colony, this region has been differentiated by famous expressions such as the black hocks (due, among other things, to the many swamps in the time of New France, which caused the pants of the Beaucerons to get dirty to go to Quebec City). The Beauceron territory has more than 100,000 inhabitants in three regional county municipalities: Beauce-Sartigan, La Nouvelle-Beauce and Robert-Cliche.

Below are the resources added over the past week to the Resource Links page of our website. If you know of any websites related to the Chaudière-Appalaches region that could help with family history research, please let us know.

Archives

City of Lévis - Private Archives Services


You can access the online catalogue which includes detailed descriptions of private archival holdings, such as photographs and digitized documents. It also includes two collections of old photographs that present more than 12,500 photos relating to Lévis' heritage.

Births, Marriages, Deaths

Originis database

Transcriptions of baptisms from 1886 to 1916, marriages from 1898 to 1909, and burials from 1886 to 1916 have been added to our website for the Chaudière-Appalaches region.
 
Index to marriage contracts

This resource link is a book that includes an index of marriage contracts with notaries of Montmagny, L'Islet, and Bellechasse counties. You can easily search by surname of the husband or wife, the name of the notary, or by date. It also includes a biography of the person, sources used, and where you can obtain the original documents. The French text can be easily translated by copying the appropriate information and using a free translator, such as Google Translate.
Cemetery Transcriptions

Having trouble finding information about the death of your ancestors? Gravestone transcriptions are a valuable source of genealogical information as they frequently include dates of birth and death as well as the names of spouses, children, and other family members.

Find A Grave

Includes cemetery transcriptions for 139 locations in the Chaudière-Appalaches region. Below is a cemetery transcription plus additional genealogical information from the Armstrong Cemetery located close to Saint-Théophile.

 
Lotbinière County

Tombstone transcriptions for the following cemeteries from CanadaGenWeb's Cemetery Project have been added to our website.
  • Parkhurst Methodist Cemetery
  • Sainte Anastasie Irish Cemetery
  • Saint Antoine de Tilly Cemetery
  • Saint Apollinaire Cemetery
  • Saint Flavien Cemetery
  • Saint Gilles Cemetery
  • Saint Sylvestre Cemetery – Protestant/Anglican
Historical Societies

If you are looking for ancestral photographs, homes, biographical information, news items, or artifacts try a local historical society. The following are societies recently added to our website for the Chaudière-Appalaches region:
  • Saint-Romuald Historical Society
  • Saint-Victor-de-Beauce Heritage Society
  • Sartigan Historical Society
Miscellaneous
 
Lévis College in Lévis yearbook 1941-1942

This yearbook includes information related to the college such as names of the teaching priests with their biographies, names of the boarding students, and names of external students.
 
 
Newspapers

Links to five digitized newspapers have been added to the Chaudière-Appalaches region for Lévis.
  • L'Echo de Lévis 1871, 1873-1876, 1878
  • Le Quotidien 1854, 1876, 1878-1896, 1898, 1903, 1912, 1932-1937
  • La Tribune de Lévis-Metro 1971-1973
  • Le Progrès de Lévis 1867-1869
  • L'Union Canadienne 1891
Stay tuned for our next issue where we will be concentrating on administrative region 13 - Laval !

If you have found an interesting resource link that is not on our website, please let us know and we will add it.
In the News

GEDmatch Acquired by Verogen

 

DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy
Discovering Your Ancestors – One Gene at a Time
Posted on December 10, 2019


Until this afternoon, I had never heard of Verogen. Today Verogen “joined forces with” GedMatch. Based on reading the details, while the GEDmatch personnel are staying involved, the ownership and management appears to have passed to Verogen.

I didn’t know about this in advance, but I’m not surprised. Curtis Rogers, one of the GEDmatch owners is in his early 80s and already retired once in his life. GEDmatch needs modernization and Verogen has committed to breathe new life into GedMatch which provides tools not available elsewhere and much loved by many genealogists.
 

Verogen

Verogen is a forensic genomics firm founded in 2017 to focus on the challenges of human identification and improve public safety and global justice for all, according to their website.

The graphic above and below, from their website, explain their focus.

I have been and remain supportive of investigative genealogy in order to identify deceased bodies and to bring violent criminals to justice. Another benefit of this technology is the ability to exonerate those wrongfully convicted.

The question for today, though, is how this affects genealogists as GEDmatch users.

Upcoming Changes

The press release states that GEDmatch users will see improvements in the future, such as:

  • Increased stability
  • Optimal searchability
  • Enhanced homepage
  • Increased functionality

With regard to the GEDmatch vision and terms of service, that won’t change “with respect to the use, purposes of processing and disclosure of data.”

In other words, the way GEDmatch works now is the way it will continue to work, at least for the time being. Companies change thier terms and conditions routinely, are bought and sold, just as this is a change from previous terms.

The press release goes on to say that as many as 70 violent crimes have been solved to date using genealogy searches, although they don’t say through GEDmatch specifically. Family Tree DNA also allows uploading forensic kits after a verification process for law enforcement (LE) matching. That’s roughly 1 case per week solved which means closure brought to families and villans being identified and taken off the streets, making everyone safer.

I’d wager that there are many more cold cases in the process of being solved given that multiple companies have now announced forensic genealogy research services.

“Never before have we as a society had the opportunity to serve as a molecular eyewitness, enabling law enforcement to solve violent crimes efficiently and with certainty,” Verogen CEO Brett Williams said.

“Still, our users have the absolute right to choose whether they want to share their information with law enforcement by opting in,” Williams said. “We are steadfast in our commitment to protecting users’ privacy and will fight any future attempts to access data of those who have not opted in.”

One interesting aspect of this announcement is that GEDmatch has 1.3 million users and as many as 1000 people are uploading daily. That’s great news for those of us who utilize their tools as genealogists, and law enforcement too, assuming that at least some of those people opt-in.

The press release goes on to say that Curtis Rogers, one of the founders will continue to be involved with GEDmatch as this partnership moves forward.

How does this affect you today?

Read more
 http://dna-explained.com/2019/12/10/gedmatch-acquired-by-verogen/

4 Ontario sisters meet for the first time thanks to Google, a little luck and a DNA test

 

 

Gina McClelland grew up as an only child in Scarborough, Ont., not knowing anything about her biological father, except his name.

She searched for him on Google for years, with few results.

Then, one day in 2008, a photo caught her attention. It was of a man, Larry Cooper, who worked for a real estate company in the Dominican Republic. His bio said he'd moved from Canada to start a new life. 

"There was something about his picture that looked like one of my daughters," McClelland, 46, told CBC News. 

On a whim, she emailed him. 

"The next morning I got a response," McClelland said. "'Yes, I am your father.'"
 

She knew it was true because of her childhood nickname, Mouse. 

"[My father] didn't know me by my name because he had taken off before I was named. And at the end of [Cooper's] email it said, 'Thanks for contacting me mouse.'" 

Almost a decade later, with the help of a DNA test and some of her own investigative work, McClelland has also found three paternal sisters around Ontario and a brother from the Dominican Republic.

 

After McClelland connected with Cooper, they met in Toronto. They talked for hours and he told her she had two sisters and a brother, but wouldn't share their last names.

He later pitched the idea of having everyone meet in the Dominican Republic.

But as months went by, McClelland thought something might have gone wrong.

"I had this feeling like, maybe the sucker's dead. So I Google his name and his obituary came up," she said. Cooper was dead, at 60, three years after she found him. 

But McClelland also noticed a comment from a woman looking for details on how Cooper, her father, had died.

That's how McClelland found her sister, Wendy Gray, 51, from Courtice, Ont.

"And then she told my younger sister Laura [Cooper] about me," McClelland said. Each of the women had a different mother.

For Gray, the shock was mutual.

 

How to Record an Interview on Your Smartphone

By Sunny Jane Morton

familytreemagazine.com
 

Mobile apps make it easier than ever to record interviews on the go and share them with family members. Some platforms even allow you to save oral history interviews to your online trees. Follow this quick tutorial to record and share family history interviews on your smartphone.

Need inspiration for your family history interview? Here are a few questions to get started.

Record family history interviews on the go by recording and sharing them with your smartphone.

How to Record Your Family History Interview

1. Open your preferred voice recorder app. On an iPhone, tell Siri to “open voice recorder” to get to the default recorder. (You may need to download an audio recording app to your Android device; on a Windows device, open OneNote and open a new note.) You can also record audio within ancestral profiles in the FamilySearch and MyHeritage apps.

2. Begin recording. Tap the appropriate icon to begin recording. In the iPhone voice memo, it’s a big red button. In OneNote, tap the microphone icon within a new note.

3. Direct your device’s mic toward the speaker(s) for best sound quality.

4. Ask simple, engaging, open-ended questions. 

5. Tap the appropriate icon to pause the recording, if needed, and to stop it when finished. Follow the prompts to save the file and, if possible, name it.

6. Use free audio-editing tools such as Audacity to polish your recording. Transfer the completed file for long-term storage. If appropriate, share the recording on your online family tree.

We want to hear from you, contact us with your suggestions for future newsletters.
https://www.genquebec.com/en/contact

All of our archived newsletters are located on our website under the About Us main menu tab.
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