Liverpool & South West Lancashire FHS - Forum

Barnardo's enquiry service (NOT free)
Barnardo's has kept detailed records since the 1870's. They now offer a basic search for £15 which will establish whether someone was cared for by the charity and what records - which can include images as well as documents - are held on them. It covers children who migrated to Australia or Canada in the archives.

Research packages cost up to £85, but all money raised will go to support the charity's work. More details on their
Family History Servicepage

I found this nice site the other day while researching a Manxman who went to Canada. They have free attestation paper images for first world war Canadian soldiers. Here are some directions:-

1. Click on Military & Peacekeeping
2. Click on Soldiers of the First World War (CEF)
3. Click Search
4. Enter name
5. Click submit
6. Click on soldiers' names

You can also order service records from the site.


http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/index-e.html


Blue

Ancestry Canada have the Canadian 1921 Census as a new release it appears to be free or at least it is free at the moment. You just need to be registered to gain access. When accessing the Canadian version of Ancestry be sure to go to the English language version of it as there is a French language version too:-

http://www.ancestry.ca/1921census

A lot of Liverpool people went over to Canada so you might find missing relatives on this Census. Over Remembrance weekend you will also be able to access records for the Canadian military.


Blue

I’d like to share some resources for finding family history and military records in Canada. I hope you find them helpful.

Library and Archives Canada has a number of resources for Genealogy research. Follow the menu for “online research”.
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/Pages/home.aspx#


For Canadian Military research:
Start here to find the enlistment papers and in some cases service records for family in WW1.

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/m ... earch.aspx

If you know the unit they served in check the archived site for access to ww1 unit war diaries. Sometimes the unit name is stamped on the enlistment papers. The “CollectionsCanada” site has been archived but is still accessible. For the war diaries, their index allows for easy searching by date, which allows for comparing dates of battles or war deaths mentioned on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/02/02015202_e.html


Search here for photos either by unit or relative’s names. You can also find the war diaries here too but I prefer the indexed version in the archive site.
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/lac- ... rch/images


Search here for information regarding family members killed in battle. There are usually four documents that show details of the death and the gravestone. A memorial certificate is also available for download.
http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead.aspx

There are more sites for detailed information and research. Let me know if there is anything specific you are looking for.

WW2 Information
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/m ... ction.aspx

Service files for WW2 war dead can be found here
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/m ... -dead.aspx
For the service record of someone who survived service in World War II, limited access is available, as follows:
• If the person is still alive, access to the file requires that person's written consent.
• If the individual died within the past 20 years, limited information can be released to the immediate family (defined as the parents, spouse, siblings, or children or grandchildren of the deceased), upon presentation of proof of death and proof of relationship to the deceased.
• If the individual died more than 20 years ago, there are no restrictions on access to the file, upon presentation of proof of death.
See the above link for where to request the service file of a family member. If you want all of the information available, request the complete file and not the genealogy package as it will provide the entire file and not just the highlights that are sent with the genealogy package. The smallest details provide clues to other research.

Hi all! I've uncovered some interesting news regarding Liverpool emigration to Canada.

In researching two generations of my family that came to Canada from Liverpool, I went to a family history society that is in St. Catharines Ontario. They have a nice archive of local history and family history from around the world.

My great uncle Charles Dawson Hoskins moved from Liverpool, to Sydney Australia, to St. Catharines Ontario where me met and married Lizzie LeBreton who was from Bootle. They later assisted my father and three of his siblings to come to the area with the help of Barnardo's homes through the LSH at 7 Myrtle St. Others in the Hoskins line had also married MacKenzie's and settled in St. Catharines as well. There appeared to be a wider concentration of Liverpudlians in the area, almost a mass migration.

While talking with another researcher at the centre, he told me that pre-WW1 there had also been a large migration of Lancashire residents who moved to the area. The group was so large in fact that they had a Lancashire social club.

If anyone is doing research on immigrants to Canada in the Niagara area, the Mayholme Foundation is a good place to start. In addition to their resources, they have also have contacts with local researchers.

Their website is http://www.mayholme.ca/ and the centre is run by Corlene (Dwyer) Taylor and a group of volunteers. They have been most helpful in getting me oriented to their library and offered me a few free lookups on findmypast. The details of the Hoskins line are being revealed and the story is quite interesting.

If anyone needs assistance with research in this area of Canada, please let me know.

I gave a talk on Merchant Navy Records and also Crew Lists were they are held.

The majority of the Crew Lists are held in Canada and I knew that a indexing project was in hand for those lists that cover the Census years. 1881 has now been indexed and you can search by surname as well as Ship number.


https://www.mun.ca/mha/1881/crews1881.php

Searches of the National Registration File of 1940 (93C0006)
http://www5.statcan.gc.ca/olc-cel/olc.a ... en&limit=0

Canadian Newspapers online
http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/n ... ction.aspx

Institutional records transferred from Nugent Care 2012 to the Liverpool Archives

1. Leyfield School (Also known as the Bishop Memorial School) Honey Greens Lane, WEst Derby. Opened 1894
2. Our Lady's HOme for Homeless Babies, 93 Shaw Street
3. St Vincent's Certified Orphanage/Industrial School/Approved School for Catholic Boys, Opened 1859, Everton Crescent, Beacon Lane, Formby.
4. Father Berries Homes:

• St Vincent De Paul's Home for Working Boys, 105 Shaw Street
  St Francis Home, Shaw Street
  St Patrick's Home for Remand Children, Shaw Street
  St Philip's Home, Shaw Street
  St Bernard's Home, Shaw Street
  St Anthony's Home, Shaw Street

5. Birkdale Farm Reformatory School, later became St Thomas More Approved School, Birkdale
6. St George's Certified School, later St George's Approved School, opened 1854 Everton Terrace, West Derby Road, Formby.
7. St Anne's Industrial School, Formby
8. Liverpool Boys REfuge Industrial School 1864-1922 St Anne Street
9. Bishop Brown Memorial Industrial School, Stockport
10. The Clarence Reformatory Ship, 1864. Later Farnworth Nautical School, later St Aidens Approved SChool.
11. Catholic Children's Protection Society, Shaw Street. Taken over by Father Berries Homes 1902. Emigration Records.
12. Liverpool Catholic Schools Association
13. The Liverpool Catholic Children's Protection Society
14. Catholic Children's Aid Committee, Truman Street

Quite a number of links for research on this page.
http://www.ancestralfindings.com/resour ... 2tSnyRyXng

Thanks to Bertieone for what looks like a very useful link for Recruitment and Conscription Canada
https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.n ... ion_canada

Links to half a dozen sites that might produce some useful details for Canadian records
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine. ... SoAIsD-IjU

If you are just looking for records of Births, Marriages and Deaths, each Province maintains its own registration service; there is no central federal office similar to the GRO in the UK. One of the Provinces, Manitoba, provides a really useable search facility (here). The records which are searchable online are categorised as follows: Births more than 100 years ago, Marriages more than 80 years ago and Deaths more than 70 years ago, and are updated quarterly. Just a word of caution about completing the 'place' box on the form. The search engine is expecting a place code rather than the full name, such as Winnipeg, and so if in doubt, leave that box blank and you will get better results.

There is also a search facility for Manitoba wills and estates, here.

My experience with two of the other Provinces is less positive. Ontario have basically offloaded the problem to Ancestry.ca and FamilySearch, although there are microfilmed indexes if you can visit in person. I'm not sure how much access you can get to the specifically Canadian catalogues using the normal Institution Ancestry accounts operated by most libraries in the UK. In my experience, very few Canadian domestic searches (as opposed to say travel and immigration) come up with anything meaningful.

The Quebec authorities are even less helpful. They do not appear to have any indexes available online to search and seem to take their data protection responsibilities very seriously, including where the individuals are obviously no longer alive.

Additionally, there are the privately-run family history societies in each Province which may have done their own partial transcriptions of some of the BMD records but I haven't checked them out.