Welcome to the new look of Writing Up the Ancestors. The content is the same — 169 articles so far, dating back to 2013 – but the blog looks cleaner and more colourful, and it should be easier to navigate and search for names and places. Thank you so much to web designer Glenn Maruska for doing such a fine job.
The URL has changed to https://writinguptheancestors.ca. If you bookmarked the old address, please update it, however, if you use the old blogspot.com address, you should automatically be redirected to the new site.
There is no more public comment section (half the comments that came in were spam) but if you have a question or comment, or better yet, if you think we share an ancestor, I would love to hear from you. There is a contact form in the header section.
I have not posted frequently in about two years, only doing so when it was my turn to post on the collaborative blog Genealogy Ensemble (https://genealogyensemble.com). Writing Reinventing Themselves: A History of the Hamilton and Forrester Families took all my time and energy. The blog post announcing the book launch — https://www.writinguptheancestors.ca/2021/06/reinventing-themselves-has-been-launched.html — includes a link to a slideshow/interview with me put together by retired CBC music producer Frank Opolko, and a link to order the book.
On the topic of the Hamiltons, there is some very good news. An article about T.G. Hamilton, my grandfather who was a Winnipeg physician and psychical researcher, has finally been published online in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. The article, a labour of love and persistence, was written by Walter Meyer zu Erpen of the Survival Research Institute of Canada. See http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hamilton_thomas_glendenning_16E.html
I am now ready to start posting more frequently to Writing Up the Ancestors. There will be an article about my great-great-great grandmother Fanny McGregor – at least I think it is my Fanny McGregor – on February 2. Then, for the next little while, the focus will be on the Mitcheson family of County Durham, England during the 18th century. After that, I’ll be exploring my Montreal ancestors again. The Montreal Star has finally been digitized and made available on Newspapers.com, so that will keep me and many other genealogists busy for a long time.
Notes
Pictured in the header, left to right: Catherine Mitcheson Bagg (1822-1914); Dr. T.G. Hamilton (1873-1935); Mary Frances (McGregor) Mitcheson (1792-1862); Samantha (Rixon) Forrester (1856-1929) with Lillian and Arthur; Stanley Bagg (1788-1853); Clara Smithers (1860-1946); Jim Hamilton (1915-1980) with Janice.