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Happy New Year from all of us at ACGS!
I am honored and thrilled to be your President for another year. The year ahead is going to be a great one for ACGS as we celebrate our 50th Anniversary, and I am looking forward to all the presentations scheduled throughout the year. There is still a short time left to sign up for the Early-Bird Special or for the January webinar specifically; please see the information below for more details.
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The Board of Directors and Officers will begin the new term on January 2nd. We will be focused on making the member experience as useful, educational, and personable as we can for all our members, both in person and on our website. In the coming months we will be generating some training videos to help all members better utilize the ACGS resources on the website, and these will be shared on our website. I am looking forward to an exciting year to come.
ACGS will be celebrating its
50th Anniversary in 2023!
The American-Canadian Genealogical Society is excited to be celebrating this momentous occasion with all its members! To help celebrate our 50th Anniversary, ACGS has planned a year of monthly webinars and a Two-Day Fall Conference, as well as four journal issues spread out over the year, and an in-person reception in September. We hope you join us for our year of celebration as we remember where we came from and look forward to where we are going in the future.
We know that inflation is touching all our lives, so we have worked on ways to offer all our members the opportunity to join our events at minimal costs. We have an Early-Bird Special package for both the first half and the second half of the year. Please see further down in this newsletter for details on this package.
We look forward to sharing this momentous occasion with all of you!
Happy 50th Anniversary, ACGS!
Thank You,
Jo Zurwell, #10349
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Early-Bird Special
Last Chance!
January 7th is the LAST DAY you can register for the Early-Bird Special, where you will be registered for the first six webinars of the year, January-June, for the price of five webinars.
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There is an additional $5 off each monthly webinar from our regularly priced webinar of $25. This is a total savings of $50 for the first six webinars of 2023. This special is priced at $100, a bargain for all the great presentations we have lined up for our attendees.
If you do not wish to purchase a six-month registration, you are able to register for each webinar you wish to attend individually at the full price of $25 per webinar.
Early-Bird Special Registration
Closes January 7th
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January 14 - 4 P.M. ET
DNA – Beyond the Basics –
Adding to Your Solid Foundation
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Effective use of DNA can further your genealogical research. Building on the basics, this session will cover topics including working with your match list, determining how a match is related to you, prioritizing your matches, tools you can use to further your research and the impact of endogamy and pedigree collapse on your DNA matches. | |
If you would like to register for this webinar individually, you may do so by clicking on the button below until January 7th. The price is $25. | |
January 7th Last Day to Register | |
The First 6 Speakers
These are the speakers and topics lined up for the first six webinars of 2023, those taking place during the first Early-Bird Special announced just above. (The first is shown above in the spotlight segment.)
All will be held as Saturday webinars and are scheduled for 4 PM Eastern Time.
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For more details on the presentations, please visit the ACGS website. To register for individual webinars, please click on the links, images or buttons below.
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February 11, 2023:
Bay State Bonanza
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Bonanza means an abundance of something good. For those of us researching Massachusetts vital records, it means an abundance of records. That’s great for us as researchers, but
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dealing with so many can also be challenging. The Commonwealth boasts records back to 1620, and many are available online. But not everything is online; some records may be at state agencies and/or with town clerks. Learn how to determine where to locate them as well as the ins and outs of the evolving formats for birth, marriage, and death certificates over time. | |
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Genealogy research is easy…until it’s not! Even relatively easy goals can be initially rewarding but may quickly become so frustrating that we just give up.
A few things to keep in mind:
- There are literally hundreds of online resources, some free and others subscription-based.
- There are literally hundreds of offline resources, some are near where you live, and some require a “road trip”!
- Spelling was not an issue prior to the mid-20th century. They wrote what they heard.
- Genealogy research sites both free and paid often have every instruction necessary for thoroughly researching within their databases.
- There are many resources available to assist you.
We’ll cover all this and more with the goal of improving how you do what you do!
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You might be very surprised to learn that there was strong support for the American Colonists from the French Canadians in Montreal and Quebec during the Revolutionary War. There are about 350 of these supporters eligible for the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR). That translates to thousands of modern-day descendants – maybe you are one of them! We will talk about how to find these names, how to prove your line, the documentation you will need and how to arrange those proofs for your lineage application. | |
When there’s no birth, marriage or death record, what’s a genealogist to do? Immigrant families left behind more than their old lives and homes: they sometimes left behind most or all of the direct evidence as to their families and relationships. Yet careful application of the Genealogical Proof Standard (GPS) to all of the records the family left throughout the years can often provide the clues to reconstruct families even if no direct document exists. Using these indirect bits and pieces lets us build a family through circumstantial evidence, answering the question: Who in the world was Paul Knop? | |
Whether you’re a newbie or you consider yourself an old pro, there is always more to learn on Ancestry.com. Make sure that you’re using the best research practices possible while using the site. Learn how to efficiently gather as much information as possible about your ancestors and prevent yourself from climbing up the wrong branch of your family tree. | |
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This month we have added more than 100 new books to the holdings on the Members-Only section of our website. Most of these are items that pertain to Massachusetts, though a few are stragglers from other states.
The Publications Committee has been hard at work all year indexing more of our resources for the website.
The Website Update for 2022 includes the following searchable records in our ACGS Repertories search index in the Members-Only Portal:
Baptisms - 19,333
- RP160 - St Anthony of Padua, Troy, NY - 1892-2011
- VR004 - Hudson, NH Vital Records - 1644-1985
Marriages - 29,755
- C01 - St Mary, Rollingsford, NH - 1856-1976
- C07 - St Thomas Acquinas, Derry, NH
- RP161 - St Anthony of Padua, Troy, NY
- Rp162 - St Albert of Northern NH - 1878-1998
- VR001 - Allenstown, NH Vital Records - 1888-1995
- VR005 - Hudson, NH Vital Records - 1734-1985
Burials - 37,355
- BR004 - Bouffard Funeral Home, St Joseph Cem., Manchester, NH
- RP161 - St Anthony of Padua, Troy, NY
- VR002 - Allenstown, NH Vital Records - 1888-1995
- VR006 - Hudson, NH Vital Records - 1733-1985
We encourage you to look up your ancestors in this database, if they were not there before, they may be there now!
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We Are Open
Wednesdays and Saturdays
10am - 2pm
We will have a research helper on hand for most days we are open to help our patrons with their research questions.
Wearing masks is now optional.
On Saturdays, please stand in front of the buzzer system camera (photo at right) and ring the buzzer. The librarian needs to be able to see who he/she is letting into the building and may ask your name if the image is not clear. The buzzer is located to the right of the double doors for the building.
Happy New Year/Bonne et Heureuse Année à tous et toutes!
ACGS Board of Directors
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New On Our Website!
Featured Photograph
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This photo is of Arthur R.A. Dufault (1890-1959) and Coral A. Lomme and their 10 children (with another on the way) from Worcester, Massachusetts. Please follow the link below to see all the information about this image and more about the family. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, and look for Featured Photograph; when you click on the image the full picture will be displayed.
If anyone can identify the building in the background, the owner of this photo would greatly appreciate knowing of it. Please email acgs@acgs.org with information you may have.
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New Northern NH Repertoire Available | |
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ACGS has announced the publication by download of a new repertoire:
St. Albert & Sacred Heart, Northern NH
Marriages, June 1878-June 1998.
This repertoire, available by download only, consists of some 1,040 marriages of the two parishes.
St. Albert’s of West Stewartstown, NH, was first established in 1888 as a mission of Sacred Heart Church in North Stratford, NH. The Catholic parishioners who became the nucleus of Sacred Heart were in the North Stratford area in the late 1800s.
The repertoire sells for $40.00, and may be purchased by clicking on the button below.
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News from the Library
Great news, everyone! Since September, all the computers in the library, including personal laptops on our WIFI, have had automatic access to our website Member’s Portal. This means you no longer need to bring or remember your credentials to our website or ask the librarians to log you into the guest account on one of the public computers. We hope that this change helps all at the library do their research with our website more easily.
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What Our Members are Reading: Issue #165,
Volume 48, Number 3, 2022
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Proof Is In the Pudding.
Le Gâteau Omni-Omelette St-Jacques.
The Most Prominent French-Canadian Early Settlers of Oregon.
Étoile d'Acadie - The Reconstitution of the Passenger List of the Pembroke -- Part III.
And A Whole Lot More!
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Query Entries in Our Journal | |
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Did you know that each member of the ACGS is entitled to post three (3) queries per issue of the American-Canadian Genealogist? Queries should be specific rather than a request for "all data" on a particular individual, however, if space is available, we will print general queries. It is more productive if the query stays with one event per inquiry.
To have your query in our next journal that comes out in March, click the link below to send an email with your query(ies).
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Louis Rondeau & Marguerite Boucher:
Fort Chipewyan Fisherman Family
by Eric Scheuneman
Extensive detailed research was done in 2021-2022 on the specific French-Canadian and Métis families of Boucher and Rondeau covering the years about 1750 to 1834. This included a connection and early information on the founder of St. Paul, Minnesota – a brother to one of the primary focus of this research.
The first 25 pages of this article are a narrative of detailed research that includes a technique using current-day descendants’ DNA to back-calculate to determine ancestors’ percentages of Native-American DNA, which can be very useful.
Other techniques use information including Hudson’s Bay Company journals and employment records and 1825 Quebec census records to provide indirect deductive proof of a crucial father-daughter relationship.
The remaining 20 pages are extracts and references from the journal of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta, which are of interest primarily to family members or those interested in daily life in 1821-1827.
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Fort Chipewyan, 1820, by George Beck | |
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Eric Scheuneman was born in Ottawa, Canada, where he began school before moving to Trenton, Ontario. He then spent his formative years (ages 12-26) in Alberta, mostly Calgary, before returning to Ottawa where he embarked on a career as an environmental and energy-conservation scientist with the Canadian federal government.
His sister, Marlene Scheuneman Swingle, sparked his interest in genealogy in 2017. It was reignited at the start of 2021, leading to this paper that expanded his knowledge of his native and Métis ancestors. He now proudly flies the Métis Canada flag.
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2.4 Million 20th-Century Marriages From Quebec Added to LAFRANCE | |
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2,483,450 marriages from the Marriages 1926-1997 collection have been imported into the LAFRANCE, one of 15 tools available to Genealogy Quebec subscribers.
These marriages cover all of Quebec from 1926 to 1997.
Prior to being imported into the LAFRANCE, these records were subjected to an exhaustive verification process, and hundreds of thousands of corrections were applied to the name, date and location fields.
Trace your ancestors with the millions of documents available on Genealogy Quebec starting today!
Name standardization and resemblance
Our main motivation for importing these records into the LAFRANCE is its superior search engine, which is equipped with name standardization and the resemblance function.
When searching in the LAFRANCE, name standardization ensures that a name is associated with all of its variants. For example, a query for an individual with the surname Gauthier will prompt the search engine to look through the database for any mention of the name Gauthier as well as all of its variations, such as Gautier, Gaulthier, Gotier, etc. Thus, it is not necessary to search for each variant of a name individually when using the LAFRANCE, as was the case when using the Marriages 1926-1997 tool.
In addition to name standardization, the LAFRANCE is equipped with the resemblance function, which allows searching for a name and any other name that resembles it with a single query. The resemblance function differs from name standardization as it not only includes all of the variants of a name, but also all of the names that are similar to it in terms of pronunciation and spelling. For example, with the resemblance function activated, a search for Gauthier, which will include all of the variants listed earlier, will also include the names Gonthier, Vauthier, Gouthier, Authier as well as their numerous variations.
Centralization
An obvious benefit of adding these records to the LAFRANCE is the centralization of the website's documents within a single database. This allows our subscribers to carry out more efficient and rapid searches on the site, without having to jump around between collections.
In addition to the records added today, the LAFRANCE contains:
· ALL of Quebec’s Catholic marriages from 1621 to 1918
· ALL of Quebec’s Catholic baptisms from 1621 to 1861
· ALL of Quebec’s Catholic burials from 1621 to 1861
· ALL of Quebec’s Protestant marriages from 1760 to 1849
· 1,450,000 Quebec Catholic marriages from 1919 to today
· 80,000 Quebec civil marriages from 1969 to today
· 140,000 Ontario marriages from 1850 to today
· 38,000 marriages from the United States
· 3,000 Quebec Protestant marriages from 1850 to 1941
· 17,000 miscellaneous Quebec marriages from 2018 and 2019
· 68,000 miscellaneous baptisms and burials from 1862 to 2019
More information regarding the LAFRANCE can be found on the Drouin Institute blog.
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See below for a listing of ACGS' business partners!
Keep them in mind, and use their services whenever you can as thanks for their support!
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Perk of Membership
Did you know that, as a member of ACGS, you can utilize the talents of our Research Department at a discounted rate?
Even better, we have a FREE, FREE, FREE service just for Members!
Are you stuck at home without a car, or don't want to venture out due to the pandemic, or do you live in a different state and just need a little information to continue your research?
Well, as a member you can ask us for help for FREE!
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SINGLE SOURCE DOCUMENTS, ARTICLES, and COPIES: This is to be provided for Members for NO CHARGE, as long as it can be accomplished in less than a half- hour, and does not need special handling or translation. You can ask for a copy of a page of a book in the library, or we can find, say, a baptism and then copy the page for you.
Being stuck at home no longer means you need to be stuck in your research!
For more membership perks, look below in the newsletter!
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See Whose Publications We Get! | |
It is now possible to determine what organizations/societies we receive publications from on a regular basis. A new link has been added to the Periodicals from Other Publications page of the Members-Only section of our website. This list is sorted by organization, and includes the name of their journal. The link below will also take you to the listing. | |
Our Research Department is waiting to help you solve your problems and find those elusive ancestors in the Witness Protection Program. They can also translate those "LEGIBLE" documents that you have from French to English. | |
OUR ADDRESS IS:
1 SUNDIAL AVENUE - SUITE 317, MANCHESTER, NH 03103
(603) 622-1554
WE ARE OPEN FOR BUSINESS ON WEDNESDAYS, AND SATURDAYS. PLEASE SEE THE WEBSITE FOR ANY CURRENT CLOSURES FOR ALL REASONS.
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All members are invited to all Board Meetings!
Mark your calendar for the third Sunday of the Month
10:00 AM - Noon
excluding July and Holidays. Call ahead when there's inclement weather.
The Library is not open for research during the meeting.
If you would like to present an issue at the meeting,
please send an email with "Board Meeting" in the subject line.
The President will contact you about being added to the agenda.
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Benefits of Membership!!
Note new Member-Only Benefits on our Website.
- Unlimited access to one of the largest French-Canadian Research Libraries in the United States
- Access to Members-Only Portal of ACGS.org:
- ACGS Obituary Collection
- ACGS Published Repertoires
- Past Genealogists
- MyHeritage
- Genealogie Quebec
- PRDH
- Individual assistance and training in using the facilities of our Research Library
- Discounted use of our Research Department services
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Subscription to the Society's journal, American-Canadian Genealogist
- Free publication of three single-event queries in the American-Canadian Genealogist
- Monthly Newsletter
- Invitation to attend semi-annual conferences
- Classes presented at ACGS Library
- Use of Family Search Affiliate Library website onsite
- Member pricing for Conferences
- Member pricing for Franco-American Centre event
$45.00 - Individual Membership receives email journal.
$ 60.00 - Family Membership receives email journal.
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Give Membership as a gift. | |
Your recipient can become a new member or renew their present membership.
Click Below to Order Certificate
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This newsletter is brought to you in part by the following Business Partners of ACGS. Thank You for Your Support! | |
If your company would like to be a Business Partner with ACGS, please go to our website for more details and select your sponsorship level today. | | |
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ACGS Library
1 Sundial Avenue, Suite 317,
Manchester, NH 03103
Tel: (603) 622-1554
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