Web Links

This page contains links to public sites, Online Genealogy Magazines and Search Engines that we hope you will find useful.

ArchivesCanada.ca

From the website:
ARCHIVESCANADA.CA is an official archival portal maintained by the Canadian Council of Archives (CCA), and is a joint initiative of CCA, the Provincial and Territorial Archival Networks, and Library and Archives Canada (LAC). All archival descriptions and links contained in the searchable database are provided by provincial and territorial councils, their members, and LAC.

Archives of Ontario

To find a description of the Archives of Ontario and what it holds, go to: Here

For descriptions of the various collections of databases and catalogues in the Archives of Ontario, go to: Here

If you are planning a visit to the Archives and wish to prepare for your visit go to the following page for guidance (includes the location and a map at the bottom of the page): Here

Belleville Public Library

Belleville was, and is, the hometown of quite a few families of Irish Palatine descent. The Belleville Public Library has an extensive genealogy collection and you can easily spend days going through the old books and records. Their website also has a genealogy section where there are indexes to the Birth, Marriage and Death notices that had been printed over the years in the local paper, The Belleville Intelligencer. Births are from 1848 to 1899, Marriages from 1895 to 2013 and Deaths from 1848 to 2013. Check out Here

The Belleville Public Library has entered into a partnership with the Community Archives of Belleville (with the support of Ontario Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sport) to produce a website called Belleville History Alive. There is an About Belleville Public Library page where you can read some of their history and get their address. There is also an About Community Archives page where you read a bit about them and where they are located. From the Home page, you can browse by subject, or search the collections, either using the general search box, or the advanced search function, which has it’s own page.

Hint: When using the Advanced Search, you might want to use some of the filters to limit the search. If it is too broad, you might time out.

For historic documents and images relating to the history of the City of Belleville Ontario and former Township of Thurlow (Hastings County). Visit their site

British Columbia Archives

To search the Genealogy collections at the BC Archives, go to: Here

Cangenealogy

Dave Obee’s website, Cangenealogy, is a virtual cornucopia of links for genealogy researchers in Canada. Click on the province you want on the map of Canada to be taken to the page with the links for that province. Dave as ordered the links so the most used ones are at the top of the page. Cangenealogy.

GenDisasters.com

There used to be a website called GenDisasters.com, where you could search for information on a disaster, either man made or natural, which had affected one of your ancestors. Unfortunately, that website appears to no longer be viable. However, you may still be able to find information about these disasters by doing a regular search using your favourite browser search engine and using the search string “disaster+place”. You can even try to narrow down your search even more by using “disaster+place+surname”. That is how I found information on the train wreck in which my grandfather was killed in 1947.

IRL-PALATINE Listserv

Many of the founding members of the IP-SIG first met on the Irish Palatine Listserv located at rootsweb.com.  The following is taken from that site.  For more information about the listserv, see the RootsWeb IRL-PALATINE webpage.

Jo Henn – Climbing My Family Tree

Jo Henn has a genealogy blog which contains five Resource pages containing links to internet sites that she has found useful in her research. There is a page for the
United States
Canada
UK/Ireland
Germany
Etcetera which holds online links that don’t fit in one of the other categories.
Not wanting to “reinvent the wheel”, check out her links…

The page is titled “Monumental Inscriptions in the Church of Ireland Parish Graveyard at Rathkeale, Co. Limerick” and contains some inscriptions from the primary church of the Irish Palatines on the Southwell Estate.

Kingston/Frontenac Family Names

Did your ancestors live in Frontenac and/or Lennox Addington County in Ontario?  Then you should check out the Kingston Branch webpage.  There were many Irish Palatines in this part of Ontario.  OGS Kingston Branch Local Surnames.

Library and Archives Canada

To watch a short 90 second video of what Library and Archives Canada has to offer, check out Library and Archives Canada: Your documentary heritage lives here

Click here to reach the LAC Home Page

Click here to search all LAC Collections

London Gazette

If you have ancestors who have lived in London, England, you might want to check out the London Gazette archives. The newspaper has been around for 350 years and their archives are online and free to all users.

McGill Digital Library

You can find a number of county atlases on line at McGill’s In Search of your Canadian Past: The Canadian County Atlas Digital Project. You can browse through the digitized maps, or you can Search using the “Search”. You can search by person, or by map. When searching by person, you can try exact spellings, or alternate ones. It is sometimes a good idea to deliberately misspell the surname to see if there are any hits. The search results page has the following column headers: Last Name, First Name, County, Township, Town, Occupation, Birthplace. The final three columns may not have an entry. The Go button at the end of each line will take you to the details for that record. The additional information is the Concession and Lot #s and the Lot Size. The “Locate on Map” button will take you to a small picture of the atlas and the location will be indicated by a red square. It is a good idea to hold down the control button (in Windows) when you click on the “Locate on Map” button so that it opens in a new screen.

When searching by Map, click on the link for the appropriate county. Below the atlas map, there is a “Click here to generate index of people” link. That will give you a list of every person named on the atlas for that particular county. You can also narrow your initial search if you already know the township and town.

Open Library

On this site you will find over 1,000,000,000 available free e-book titles. The site is searchable. If there are no online versions of the book that you want, the links on the right hand of the screen will take you to various websites where you can buy a copy or to “World Cat” where you can enter your location and be directed to a local library where you can borrow, or view the book (if it is a research copy only).

RootsWeb – Ancestry.com

There are multiple Message Boards on Rootsweb regarding various Irish Palatine families.  You can search to see if there is a Message Board about your IP family Here

You will also find on Rootsweb, the Census for the Township of Adolphustown 1794 – 1822, which contains a list of the Head of Household names, the # of men, women, males and females (i.e. sons and daughters for the most part) in the family. No individual family first names are mentioned, other than the Head of Household.  Check out this list at Census for the Township of Adolphustown 1794 – 1822

On-Line Genealogy Magazines

Irish Lives Remembered
– Published monthly – Back issues available – each edition has a different county focus with a dedicated feature on one of the Irish Counties.

Search Engines

Genealogy Gophers If you are looking for a Genealogy book, then check out this free search engine at Genealogy Gophers, which has more than 40,000 fully searchable and downloadable (for FREE). The site is financed by ads, and the download area is covered by an online survey, but you can click on Skip Ad and it will disappear, allowing you to download the book to your computer.

Google Newspapers  Google has links to quite a few digitized newspapers. They are listed alphabetically by newspaper name, and under each name it lists how may issues and the date range. If you know the name of the local paper of your ancestors, you can rowse through the images, or you can use the search box.

Genealogy Search Engine GenealogyInTime claims that their free genealogy search engine simultaneously searches over a thousand websites, including BillionGraves (which used to be searchable from Ancestry, but was dropped by them after they bought out Find a Grave). The search engine is powered by Google Custom Search. If you would prefer to search a single site instead, type the name you are looking for in the search box followed by a space then the word site:, followed immediately by the site url. Then click on the search button  (e.g. smith site:billiongraves.com)

Library and Archives Canada: Acts of Divorce, 1841-1968 Between 1841 and 1968, any person wishing to divorce their spouse had to do so with a private act of divorce granted by the Parliament of Canada.  Starting with confederation (i.e. in 1867) they had to first place a notice of intent in the Canada Gazette, as well as in two newspapers in the county or district where they lived.  The notices had to appear for six months.  If the petition was granted, the Parliament would pass an “Act of Divorce”.  The details of the transcripts for these acts were published (and are now searchable through this LAC website) in the following places:

  • Statutes of the Province of Canada
  • Journals of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada
  • Statutes of Canada
  • Journals of the Senate of Canada

However, a divorce could also be granted by a province. To find a list (with links) to various provincial document sources and/or research guides, click here.

Rare Book Search Engine Are you looking for an out-of-print rare book about your family? Through the GenealogyInTime website, you can now browse the world’s two biggest virtual bookstores.

Wikipedia: List of Online Newspaper Archives is a list of newspapers from around the world that can be accessed online. Many are on pay sites, but some are listed as free sites.

Links of Links

Claire Santry’s Irish Genealogy Toolkit
Claire Santry’s Irish Genealogy Toolkit

Researching Irish Ancestors (from Family Tree Magazine)
11 Best Websites for Researching Your Irish Ancestors