Nova Scotia Releases Some Early Records

This is from another site to which I belong. Perhaps it will be of
value of to you in your genealogy quest.

Forward:

The following was released to the press on 27 March 2007:

FamilySearch News Release
27 March 2007

One Million Historical Names from Canada Go Online

Nova Scotia Releases Early Birth, Marriage, and Death Records

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH-Early vital records of Nova Scotia, Canada, are
viewable over the Internet for the first time and for free, thanks to a
joint project by the Genealogical Society of Utah, FamilySearch, and the
Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management (NSARM). The records
include one
million names found in birth records from 1864 to 1877, marriages from
1864
to 1930, and death records from 1864 to 1877 and 1908 to 1955. Users can
search the database at www.novascotiagenealogy,com

Nova Scotia is the first province in Canada to digitize all of its
historical vital statistics and make them available online. "This
project
provides key information to researchers on their ancestors," said
Genealogical Society of Utah regional manager Alain Allard. "It
involves the
vital records-births, marriages, and deaths-which are a key record set
to
find, identify, and link ancestors into family units."

The Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) first microfilmed most of Nova
Scotia's vital records back in the 1980s. In 2005, GSU used FamilySearch
Scanning to convert those microfilms to digital images, while at the
same
time capturing additional vital records with a specially designed
digital
camera. Volunteers for the Nova Scotia Archives then used the images to
create the searchable electronic index, which was completed in 2006.

Anyone can now search names in the index and view a high quality digital
copy of the original image online for free at NSARM's Web site,
www.novascotiagenea logy.com. In the near future, the index and images
will
also be available on FamilySearch. org. Researchers who want to obtain
an
official copy of a record can do so online through the Nova Scotia
Archives.
The cost will be CAN$9.95 for an electronic file and CAN$19.95, plus
shipping and taxes, for paper copies.

Nova Scotia Provincial Archivist, W. Brian Speirs, said the cooperation
of
GSU was crucial to this important project. "Without the Genealogical
Society
of Utah offering in the early days of the project to provide
complimentary
digitization of all the records as their contribution to the
initiative, the
proposed undertaking would have been dead in the water and gone
nowhere,"
Speirs said.

FamilySearch is the public channel of the Genealogical Society of Utah
(GSU), a nonprofit organization sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ
of
Latter-day Saints. FamilySearch maintains the world's largest
repository of
genealogical resources accessed through FamilySearch. org, the Family
History Library in Salt Lake City, and over 4,500 family history
centers in
70 countries.

NARA, Please Keep Prices in Our Reach

The National Archives and Records Administration is ready to blast their fee schedule up to the moon.

The last price increase was in 2000. According to the site, http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/E7-3160.htm, NARA is proposing a price hike. This could be detrimental to many who use the records in their genealogy quest. NARA has invited interested parties to make comments by April 27, 2007, by either fax, mail or through the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov.

While all of their prices appear to be on the launch pad, the biggest increase is scheduled for complete pension files more than 75 years old. The current price is $37, while the proposed price could be as much as $125.00.

Please voice your opinion to NARA by the deadline. In my opinion, perhaps a more modest price increase would be a better approach.

Spring Green

Ah…. Spring is finally here. The sun warms my face. The trees are
starting to sport their new colorful coats, my daylilies are poking
their new leaves out of the ground, and the mailman delivers a green
envelope to my mailbox.

Yes, a green envelope brightens up the day at our house, much like a
warm spring day. It means we have new letters from our Swedish
cousins! The last green envelope held even more surprises for me. My
cousin, Vanja, had contacted somebody in Sweden and asked for some
information on her great grandfather. Now, since I don't speak
Swedish, I don't have any clue as to whom she contacted. No matter as
the paperwork mailed to me has the sources listed. The end result is
new family information for me.

Vanja's great grandfather, Jonas Petter Gustafsson, is the brother of
my great grandmother, Anna Lovisa Osterberg. One may ask why they have
different surnames. In the old country and up until the 20th century,
Swedish children were known by their middle name and their surname
would be the middle name of the father. Boys would take the middle
name of their father with the suffix "son" added, while girls would add
the suffix "dotter". When Anna Lovisa immigrated to the United States
in 1879, she used the surname Osterberg. Osterberg was the surname of
her father, Carl Gustaf Larsson, when he worked in the King's Palace
with the horses.

There's a funny thing about doing research in other countries. Their
customs seem so foreign to us. It was common for the government in
Sweden to assign a new surname to a boy when they reached adulthood.
My guess is it helped identify them as they joined the King's service.
Those who have done a great deal of research in Sweden have also told
me, that upon reaching adulthood, the person could be allowed to choose
a new surname. Boy, oh boy, does that make searching for ancestors
fun.

Back to my green envelope and its contents. Inside were several pages
of helpful facts. Helpful, that is, if one can read Swedish. I could
make out a few items like his name and date of birth. Other entries
were a mystery. So I did what every good researcher does during a time
of crisis. I contacted an American cousin of mine who just happens to
live in Sweden and asked her to translate for me.

Now the pages of information warm my heart. In them, I have the places
of birth, dates of moving out of a parish, marriage dates, death dates,
cause of death, etc. In the event any of you are in need of the 1936
Inflyttningsbok for Bo forsamling , pp 57-58, contact me. I've got
them and am willing to share the information contained.

So, bring on the spring. And please Mr. Postman, please keep bringing
me those delightful green envelopes.