 Home | Cemeteries | Did You Know? | Find Us | For Sale |
| Holdings | Links | Membership | Monuments | Newsletter |
| Open Hours | Places of worship | Research Lines | Schools | Where is This? |
| Who is This? |
*Newsletters Archive*
| March 19, 2001 | |
|
South Shore Genealogical Society PO Box 901 68 Bluenose Drive Lunenburg NS B0J 2C0 Phone : 1-902-634-4794 Ext. 26 ssgsoc@hotmail.com www.rootsweb.com/~nslssgs Open - Regular Hours Wednesday & Thursday 1:00 to 4:30 PM (Wednesday & Thursday evenings by appointment) Zellers - Club Z#: 840345301 |
 |
Meeting Notice
March 19, 2001 in the Society Room of the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic at 7:30 pm.
Program - by Ralph Getson, curator of the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic. The topic will be on Foreign Trade and Lunenburg Co. and will inclue a slide presentation and stories from the Golden Age of Sail. Make sure you bring your oil clothes and Sou'wester
Annual Meeting
The Annual Meeting of SSGS was held on January 15, 2001 with 31 attending. In attendance were our five presidents since the SSGS was founded: Betty Rhodenizer; Gordon Mason; Paul Joudrey; Sheila Chambers and Ralph Getson
Officers for 2001
President: Ralph Getson
Past President: Sheila Chambers
Vice President: Sueann Mersey
Secretary: Betty Rhodenizer
Treasurer: Mary Saul
Newsletter: Arlene Bailey
Membership: Ed Kinsman
Publicity: Pauline Wessell
Program & Education: Joan Parks
Office Administrator: Barbara Spindler
Computer Information Manager: Sueann Mersey
Email - Pat Smith wilil be checking and replying to the SSGS email. Thanks to Sueann Mersey who has handled the task since SSGS started on line.
Special Thanks to the out-going Past President Paul Jodrey and Vice President Murray Jodrie for their many years of dedicated service.
The following highlights are from the annual reports:
Treasurer's Report - Mary Saul circulated copies of the Annual Treasurer's report which gave a bank balance of $13, 513.68
Newsletter - Arlene Bailey stressed the importance of a Newsletter as it is the only contact many of our SSGS members have with the office.
Membership - Ed Kinsman was pleased with the growing numbers in the society. December 31, 1999 membership was 358 and December 31, 2000 membership was 387.
Program & Education - Joan Parks mentioned that there were four programs this past year. She welcomes new ideas for up-coming programs.
Office Manager's Report - Barbara Spindler reported a very busy and productive year with over 1,160 visitors signing the guest book. We were able to employ Karen Rafuse during the summer. Karen updated the data base, catalogues materials, answered correspondence and assisted members locating material for their search.
School records for Lunenburg Co. were acquired and had to be sorted, boxed and stored.
Chairs and desks were purchased to accomodate the microfilm readers.
Barbara expressed appreciation to all the volunteers who worked doing many jobs in the office.
Computer Manager - Sueann Mersey informed us of the tremendous impact the SSGS website is having on the public at large. It has had 10,200 visitors at this time.
A new membership database was created in Paradox, which is more versatile. A school record database was also created to have the records converted into the inventory database.
President's Report - Sheila Chambers advised that she has enjoyed working with all the Society staff and with the people she met at the office while carrying out the Society's business away from the office. Working with people like Babrabra Spindler, Sueann Mersey, Mary Saul, the summer students and office volunteers who do such dedicated work, make the job of the president much easier and rewarding.
This past year, some of the highlights were:
- obtaining the school registers for Lunenburg Co.
-Sheila spoke to high school students about the impact that genealogy has on tourism.
- worked with Parks & Recreation Dept. of the Municipality of the District of Lunenburg to set up a course on genealogy and the Internet.
- set up a vital statistics project for 2003, ready to go to the Federal Government for funding. This project will give SSGS another resource for the office and to sell to researchers.
Year 2001 is dedicated as International Year of the Volunteers. I [Sheila] have all intentions to volunteer. How about you? Will you join??
It is a great honour to have been asked to serve as President for the coming year. We have a great organization in place with many hard-working volunteers who provide a wonderful service for both local and long distance genealogists.
The next few years promise to be exciting ones as we build up to Lunenburg's 250th Anniversary Celebrations in 2003. A major part of the celebrations will focus on the founding families and we want to make sure that we are a part of it. This will be a tremendous opportunity to meet 'long lost cousins, inlaws and outlaws' and gather new research material.
The society will be casting its nets far and wide looking for even more volunteers to enable us to have extended hours of operation that year, to assure that we are accessible to the greatest number of interested researchers.
We always welcome new volunteers in the office so don't be shy, and I promise it won't hurt a bit.
...........Ralph D. Getson (descendant of Gelle Geerts)
The Research Lines are being enclosed with this mailing. Thank you to Sueann Mersey; Martha Farrar who did the data entry and Karen Rafuse who photocopied the lines. Thank you also to the volunteers who helped with the folding and stuffing.
....by Pat Smith
The Society has applied for funding to publish Vital Statistics from the Bridgewater Bulletin and Lunenburg Progress Enterprise. That project has now been extended to cover all Lunenburg County newspapers. We now have what we hope is the complete list of publications from "Nova Scotian Newspapers: A Directory and Union List, 1752-1988" obtained from the Public Archives. Items below do not comprise the complete list.
There are gaps in some of the runs of the following papers:
There is only one issue of "The Bridgewater High School Globe" Vol 1, No 3 (Dec. 17, 1938), supposedly published weekly. It might not have continued for very long but it would appear that issues 1 & 2 existed at some point. I haven't yet checked in the one issue to see what there might be in the way of vital stats - possibly nothing - but I know that Bridgewater High would be very interested in obtaining at least photocopies of any issues around as they have nothing in the way of yearbooks for the 30s.
Another publication was "Bridgewater News", known to have been published in 1885 (from a reference in "The Nova Scotian" in 1886). No holdings are reported anywhere.
The "LaHave Gazette" was published from 1896 - 1899(?), supposedly weekly. The issue for Sep. 30, 1896 was Vol 1, No 22, but there are only five issues in total which were microfilmed through Jan. 11, 1899.
The "Lunenburg County Times", published Mar. 1883, supposedly weekly, of which there are scattered issues through Oct. 20, 1886 on microfilm.
The "Chester Breeze", for which there seems to be only one issue recorded - Dec. 25, 1898.
The "Daily News", Lunenburg, published between 1899 & 1918, supposedly daily, of which only about a dozen copies are microfilmed. This publication was absorbed by "The Malagesh News", of which only two copies are microfilmed and its continuation "The Malagesh News and Newtown Gazette", of which there is only one copy on microfilm.
Also published in Lunenburg were the "Semi-Weekly News", 1907 - 1918, and the "Weekly News", of which one issue appears on microfilm at PANS.
In Mahone Bay, there was the "Signal", weekly from 1902 - 1908, for which no holdings are recorded, and "The South Shore Record", weekly from 1932 - 1938 when it merged with the "Bridgewater Bulletin". The first issue on microfiilm, Jun. 1, 1933, indicates that it is Vol 1, No 26, so there were presumably 25 earlier issues. None of the years appear to be complete.
From Riverport, only two issues of the "Riverport Times" weekly, 1905 - 1906, appear on microfilm.
Finally, from Rose Bay, there is "Homegrown", frequency unknown, with possibly only about three issues, 1985 - 86, with nothing on microfilm.
If anyone should come across any of the above in their attics, would they please get in touch with the SSGS at: ssgsoc@hotmail.com, or myself, Pat Smith, at plsmith@ns.sympatico.ca.
July 30 to September 3, 1756
Would you think of settlers in Lunenburg County being on a 'cattle drive'?
After the Acadians were expelled from the Annapolis Valley region of Nova Scotia, their abandoned livestock were left to fend for themselves.
In his book "History of the County of Lunenburg" p. 47, M.B. DesBrisay quotes others "On July 30,1756, Captain John Steignfort, with fifty armed men, went from Lunenburg to the Basin of Minas, and drove away 120 head of horned cattle and a number of horses, being part of the confiscated property of the French Acadians. The party returned to Lunenburg, September 3rd, with sixty oxen and cows, the rest having perished on the way - all the horses included."
"This was truly a hazardous journey, made through an enemy's country; an enemy who, though uncivilized, was not wholly ignorant of some of those resources by which successful generals have been largely aided on modern fields of warfare. The cattle were 'drawn for in the jail-yard, in the presence of the commanding officer..."
Winthrop P. Bell, "The Foreign Protestants" p. 499, came across a list of 282 names of Lunenburg settlers labelled as having to do with this expedition. Bell was unable to determine a conveying connection to the cattle drive. The lists are arranged in 47 groups of six each. In each group five of the names were written in normal horizontal fashion. These five are then bracketed and the sixth name was written vertically alongside the bracket. He suggests that the man whoe name was written vertically would be responsible for, or would represent, the small group in some relationship.
Bell notes that while Acadians most likely had some sort of blazed trail across the peninsula, it would require a lot of work to make a feasible route for driving cattle. It would have been difficult to keep the animals in a line on the trail.
When we have house guests from away, I will often give them a Sou'wester as part of a house gift. Since it was mentioned in the program, an explanation might be useful to some. A good explanation appeared in the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic newsletter "Dory Mates" November 2000.
"The ultimate head wear for foul weather is the Sou'wester. It is named after the worst storm on the North Atlantic coast - a "sou'wester". The Sou'westers were popular since the mid-1800s when the dory fishermen made them famous. They have a high brim and a low back. They are traditionally made of cotton which has been soaked several times in linseed oil. A yellow colour is highlighted when shellac is added to the final coating, providing a stiffness to the garment.
The more popular black colour was traditionally created by adding lampblack to one of the final soakings of oil. Black was the preferred colour of North Atlantic fishermen as the dark shade helped to attract the heat of the sun.
There were oil clothes factories along the coastlines during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Entire suits of clothes, including jackets and bibbed pants as well as hats, were produced."
"From Vineyards of the Odenwald to their dispersion through North America" by Rev. Clyde Westhaver.
There is a searchable CD ROM version of the book available for $15.00 including postage. Copies available at the SSGS.
March 20, 7:30 pm. Quarantine on Lawlor's Island. Halifax harbour's least known island is Lawlor's Island, a home to a quarantine centre and hospital for immigrants arriving in Canada. Maritiime Museum of the Atlantic, 1675 Lr. Water St., Halifax. Fee $3.00. (902) 424-7490.
March 31, 10 am - 3 pm. Cemetery Preservation Workshop with Deborah Trask and Heather Lawson at the Museum of Natural History Auditorium, 1747 Summer St, Halifax. Fee $12.00, includes lunch. (902) 424-5647.
April 21, 1:00 pm. Researching Your Past by Dr. Charles Armour. Where to begin, what resources are available and how to track down the names, ships and masters that feature in your family's past. Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, 1675 Lr. Water St., Halifax. Fee $3.00. (902) 424-7490.
Gorinchem - the key to Holland - Our Corkum ancestor may have walked along that wall. http://www.xs4all.nl/~pho/Tourtownwalls/townwall.htm
Montbeliard regions and a hand-drawn map of the area. http://www.montbeliard.org and http://www.uwindsor.ca/library/leddy/people/art/resource.html
Smile
Any family tree produces some lemons, some nuts and a few bad apples.
SSGS Membership Single $15.00, Family $20.00. Members are entitled to three Queries in the Newsletter.
Advertising Rates for the Newsletter 1 page $50.00, 1/2 page $25.00, 1/4 page $13.00, 1/8 page $7.00.
Get Well - The members of the SSGS would like to send "Sincere Wishes" for a speedy recovery to Linda Bedford, Museum Assistant at the DesBrisay Museum, Bridgewater NS.
Club Z Points
The SSGS now has 461,000 points in their Club Z account. Thank you to those who donated their points to the Society. Supplies for the office will be purchased with the points. Remember if you would like to donate your points, please make note of the number: Zellers - Club Z No. 840 345 301