Bédard Family, Andover Parish Registers and my new digital frame

I decided to check the hints on Ancestry for the Bédard family. There were two new ones in particular for Charles Alexandre Bédard and his wife Emelie Whelan and for the Whelan line. I wrote to both of the owners of public trees to see if I could obtain any new information. As well, Ancestry search engine has found the 1891 Census for the Charles Bédard family in Ottawa (Valmore is ten years old on this census) which was a good find. Transcribed as Bidard but obvious for the actual family. I must get back to more French Canadian research once again. All of our traveling has distracted me. I want to get into the University of Ottawa Library to look at their rather large collection of early family histories for Quebec. Also a trip to Montreal would be very nice to have a look at the records there.

I am really enjoying my new picture frame. I am able to connect it to my computer and then just move files on to the 2 GB of storage on the frame. Already I have noticed a few items that escaped my attention earlier (and when I had less information). Being able to blend all my results in this way could just be another tool to use in working through my families before census.

I have now reached 8000 baptisms at Andover St Marys as of 15 December 1708. There are probably concurrently two Richard Spring families at Andover which is interesting to find (possibly father and son). Mary Spring was baptized 2 Dec 1692 and was the only survivor of the three children of Richard Spring (son of Richard Spring and Ellen Drew) and Jone Watkins. I am not sure if Richard then married twice more as there are two more marriages for Richard Spring but it also could be the other Richard Spring. One of these Richard Springs is the Clerk and once I ferret out that information I may have a better picture of the Spring family at Andover.

I am thinking that I might start a reading list. It seems rather late to start one as I have read thousands and thousands of books in my lifetime but perhaps it would be interesting to do so. I have just read two of Edward Rutherfurd's books - New York and The Rebels of Ireland (I have already read - London, Sarum, Russka, The Forest, Princes of Ireland). I used to read Historical Fiction as a child but haven't done so in years until just lately. I prefer religious, documentaries, biographies, historical, geographical, natural history and scientific literature for the most part in adulthood. Starting 1 January 2011 I shall record my books in rigorous fashion with all the bibliographic details. I purchased a book yesterday that struck my fancy by Andrew Roberts - A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900. I was looking for some thing else to do that kept me away from the computer and I think that reading may be another good item along with exercise!

I have not read any of Andrew Roberts books but note that I may do so as he has written: The Holy Fox, a Life of Lord Halifax; Eminent Churchillians; The Aaschen Memorandum; Salisbury: Victorian Titan; Napoleon and Wellington; Hitler and Churchill; Waterloo, and one as Editor: What Might Have Been.

http://www.andrew-roberts.net/index.asp (website for Andrew Roberts)

I renewed my library card as well. I do not want to now begin to increase our library to any great extent as we already have thousands of books and have been slowly downsizing them for sales by the Friends of Library and Archives Canada (my husband is involved with this group once a week where he goes to the sorting day).

Roberts, Andrew. 2006. A History of the English-Speaking Peoples since 1900. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 13:9780297850762 736 pages, 26 illustrations.

I was three years old when I started to read. My maternal grandmother decided to teach me to read (although I do not recall this in any detail she told me later) because I was with her one day when the son of a neighbour who was studying to be an ophthalmologist dropped by to visit with her. He told her I would be blind by the time I was 20 years old and it so upset her that she decided to teach me to read. Actually I can still see and I am now 65 but that was a long time ago and perhaps he wanted to encourage her to work with me. Hard to say really. She used to read to me out of her set of Books of Knowledge. From that early start I then myself read the Encyclopaedia Britannica as a child. I read and read when I was young taking home every week from the "Bookmobile" which stopped in front of our Doctor's house/office the maximum number. It was around the corner from our street and I used to see our Doctor there as well selecting books and it was he who first directed me to medical books that were on the Bookmobile and encouraged me to read them as well. I did not end up going into medicine (as he seemed to hope I would),but did work in the medical field for quite a while.