National Network for Equitable Library Service

A Better Place describes the practices around death and burial in 19th-century Ontario. Funeral rituals, strong religious beliefs, and a firm conviction that death was a beginning not an end helped the bereaved through their times of loss in a century where death was always close at hand.The book describes the pioneer funeral in detail as well as the factors that changed this simple funeral into the elaborate etiquette-driven Victorian funeral at the end of the century.

Genealogical evidence is the information that allows us to identify an individual, an event in his or her life, or the relationship between individuals. In such a process, we often hear or use words such as evidence, proof, or documentation. Brenda Dougall Merriman takes readers through the genealogical process of research and identification, along the way examining how the genealogical community has developed standards of evidence and documentation, what those standards are, and how they can be applied.

Digital records and broad access to the Internet have made it easier for genealogists to gather relevant information from distant sources and to share the information they have gathered. The law, however, remains tied to particular geographic locations. This book discusses how specific laws – access to information, personal data protection, libel, copyright, and regulation of cemeteries – apply to anyone involved in genealogical research in Canada.

Artifacts, whether found in museums, our community, or our homes, offer glimpses into the past. Be they documents, photographs, books, or clothing, as custodians of our history, we’re faced with how to maintain these items. Professional conservator Kennis Kim tells us how. Topics discussed include: creating an accession list; the nature of conservation, restoration, and preservation; deciding on display, storage, or using the artifact; common threats such as light, humidity, insects, and rodents; and when to call a professional.

Many people want to write a family history, but few ever take on the job of publishing one. If you've done the research, and you want to make a book from it, then Publish Your Family History is for you. It will tell you all the fundamentals of book production, together with the important details that distinguish a home-published book from a homemade one.

Crime and Punishment in Upper Canada provides genealogists and social historians with context and tools to understand the criminal justice system and locate sources on criminal activity and its consequences for the Upper Canada period (1791–1841) of Ontario’s history. Illustrative examples further aid researchers in this era of the province’s past, which is notoriously difficult to investigate due to paucity of records and indexes.

Do you know how long it took to sail across the Atlantic Ocean? Was it faster from east to west or west to east? Imagine sailing to India, a five-month trip around the Cape of Good Hope! No wonder late Victorians valued the steamship and the Suez Canal. What difference did the inventions of the telephone or steam engine make to our ancestors lives? Do you know what a rod or a chain is and what they measured?

<p>Homelessness is not new to Vancouver. There have been homeless people in Vancouver since it was founded in 1886. As in other major North American cities, until the late '70s and early '80s homelessness in Vancouver followed the economic logic of boom and bust capitalism.</p><p>However, since the run-up to the World Exposition of 1986, that logic has no longer been the determining factor influencing the growing number of homeless in the city.

<p>New Edition as part City of Vancouver’s Legacy Book Project, with foreword by historian Daniel Francis</p> <p><i>Who Killed Janet Smith?</i> examines one of the most infamous and still unsolved murder cases in Canadian history: the 1924 murder of twenty-two-year-old Scottish nursemaid Janet Smith.

<p>“Reading the Riot Act” is a phrase that has entered the popular lexicon, meaning the action taken by authority figures when they perceive that their “charges” are getting out of hand. The act itself is a seldom-used piece of legislation actually designed to prevent a riot from taking place. Supposedly, the mere mention of the Riot Act is enough to bring hardened miscreants bent on destruction to their collective senses. But if a riot has started, it’s already too late to read the Riot Act.