Tool Time with Gary Perlman

The main idea of Tool Time is to give examples of how I use various research tools for family tree research. I'll describe:

• Contents of the database used by the tool (e.g., geographical and chronological range).
• Search syntax (e.g., wildcards, quoting)
• Saving and sharing results
• Cost of the tool, including free trial period
• YouTube video, if available

The examples contain links which generally open into the same window, so keeping that window open should make you work more efficiently. What you see in the linked pages may differ from what I see because I will be using my account/subscription.

Tools:

1. Montreal Gazette (and Star) on Newspapers.com 2021-12-05
2. GenealogieQuebec.com 2022-02-20
3. Canadian Jewish Review 2022-04-20
4. Lovell's Name and Street Directory 2022-11-06
5. Quebec Civil Registry 1841-1918 2023-01-15

Montreal Gazette (and Star) on Newspapers.com

• Presented: 2021-12-05
• Updated:: 2021-12-23 Newspapers.com now includes the Montreal Star (1869-1979)
• Content: Gazette 1857-present (hundreds more newspapers), obituaries and articles, scanned with OCR. Differs from:
  • Gazette obituaries 2002-
  • Genealogie Quebec obituaries ~1996- (sparse coverage, limited sharing)
  • Gazette on Google Newspapers (poor indexing)
• Search: Keyword search, wildcards with *, quoting of near terms, no diacritics
• Saving/Sharing: Clipped articles are publicly shareable
• Cost: Plans: $20/mo, $75/6-months, 7-day free trial with email, Ancestry, Facebook (Publisher Extra includes Gazette)
  Suggestion: Prepare for free trial with family names and dates, use Gazette Tool, clip and share.
• YouTube: video   41:15-66:40

1. First Gazette Example:
   1. Start from JGS-Montreal Genealogy Dashboard, which has a form that limits search to the Gazette (Quebec+Montreal section).
   2. Search for name Norman Perlman
   3. Ranked results: obit is at top of list, then unveiling, then relatives' obituaries
   4. Click it, then clip it, can be shared
   5. Clippings have OCR at the bottom - pretty good, but not perfect
   6. Useful to find key relatives, dates
2. Limiting with Quotes, Type, Dates:
   1. Stephen OSMAN + 1968 - KI/BOc 1968 in KI data, actually 1969
   2. Cemetery records listed 1968, but no matches, so remove date
   3. Without middle name or date = 649 matches
   4. Add quotes scroll down or limit result type=obit = success
   5. Could use date range
   6. View OCR at bottom of clipping (correct and copy)
3. Correcting Cemetery Records:
   1. Louis GOODMAN Buried 1973-03-16
   2. Gravestone has death 1973-03-16, so was he buried on same day?
   3. Louis GOODMAN 1973 is perfect ranked match, was buried 1973-03-18
4. Bad OCR:
   1. Search may fail because of low print quality: Leah Perlman -1957
   2. Search the Gazette on Newspapers.com (works now because of corrections)
   3. Note the problem with "PERLMAN" in the OCR of the clipping
   4. Was able to find with just Leah in 1957, limited to obituaries
5. Unusual Names:
   1. Very unusual names can work by themselves - e.g., Boaz Rabinovitch
   2. Boaz 1996 = 25 entries
   3. Limit to obituaries
6. Famous People may have Articles:
   1. Leonard Cohen
   2. Samuel Bronfman
7. Telling the Story with Articles:
   1. Father and son died together but buried months apart
   2. Four friends died together
   3. Mother and two daughters die in crash (daughter Lynda wrote Repairing Rainbows)

• Wildcard: You can put an asterisk (*) in terms to match variations of names. For example, searching for Pe*rlman will match Perlman, Pearlman, ...
• Manual Clipping: If you see some text that is not automatically boxed for selection, such as a longer article about a famous person, click on the scissors icon in the upper right of the page. A box will appear and you can move the "handles" to crop the text you want. Typical optional text to add would be "Obituary for Issie LEVINE".
• Adding Text (e.g., corrected OCR): You can add the OCR (optical character recognition) text to a clipping. It's a little awkward to get the longer description to appear.
  1. Clip an item
  2. View the page with the clipping
  3. Click on the clipping (shows clipping(s))
  4. Select your clipping
  5. Click "Edit"
  6. Click "Add more details" (up to 500 characters)
• Save the Latest Obituary: There are often many versions of an obituary. I like to save the last one because it might contain corrections of an earlier version (e.g., added burial date, burial in a different cemetery).
• Unveiling Announcements can be Useful: If you can't find an obituary, you might find an unveiling announcement, which can contain useful genealogical information.

GenealogieQuebec.com

• Presented: 2022-02-20
• Updated:: 2022-10-15 Prices increase from $5/day, $13/mo, $100/year
• Content: Quebec marriages/deaths 1926-1979, obituaries ~1998-, many others
• Search: Keyword search, wildcards with * at end, many fields; No external (i.e., dashboard) search of marriages/deaths
• Saving/Sharing: Bookmarked obituaries no longer freely shared; marriages/deaths not bookmarkable. Save copies/text.
• Cost: Plans: $7/day, $15/mo, $129/year, 75-100 images per day, no free trial
• YouTube: video   1:10:43-1:34:46

General Features

• Data is full of inaccuracies (many corrected by JGS-Montreal, but not generally available)
• Cite using names searched to match what is in database
• Search with multiple fields to narrow results
• Use wildcards on abbreviations to broaden results (e.g., Gar* Per*)
• Different years have different information

Marriage Records (1926-1997)

• Some overlap with Drouin (~1900-1940)
• Can't search from Genealogy Dashboard (must re-enter names)
• Can't bookmark results (must save search terms used)
• Marriage records have different fields for different years (e.g., birth, parents)
• Get list of marriages for name for male/female and save as PDF
• Examples: GQ Marriages
  1. My grandparents Reuben Schmulick/Small and Lilian Victor: record - Drouin
     • A search for Reuben Small fails, as does Reuben Schmulick.
     • A search for Lilian Victor fails.
     • A search for Lil* Victor matches a marriage record of Sam Small (the groom's father) to Lillian Victor (indexed with two Ls despite what is in the record).
  2. My grandparents Issie Perlman and Bella Grief: record - Drouin
     • A search for Issie Perlman or Bella Grief works!
     • Civil record from 1926 has names or parents, birth place and age.
     • Note that Issie was born in Russia (now Ukraine).
  3. My parents Norman Perlman and Marcia Small: record
     • Records from 1953 have birth places and dates
     • Issie is now born in Montreal.
  4. All Perlman marriages for Husband/Wife - save as PDF (50/page), save linked pages as JPG. Perlman Husbands - Perlman Wives

Death Records (1926-1997)

• Can't search from Genealogy Dashboard; Can't bookmark results
• Search for Name (birth surname), or Spouse's name (under More search criteria)
• Birth month/day sometimes meaningless (matches death month/day): ignore
• Get list of deaths for surname/married name and save as PDF
• Examples: GQ Deaths
  1. My grandfather Issie Perlman: record - JOWBR
     • Issie Perlman fails
     • Is* Perlman works, matching Isidore, provides date of birth
     • No spouse name
  2. My grandmother, Bella Grief: record - JOWBR
     • Both Perlman and Grief work, provide date of birth, parents
  3. My grandfather Reuben Schmulick/Small: JOWBR
     • Reuben Small works, provides date of birth, parents
  4. My grandmother Lilian Victor Small: JOWBR
     • Can't find using Small or Victor or date 1988 or abbreviations (e.g., li* vi*)
  5. My father Norman Perlman: JOWBR
     • Died in New York, so not in Quebec death records
  6. My mother Marcia Small Perlman: JOWBR
     • Died in 2002, so not in Quebec deaths 1926-1997
  7. My gggmother Malka Leibovitz Rudman: record - JOWBR
     • Malka Rudman fails
     • Rudman 1927 finds Sara Seibovitch [sic], gives birth date
  8. PDFs of born Victor deaths (JOWBR) married Victor deaths

Obituaries (~1995-2001)

• Useful for ~1995-2001, which is not covered by Gazette obituaries
• Can be searched from Genealogy Dashboard, like Newspapers.com, and can use * wildcard at end of abbreviations (obit)
• Obituaries can no longer be freely shared, so copy text
• Phil Kohos: Obit - JOWBR

Canadian Jewish Review

• Presented: 2022-04-20
• Content: The Canadian Jewish Review (CJR, 1921-1966), the Canadian Jewish News (CJN, 1960-1993), and the Jewish Western Bulletin (JWB, 1925-2004) are available through Simon Fraser University's SFU Digital Newspapers or via Google search.
• Search: As of a few years ago, the SFU search was not working properly and should be avoided until further notice. The newspaper pages are indexed as searchable on Google (limited to site:newspapers.lib.sfu.ca). These searches are available from the JGS-Montreal.org Genealogy Dashboard's Jewish Resources.
• Saving/Sharing: SFU pages can be bookmarked and individual articles can be cropped and saved. The OCR text available at the bottom of each page is often a good start to digitizing the text.
• Cost: free
• YouTube: video   54:54-1:30:00

Births

1. search - 1930 Marcia Small - search by parents, mother's name should be Lilian, not Lillian. - image
2. search - 1952 Stephen Ettinger - image

Deaths, unveilings, memorials

1. search - 1926 Isaac Rudman - image
2. search - 1946 Jacob Garmaise - image
3. search - 1948 Jeanette Victor unveiling - image
4. search - 1963 Masha Diamond - OCR view - image

Marriages

1. search - 1926-Pearlman-Grief - should be Perlman - image - colour - people
2. search - 1929 Small-Victor + cont'd - image + cont'd
3. search - 1930 Safran-Victor - from a distance - PNG - JPG
4. search - 1949 Grief-Aisenthal - PNG

Anniversaries, social events

1. search - 1928 Alex Grief - image
2. search - Golden Anniversary search

Lovell's Name and Street Directory

• Presented: 2022-11-06
• Content: Montreal name/street directories 1842-1977 includes individuals and businesses. Alphabetical name directory includes heads of households, people in business
• Search: Search for Surname, Street name. Names are not indexed, but alphabetical.
• Saving/Sharing: Data is in large PDF files, so cropping (e.g., Snipping Tool) and saving images is about the best you can do.
• Cost: free
• YouTube: video  

Basic Use

• French-only (Translate to English)
• Montréal et sa Banlieue (suburbs)
• Série Criss-cross (1974-2010) (by street) - image
• Série principale (1842-1977) (by surname and street)
• Businesses can be in surnames or separate section
• Search for Brian Mulroney 1977-1978 (LAN-RAO) Search PDF (depends on OCR) - image

Steve Morse One Step Page

• Simplified access to Lovell's Directory
• http://more.stevemorse.org/montreal_en.html
• Search for Surname or Street name (which may have changed)
• Search for Brian Mulroney 1977-1978 (slow PDF download)

1901/1911/1921 Census

• Neighbours were usually on same/adjacent census rolls
• Can't find someone in census? Find their neighbours!
• Search for Perlman in 1921-1922 (MER-SCU) - image Search for Pearlman (or Pearl) or Perelman - image

1940 National Registration

• Required for all 16+ in 1940 (info)
• Requires name and address in 1940
• Requires payment (~$50) only if record found
• Example: Find my great-grandmother Leah Schwartz Perlman by searching for daughters:
  • Minnie Josephson (Sam) (FI-KN) - image
  • Betty Kramer (Harry) (KO-MAS) - image
  • Ada Buckshon (Joe) (A-CE) - (Vancouver)
  • Fay Mallek (Sam) (KO-MAS) - image - image
  • Perlman (MAT-RIN) - image (family map)

Special Sections

• Varies by year - image - English
• Businesses - some years in separate sections (not in One Step pages) - image
• Abbreviations (e.g., of occupations, status (e.g., wid)) - can find information not easily recovered elsewhere - image

Quebec Civil Registry 1841-1918

• Presented: 2023-01-15
• Content: Quebec birth, marriage, death records 1841-1918 (when limited to Jewish sources).
• Search: Chronological, but not indexed at the BAnQ site, but indexed in the Drouin Collection in Ancestry.
• Saving/Sharing: Colour page scans can be downloaded or bookmarked (risky)
• Cost: free

Search Ancestry for marriage of Abram Victor in 1901, and view document image for May 26, 1901 marriage.

Based on the date, there may be a pretty image in the BAnQ records for Beth David, so go to the list of synagogues and open Bais David 1892-1918. This resource is not available in English, so use Google Translate, or just go to Voir les documents. In the 1901 index, Abram Victor is in folio 14, so open janvier-juin and get to Image 28 of 31. We see more clearly that the signatures of the "partie" seem to be by the same person.

Opportunities

Death records for a synagogue can be tracked with burial records, especially if that synagogue has its own cemetery.

• German and Polish Synagogue (Shaar Hashomayim)
• Shaar Hashomayim Cemetery (Burials)

Death records might help correct dates of death in some Shaar Hashomayim records, some of which were recorded as 1900 or 1901 because the old software couldn't represent dates before 1900.

Death records might help add information for burials with no monument.

Birth and Burial records might be the only source of information about a person. For example, David Shatner lived 7 months in 1935, but we don't know where in the Back River he was buried (probably B'nai Jacob).