Thursday, January 24, 2013

Offical launch of the contest was a great success!

View of the group with
 pic of William Davidson in back ground.
The launch of the contest to find the first Scot in New Brunswick was a great success.  We had wonderful coverage from the press (we are looking forward to seeing the story in the papers throughout the week)before, during and after the event.   It was great to have Brad Sturgeon the descendant of William Davidson in attendance at the event and to say a few words. The President of the New Brunswick Scottish-Cultural Association was present and welcomed the group.

Despite the  weather (-21 without the windchill) and the limited parking we had a fantastic turnout. We had people  from Saint John, Miramichi, Perth-Andover and of course the Fredericton area.  We are very thankful to the Provincial Archives for allowing Portal project to use their facilities for the event.  It was great to see people from the provincial Heritage branch in attendance. 

There is a rumour going around that there could very well be two challengers coming forward to attempt to claim the first Scot throne.  The rumour says that there could be at least one in Charlotte county and another from the Saint John area.  How exciting is that!  Now the fun has begun and we wait to receive the family histories from around the province.  

Monday, January 21, 2013

Who Was the first Scot in New Brunswick?

Here at the Portal project we have some very exciting news to share with everyone. This Thursday the project will be hosting a media event to launch our contest "Who is the First Scots in New Brunswick?".  To learn more about the event and the contest you can visit  Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/nbscots or on the Association website www.nbscots.com.


Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Happy New Year

Well it has been some time since our last web portal update.  I am sure many of you might think that the project has died.  That is so far from the truth, in reality we have been so busy working on the project and holding meetings we just haven't had time to provide any updates.  Well we are in a new year and as result we are going to be getting back to providing regular updates.  To help accomplish our improved commutations plan we are going to start sending out a newsletter to our supporters and followers.  The link be shared here in this space and we will be emailing you directly.

We have plenty to share but instead of overwhelming everyone with the news all at once we will be sharing it over the next week.  But to start off with I want to let everyone know we have completed the mining of the data from the 1851 census and we have moved on to the 1861 census. We originally said that we would have this information up and on display in the portal by the spring of 2013.  However due to holidays and dirty data that upload will only happen in the fall.

We are preparing now for the next stage of the project and that is to gather family histories, that will include pictures,stories about people from around New Brunswick.   We will be making a big announcement in the coming days that will we hope will help in obtaining those stories.   So stay tuned to this spot for more information when it arrives.