War Diaries through Heritage Canadiana

Discussion in 'Canadian' started by sapperschild, Aug 9, 2014.

  1. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    John:

    You are correct regarding the reels. I have found Volumes that are not documented in the LAC catalog. I use the LAC catalog to build my spreadsheet, but the LAC catalog often misses some of the Volumes that are on the reel. The case in point that I found recently is regarding the General Staff War Diaries for the 6th Canadian Division. The originals appear to have been lost at the LAC. My colleague went there, requested the originals, and was told they were missing. When the Reel was placed online at Heritage, the Volume that contained the 6th Division GS was on the reel right where it should have been even though the LAC online catalog did not show it. I have reported this to the LAC and they have responded.

    Also the order that I have shown on my spreadsheet is not necessarily the order on the reel. This is because the LAC online search engine does not show the order on the reel. Often a Volume will overlap onto another reel even though it is not shown on the other reel in the search engine.

    It is best to use the spreadsheet as a guideline and thoroughly search each reel as you have done to establish what is really on the reel. It do this for the reels that I am interested in and build a guide for later. Here is an example:

    10th Searchlight Battery (CD) RCA

    T-16859 - pp. 1077-1875 (Jul_39-30_Apr_40)

    T-16860 - pp. 13-1859 (1_Apr_40-31_Aug_40)

    T-16861 - pp. 13-1833 (1_Aug_40-31_Oct_40)

    T-16862 - pp. 13-1891 (1_Oct_40-31_Dec_40)

    T-16863 - pp. 13-1902 (1_Dec_40-31_Mar_41)

    T-16864 - pp. 1821 (1_Mar_41–31_May_41)

    T-16865 - pp. 13-1856 (1_May_41-31_Jul_41)

    T-16866 - pp. 13-1867 (1_Jul_41-30_Sep_41)

    T-16867 - pp. 13-1847 (1_Sep_41-31_Oct_41)

    T-16868 - pp. 13-1497 (1_Nov_41-30_Sep_42)

    Thanks for the information. It will help other members search the reels.

    David
     
  2. JohnS

    JohnS Senior Member

    It is still a good guide and from what I can tell the RCE reels are pretty accurate. I will catalogue any discrepancies I come across and send them your way.
     
  3. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    Thanks John
     
  4. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    There have been some updates of the Heritage Canadiana War Diaries. Eleven reels have been added. They generally are Brigade and RCE war diaries. Here are the specific reels that have been added. I hope that they are part of a new batch and more will be added over the next number of days. I will update the Heritage Canadiana War Diaries spreadsheet in the resource section to reflect the new reels. Here is the list of reels in the meantime:

    T-11062
    T-11074
    T-11075
    T-11076
    T-11145
    T-11146
    T-11147
    T-11348
    T-18371
    T-18586
    T-18587
     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2017
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  5. JohnS

    JohnS Senior Member

    Looking forward to the update because I don't even see T-18886 and 7 on the ones that aren't posted. What RCE units are these?
     
  6. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    John, download the updated spreadsheet in Resouces. The eleven reels are color-coded orange. Here is a summary of the three RCE reels:

    T-18371 7th Field Company RCE 1944/12-1945/09; 11th (Lambton) Field Company RCE 1939/09-1941/02
    T-18586 30th Field Company RCE 1943/05-1944/04; 1944/05-1945/03
    T-18587 30th Field Company RCE 1944/05-1945/03; 1945/04-1945/10; 31st Field Company RCE 1943/05-1944/03
     
  7. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    John,
    The reels should be T-18586 and T-18587. My bad. I have edited the reply above.

    David
     
  8. JohnS

    JohnS Senior Member

    Okay, that makes sense now. Thanks.
     
  9. geordie809

    geordie809 Junior Member


    Good Morning
    I was conducting a search on Movement Control when it brought up your post, I am the historical Secretary of the Movement Control Association, and am very intrigued about your research and would like to discuss it with you further, if you are willing to help out our association please contact me, many thanks.

    best regards

    mick
     
  10. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    The Heritage Canadiana site has added eleven more reels as of today. They fall in the the area of 1st Canadian Army General Staff, HQ Esquimalt Fortress and 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade. Here is the current list:

    T-6680, T-6690, T-6691, T-6692, T-6697, T-10872, T-10873, T-10874, T-10875, T-11148, and T-11149.

    I am updated the spreadsheet and will post a new version shortly.
     
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  11. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    As of today (March 10, 2017), 114 more reels have been posted in addition to the 11 posted on Wednesday, making a total of 125 this week. I have already added the 11 to my spreadsheet and I will add the 125 others soon. I have the grandkids today because it is a snow day in southern Connecticut so it will take a while. You can check the UPDATE button on the site to see what has been added in the meantime.
     
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  12. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    Please note that as of today (March 10, 2017) some of the reels are still feeding in so they are showing as missing. This will correct when they are finished feeding in the reels.
     
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  13. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    As of 7:20pm EST (March 10, 2017), there are only 12 reels that have not been fed in. I would hope that these will be completed by the end of the evening.
     
  14. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    I have added the updated Heritage Canadiana War Diaries Spreadsheet in the Resource area. It contains the 125 reels added this week. These are coded in red while all older reels are now black. The War Diaries not posted section has also been updated with only 124 reels remaining through the RCE area of the Archives.
     
  15. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Thank you for your unceasing work!

    I am looking at T-18373 for the 11th (Lambton) Field Company RCE. It seems to start in October '41 rather than March but maybe I did something wrong?
     
  16. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    Seroster,
    You have not done anything wrong. The listings in the spreadsheet are based on what is listed in the LAC (Library and Archive of Canada) holdings. They are based on Volumes. Since the reels were from microfilm, there is often some of one Volume on one reel and it is then continued on the next reel. The only way to tell what is exactly on a reel is to examine its contents. They put break sheets in the reel to show where one Volume ends and another begins, but this data can only be found by going through the reel. I just finished doing this for the reels that I am interested in. It took me most of today. Here is a sample of what I did to resolve the Volumes with the actual content of the reels. The example if for Force W GS and AQ files. You can see that June 41 is listed on two reels since it was split. This happened for August 1942, etc. Seldom does a reel end exactly at the end of month.

    Good luck in your research,

    David


    Headquarters Force W Newfoundland GS

    T-10564 - pp. 1019-1745 (16_Oct_40-30_Jun_41)

    T-10565 - pp. 9-1781 (1_Jun_41-31_Aug_42)

    T-10566 - pp. 9-1786 (1_Aug_42-31_Aug_43

    T-10567 - pp. 9-1810 (1_Aug_43-30_Jun_45)

    T-10568 - pp. 9-970 (1_Jul_45-31_Oct_45)

    Headquarters Force W Newfoundland AQ

    T-10568 - pp. 972-1463 (4_Jan_42-30_Jun_42)

    T-10569 - pp. 10-962 (1_Jun_42-31_Aug_45)
     
  17. Chris C

    Chris C Canadian

    Thanks David, good to know!

    Chris
     
  18. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    Heads up to all interested parties. Today (March 13, 2017) an additional 125 reels of war diaries have been posted at the Heritage Canadiana site. This pretty much completes all the reels in the War Diaries Not Posted section of my spreadsheet. I am working on categorizing the new reels and adding them into my spreadsheet and should have it ready in about a day. Luckily (??) a blizzard is arriving tonight in New England, so I should be snowbound and working on the update over the next day or so. You can check the <Update> button on the site to see the changes in the meantime.
     
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  19. 17thDYRCH

    17thDYRCH Senior Member

    David,
    A huge task about to become completed.
    Well done and thank you for your efforts.
     
  20. dryan67

    dryan67 Senior Member

    I have updated the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet reflects updates to the Heritage Canadiana War Diaries as of March 13, 2017. There are now 1353 reels online with only four remaining. This weeks updates are color-code red for those uploaded on March 10, 2017 and blue for those uploaded on March 13, 2017. There are four reels that are misfiled. They are T-10017, T-12022, T-12023, and T-12024. The reels not yet uploaded are T-10629, T-12393, T-12418, and T-18395.
     
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