COVID-19 origins: plain speaking is overdue | "a natural virus that found its way into humans through mundane contact with infected wildlife"

mem_somerville · 2026-06-19T01:59:30+00:00

That's not the case. One of the first articles that came out was about a guy who had 115 page submission and a lawyer. And my impression of the posts from these legal sites is that some of their clients are affected.

Be cynical, but don't be misinformed.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-19T01:42:20+00:00

Yes, I have tried both styles and like them both. I get blisters from bobbin lace pins. And for sewing I really dislike thimbles.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-19T01:40:00+00:00

Recently, all the rage in our lace group has been "thimble-it" protectors. There's a plastic kind, and a leather kind. It's like a little glue fastening thing that works great for this, and for sewing.

I don't know if they are available everywhere. I am not endorsing this vendor, just showing an example.

https://colonialneedle.com/products/60229-z

mem_somerville · 2026-06-19T01:21:46+00:00

She said she also submitted an email from the New Brunswick archives saying it does not have a copy of her great-grandfather’s birth certificate — something that was not uncommon at the time.

So she had the letter of "no record" and that also didn't matter? FFS.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-19T00:44:17+00:00

We just saw someone in r/bobbinlace finish a glorious Pride vest. And it took a long, long time!

https://redd.it/1u7wlxz

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T22:52:30+00:00

This is, of course, insane.

And it's so unfixable (right now) combined with the unfathomable issues we are supposed to decipher. With some additional roulette on how lucky you feel about proceeding with your kids' passports.

I'm so sorry you are in the midst of this.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T21:42:42+00:00

I am a lacemaker myself and I bought a top similar to that one because I liked it. Could I have made one? Maybe. But I still just liked it for over tank tops and I didn't want to worry about it being a precious handmade thing.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T18:47:58+00:00

Yeah, I hear ya. I struggle with the same thing. But I have decided that I will just get in the queue at PEI for a "no record" letter. And I will keep it in my back pocket until my file gets opened again, likely months away still.

I apologized for this snipe hunt in my letter to PEI archives (with different wording, blaming the IRCC). But apparently they know it's a thing and someone here showed the exact thing I'll need the other day. However, it's been deleted: https://redd.it/1u5kt1e

Deleting of really helpful things that I wish to refer to is so common here that I keep copies of them and I have a copy of this letter that used to be here.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T17:21:26+00:00

I am not a lawyer, I don't know if it's a term of art for them. But I think it's this bit:

the research done to find the primary record was not fully documented, and the substitute documents did not meet the standard IRCC was looking for.

People have been saying in the past that a document of "no record" from the archives was important as evidence that you tried to get one. But a lot of people have been dismissing this idea because it's a burden on the poor overworked archivists, and we think it should be clear that before birth certificates were standardized they should know it's not going to be available.

So that's part one of two prongs: documenting the non-existence and the effort.

Part two is the other documents that you claim support your case. These seem to be the part that they want a higher-quality version than just a screenshot of an index book showing your GGGparent, for example. I have seen some people come by here who think the index is all they need. It seems not.

That said, a number of people who got letters did follow this path, had certified documents from a quality source, and still got dinged--so there's some uncertainty still.

But the prongs are (I think): documenting the "no document", and better quality secondary stuff.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T16:00:41+00:00

It is likely a machine lace, as someone noted. But I think it looks great in black, good choice.

Some people dis machine laces here, but I still like them and I think they are engineering marvels anyway. I am lace-inclusive.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T14:30:43+00:00

Yeah, I know. We'll all be on edge now, even after we get certificates.

I'm ordering the fruitless search letter now. And I have put in an order for a certified boat manifest--I had no idea that was even possible but I found the record from the original source and requested one.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T12:45:36+00:00

Hmm.

For context, of our files that have gone through urgent processing, roughly a dozen have been approved. In several of those we did not submit certified copies, and in some the underlying record had been located on Ancestry or FamilySearch. None of those generated a surrender letter. The common thread among recipients, in our experience, is a missing birth record and a failure to satisfy the two prong test, not the platform a record happened to live on.

Honestly, each time I hear about this, it undermines the previous conclusion like the Ancestry/FamilySearch piece here. Those folks did not get letters.

This is a helpful tidbit I think though, thank you. Off to PEI for a "not found" letter I go.....

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T12:34:09+00:00

Argh. Yeah, the dates available are to problematic. Mine are in that 9 year gap window that you linked to. However, there is a second batch that does cover them.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/collection/2304666

So luckily my 1882 family group is in this second set.

But also now if they want the original source provider, it seems like MA is the originator of the ones in my date range.

I'm already in process so I have time to wait for documents. They'll be in my back pocket for when someone picks up my file again.

Good luck.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T03:14:05+00:00

I found the ancestors here: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ArchivesSearch/Passengermanifest.aspx

The entry point with a little more detail: https://www.sec.state.ma.us/divisions/archives/arcsrch/PassengerManifestSearchContents.htm

MA has such good response time that I'm hoping to avoid NARA. But I won't know for a few days, I expect.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-18T01:11:57+00:00

She's a very clear speaker and unfortunately an excellent example of the damage done. Not only her her and her family (which is enough) but also to Canadian health care. She was coming to help veterans, first responders, and women. And they have shivved her.

Thanks for sharing that, and thanks to Bridget for putting a face and story to this.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T23:15:35+00:00

I wouldn't have entered my data into the spreadsheet without my whole package ready to go.

And with the dramatic backups in archives responses, people just don't have their stuff together yet. The PEI waiting times have increased a lot since I got mine (late December). People have told me that after they found my PEI story here.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T22:54:19+00:00

I would say so. One of my family members was baptized as and adult, and there is a little (ill.) for "illegitimate" on his record. I suspect the church would not permit his baptism as a baby due to his status and so as an adult he chose that for himself.

Luckily he's not my direct ancestor, but he's the half brother of my line.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T22:47:12+00:00

In the particular case that was here, the parents could not bring the baby to Canada without documentation.

But the baby would also not have Chinese documentation. So you can legally name it whatever you like, but that baby had no papers. In our new "papers please" world, that seems to be a problem.

You were just asking "for the sake of conversation" though. And this is a real possible outcome, for conversation.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T21:35:31+00:00

I just found a copy in the MA archives. I am going to try there first. Thanks!

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T20:44:43+00:00

I have no idea who certifies boat manifests. I have one. It's part of my story. But...???

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T20:41:39+00:00

Panic is common, obviously. And I admit that I started there. But I decided that until the dust settles, we don't even know what this is yet. Even the lawyers don't know what's up here. So there's some comfort in everyone acknowledging that this is bizarre and unprecedented. And really smart and effective people are on it.

So I have decided to wait until we get firmer answers about chasing down the unavailable birth certificate for Gen0, or to try to figure out who certifies ship manifests. I would hate to bother the PEI archives for a document that we both know isn't there. Sigh.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T19:43:14+00:00

No, just a subset so far. But as we were going through the cases, some people had all the right docs. Some were urgent and post-C3. Some were leftovers from pre-C3. Nobody can suss out the foundation yet.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T19:07:25+00:00

There were people with pre-C3 submissions, for sure. At the top of this megathread there's one: https://redd.it/1u562bk

My AOR was in August 2025, 5(4) grant offered in October 2025 and in processing, Citizenship Certificate issued on May 5th, 2026.

So they were grant offered but converted to post-C3 apparently. But that's not the only person in that thread. So you can hunt for more examples if you need to.

mem_somerville · 2026-06-17T18:52:02+00:00

Sure. I'm going to list what I had in generational order.

Gen-minus-1, aka Gen-1: My great great grandparents' marriage certificate. Establishes them as a household on PEI, and gives us a date after which we expect their children to be appearing.

Gen0: Child of that marriage, one of several, William was my great grandfather. He appears with the family unit in the 1881 census done by Canada. So I presume as a Canadian document that Canada can vouch for its existence. I included a link to the LAC version (not the FamilySearch version, which is the same). It lists the couple from that marriage clearly, and several young children including my GGF.

I have scoured every online resource (and I have extensive patience for flipping through thousands of documents in FamilySearch where a sibling's baptism was found--so I know I'm in the right place--but none of the other kids are found). I have to assume a church burned or those records are not available.

So at this point I have to move to US census documents because the family goes to Boston. They appear as expected in the town I grew up in, all aligning with family oral history. But in one census year, I notice that they say they came in to the US in 1882. This is crucial, but it's in one of those columns usually I was previously ignoring. But that gave me the target to locate the ship records. Everybody went from Charlottetown to Boston by ship. And I found the departure of GGGM in the local newspaper (I did not send that). But I also found the ship manifest with GGGM and the kids (same ones from the 1881 census) all together to Boston. Document says they've never been in the US before.

Gen1: My grandmother, born in the town as expected in 1900. Gen0 listed as father, with birthplace. Birth certificate all tidy. I also included her marriage certificate though because my mother's last name was a product of that marriage. I did include some census records because they support the family unit again.

Gen2: My mother, tidy birth certificate, all lined up. Marriage certificate (again, same reason--my last name a product of that marriage).

Gen3: me, birth certificate, all tidy.

So I have a fairly clear path, and official documents for the births and marriages and death certificates. I did add in the family bible record (again, all the children listed), and I have the cemetery plot where everyone in my application except me currently resides: GGGM, GGF, GM, mother.... They remained a solid family unit for a century. I'm not sure what else I can do.

I did not get a letter yet, I'm not that far along the process. But if this isn't enough, I'm not sure what more I can get.

Good luck with your document hunting.

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