Posted by conference on March 9, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Canadian Records, Speakers and Program | 
Ontario Genealogical Society conferences have always led the way with presentations on new resources and techniques for Ontario research, as well as in-depth sessions on important and sometimes rediscovered Ontario records. Conference 2010 continues that tradition.
If you have Ontario roots, be sure to take in some of these unique sessions:
On Friday, May 14, Fawne Stratford-Devai presents two in-depth sessions on Ontario Land Records. The promise of owning land was the biggest factor that brought many of our ancestors to Ontario. The records are extensive, complex, and rich with family history. This full day with Fawne (an excellent speaker) will help you understand the records and their potential.
Professional genealogist Janice Nickerson lectures twice on Saturday—first on Researching Aboriginal Ancestors, and then on Criminal Trials in Upper Canada. She has written books on both topics and brings a lot of practical experience to her presentations.
Glenn Wright is a popular speaker at OGS conferences. This year, on Saturday afternoon, he contributes an intriguing presentation to the Ontario offerings—about the records of Kingston Penitentiary.
Also on Saturday afternoon, “New Toronto Research Tools” will introduce four innovative web-based projects presented by Toronto Branch members Martha Jackson, Pat Jeffs and Jane MacNamara, and Stephen Young of FamilySearch.
Ontario sessions continue on Sunday with a case study of an Eastern Ontario Loyalist family by Melissa Ellis. Melissa’s examples will demonstrate how you can build your own family’s story.
With much of Ontario’s population clustered around the Great Lakes, Susanna de Groot’s presentation on researching ancestors who worked and travelled on the Lakes or on their shores, should interest researchers from Ontario as well as the eight US states that border the Great Lakes.
Just seven early-bird days left!
Be sure to register by Monday, March 15 to take advantage of the early-bird registration fee. Browse the program pages to choose your sessions, then go to “How do I register?” to select a registration package and register online.
Posted by conference on March 3, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, The Making of Conference 2010 |
One of the reasons we chose the Doubletree as the location for the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2010 is the arrangement of our lecture rooms clustered around the Marketplace and foyer. There’s a minimum of walking and an elevator or escalator to take you to the second floor.
But if your knees or hips, etc., will object to a whole weekend of activity, we understand that, too.
MobilityUnlimited has agreed to offer a special rate on scooter rentals for attendees at Conference 2010. They have recommended the “Dancer” model. The rental fee for the full weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) is $100. A delivery and pickup charge of $90 will be split between all renters.
Contact the company in advance to arrange for your scooter. Be sure to identify yourself as part of the “OGS Conference”. MobilityUnlimited will delivery your scooter to the Doubletree by Hilton—Toronto Airport after noon on Thursday, May 13. You can pick it up from the concierge whenever you arrive. After the Conference, leave your scooter with the concierge and MobilityUnlimited will pick it up after noon on Monday, May 17.
Renters should contact MobilityUnlimited directly by e-mail or by phone at 416-778-9586 or toll free at 1-877-778-9586. Be sure to book early.
The "Dancer", recommended by MobilityUnlimited
Posted by conference on March 1, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Registration Updates |
It is March, believe it or not. And March 15 is the last day to take advantage of the early-bird registration rates for the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference 2010.
Just two weeks away!
We already have family historians travelling from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, as well as Colorado, Utah, Illinois, Michigan and New York, and even Scotland, England and Italy. And of course, every corner of Ontario.
But we still have space for you, and we know you love a bargain.
So don’t wait. Spend some time today browsing the program and speaker pages. Make a note of the session numbers that interest you, or print out the handy daily schedules.
Click on “How do I register?” and select the registration package that suits you best. Then let the secure online registration form guide you through the process.
Then, perhaps a visit to the Marketplace page to start making plans for how you’re going to spend that money you just saved…
Posted by conference on February 23, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Dutch Research Stream, Speakers and Program |
John Colletta, Susanna de Groot and Mary Nash, presenters of the Dutch ancestry stream at OGS Conference 2010
On Saturday, May 15, the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference 2010 will present a special module of four lectures on research for those with family origins in the Netherlands. This stream of lectures builds on the success of a Dutch ancestry workshop hosted by OGS Toronto Branch in 2007.
This information-packed program will feature three expert speakers:
John Philip Colletta, Ph.D, based in Washington, D.C., one of America’s most popular genealogical lecturers, will set the stage with a lecture on “How to Prepare for Successful Research in European Records”. (For a more comprehensive overview of John’s participation in Conference 2010, see the blog posting from 15 October 2009.)
Toronto’s own Susanna de Groot, PLCGS, a professional genealogist and co-author of the book Finding Your Dutch Ancestors, will then present two lectures covering the gamut of Dutch civil, church and population records, as well as information about using archives and online tools.
Susanna is the daughter of Dutch immigrants who came to Canada after WWII. She has been researching her family history for 12 years and has been actively involved in OGS Toronto Branch’s project to transcribe the grave markers in St. James Cemetery. In the course of her research, she has travelled a couple of times to the Netherlands and has conducted research in the Amsterdam Archives, Harderwijk Archives, Streekarchivariaat Noordwest-Veluwe (a regional archive in Gelderland), Leiden Archives, National Archives, Central Bureau for Genealogy, National Library of the Netherlands and Kampen Archives
Susanna was a speaker at Toronto Branch’s 2007 Dutch workshop and will join us at Conference 2010 fresh back from researching at the Family History Library and attending the NGS Conference in Salt Lake City. We ask her to leave some ancestors for the rest of us to find! (Those of us without Dutch ancestry will be able to hear her speak at noon on Sunday in Session 38. The topic: “Ships Ahoy! Great Lakes Genealogical Research”.)
Mary M. Nash, a Dutch-born and Canadian-educated librarian and researcher based in Ottawa, will present a case history illustrating the use of unusual and specialized sources in Dutch genealogical research. Mary is the founder of Nash Information Services Inc., a private Canadian corporation providing information, information management and calculation services to business, government and industry. A more complete biography can be found on the Conference website.
At the conclusion of the special module at 3 p.m., attendees are encouraged to stay for the rest of the day to hear lectures at the Conference proper on subjects as wide-ranging as Canadian immigration records, online family trees, social networking for genealogists, tracking down living relatives and reading immigrant clues in photographs. Their choices will include the intriguing “A Genealogy Journey to Key Largo with Bogart and Bacall” that explores actor Humphrey Bogart’s Dutch roots.
The Dutch stream is available as an option to anyone purchasing either a Full Weekend Registration Package or a Saturday Registration Package.
Posted by conference on February 16, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Marketplace, Pre-Conference Events, Tours and Events, Visiting Toronto |
Hands-on Research Excursion: One venue at capacity
Registrants have been eager to add an extra day of research to their Conference 2010 experience by signing up for the Hands-on Research Excursion on Thursday, May 13. “Excursionists” selected from a choice of four wonderful archives and libraries.
One of the four venues—the Archives of Ontario—is now at capacity.
But don’t let that discourage you from joining the Excursion!
The City of Toronto Archives is a great choice if your ancestors lived in Toronto or the former municipalities of Scarborough, East York, North York, York or Etobicoke. The two reference libraries are some of the finest in North America for genealogy. The Toronto Reference Library has a collection of books and maps built over the past 115 years and an extensive manuscript collection only accessible on site. The North York Library’s Canadiana Department has an emphasis on Canadian genealogical resources in print and microform, and provides a home for unique deposit collections from genealogical partners.
To register for the Hands-on Research Excursion, select that option on the online registration form, and then e-mail us to choose your venue.
Marketplace and Sponsors pages updated
If you haven’t explored the Conference 2010 website lately, be sure to check the Marketplace and Sponsors pages to see the treats that lie ahead for attendees at Conference 2010. Most Marketplace exhibitors include a link to a website, so you can do some “window shopping” in advance.
Doubletree restaurant praised
Restaurant reviewer Joanne Kates in The Globe and Mail has named the Chinese restaurant (Grand Chinese Cuisine) at the Conference hotel as one of the best in the city. Mmmm…
Posted by conference on February 15, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Canadian Records, Innovations Stream, Speakers and Program, Sponsors |
Stephen Young will be part of "New Toronto Research Tools" on Saturday, May 15.
We are pleased to announce that FamilySearch is sponsoring OGS Conference 2010 and is generously underwriting two previously unannounced appearances at the Conference by one of its most experienced project managers, Stephen C. Young, MA, AG.
Stephen will participate in both the “New Toronto Research Tools” session on Saturday afternoon and will also deliver a newly scheduled lunchtime learning lecture on new developments at FamilySearch, also on Saturday.
Stephen is no stranger to southern Ontario, having been born and raised in London. Indeed he has an ancestor buried in the Toronto Necropolis, one of the cemeteries in the Toronto Trust group (more on which below).
His interest in family history extends back to the late 1970s. After undergraduate studies at Brigham Young University, he obtained his Master’s in American History at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. An employee of the LDS Church since 1988, Stephen enjoyed a four year appointment (1992-1996) in England supervising the British 1881 Census Project. His current responsibilities (in Salt Lake City, Utah) entail working with archives and other genealogical organizations, such as OGS, in the cooperative indexing and publication online of historical records in Canada, the British Isles and the South Pacific.
And that’s how Stephen comes to be part of “New Toronto Research Tools”. As many members will be aware, a FamilySearch Indexing project is now well under way with Toronto Branch to index the records of the Toronto Trust Cemeteries, including the York General Burying Ground, Toronto Necropolis, Prospect and Mount Pleasant. Indeed Stephen was not only instrumental in getting the project off the ground, he is also one of our volunteer indexers.
One of the quirkiest things that could conceivably happen to any researcher is to find that one of your ancestors was responsible for the death of a colleague’s ancestor. That happened to Stephen when he discovered that his fifth great-grandfather, Henry Windecker, had reportedly killed the colleague’s ancestor during the Revolutionary War. Stephen told the story in his article: “Henry Windecker, U.E., and His Descendants.” Families 48, No. 1 (February 2009): 24-29, 18.
If Stephen weren’t busy enough already, he’s also researching and writing a book about his father’s experience in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve during World War II, including service on a minesweeper off Omaha Beach on the night and morning of the D-Day assault.
Welcome home, Stephen!
Posted by conference on February 4, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Innovations Stream, Speakers and Program, Sponsors |
Lesley Anderson of Ancestry.ca
Conference speaker Lesley Anderson has sent the happy news that Ancestry will provide free on-site access to their worldwide databases for attendees at the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference 2010.
This commitment is part of a larger agreement whereby Ancestry.ca becomes a top-level sponsor of the Conference.
Other benefits to attendees include:
- an Ancestry-sponsored luncheon on Friday, featuring a presentation by Lesley on New Projects at Ancestry (special ticketed event)
- sponsorship of the Conference bag
- an Ancestry display in Marketplace
These commitments by Ancestry are in addition to Lesley’s previously announced two-hour workshop, Working Effectively with Ancestry.
Lesley brings a wealth of genealogical and family history research experience to Conference 2010. She has been pursuing her own family history for more than 35 years. (Yes she started as a teenager!) A director of BIFHSGO, Lesley shares her enthusiasm for genealogy by teaching courses through the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board’s Continuing Education Department and she’s been a long time volunteer with the Ottawa Stake Family History Center.
For the past 2-1/2 years, Lesley has enjoyed being the Canadian representative for Ancestry.ca. Her primary responsibility is to develop strategic relationships with content providers across Canada to acquire new Canadian historical records. She has made several radio and television appearances on behalf of Ancestry.ca. Check out her TV spot on Canada AM.
Lesley collaborated with fellow Conference speaker Glenn Wright to develop and present Ancestry.ca’s first Canadian Webinar on the Historic Canadian Census Collection—1851 to 1916.
She contributes a monthly column, called “Discovering Your Roots”, to the CanWest chain of newspapers, appearing in the Ottawa Citizen, Windsor Star, Winnipeg Free Press and Calgary Herald to name a few.
We are delighted to acknowledge both Lesley and Ancestry.ca’s contributions to Conference 2010.
Posted by conference on January 28, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Registration Updates |
The organizing committee for OGS Conference 2010 is very pleased to see that early registrations have been coming in from far and wide. We already have intrepid family historians travelling from four states: Wisconsin, New York, Michigan, and Colorado; three provinces: BC, Quebec, and Saskatchewan, and, remarkably, Scotland and Italy. And of course, from many parts of Ontario.
All of these folks have registered online (or printed a pdf from the website), but the paper brochure will arrive very soon in the hands of some 4,000 members of the Ontario Genealogical Society.
But you, a reader of the Conference 2010 blog, have the inside track.
If you haven’t already registered, quick, go to the program pages! You’ll find more details then ever before about lectures, tours, and our special Dutch and Italian streams. Check out the brand new “Lecture Streams at a Glance” page with printable schedules for each day.
Once you’ve made your choices, click on “How do I register?” and select the registration package that suits you best. Then let the secure online registration form guide you through the process.
Take the opportunity to jump in ahead of the pack. Register today.
Posted by conference on January 20, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Pre-Conference Events, Speakers and Program |
Patricia M. Van Skaik, keynote speaker at the OLA Pre-Conference
You don’t have to be a librarian to sign up for the
“Libraries and Genealogy” workshop offered by the Ontario Library Association as a pre-conference event on Thursday, May 13.
While the program has been designed with a view to providers of family history services, it should also appeal to those who want to get the most out of their local collections, such as those who sit on library advisory boards across the province… or even just everyday researchers.
Here’s your opportunity to discover:
- how contemporary technology can reveal unseen detail in historic photo collections
- how the Family History Library (in Salt Lake City) can be used by Ontarians, and how its catalogue can be used to find resources in Ontario libraries
- how you can perform basic and advanced searches on ARCHEION, Ontario’s Archival Information Network, a public gateway to collections across the province
- why RAD (Rules for Archival Description) will become increasingly important for genealogists
- how you can use OurOntario.ca, an innovative and unique discovery portal, to search thousands of digital resources available from a range of diverse cultural organizations
- what’s included in Ancestry Library Edition, which is freely available for your use at many libraries across the province
- how to use “tricks of the trade” when searching cataloging systems that do not organize information the same way that genealogists conduct research
The first and last of the above must-see insights come from Patricia Van Skaik, MA, MLS, the Manager of the Genealogy and Local History Collection, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Patricia was educated at the University of Kentucky and the University of Cincinnati and serves on the Board of the other OGS, the Ohio Genealogical Society. She is also the Director of Librarianship Studies for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies.
For full details of program and other speakers at this wonderful accompaniment to Conference 2010, just click here.
Posted by conference on January 9, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Delights Stream, Essentials Stream, Speakers and Program |
Speaker Alison Hare
If one of Alison Hare’s ancestors had been named John, Canada might never have gained one of its most accomplished genealogists. As it happens, Busteed Green’s bizarre first name, observed on a grave marker in the early 1980s, intrigued the young Ottawa-based reporter. Soon she was engrossed in genealogy, with Busteed proving a elusive target (although she did eventually track him down). When Alison’s son reached school age in the mid 1990s, she decided to focus on genealogy. By 1999, she had received her CG designation from the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG). And as we approach Conference 2010, where she will give two lectures, Alison now has 29 years of genealogical experience as a researcher, lecturer and editor.
Along the way, she leaves a trail of accomplishment: three-time recognition for the quality of her lectures presented to the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa; induction into that society’s Hall of Fame; genealogist-in-residence at the Ottawa Public Library in 1999; a trustee of BCG; and an active member of the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists.
As a former journalist, Alison applies great care to her genealogical writing and editing. Her article “Searching for Greens at the Time of Peter Robinson” was published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly in March 2007. The Ottawa Branch News, newsletter of OGS’s Ottawa Branch, won numerous Marion Keffer awards under her editorship between 1997 and 2002.
At Conference 2010 Alison will speak on citations for Canadians on Saturday and then on Sunday will present her fascinating case study of the victims of the 1854 London cholera outbreak (one of whom was her ancestor).
Posted by conference on January 3, 2010 under Blog: New Postings, Registration Updates |
Conference organizers have negotiated an excellent rate at the Doubletree by Hilton–Toronto Airport. In fact, the early-bird rates match the OGS Seminar 2004 rate at the same hotel! So if you need accommodation, act before January 8 to lock in the rate for your room—even if you haven’t yet registered for Conference. After all, if your plans change, you can adjust your reservation (or even cancel) without penalty on 24 hours notice.
For more about accommodation at Conference, including rates, special-needs rooms, roommate matching and so on, please visit the “Accommodation” page of the Conference website.
Back in the summer, Conference volunteers toured the Doubletree, including not only the public spaces where our events will be held, but also typical guest rooms. We were suitably impressed with our tour.
Conference registrants arriving by public transit will enter the Doubletree at the north end of the hotel, near the front desk. Visible across Dixon Road are off-site eateries, like Tim Hortons, Swiss Chalet and Milestones. In the hotel, you will find several restaurants and bars: the Orchid Café, where many conference attendees will have breakfast and other casual meals, Alfredo’s (northern Italian and Continental), Ginko (classical Japanese), Grand Chinese Cuisine (dim sum and elegant traditional dishes) and Harry’s Bar. For more information, see the “Meals” page.
Also on the main floor are the west entrance from the parking lot, a small retail area, and the pool and fitness centre. (See floor plan, below.)
The Plaza conference centre, where OGS Conference 2010 will be held, is on the second floor. Our registration area will be at the bottom of the stairs, but there’s an escalator and an elevator, too. Getting lost will be a virtual impossibility and everything is extremely compact. At the top of the stairs, escalator and elevator, the spacious Plaza foyer will be home to a number of activities and will serve as a gathering place. The 10,000 square-foot Marketplace and almost all meeting rooms are all clustered around this foyer.
And to top it all off, all sectors of the hotel, both public spaces and guest rooms, have complimentary wi-fi access.
We were impressed with the facilities, the attention to detail, and the staff at the Doubletree—and confident that it will be a great venue for OGS Conference 2010.
Fully wheelchair accessible, the Doubletree by Hilton–Toronto Airport, is located near Toronto Pearson International Airport, close to highways 401 and 427, and convenient to GO Transit and TTC (Toronto Transit Commission). For more information about the location and directions, please visit the “Location” page.
A SPECIAL NOTE:
If you have tried to reach us this weekend at conference2010@ogs.on.ca, your message may have been returned. We expect the problem to be resolved on Monday, January 4. If you want to reach us before then, please use info@torontofamilyhistory.org. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Posted by conference on December 26, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Innovations Stream, Speakers and Program |
Rick Crume, the runner.
Pretend for a moment you live in Glyndon, Minnesota (population 1,155), just miles from the North Dakota state line. Imagine further you have ancestry in New England and the Mid-Atlantic States, as well as New Brunswick and the British Isles. Welcome to the world of Rick Crume, a genealogist since age 14, and by necessity a leading expert in online resources and the holdings of distant repositories.
In fact Rick is author of Plugging Into Your Past: How to Find Real Family History Online. He also created the Genealogical Library Master Catalog, which lists the genealogy holdings of many American libraries. He will give four lectures at Conference 2010 on different aspects of these areas of expertise.
A sixth-generation Minnesotan, Rick studied at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and spent his junior year studying in Bogotá, Colombia. Later he learned that his distant relative John H. Pennington, who lived in Glyndon in the 1880s, also lived in Bogotá in the 1890s while building a railroad in Colombia. Rick further discovered that Pennington married a Colombian woman, having neglected to divorce his American wife first. So in 1895 Colombian authorities charged him with bigamy and unsuccessfully sought his extradition.
Rick seems to be a more upstanding fellow than his distant relative. As you can see from the photo, he is a competitive runner (almost 700 miles this year). More relevant to our immediate concerns, he is a contributing editor for Family Tree Magazine and has written for Family Chronicle, Internet Genealogy and Discovering Family History magazines, as well as society journals in the U.S., New Brunswick and Wales. While you’re unlikely to be able to visit him in Minnesota, you can drop into his informative website any day: http://onelibrary.com.
Posted by conference on December 20, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Registration Updates |
Online registration is now open for the most action-packed, star-studded OGS Conference ever.
Whether you’ve been naughty or nice, now’s the time to register for the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference 2010 to be held in Toronto May 14-16.
- Check out the content-rich program, packed with more sessions than ever before.
- See leading experts talk in Canada or at Conference for the very first time; or hear returning speakers with the very highest ratings received at Conference 2009.
- Consider one of the pre-Conference programs on Thursday, May 13—a Hands-on Research Excursion or “Libraries and Genealogy” presented in conjunction with the Ontario Library Association.
- Shop in the spacious 10,000-square-foot Marketplace just steps from the lecture rooms.
Convenient to airport, highways, GO and TTC, the Conference hotel offers an early-bird rate until January 8—and it’s the same rate as in 2004, the kind of comfort and joy we can really appreciate!
OGS Conference 2010
Essentials, Innovations & Delights
May 14-16, 2010
Doubletree by Hilton–Toronto Airport
Posted by conference on December 7, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Delights Stream, Speakers and Program |
Amy Wachs Fellner, shown here in Latvia, will speak on Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16.
Google “Moldova”, “Fulbright Scholar” and “the Arizona State Board of Tax Appeals” and only one person in the whole wide world shows up in this eclectic search: Amy Wachs Fellner, J.D., a lawyer, university instructor and avid family historian with considerable hands-on research experience in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics. You’ll soon be able to add “OGS Conference 2010” to the list of applicable search terms.
Amy taught as a Fulbright Scholar in 2002 at the Riga Graduate School of Law in Latvia and more recently in 2006 and 2007 as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Chisinau (formerly known by its Russian name of Kishinev and site of a violent pogrom in 1903), capital of the Republic of Moldova. She took advantage of these professional opportunities to do extensive genealogical research at state archives in Eastern Europe and will give two lectures on Sunday at Conference 2010 on topics related to this expertise.
Educated at the University of Rochester and the University of Michigan Law School, Amy is a trained mediator and arbitrator. Before relocating to Arizona, where she sits on the state Board of Tax Appeals, she served as in-house counsel to a Fortune 50 multinational corporation. She has been teaching at Arizona State University since January 1999, and developed and taught a full-semester course on the topic of “Eastern Europe: Law, Politics and Justice”. She has also taught genealogy seminars at Arizona State University and has spoken extensively on genealogy topics and taught genealogy workshops throughout the United States.
One of the talks for which Amy is best known is a case study using the example of screen legends Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to demonstrate how American records provide helpful clues to identifying earlier generations in Europe. Attendees at Conference 2010 will have the opportunity to hear this fascinating lecture on Saturday afternoon.
Posted by conference on November 26, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Canadian Records, Essentials Stream, Novice Researchers Stream, Speakers and Program |
Fawne Stratford-Devai will present two in-depth lectures on Ontario's land records.
Conference 2010 organizers have made it their business to track down and sign up the speakers with the very highest ratings in Conference 2009 evaluations. Fawne Stratford-Devai is the third speaker we’ve announced from this list (the previous two being Dave Obee and Gary Schroder).
Many will know Fawne from her appearances on the popular History Television series Ancestors in the Attic, where she has been of the genealogical sleuths who unravel family mysteries.
Fawne’s passion for archival research began in 1987. As a university student she worked to understand the internment of German-Canadian citizens during World War II. Her love of history soon led to curiosity about her own origins. Before long she was hooked on discovering her English and Irish roots.
Fawne’s work on early Ontario records generally, and land records specifically, is well known. Author of such books as The Men of Upper Canada and The District Marriage Records of Upper Canada/Canada West, she has also published a number of research guides through Global Heritage Press and contributed articles to the online family history newsletter The Global Gazette.
Above all Fawne is dedicated to preserving Ontario’s heritage records. Together with Ruth and Howard Burkholder, Fawne and her husband Andrew traveled all over the province to rally hundreds of volunteers in the cause to identify and find homes for Ontario’s important land registry office records, with the Association for the Preservation of Ontario Land Record Office Documents.
A graduate of sociology at McMaster University, Fawne spent many years in health policy and epidemiological research at McMaster before joining the Ontario government.
Her lectures on genealogical and historical topics, particularly Ontario records, are always entertaining and educational. At Conference 2010 Fawne will demystify Ontario land records in two, two-hour, in-depth lectures on Friday.
Posted by conference on November 13, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Essentials Stream, Innovations Stream, Speakers and Program |
Lisa Louise Cooke will share her multimedia expertise at OGS Conference 2010.
It’s not every day you get a chance to meet a podcaster and blogger with no electricity or running water. You’ll have that opportunity when Lisa Louise Cooke speaks at the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2010.
OK, we exaggerate, slightly, about the electricity and running water.
In 2006, motivated by her lifelong passion for history, Lisa starred in the PBS eight-hour history miniseries, Texas Ranch House. She had the opportunity to live in West Texas with her family for three months on a 400,000-acre cattle ranch with no electricity or running water, as in 1867. Lisa says, “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only see what is was like for my great great grandparents who lived in Texas in 1867, but also a unique opportunity to bring my own 21st-century sensibilities to the same environment and find a way to survive.”
Usually Lisa can be found in the San Francisco Bay area producing and hosting both the Genealogy Gems Podcast and the Family History: Genealogy Made Easy podcast, two “online genealogy radio shows” available through her web site www.genealogygems.TV and iTunes. Her podcasts and website strive to help listeners make the most of their family history research time by providing innovative ideas and fascinating interviews with genealogy experts. Needless to say, genealogical podcasting is one of Lisa’s lecture topics at Conference 2010.
Lisa also inspires her audience to creatively share their findings with their families through creative projects and motivational stories. In her book Genealogy Gems: Ultimate Research Strategies, she offers how-to instructions for all of the gems featured in the first season of the show. And she provides daily doses of genealogy news and fun to readers with her Genealogy Gems News Blog.
As if this weren’t enough for the average dynamo, Lisa also writes for Family Tree Magazine, hosts the magazine’s podcast and produces videocasts for Family History Expos.
Lisa will deliver three lectures on Saturday at Conference 2010. We guarantee there will be plenty of electricity in the room (but hopefully no running water).
Posted by conference on November 11, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Canadian Records, Essentials Stream, Speakers and Program |
Gary Schroder will present extended lectures on Quebec family history at Conference 2010.
Conference 2009 had barely ended when a member of Toronto Branch Council exclaimed at a meeting that we had to have Gary Schroder return to Conference 2010—and we had to give him plenty of time to talk about Quebec records. Several weeks later, the evaluations from Conference 2009 arrived and they confirmed Gary as one of the highest rated speakers.
So we are thrilled that Gary will be delivering four hours of lectures at the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2010, two 2-hour workshops on Friday morning and afternoon.
Instead of inviting him as a speaker, we should have probably asked him to run the Conference. As President of the Quebec Family History Society since 1995, Gary has chaired three highly regarded, international Roots Conferences at McGill University in Montreal. And he’s now planning Roots 2011, which will be held in June of that year.
Even though he’s best known in Ontario for speaking about Quebec records, Gary speaks elsewhere on a wide variety of family history topics, including Canadian, English and Irish research and British military resources. He notes that his first known ancestor to set foot in Canada was his great-great-great-grandfather Cornelius Flynn, who arrived in the port of Quebec in 1805. Cornelius Flynn (1787-1861) served in the Royal Navy for over twenty years and was wounded during the Battle of Trafalgar.
Gary has taught family history courses at both McGill and Champlain College in Montreal and lectured right across North America. He was a speaker at the 2001 International Conference on Irish Family History held at Trinity College, Dublin. He is currently a member of the Special Advisory Board of Library and Archives Canada. He is the editor of various published works and is a frequent guest on Canadian radio and television answering a wide variety of genealogical questions and promoting the educational value of family history research.
Gary’s lectures at Conference 2010 will be of interest to all those with Quebec ancestry, regardless of language or faith.
Posted by conference on November 1, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Essentials Stream, Speakers and Program |
Maureen A. Taylor, "The Photo Detective", will present a series of lectures on collecting, preserving and understanding photographs.
If you have family photographs, you won’t want to miss the first visit to Canada of the woman The Wall Street Journal has called “the nation’s foremost historical photo detective”. Maureen A. Taylor investigates photos the way private eyes investigate cases. Even better, she’s also a family historian!
First as a photo curator and editor and now as a writer and consultant, Maureen has established herself internationally as an expert at the intersection of history, genealogy and photography. She has been featured in top media outlets, including The View, Martha Stewart Living and The Today Show. Maureen is the author of a number of books and magazine articles, as well as a contributing editor at the U.S. Family Tree Magazine
Maureen also enjoys teaching children about their roots and authored a guide to family history for kids, Through the Eyes of Your Ancestors (Houghton Mifflin, 1999).
Her latest project is The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation (Kent State University Press, June 2010).
In four lectures at Conference 2010 on Saturday and Sunday, Maureen will give us the essentials of building and preserving our family photo collections, as well as strategies for identifying, dating and extracting every shred of genealogical information from our photos.
To learn more about Maureen, please visit her websites; www.photodetective.com and www.maureentaylor.com
Posted by conference on October 22, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Canadian Records, Novice Researchers Stream, Speakers and Program |
Dave Obee of Victoria, BC, will speak on newspaper research and passenger lists.
Unusual among high-profile genealogists, Dave Obee has an unrelated day job. He’s editorial page editor of the Times Colonist in Victoria, the culmination of a newspaper career dating back to 1972. And family history isn’t his only mission. He was one of the founders of the annual Times Colonist book drive, which has raised more than $1 million in support of school libraries and other literacy projects since 1998.
Still, we know Dave best as a genealogist—and an entertaining and informative one at that. Attendee evaluations consistently rated his lectures at Conference 2009 as among the best. That’s why we invited him to reprise this success at Conference 2010.
Dave was born in British Columbia and has lived in many parts of both BC and Alberta. His BC roots go back to the arrival of his great-great-grandfather from Manitoba in 1890, although he also has ancestry in New York, Ontario and Russia. He’s been researching his family history since 1978, when he took a night course through Camosun College in Victoria. He has visited 17 countries in Europe, and has done genealogical research in most of them. He also has a keen interest in the world war battle areas in France, Belgium and Luxembourg.
Dave has compiled eight books for Canadian family historians, and has given more than 300 talks about genealogical and historical research to society meetings and conferences, libraries and community groups. He is a past president of the Federation of East European Family History Societies, a columnist for The Beaver and a member of the advisory panel for Ancestry.ca.
He is also one of the owners of Interlink Bookshop and Genealogical Services of Victoria. Interlink runs the Genealogy Unlimited website, which sells books and maps from Canada, the British Isles and Europe.
At Conference 2010 Dave will be presenting three lectures.
Posted by conference on October 15, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Delights Stream, Italian Research Stream, Pro/Advanced Stream, Speakers and Program |
John Phillip Colletta of Washington, DC.
We are fortunate that John Philip Colletta, PhD, will be a mainstay of the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference 2010. Entertaining, knowledgeable and experienced, John is one of America’s most popular genealogical lecturers. People are still raving about his 2008 appearance in Toronto, where he spoke to the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists. Conference organizers jumped at the opportunity to bring him back to Canada.
We will all get to hear John’s humour and wisdom during the closing plenary on Sunday afternoon. His topic promises to be quite a sensation: “Hacks and Hookers and Putting Up Pickles: Snares of Yesteryear’s English”.
But John’s contribution to Conference 2010 actually begins on Friday afternoon when he will present two lectures in the Professional/Advanced stream: “Stories that Instruct: Using Case Studies to Teach Genealogy Methodology” and “Principles of Good Writing and Good Storytelling”.
Then on Saturday, for a special group of family historians, John will be hard at work providing the backbone of the Italian ancestry program. After all, he literally wrote the book on researching Italian ancestry.
Sunday won’t be a day of rest, however. In addition to the closing plenary in the afternoon, John will give a two-part morning lecture on “Writing a Narrative History”.
Based in Washington, DC, John taught classes for the National Archives and Smithsonian Institution for 21 years. Now he lectures nationally and teaches at Samford University and the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. His publications include dozens of journal articles, two manuals, They Came in Ships and Finding Italian Roots, as well as a narrative family history, Only a Few Bones: A True Account of the Rolling Fork Tragedy and Its Aftermath. This most recent book is a history of the German-speaking merchants of the Mississippi Delta during Reconstruction; it is written around the mysterious destruction of John’s great great grandfather’s country store, and its five unfortunate inhabitants.
You can read more about John at his website.
Posted by conference on October 8, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Speakers and Program, Tours and Events |
Karolyn Smardz Frost will speak at the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2010 in Toronto, May 14 to 16, 2010.
We are delighted to announce that Governor General’s Award winner, Karolyn Smardz Frost, PhD, will speak at the Ontario Genealogical Society’s Conference 2010 banquet on Saturday, May 15.
Karolyn is an author, historian and archaeologist. (For 10 years she was Canada’s representative to the World Archaeological Congress!) She holds a BA in Archaeology, a master’s in Classical Studies and a PhD in Canadian History (Race and Slavery) and has won many research fellowships in both Canada and the US. She describes one of her greatest honours as presenting Canada’s Underground Railroad story at Robben Island, South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was a prisoner for so long, on behalf of UNESCO in 1998.
We know her best as the person who spent more than 20 years piecing together the stories of Thornton and Lucie Blackburn. Starting with the 1985 excavation of the Blackburn site, she poured another 20 years of historical detective work into researching her account of the fugitive slave couple’s dramatic and precedent-setting escape to Canada via the Underground Railroad. The resulting 2007 book, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad, was the first original fugitive-slave biography published since the 19th century and won not only the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction, Canada’s top literary prize, but numerous other accolades.
Among Karolyn’s most memorable accomplishments was the founding of Toronto’s Archaeological Resource Centre. For a decade, this unique facility provided hands-on excavation and educational opportunities for more than 100,000 schoolchildren, tourists and volunteers. She is a founding member of the education committees of the Society for American Archaeology and the Society for Historical Archaeology and has served on many other committees to further the cause of heritage education.
Formerly the executive director of the Ontario Historical Society and a past vice-chair of the Toronto Historical Board, Karolyn has lectured around the world. She is currently a Research Associate with the York Centre for Education and Community, Faculty of Education, York University, where she has also taught night school courses on primary research for Toronto’s 19th century history and African Canadian history.
Posted by conference on September 28, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Tours and Events, Visiting Toronto |
Built of red brick with buff brick accents, Dempsey's store stood for more than 130 years on Yonge Street at Sheppard Avenue. It was moved in 1997 to nearby Beecroft Avenue.
We hope when you come to the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2010 that you’ll spend a few extra days getting to know our city.
One thing you’ll notice, in contrast to many other North American cities, is the predominance of brick as a building material.
The earliest buildings in Toronto (then known as the Town of York) were built of wood—first rough-hewn logs, then squared timbers, then later frame and clapboard. Only a few of those wooden buildings have survived—most notably Fort York and Scadding Cabin.
As early as the first decades of the 19th century, brick was used for some public buildings and fine residences, and its popularity as a fire-resistant and fashionable building material continued to grow as bricks were manufactured locally.
Glacial action had resulted in plentiful deposits of shale and clay in many areas of Toronto. Small family-run brickyards clustered where these materials were close to the surface, in Yorkville, along Davenport Road, which ran below an escarpment (the shoreline of the prehistoric glacial Lake Iroquois), in the Don River valley and other ravines.
The craft of brick making was frequently a family business as shown in this listing of brick manufacturers in Might's The Toronto City Directory 1901, p. 923. (www.archives.org)
Some Toronto brickyards made several colours of brick. The most common were red and buff. The buff bricks (called “white” by Victorian builders) were used for St. James Cathedral (built 1832), and some grand “Cabbagetown” homes that you’ll see on our “Toronto’s Irish Heritage” bus tour. Many of these buff brick houses use red bricks as accents, sometimes in quite complex patterns.
Red brick was lower in cost, and much more common for residential use, sometimes with the pricier buff as an accent colour. However, there are some wonderful examples of superb red brick construction, including the 1892 Gooderham Building that combined high-quality pressed brick with terracotta ornamentation.
While Toronto’s brickyards have long since closed or left the city, the site of the Don Valley Brickworks which closed in 1984, has been turned into a treasured 16-hectare public park which preserves and repurposes a number of the industrial buildings.
Posted by conference on September 19, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Speakers and Program, The Making of Conference 2010 |
The subcommittee in charge of planning the program for OGS Conference 2010 has been hard at work this spring and summer putting together the best lineup of workshops and presentations possible.
With more than 300 proposals to choose from, the selection process has been a challenge. Subcommittee members reviewed all the proposals and assessed them first on general merit. Would the topic appeal to Conference attendees? Was the proposal well organized and thought out? Had it been done before? The calibre of the submissions we received was such that we found it quite difficult to rule out any of them at this stage.
The next step was to categorize the proposals so that we could make our tough choices in a more systematic and balanced way. It was time for spreadsheets and index cards! We grouped proposals by geographic area—which ones had an Ontario focus, an Irish focus, a U.S. focus, etc.? We identified the target audience for each proposal—was it aimed at experienced researchers, at those just starting their family history adventures, or was it suitable for everyone? We sorted by the type of topic—which proposals related to the methodology of genealogy, to record collections, to case studies?
And perhaps most importantly, we looked carefully at each proposal to make sure that it reflected at least one aspect of the Conference 2010 theme—essentials, innovations and delights.
Putting together the actual Conference 2010 schedule has been a bit like working on a giant jigsaw puzzle—hours and hours of hunting for just the right fit, with some trial and error along the way, but a great deal of satisfaction when it all comes together. We started with our “corner pieces”—the presentations by Conference 2010 keynote speaker Thomas W. Jones—and we are building our program around them.
We have calculated travel and accommodation costs, crunched numbers and made the most of our program budget.
We are packing each Conference day with practical and inspiring content. And we are constantly asking ourselves… will every Conference attendee see at least one session in each time slot that he or she won’t want to miss?
We think we’re close to completing our puzzle and we can’t wait to show it off…
Posted by conference on September 14, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Visiting Toronto |
It is easy to forget that 655 Dixon Road was not always a stone’s throw from Pearson International Airport and Highway 401. Until it became part of Toronto in 1998, the land where the Doubletree now stands was part of Etobicoke, one of the original townships of York County surveyed in 1791. (Don’t pronounce that “k” in Etobicoke.) You’ll find a wonderful 1878 map of the Township of Etobicoke in McGill University’s Digital Library.
This detail of the 1878 map predates Dixon Road, but you can see the path it will take starting with the diagonal Scarlett Road on the east side of the image, then west between the 200-acre farms of Peter Wardlaw and John Little, and a little further along between the farms of R. Dixon and John Dixon.
The Doubletree would be on the next farm, but there’s no sign today of the stream that meandered through the Robert Harris farm.
The Dixons you see on this little map (there are at least four) are likely all descendants of John Dixon, a native of Westmoreland, England, and one of the earliest settlers in Etobicoke. (See: Mulvany, Charles Pelham. History of Toronto and the County of York, Toronto: C. Blackett Robinson, 1885, volume 2, page 250-1.)
The settlement on the right side of the image on the Humber River is Weston, still proudly identifiable within Toronto.
If you have Etobicoke (or other Toronto) ancestry, plan a few extra days before or after OGS Conference 2010 to visit local historic sites, churches, cemeteries, and of course libraries and archives. Exploring the “Researching Toronto” pages at the Ontario Genealogical Society, Toronto Branch web site is a great way to get started.
Posted by conference on September 5, 2009 under Blog: New Postings, Delights Stream, Tours and Events, Visiting Toronto |
Toronto was home to a vast number of Irish immigrants who settled here from the city’s beginnings as the Town of York in 1793. On Friday, May 14, you can join the Toronto’s Irish Heritage bus tour for a day exploring the Irish connections in Toronto.
The tour will begin at the Conference 2010 hotel. Participants will travel by chartered bus to Ireland Park on Toronto’s waterfront. The Park, opened in 2007, commemorates the arrival of some 38,000 Irish Famine refugees who inundated Toronto (population 20,000) in 1847.
We will continue on to the Corktown area of Toronto, named for settlers from County Cork, and explore various venues where they lived and worked, including Little Trinity Anglican Church. Participants will relax over lunch at Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, the oldest existing ‘free’ school in Canada.
In the afternoon we’ll visit the splendid St. Paul’s Basilica in Toronto’s first Roman Catholic parish, established in 1822.
We will continue our journey to the Necropolis Cemetery and the Cabbagetown neighbourhood of Toronto. Cabbagetown’s name has its roots from the cabbages and other vegetables that were grown by the thrifty Irish immigrants who settled in the area. Cabbages grew readily in the sandy soil and provided an excellent food source. The Necropolis was the second non-sectarian cemetery in Toronto. Opened in the 1850s, it provided the final resting place for a number of Irish immigrants who lived in the area and worked in the factories along the Don River. We will also visit the graves of other people who helped shape our history such as Thornton Blackburn, an escaped slave from Virginia who provided the impetus for the underground railway into Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie a leader of the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion and Joseph Burr Tyrrell who found dinosaur bones in the Alberta Badlands.
Watch for more details about the Toronto’s Irish Heritage Bus Tour when registration opens this fall.
