This is the second time we have welcomed support for genealogical education from the Netherlands Consulate General in Toronto. In 2007 the Consulate General supported the Dutch ancestry workshop staged by OGS Toronto Branch. For information about other consular activities, including those involving culture and the arts, visit the website at http://www.cgtoronto.org/homepage.asp.

Support in the Italian community comes via the Italian Cultural Institute (Istituto Italiano di Cultura), the Cultural Section of the Consulate General of Italy in Toronto, established in 1976. The main facility is on Huron Street in downtown Toronto, and there is a suburban location in Woodbridge. The Institute promotes cultural events and exhibitions, and offers language classes. For more information, visit http://www.iictoronto.esteri.it/IIC_Toronto/Menu/Istituto/.

For more information about, or to register for, the Dutch or Italian lecture streams at Conference 2010, visit: http://torontofamilyhistory.org/2010/dutch and http://torontofamilyhistory.org/2010/italian respectively.

We express our deep gratitude for this support from both Consulates General.

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.

The two streams will begin with an exclusive joint lecture on preparations for a European research trip to the Netherlands or Italy. Then the groups separate for in-depth two-part lectures on researching Dutch and Italian records. After lunch, each group will hear a case-history presentation from North American researchers who have successfully used both Canadian and Dutch or Italian records to construct a family history.

For each of the last two sessions of the day, attendees can choose from five different lectures from the full Conference program such as Canadian immigration and passenger list records, using newspapers in genealogical research and deriving ancestral clues from old photographs.

These streams will appeal to experienced family history researchers who’ve never gotten around to their one Dutch or Italian ancestor, as well as to those in the Dutch and Italian communities who’ve always been curious about their family histories but have not had access to the quality information necessary to get them started.

Speakers and full program will be announced in this blog in upcoming months. To register to receive an e-mail alert when the program and registration form go online, please contact us at conference2010@ogs.on.ca.

*The Dutch and Italian streams will be offered in addition to the usual compliment of five concurrent lectures during every session.