SUNDAY, May 16: Schedule

Please note: OGS Conference 2010 is now over.

CONCURRENT SESSIONS

9:00 am – 10:00 am

Session 26: Identifying and Dating Family Photographs – Maureen A. Taylor
This is an interactive lecture that will teach you how to discover who’s who in your family photographs. Audience members will learn ten easy steps for attaching names and dates to those unidentified photographs tucked away in albums, scrapbooks and shoeboxes.

Session 27: British Intelligence: Smart Strategies for Tracking Down English, Scottish and Welsh Ancestors – Rick Crume
This presentation will demonstrate, through three case studies, how to trace ancestry in England, Scotland and Wales without leaving Canada. James Pennington, the subject of the first case study, was born in England, fought as a Loyalist in the Revolutionary War and then settled in New Brunswick. The second case study will cover the Robertson family from Scotland who brought along many family papers when they settled in New York. The third case study will show how extensive information about a family from Wales—with the dauntingly common surname of Jones—was discovered using online databases and microfilm from the Family History Library.

Session 28: Introduction to Eastern European Family History – Dave Obee
Tracing your roots in the countries in the eastern part of Europe can be a challenge. You won’t be able to use some of the things we take for granted with research in North America or the British Isles. You might be dealing with strange languages—or even strange alphabets. National boundaries have changed over and over. And to top it off, many countries are rebuilding after decades of Communism, so things are in a state of flux. Still, we can learn more about our families.

Session 29: OCAPG Forum: Essentials, Innovations & Delights, the Professionals’ Perspective
An expert panel of members of the Ontario Chapter of Professional Genealogists will discuss the essential tools and techniques genealogists need to succeed in today’s research environment, the latest innovations in research resources and technology and their most delightful discoveries. Come prepared with your questions about these timely subjects.

Session 30: Post Empire Loyalists Era: A Case History – Melissa J. Ellis
This one-of-a-kind case study will follow the fortunes of the Edmunds family through a century in Eastern Ontario—from a land grant in Upper Canada in 1815 through pre-Confederation rural Canada West to the advent of urban living at the turn of the 20th century. Land records, Heir and Devisee records, censuses, wills, vital statistics and county gazetteers will all be used to flesh out a picture of life in Grenville and Lanark Counties over the course of one hundred years.

10:30 am – 11:30 am

Session 31: Preserving Family Photographs, 1839 to the Present – Maureen A. Taylor
From daguerreotypes to digital imaging dilemmas, this seminar will cover everything a family photographer needs to know about preserving family photographs. Topics will include printing and sharing digital images, and how to safely label grandparents’ pictures.

Session 32: Writing a Narrative Family History, Part 1: A Reliable Document – John Philip Colletta
For genealogists who have been researching for twenty years, as well as family historians who are just getting started, this lecture will address the joys and challenges of their final product: a written account of their discoveries. That account should be both a reliable document for future researchers and a readable story for today’s descendants. Topics will include how to decide the form, content and style of the account; select a numbering system; use proper documentation; and index, illustrate and edit one’s work. Participants will discover how a narrative family history may be written in small, manageable pieces that ultimately result in a fine book that both current and future generations will appreciate.

Session 33: If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Lidzbark-Warminski: On the Road in Eastern Europe – Dave Obee
A light-hearted look at travelling to do research in Eastern Europe. It’s worth it, just to trudge down the dusty streets where your ancestors trudged. Also, to fight with the local police, to fall on your face in a forest, to argue with the archivists, and more.

Session 34: Genealogy Hacks: Mining the Internet’s Most Visited Genealogy Sites – Rick Crume
If you regularly return to the same Web sites and repeat the same old searches without finding much, it’s time to give your search an overhaul. This presentation will help you get out of that rut—and finally find your ancestors—by sharing some “hacks” for effectively mining the Internet’s most-frequented family history stops. Participants will learn how to: conquer global vs. targeted searching on Ancestry; master best matches vs. exact matches on Ancestry; use third-party tools to do advanced searches of the Ellis Island site; take advantage of third-party tools to search the International Genealogical Index (IGI) by town, not just province, state or country; and use proximity searching to find relevant matches on HeritageQuest Online.

Session 35: The Time of Cholera – Alison Hare
London’s cholera epidemic of 1854 is best known as the story of Dr. John Snow, the Broad Street water pump and a map. Snow made medical history by tracing the deadly outbreak to the pump. He then mapped the deaths so effectively that common misunderstandings about the disease were debunked. The usual telling of events, however, overlooks an important element—who were the people who died? This presentation will describe the discoveries made when a genealogist whose ancestor died in the epidemic set out to identify the forgotten victims. Genealogical and not-so-genealogical sources were used in the search. Be prepared for a heartbreaking picture of 19th-century London and a memorable illustration of how historical context can enrich family history.

12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

Session 36: Building Your Family Photograph Collection – Maureen A. Taylor
Discover how you can find and create images to make the names and locations in your family history come alive. Learn a few basic search techniques that will help you mine on-line and off-line resources for new photographs to add to your family album, and pick up some key tips for taking new pictures to expand your collection.

Session 37: Writing a Narrative Family History, Part 2: A Readable Story – John Philip Colletta
The biographical facts you discover about your ancestors did not happen in a vacuum. Our ancestors were born, lived, and died under specific physical circumstances at specific times in history. This lecture will demonstrate how to turn biographical facts into the real-life experiences they were; how to gather together and evaluate evidence about a particular event, including its historical context; how to “individualize” every ancestor in your family tree; and, ultimately, how to compile the coherent life story of an ancestor.

Session 38: Ships Ahoy! Navigating the Great Lakes for Genealogical Research – Susanna de Groot
The Great Lakes are bordered on the north side by Ontario and to the south by eight states. The genealogist is faced with many challenges when trying to locate information related directly to their ancestor on the Great Lakes. Numerous ships have traversed the waters of Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superior, and numerous lives have been lost in shipwrecks along the way. This presentation will provide a brief outline of maritime history and information about governing bodies; a discussion of archives, libraries, museums and societies on both sides of the border and how to access collections to aid in genealogical research; and a survey of useful websites and databases that will make it easier to navigate available records on shipping and passenger travel.

Session 39: OneNote: A Tool for Organizing Your Research Electronically – James Onyschuk
The digitization of records is occurring at a breath-taking pace. This presentation is for researchers who have considered digitizing their own genealogical research records, but don’t know where to start. It is easy to convert paper files and photographs into an electronic notebook, such as Microsoft Office OneNote. OneNote is a powerful tool for systematically organizing research and records, making it easy to keep all of your information in one easy-to-manage location. It is designed for note taking, brainstorming, researching, searching, collaborating and collecting random bits of information—basically everything you have ever tried to do with notepads, sticky notes and to-do lists.

Session 40: Searching Modern Records in an Era of Privacy Legislation: A Case Study – Ruth Blair
How do you put a life together when all you have is a tombstone and an obituary? This case study will take you through the process of reconstructing the life of Lady Diana Taylour. How do you find information when most of the records are affected by privacy restrictions? Lady Diana had no family in Oakville and no one knew her family. Not many people actually knew Lady Diana herself. Nothing was known of her life before she came to Oakville in 1935. Who was Lady Diana, where did she come from and who were her family? What was the truth behind the WWI service record of the woman who marched at the front of all the Remembrance Day parades with a chest full of medals? This presentation shows how the answers to these questions and many others were found.

1:00 pm – 2:00 pm
LUNCH BREAK

2:00 pm – 3:15 pm
PLENARY AND CLOSING CEREMONIES
Session 41: Hacks and Hookers and Putting Up Pickles: Snares of Yesteryear’s English – John Philip Colletta
Our ancestors used a vocabulary based on where they lived, when they lived there, and what they did. Their words reflect a world of skills, tools, apparel and customs that no longer exists. Therefore, the written records of any particular place and time and family—probate files, newspapers, legal packets, letters, diaries, military pension files, censuses, and all the rest—contain a lot of words that are unfamiliar to 21st-century researchers. Deciphering the informational content of old records is part of the fun of genealogy, but it does pose a challenge. Misinterpreting small words can lead to big mistakes. This lecture will draw on a variety of examples to demonstrate how to use the historical context in which a record was created, as well as genealogical dictionaries and dictionaries of historical English and Americanisms, to arrive at an accurate understanding of what the old records really say.