Showing posts with label OGS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OGS. Show all posts

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Crouse-Wanamaker Lecture


Lynn Heale, Membership Co-ordinator of the Quinte Branch OGS tells us of a meeting which will take place (today) on Saturday January 19th at 1 p.m. It will be the Crouse-Wanamaker Lecture, honouring the founders of Quinte Branch.

This year, they will proudly present Historian & Author Gerry Boyce.

Mr. Boyce will speak on his project to update his book Historic Hastings published in 1967. "A lot has happened in the 45 years since Historic Hastings was published." This new book will highlight events of the past four decades and will be a companion volume to the original publication. Historic Hastings is scheduled to be reprinted with an updated index.

Mr. Boyce, who lives in Belleville and spent more than three decades in the education field, was instrumental in establishing several local museums and the Hastings County Historical Society.

The meeting will take place at the Quinte West City Hall Library, 7 Creswell Drive, Trenton, Ontario.

For more information, go to www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canqbogs

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Genealogy Day and AGM

The Lanark County Genealogical Society will hold a Genealogical Day and AGM on Saturday, April 27, 2013 at the Beckwith Township Hall, 1702 9th Line Beckwith, Blacks Corners, Ontario.

Join us at the Beckwith Township Hall, located at the corner of Highway 15 and Beckwith Concession 9. Free parking is available in the adjoining lot. Entrance is off Concession 9. The marketplace will include local heritage organizations.

Schedule:

9:30 – 10:00 Check-in. Coffee and tea will be available on arrival

10:00 – 11:00 The First Nations and Lanark County, Speaker David Murdoch, LCGS

11:00 – 11:30 Break

11:30 – 12:30 Region VIII Annual General Meeting

(Note: The AGM is open to all current and prospective members of OGS Region VIII whether registered for Genealogy Day or not; only paid up members are allowed to vote)

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch. Time to browse the book tables and displays presented by OGS branches, local genealogical/historical organizations and others.

2:00 – 3:00 The Forgotten Hero, Col. Alexander Fraser, Authors Irene Spence and Ron Shaw, LCGS

3:00 – 3:30 Break

3:30 – 4:30 Memory Trust – A panel of Lanark County “Old Timers”

Pre-registration: $25 including lunch. Deadline for Pre-registration is April 17, 2013

Registration at the door $15 (DOES NOT INCLUDE LUNCH)

Please make cheques payable to “Lanark County Genealogical Society”

Please mark your cheque/envelope “OGS Region VIII - Pre-registration” and send to Frances Rathwell, LCGS Treasurer, 68 Beckwith Street, Perth, Ontario K7H 1C1

For further information please contact Frances Rathwell at frathwell@cogeco.ca or phone 613-267-3178

The website is at www.globalgenealogy.com/LCGS

Monday, January 7, 2013

Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2013


The OGS has just opened their registration for their Conference 2013 to be held in Oshawa May 31, June 1 & 2 of this year. The theme of this year’s Conference will be “Pulling Up Stakes: Putting Down Roots”.

They have also put the program on the site and it does look interesting with a good mix of Ontario, and US speakers. Canadian such as Dave Obee, Marian Press, and Brian Gilchrist, and American such as Maureen Taylor, and Liza Also.

The Conference was held in 2006 at the same place, and at that time, they had a great Conference, so this one should be no different.

There are plenty of classes to chose from, early bird registration, lots of tours to take, and there will be a marketplace, so take a look at www.ogs.on.ca/conference2013/home

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Township Papers of the Province of Ontario

Mike More, the vice president of the OGS wrote this notice in the OGS e-Weekly Digest yesterday -

"The Township Papers (Archives of Ontario RG 1-58) are a large collection of documents that date from c1783 to c1870.

The documents include copies of orders-in-council, location certificates and tickets, assignments, certificates of settlement duties, correspondence and some wills. The records are arranged by township, town, or village and, within each township, by concession and then lot number. When a document dealt specifically with a particular piece of property and did not appear to fit within another records series, it was placed within the Township Papers. Once you know the particular lot of land the settler was granted, it is worth looking at the Township Papers since there may be information about the settler.

There are 540 reels of Township Papers with 528,000 pages of information, held by the Archives of Ontario in Toronto. An index to these would be a tremendous resource for Ontario genealogists but it is a HUGE job. The best indexers would be people who know the township and have an interest in the people therein. Since most of the material is hand written, everything has to be proofed, i.e. two people have to read the whole file looking for names.

OGS is considering a project to index the Township Papers of Ontario. We will need a number of volunteers to do the work but first we somebody to lead the Ontario Township Indexing Project. Are you up to the challenge? Would you like to be part of the team that brings these resources to light"?

On a personal note, this indexing project would be a great help to us who use these papers on a regular basis. I urge you to consider this as a worthwhile project.

For more information or to offer your services, contact Mike More at vp@ogs.on.ca

Sunday, December 16, 2012

More Holiday Gift Ideas

Here are some nore places to check which has books/CDs you may like either for yourself or for someone else during the Holiday Season -

In 2008, the Ontario Genealogical Society, and Dundurn Press entered a joint partnership in which the OGS would edit the books and Dundurn Press would publish them. Together, they have published many books on Canadian genealogy.

Families, the quarterly journal of the OGS (of which I am the editor) has regular excerpts from the books and reviews of books from their catalogue.

The OGS e-Store website has books at  www.ogs.on.ca/ogscart/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2

Global Genealogy, located near Toronto, is another good source of genealogy books, maps, and CDs.

They just came through their 20th year of operation, and they have published their “Top 10 Gift Ideas for the history and genealogy enthusiast on your list” at http://globalgenealogy.com/new/top-10.htm.

They also have two of my research booklets for sale — The War of 1812: Canada and the United States and Migration: Canada and the United States — that you might enjoy as a gift for a loved one, or even yourself!

And right down the road from us in Manotick is Archive CD Books Canada www.archivecdbooks.ca/acdbcanada.html. Malcolm Moody and his wife, Chris, carry a huge selection of older local Canadian history books that they have scanned and published on CDs in electronic document format.

What makes their business unique is that they take much care and effort in scanning each of the books (and maps, too), so it’s like buying the book in its natural form, with its resulting high quality and readability, which is rare when it comes to scanned books. The CDs are easy to use, reasonably-priced, and backed by the Moody’s expertise and broad subject knowledge.

So if you are wondering what you could possibly get for a gift for the genealogist on your list, these are some of the places you can visit for ideas of what they would like to see under the tree this Christmas!

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

TONI Is Growing Everyday!

One of the best resources that a genealogist should check is the Ontario Genealogical Society’s TONI – The Ontario Name Index.

The Ontario Name Index (TONI) is a mega-index of names with the goal of including every name found in any publication relating to Ontario

Started in 2011 TONI is growing with new resources added every day!

There are already many names on the index. There is a low cost to download the information on the name(s) you have found,but the index itself is free to use!

To see how to use TONI, go to www.ogs.on.ca/integrated/toni_database1.php

Hint: I still use the Ontario Genealogical Provincial Index at www.ogs.on.ca/ogspi/welcome.htm to compare information with TONI to make sure that I have all the information that I need.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

OGS Families - August 2012


The August Families has just been published, and this issue contains six  papers, and they are –

Dealing with Documents – This is excerpt from the book by Althea Douglas called Time Travellors Handbook: A Guide to the Past. A review of the book is available on page 33.

How An old Handkerchief Helped Me Discover my Kinston Roots – This paper was by the 1st place winner of the Keffer Writing Contest Virginia Reid.

She tells the story about how her great-grandfather Thomas James Reid was wounded by a shell that left holes in a handkerchief in his back pocket.

A Mystery Like No Other – This paper was written by William Vollmer, the winner of the 2011 Dr. Don Brearley Genealogical Essay Prize, and it is about his ancestor Charles Vollmer who disappeared from Maryhill, Ontario.

Life of a Guyanese in Canada – by Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh in which he follows the life of Hector Lachmansingh, an Indian- Caribbean.

The Family of Jacob Phillips and Sarah “Sally” Kaake of Etobicoke: An Overview – by David Phillips in which he traces the life of the Kaake and Phillips family in Etobicoke.

The Search for Auntie Hutton – by Donald R. McLaughlin in which he discovers who Auntie Hutton of Ross Township, Renfrew County really is – Almeda Rosanna Fuller Palmer Hutton.

In order to receive this magazine you must be a members of the Ontario Genealogical Society at www.ogs.on.ca.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

New to the OGS Blog


This is an exciting development in blogs - they are instituting the use of Polls on the OGS blog at www.ogs.on.ca/ogsblog/?p=1389.

There are going to be a new one each week.

This week they asked the guestion - What regions have you been searching to build your family tree?

The results so far are -

Canada 81%

England 73%

Scotland 63%

United States 61%

The poll has been set up to allow you to choose as many answers from the list as you wish. Missed something or having second thoughts on your choices? No worries, simply refresh the page, and you can vote again!

Give it a try and have some fun!

Saturday, June 23, 2012

OGS President Interviewed

Read Shirley Sturdevant’s interview in the 21 June edition of the Chatham Daily News at http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/2012/06/20/connecting-ancestors-to-the-present called “Connecting ancestors to the present.”

She gives her own story of how she became president after joining the OGS five years ago, and the OGS thoughts on the current Library and Archives Canada situation.

It’s worth a read - quite a good interview.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

May 2012 Families



Being the editor, I am really proud of this issue, because it is all about Sharing Your Family History!

The first article is Four Women and Four Legacies by Dr. Joseph Wearing.

The paper tells the history of the four Thompson women who were from Ireland, and who eventally lived in London, and Petrolia, Ontario.

Dr. Wearing shows us how to research and use wills, and property transcripts to trace female ancestry of our family. A thoughtful, exciting read!

Guylaine Petrin comes back with another paper entitled Who Was Jane Ross Kingston?, and she takes us to court and burial records in Upper Canada to prove who she really was - or wasn't.

As I noted in my editoral "Once again, she shows that using court records can bring much of family history to life, and goes a lomg way in proving the existance of a person".

Another paper in this issue is Of Buttermilk and Banjos: A Glimpse into the History of Blacks in Norfolk County in which the former archivist of the Eva Brook Donly Museum and Archives,  Scott Gilles, takes us to daily like as it was lived by Black Canadians in the mid-1800s.

Gwen Patterson in her column Where Are Those Records? writes about George Gordon, the earliest merchant- in Penetanguishene, and Brooke Skelton in her paper The English Settlement Examination Record for William Bennett of Chedzoy, Somerset in which a chance reading of a certain document in an archives solved a huge genealogical problem.

The next issue of Families will be released the first week in August, and it will feature the First Prize winner in the Keffer Essay Contest - Virginia Reid with the paper How an Old Handkerchief Helped Me, the First Prize of the Dr. Don Brearley Student Essay Award which is William Vollmer with his paper A Mastery Like No Other, and a real exciting paper The Family of Jacob Phillips and Sarah "Sally" Kaaka of Etobicoke: An Overview by Dave Phillips.

The site of the Ontario Genealogical Society is http://www.ogs.on.ca/.

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Keffer Writing Contest


Every year, the Ontario Genealogical Society sponsors a writing contest called the Keffer Writing Contest – and this year – it was something special. We had 14 entrants!

From the 14 essays – four were chosen as winners, and they are -

First Place goes to Virginia Reid, and her essay "How an Old Handkerchief Helped Me"

Second Place goes to Debra Butler Honor UE, and her essay "The Stain Glass Mystery"

Third Place goes to Anne Rahamut, and her essay "Mrs. Teepell's Tale"

and

Fourth Place goes to David Harper, and his essay "Tracing 19th Century Homesteading"

If you want to see the rules for entry, go to www.ogs.on.ca/home/essay.php

If you aren't a member, they have a special offer where you can join for $35.00 for a six month period, and be eligible to submit an essay. Plus, there is lots of records on the OGS Members Site.

There will be one essay published per issue of Families, starting with the August 2012 issue.

The deadline for the 2013 contest is November 1, 2012.






Saturday, May 26, 2012

Book Review: The Beginner's Guide to Genealogy



Fraser Dunford, the former executive director of the Ontario Genealogical Society, wrote a small yet delightful and very informative book  a few years ago on what to do as a beginner genealogist. It is to be noted that the book, The Beginner's Guide to Genealogy, is written from the point of view of Ontario records.

In the "Introduction", he says, “This book starts with some of the basic concepts used in genealogy, shows you how to start on your family tree, then looks briefly at two huge topics, evidence and ethics.”

In "How To Do the Basics", he discusses such topics as Family Tree (difference between Ancestor and Descendant trees - with examples), Family Record, BMD, and Dates.

The section, “Where to Find It”, covers Maps, Census, Religious Records, Civil Registration, Municipal Records, Land Records, Newspapers, Immigration/Emigration, and Wills.

Also included is a Glossary, and a Relationship Chart, in addition to other material not mentioned here.

You may also wish to read his companion book, Beginner's Guide to Ontario Genealogy (Toronto: OGS, 2006).

Both books are available from the bookstore at www.ogs.on.ca.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Canadian Funeral Home Records Online

Steve Fulton, Chairperson of the Niagara Peninsula Branch of the OGS, writes that the Morse & Sons Funeral Home Records Index is now online.

He would like to thanks the volunteers who have spent countless hours working on this project. You can visit their website http://ogs.on.ca/niagara. Please click on the Index Button to do a search.

Finally, he would like to reintroduce the Surname Index on our website as well, and he says you will find it under the Index Button also. Over the next month, the Surname Index will be changed over to work and appear like the Morse & Sons Funeral Home Records Index.

So please visit their website often, as many things will be changing over the next couple of months relating to various indexes.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

OGS "Families" – February 2012 Issue



Photo – A cover photo by Janet Iles of the Greenwood Cemetery in Owen Sound, which was once known as the “People's Cemetery”. Read more about its history in “On the Cover” on page 34 of this issue.

The Ontario Genealogical Society's journal, Families (of which I am the editor) was released in February of this year.

As usual, there were two themes to this issue – Ontario Cemeteries, and Ontario Heritage.

Cemeteries

The excerpt was from the book, A Better Place: Death and Burial in Nineteenth-Century Ontario, by Susan Smart in which Chapter 6: The Establishment of Cemeteries in Three Towns (the three towns were Peterborough, Kingston, and Niagara-on-the-Lake) was reprinted in full. Plus, a book review was written about the book on page 32.

To continue the cemetery theme, two more articles about Ontario - Rambles Around Some Halton-Peel Cemeteries by Dorothy Kew, in which she gives an excellent review (with photos) of cemeteries of Halton-Peel, and an article, Changing Gravestone Motifs in Quinte and Beyond by Peter Johnson, in which he describes the “changing motif” on gravestones through the centuries – and there are fourteen photos in the paper!

Ontario Heritage

Three papers were published in acknowledgement of Ontario Heritage Day in February, and they were - Family History of a Caribbean Canadian by Dr. Jerome Teelucksingh, in which he traces the life of Tom Ashby; Why and When Had Mary Ann and Joseph Whiteley Moved to Grey County by Catherine Whiteley, in which she traces the life of George Forbes; and Hunting for Hidden History: How Slavery Came to the Town of York by Hilary Dawson, in which she write an account of slavery in York Township.

One other paper, Letters Home: Upper Canada to England by Dr. Bill Mills, give a very gripping account of a homesick Christopher Stokes writing home to his family in Nottinghamshire, England.

Families is available only to members of the Ontario Genealogical Society. There are two membership packages available – a six month term for $35.00, or a full year for $60.00. Memberships are available at www.ogs.on.ca/membership.php

Full issues of Families, including an index, is also available for the years 1962 to 2006 through the “Members Only” portal at

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Heritage Day 2012

This year's theme of Heritage Day in Petrolia, Ontario is 'History of ENERGY’. It will take place on Saturday, March 3rd from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Victoria Hall, Petrolia.

There will be at the display the Union Gas, the Oil Museum of Canada, Van Tuyl and Fairbank Solarware, Waste Management, Wind Power, the Lambton Room, and the Lambton Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society!

Oil was discovered in Petolia, and in the Oil Springs area in the 1850s, and the Petrolia Heritage Committee has amassed a huge amount of material you can go through at http://www.petroliaheritage.com.

Friday, December 2, 2011

York Ancestors Newsletter

The November 2011 edition of the newsletter of the York Branch of the OGS, Ancestors, has been published. It continues with "The Udell Family of Markham, Pickering and Uxbridge (Part 2)" in which Walter Udell continues the story of the family through the middle- and late-1800s.

If you are interested, a website has been developed at www.udellfamily.ca.

At September's meeting, Rich Roberts from Global Genealogy talked about the latest edition of Family Tree Maker, and at the October meeting, Wes Playter talked about the Roadhouse & the Rose Funeral Home in Newmarket.

A Special Note: The York Branch will be celebrating their 15th year celebration in June. They are asking that if you have family history or photos that you would like to have featured at the party, email barbara.barr.ogs@gmail.com.

You can go to their website at www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onyrbogs. The York Region covers the former York County minus the City of Toronto.

If you are interested in joining Ontario Genealogical Society and the York Branch, go to www.ogs.on.ca/membership.php.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Niagara Peninsula Branch of the OGS

I just received this notice from Steve Fulton from the Niagara Peninsula Branch of the OGS. It shows another way to reach long distant members, or people who cannot attend.

"The Niagara Peninsula Branch of the OGS would like to announce that the guest speaker will now be streamed onto the Internet for those from a distance or who are unable to make it to the meeting location.

The Regional 4 Meeting will not be streamed but the Guest Speaker will be during the talk times.  Please see the flyer on our website for start times and all times are in EST.  There will be no recording of the guest speaker for future playback.

The cost to join us will be $15; the fastest way to pay is visiting the Niagara Peninsula Branch Website at www.ogs.on.ca/niagara clicking on the Region 4 Meeting Box on the front page.  It will allow you to register and then pay with PayPal.

Please note: If you plan to join us via the internet, please make all payments on or before Oct 27/11 so we have enough time to get instructions and login information to you.

Any questions please email the Branch directly – niagara@ogs.on.ca"

Thanks you.

Steve Fulton
Chair, Niagara Peninsula Branch

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Dear Readers

As you have seen from my infrequent postings to this blog as of late, I have been busy doing other "genealogical" things, and I really haven't had the time to post on a regular basis.

Plus, I have just taken on another job.

John Becker, the editor of Families (the journal of the OGS) has taken ill, and is unable to complete the August issue. So I have taken over the editorship of the August issue as Guest Editor.

Those of you who have been involved with publications know that it is very intensive work, and since I am also the editor of NewsLeaf (the newsletter of the OGS), I don't imagine I will see too much of the summer from now until the middle of July, when the two publications go to the printer.

So if you will bear with me while I work on these three OGS publications (yes, I also edit e-NewsLeaf, the e-mail newsletter), I will be posting a bit less during the next few weeks.

Of course, you can always read me in NewsLeaf, e-NewsLeaf, or Families by simply joining the Ontario Genealogical Society at www.ogs.on.ca. NewsLeaf and Families are issued four times a year (Feb, May, Aug, Nov), while e-NewsLeaf is issued eight times a year (Jan, Mar, Apr, June, Jul, Sept, Oct, Dec).

But I have more good news for my readers - if you were not aware, there are over 200 previously posted blogs in the archives to keep you company in this dry time - see the section marked "Blog Archive" at the right side of the page. You can search by date, or if a more direct approach is desired, use the custom search box for the site, powered by Google.

In any event, I look forward to getting back to the blog, and in the meantime, I wish to say -

"Thank you for your patience, and continued support!"

Regards,

Elizabeth

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Ottawa Branch, OGS - September Meeting

The next meeting of the Ottawa Branch, OGS will be held on Tuesday, September 15th at 7:30 p.m. in Room 156 of the Library and Archives Canada building at 395 Wellington Street.

Coreen Atkins-Sheldrick will speak on her new book, "In Our Defence: The Veterans & Military Heritage of Historic Osgoode Township", about the military history of Osgoode Township, Carleton County.

She is going to talk about the stories she learned while working on this book.

I see where she has another book called, "The Yorke Families of Historic Osgoode Township, Carleton County", written in 2003.

For more information, please visit <www.ogsottawa.on.ca>.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

OGS Conference information is now online!

I was just going around my weekly check of things on the Internet recently, and I said to myself, " I wonder if they have put anything about Conference '09 on the OGS site?" - and by gosh, they had!

In fact, they have put the whole thing on - so you can go ahead and check the program, see who's coming, and what special events will be happening.

One of the features will be the celebrating of the 300th anniversary of the Palatines, with features by prominent Palatine researchers on the Irish Palatines who settled in Ontario.

I will be there Thursday evening, and starting Friday, I will be on the tour of the new Ontario Archives and will cut it a bit short to come back and see the Graduation Ceremony of the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, as well as the Opening Ceremonies of the conference.

Kory L. Meyerink is slated to speak at the J. Richard Houston Memorial Lecture that evening, and a reception will follow.

On Saturday, it's off to an early start. At 8:00 a.m., Brian Gilchrist will start the day off by giving his talk at the Plenary Session entitled, "Pedigree and Progress: Making Connections in the Digital Age from the Printed Page".

The rest of the day I am going to hear a couple of lectures and go around the "Marketplace" and say my "Hellos!" to old friends and new acquaintances.

Saturday night, I will go to the banquet and hear Charlotte Gray speak, and on Sunday, I will be going around taking pictures and getting more news for the OGS NewsLeaf and e-NewsLeaf. There will be the closing ceremonies in the afternoon.

I plan to blog while I am there, and after the conference I hope to stay in Toronto for a couple of days and visit around to see what has appeared since I was there last summer.

If you want to see the material that has been put on the OGS website, please go to www.ogs.on.ca/conference.