Calling all Researchers with Ancestors in South-Central Ontario

 

 photo credit: Michael Hudson. 

At our February meeting, Durham Region Branch will host Claire Wilton, Archivist and Privacy Officer of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, who will present “Finding Your Ancestors in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto”. The meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 1st at 7:30 p.m.

The Anglican Diocese of Toronto is quite large and holds records covering the areas of Durham, Toronto, Northumberland, York, Kawartha Lakes, Peterborough, Halton-Peel, Simcoe, and Haliburton. This talk should be of interest to a wide number of family historians.

https://www.toronto.anglican.ca/about-us/profile-of-the-diocese/?lang=en

Claire will be covering the oldest records held, as well as the types of, access to and information found in the records. She will also highlight examples of searches they have done, as well as challenges with the records. The Archives is currently working on increasing their accessible information (fonds descriptions and finding aids).

Claire’s first experience with Archives was as a summer student at the Bermuda National Archives in 1995. She went on to study accounting, but in 2004 decided to change career paths, graduating from Western University with an MLIS in 2006. She has worked at the Anglican Diocese of Toronto Archives for 11 years, first as Archives Assistant for 8 years and currently as Archivist and Privacy Officer since March 2019. A keen amateur genealogist herself, she has conducted research into her own ancestors (primarily in Bermuda and Scotland). She loves the challenge of the search for her own ancestors and brings that same enthusiasm to helping countless patrons in their genealogical searches of the Archives. Claire is always happy to provide guidance and suggestions on search strategies for ancestors that lived within the Diocese of Toronto.

Please, pre-register with the Zoom link below & mention us to your friends. Our meetings are open to the public.

Claire Wilton – Finding your Ancestors in the Anglican Diocese of Toronto

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUkcu2ppzgiGNFmUPD67OLTpFr45KxTsS2e

Ontario Ancestors Branches Open Access to Databases for Family Day

Never Done Before: A Special Opportunity from Several Ontario Ancestors Branches

As Family Day in Ontario draws closer, some of the Branches of the Society have developed an opportunity to further promote membership within the Society. The idea is to share the resources of their Branches through the Members’ Only Sections of their WordPress Websites. These Branches have invested a great deal of time in their Members Only and are prepared to be involved in this process.  We are hoping that by giving people a “sneak peek” into the amazing resources at six of our branches, that we can show non members the value of membership; and members can see the opportunities to join more branches.

To be honest, this has never been done before as Branches take the lead in promoting and encourage those seeking their past to join the Society and it Branches/SIGs to further gain access to documents and educational resources. This Boots on the Ground approach is how we as a Society as a whole bear responsibility for membership and promotion of the great work we do.

 

The Branches that are involved: Kent, Essex, Toronto, Niagara Peninsula, Huron and Lambton.

 

To be honest, we don’t know if this is even going to work, but we would rather fail than not do anything at all. So we mark this as a test and we will report back to you all on its success.

 

These are the parameters:

 

All Society Members receive free access with their membership.

 

All Non Society Members will have to purchase a Weekend Pass to view the Members Only Sections.

 

If they choose to join, Non Members will receive a $10 Credit towards their new Society membership and any Branches that they join as well.

 

This program will run from Friday February 12^th at 5 pm to Monday February 15^th at 5 pm.

 

Google Analytics will be used to monitor the success of this program.

 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We would encourage you to promote this as well.

 

Thanks

 

Steve Fulton UE

 

Past President/I.T. Administrator

Ontario Ancestors