Update on Website

 Our website is still under construction!

We are still at:  https://timetraces.com/durhambranch/

NEW!! Durham Region Branch's Temporary Website

Due to unforeseen circumstances, Durham Region Branch's website has not been updated for 10 months. The links still work, but we are unable to update and add our upcoming meetings!

With many thanks to Dan Delong, we have a new temporary website using our backup pages.

You will find it at:  https://timetraces.com/durhambranch/

We are currently working on streamlining our site and hope to have our new refreshed website up soon.

Thank you for your patience.

Durham's Sept. 3rd Virtual Meeting - All Kinds of Loyalists

 

All Kinds of Loyalists – presented by Kathryn Lake Hogan, U.E.

During the American Revolutionary War, approximately 35% of the population of the Thirteen Colonies was loyal to King George III of Great Britain. Was your ancestor one of them? How do you know if your ancestor was a Loyalist? In this presentation, learn what to look for in documents and records to determine if your ancestor meets the qualifications of being a Loyalist.

It all started when Kathryn Lake Hogan, UE, PLCGS, was a Girl Guide leader wanting the girls in her group to learn about their heritage. Why not teach them about researching their family history? To do so, Kathryn had to first learn how to research her own ancestry. That was over 18 years ago, and today, Kathryn is an author, educator, speaker and professional genealogist specialising in finding your ancestors in Canada. She is the owner of the Canadian-based genealogy business, Looking4Ancestors. 

Kathryn is the past Dominion Genealogist of the United Empire Loyalists’ Association of Canada, and a past Director-at-Large with the Association of Professional Genealogists. 

This will be a Zoom only meeting and everyone is welcome.  

Please pre-register at the following Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqf-qvrD4rGdHeT-yEvJhRyx8hVtJ3nkrV

Durham's June 4th Hybrid Meeting - Untangling Township Papers with Jane MacNamara

Please join Durham Branch on Tuesday, June 4th @ 7:30 pm as we welcome one of our favourite speakers, Jane MacNamara. She will be joining us virtually.

Jane will be talking about “Untangling Township Records”.

Township Papers are a highly-organized series of records—resulting from the very hectic and disorganized activities of the Crown Lands Department. Consider some 72 metres of “orphaned” land-related records, often submitted or pulled from their original files because of a dispute or enquiry. Before being sent to the Archives of Ontario, these records were sorted by township and lot to make them accessible. Not quite comprehensive, but covering a large percentage of Ontario properties, these files may contain everything from warrants, location tickets, and settlement duty certificates, to assignments and transfers, explanatory notes and diagrams, letters from neighbours and other witnesses—anything that might prove ownership or occupancy and settle disputes. This session will show you how to check your ancestor’s property and neighbouring properties, understand the documentation you find and to follow the clues to untangle the full story.

BIO:

Jane E. MacNamara, Toronto, genealogy lecturer, instructor, and author of Inheritance in Ontario: Wills and other Records for Family Historians. She writes about genealogy at wherethestorytakesme.ca. A long-time member of OGS, Jane lectures about research methodology, Ontario, and English family history to genealogical and historical groups throughout southern Ontario. She teaches courses for the OGS Toronto Branch, most notably hands-on courses about Ontario records.

This will be a hybrid meeting. Everyone is welcome.  

In-person will be in our Branch library on the 3rd floor at Northminster United Church, 676 Simcoe St. N., Oshawa, ON. Parking can be limited.

For virtual attendees, please pre-register at the following Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMrfu-vqjsuE9QM46HVlxRwSrKKiedXg_54

Durham Branch’s May 7th Meeting (hybrid) : Following the Trails of the Betts Bibles – Beth Adams

 

It took close to 30 years to follow the trail from a Betts family bible in Pickering to an older one in California, that led back to family roots in Colonial Connecticut.

Beth Adams got hooked on genealogy when her Aunt Charlotte took her and her mother to visit the Betts House, an old stone home that her 2x great grandfather had helped to build on Westney Rd. in Pickering.  The house was fantastic — but the family bible her cousin Myra got out to show them was the clincher! Inside that bible was a typewritten transcript of the family pages from an even older bible! And there was another house at the end of the search!

Beth Adams is teacher who retired to Pembroke after a 30-year teaching career in Toronto. She is on the Education Committee for Toronto Branch and presents frequently for OGS, BIFHSGO, and UELAC. Beth started doing family history research in her late teens and has loved "chasing dead people" ever since! She has also helped family and friends with their DNA results.

In-person will be in our Branch library on the 3rd floor at Northminster United Church, 

676 Simcoe St. N., Oshawa, ON. Parking can be limited.

For virtual, please register at the following Zoom link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUpdO-grT4sHN0RczYjliRMYfgngEmr5Z98

Durham Branch's April 2nd Meeting - "They Sure Moved Around!"

Durham Branch presents “They Sure Moved Around!” on 2 April 2024

Please join Durham Branch at 7:30 pm April 2nd for a hybrid meeting as Sher Leetooze, local author and historian, presents “They Sure Moved Around!”

Sher will be in person at Northminster United Church, 676 Simcoe St. N., Oshawa, ON (NW corner of Simcoe Street North and Rossland Road West). Parking can be limited.

If joining online, kindly pre-register at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAude2grzstHNx8Tsob2Zit6OsZ05EHGdda

Description:

Sometimes we lose our ancestors – not because they die, or we’re not doing a very good search – but because they moved away. Most of the time we don’t know why they moved, and we may never know why they moved.

Doing a recent genealogical search for a man from the US, I followed his family from Darlington Township down to Kent County and environs and in doing so blew some family myths out the window!

Ontario isn’t really all that big, so let’s look at some of the resources in other parts of the province that you can call on to dispel some of our ancestral fog!

Bio:

Sher has been doing her own genealogy for over 40 years – a family’s story is never quite finished! But besides doing her own family, Sher has assisted others to follow the paper trail backward for their families. You might say enjoys the genealogical search – anybody’s genealogical search! With each new search Sher learns about new resources that should not be overlooked, or looked at again. This is what she will speak about at April’s presentation.

Everyone is welcome!

 

Durham Branch’s March 5th ZOOM Meeting: The History of Camp 30 – Dr. Amy Barron

 The History of Camp 30 – Dr. Amy Barron

Tuesday, March 5, 2024 @ 7:30 pm – ZOOM only Meeting. Everyone is welcome!

How did a Bowmanville Boys Reform school end up housing top-ranking German POWs in the Second World War?  Durham Region played many parts in the overseas war effort including hosting important German officers whose one mission to get back to Germany led to many interesting escape attempts.  Life in Camp 30 had many interesting ups and downs, from local recreation activities to the “Battle of Bowmanville”.  And what will become of this important national historic site now?

Dr. Amy Barron received her PhD at the University of Toronto in the field of Mesopotamian history and archaeology, specializing on the military history of Iron Age Assyria.  She has excavated predominantly in the Middle East but has travelled widely studying the archaeology of various remote parts of the world from Peru to China.  Amy has taught archaeology, ancient history and classics at the universities of Toronto and Guelph and presently teaches museum studies in Fleming College’s post-graduate program.  She has worked in the museum world for over 30 years and loves sharing her passion for the past.

Please register at the following link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZItc--srz8qGNZ_T5v6QvIUuyz94fHMuKda

Durham’s website has been temporarily moved to the following url:

 https://timetraces.com/durhambranch/