Devon and Cornwall Research - May 3rd Meeting

Sher Leetooze will be our speaker at our May 3rd meeting, which will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the Basement Auditorium of the Oshawa Public Library, Bagot St., Oshawa (just south of City Hall).
Parking is free after 6 p.m.

Sher is a very entertaining speaker, as well as a local author and researcher with wide ranging interests, including overseas genealogy in Devon and Cornwall. She is a regular presenter at the Toronto Cornish Association, and presented at the International Gathering of Cornish Cousins in Milwaukee in 2014 (a biennial event).

Our short presentation will demonstrate how to access and use the Durham Region Branch's Members-Only Section of the Website.

This meeting will be streamed and the url for watching is on our website at durham.ogs.on.ca

Everyone is welcome - come and bring a friend!

LostCousins is FREE next weekend

It's their 12th birthday, and next weekend the LostCousins site will be completely free - it's a great opportunity to contact the cousins you've already found, and to find new cousins. The offer runs from Friday 29th April to Monday 2nd May.

LostCousins identifies members who share the same ancestors by comparing the information each member has entered on their My Ancestors page. After all, if you and another member have both entered the same relative, the two of you must also be related to each other!

Once you've entered your information the rest is automatic - all you need to do is click the Search button whenever you want to search for new cousins! 

What makes all this possible? The fact that every LostCousins member is taking information from the same online censuses.

Where can you find the census data? Most of the censuses have been selected because they are available free online. Usually only the transcription is free, not the images of the handwritten census schedules - but where that's the case all the information you need will be available as part of the transcription.

There is a very good help page on the site.

Savings on DNA Tests from Family Tree DNA and Ancestry DNA!

FamilyTreeDNA has announced that their DNA tests are on sale for the period of April 21st to April 25th as their way of celebrating DNA Day. There are reductions on all their available tests: Y-DNA, mt-DNA and autosomal DNA.
NOTE: Prices are in US dollars.

The link is at https://www.familytreedna.com/products.aspx

AncestryDNA has also announced a sale on their autosomal DNA test called Family Finder. There is a savings of $40 Canadian bringing the cost of the test down to $109 CDN.

The link is at http://dna.ancestry.ca

Getting Started in Genetic Genealogy

Our DNA SIG (DNA Special Interest Group) will hold their next meeting on April 20th, at 7:30 p.m. We will be showing a video “Getting Started in Genetic Genealogy” by Diahan Southard to start the meeting. Then we will continue our discussions about GEDmatch.

Everyone is welcome. This meeting will be held at our Office in the NavCan Tower at 1000 Stevenson Rd. N in Oshawa. Map here.

Scotland from Abroad Tuesday April 5th

Our Tuesday, April 5th meeting location is the Main Branch of the Oshawa Library (basement auditorium) just south of the Oshawa City Hall, on Bagot St. Parking is free after 6 p.m.

Scotland from Abroad - Bob Dawes

Bob will describe his methods for discovering Scottish ancestors, using online resources, some of which require payment, but many of which do not. He is shown here during his talk at the Quinte Branch OGS. Our meetings are streamed on YouTube, starting at 7:30 p.m. https://youtu.be/TF7fiAZYhWQ.

Bob is an excellent speaker and has a wealth of knowledge to share with us! Please join us for an exciting opportunity to learn about Scottish research.

Non-members are always welcome!

Our Branch's DNA SIG (DNA Special Interest Group), will hold it's next meeting on April 20th, at 7:30 at the Branch office. We explore DNA webinars and websites and learn from each other. Everyone is welcome. 

20 Free Credits at ScotlandsPeople

When I took advantage of the following offer, I found that it reactivated a bunch of dormant credits too!!

FOR generations the Scots, like no other nation, have travelled the globe.

This month, Scotland Now has teamed up with ScotlandsPeople to give you the chance to help you trace your Scottish ancestry for free.

A partnership between the National Records of Scotland and the Court of the Lord Lyon, it is the largest official online resource of original Scottish family history records.

With this great offer you will receive 20 free credits worth £4.50. It costs five credits to view an image, and one credit to view a page of search results so there will be plenty to search with this offer.

How to redeem the offer.

Register at www.ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk if you are a new user, or log in using your username and password if you already have an account.

• New users will be required to complete a registration form.

• Once logged in, click on Buy more credits on the top right hand side of the page.

• You will be taken to a page where you should enter the promotion code. The promotional code is: scotland. You will then be allocated 20 FREE credits worth £4.50

• It costs five credits to view an image, and one credit to view a page of search results.

• Your 20 FREE credits voucher must be redeemed by April 30, 2016. Your 20 FREE credits will then be valid for one year after you redeem the voucher.

For further help with redeeming a voucher code, please see the Voucher Help page.

Terms and conditions.

You must register at scotlandspeople.gov.uk in order to take up the offer and in so doing you agree to the terms and conditions of use for the ScotlandsPeople website. The free credit offer is restricted to one offer per individual. The offer codes must be validated at scotlandspeople.gov.uk before or on April 30, 2016. Your free credits will be added to your account, which will expire after one year or when they have been used up, whichever is the sooner. Credits are required to view the indexes and images on the website. The cost of viewing each different type of record can vary.