New Time! DNA Special Interest Group Meets Wed. Dec. 20th

The December meeting of the Durham Region Branch's DNA Special Interest Group will start at 7 p.m.

This was suggested by those attending the last meeting and make sense at this time of year.

The meeting will be held at the Branch Office at the base of the old NavCanada tower on the south field of the Oshawa Airport. Access is from Rossland road and turn north on Stevenson Rd. (There is no access from Taunton Rd.)

At the beginning of the meeting, there will be a general discussion on beginning DNA for the benefit of newcomers. This will be followed by more advanced discussion for our long-time members. Time permitting, a DNA webinar will be viewed.

All are welcome!

"Grow Our Family" Campaign Opened Nov. 1st

The Ontario Genealogical Society's membership season has begun, and for the second year we're trying to Grow Our Family by matching renewing members with new recruits ( or at least those who haven't been a member for two years). 

Any member of the Ontario Genealogical Society renewing their membership can receive a 50% discount other membership fee simply by bringing in a new member with them. And the new member gets the same great deal - Society membership for $31.50!! Branch fees are extra.

So, if you're already a member, invite someone to join you.

If you want to become a member, come to our meeting this Tuesday, Nov. 7th at 7:30 at our NEW location: Bobby Orr Room at the Civic Recreation Complex, 199 Thornton Road S., Oshawa. One of our members will be very willing to sponsor you and save 50% at the same time! See the previous post for topic & speakers details.

If you can't come to our November meeting, save the date of Dec. 5th for our December meeting, same time, same place, but with Christmas "goodies".

November Meeting - New Location

Durham Region Branch will be holding their general meeting on Nov. 7th at 7:30 p.m.

New Location: The Branch has moved the venue for their meetings to the Bobby Orr Room, Civic Recreation Complex, 199 Thornton Rd. S., Oshawa. Parking is free.

The Durham Region Branch presents Sher Leetooze and Robert Bell who will be talking about some of the churches in Oshawa and Bowmanville. With the help of pictures we will learn where they were and what they looked like originally and where they are today.

Hurry - Free Webinars Offer Ends Sept 21st

Legacy Family Tree Webinars is celebrating their 7th Anniversary by allowing everyone access to their 15 most requested webinars.

Time is running out! The free week of viewing started on Thursday Sept. 14th and there are 4 days left to have a marathon of learning pleasure.

The original post is on Legacy News here.

Which classes are free?

• Finding Your Early 1800s US Ancestors Online with James M. Baker, PhD, CG
• Ten Brick Wall Tips for Beginners with Marian Pierre-Louis
• Organizing Your Genetic Genealogy with Diahan Southard
• FamilyBrowse - Another Way to Look at FamilySearch.org with Mary Kircher Roddy
• Google Search Strategies for Common Surnames with Lisa Louise Cooke
• Watch Geoff Live: Adding Online Records to Legacy with Geoff Rasmussen
• Solutions for Missing and Scarce Records with Tom Jones, Ph.D, CG, CGL
• Ten Hidden Resources Every Genealogist Should Know with Lisa Alzo
• Tips and Tricks to Organizing Your Genealogy with Shannon Combs-Bennett
• Digital Images for Genealogists and Technologists with Geoff Rasmussen
• Locating Pennsylvania Vital and Religious Records with Lisa Alzo
• Finding and Using Land Ownership Maps with Rick Sayre, CG, CGL, FUGA
• Using Evernote for Genealogy with Lisa Louise Cooke
• 50 Websites Every Genealogist Should Know with Gena Philibert-Ortega
• Crafting Ancestor Profiles from Start to Finish with Lisa Alzo

I have found that a membership to this service is well worthwhile.

DNA Special Interest Group Meeting September 20th

The DNA Special Interest Group Meeting will be held on Wed., September 20th at 7:30 pm in the Branch Office.

All are welcome and we will have our usual question and answer period.

"Canada 150, An Oshawa Perspective" (Lisa Terech, of the Oshawa Museums)

Our September meeting will take place at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, Sept. 5th in the Auditorium of the Oshawa Public Library on Bagot St., Oshawa

"Canada 150, An Oshawa Perspective" (Lisa Terech, of the Oshawa Museums)



This year celebrates an important milestone in the history of Canada, marking 150 years since the British North America Act of 1867 came into effect, resulting in the creation of Canada. Our confederation was many years in the making, and our own Oshawa residents played important roles in the development and growth of our country. 



Mini-Talk: - by Stephen Wood, about usng the new indexes at the General Register Office of the U.K.

Our meetings are often streamed on YouTube starting at 7:30. Our channel for streaming is http://www.youtube.com/ channel/UCiHiKL0pfzXzG- G9YARS8Sg/live . 

Library parking is free after 6 p.m.

“This program is not sponsored by the Oshawa Public Library and does not carry any responsibility for its content”

DNA Special Interest Group August Meeting

The DNA Special Interest Group Meeting will be held on Wed., August 16th at 7:30 pm in the Branch Office.

All are welcome and we will have our usual question and answer period.

Nancy will share her experience with the Lazarus project on GEDmatch.

Genealogy - Beyond the Names - Saturday, October 14

Enjoy a full day of workshop experiences, including lunch, with top notch speakers - all for only $35. 

Location: Courtice, Ontario (on the eastern border of Oshawa)

http://durham.ogs.on.ca/workshops/

 

LostCousins – Free subscriptions for new Canadian members – Limited Time Offer

LostCousins is a UK website, but as Peter mentioned, many Canadians have UK cousins and vice versa. I have found a few myself as I added both Canadian and UK census records to make connections. I echo Peter in hoping that a lot more Canadians will enter data, and maybe I'll get more connections too. This site works best if you put in aunts, uncles and cousins as well as your own direct line> Nancy

by Peter Calver, LostCousins (originally posted on the OGS e-weekly update 1/7/2017)

There are over 5,000 LostCousins members who live in Canada (and thousands more who have Canadian relatives, including me), but it's not very many for a country with a population of over 35 million. So far only 55,000 of the more than 4 million Canadians recorded on the 1881 Census have been claimed!

So to encourage more family historians to join I'm offering 6 MONTHS FREE to new members in Canada who have ancestors recorded on the 1881 Canada census or any of the other censuses we use at LostCousins. To take advantage of this offer the new member should enter the code CANADADAY in the offer codes box at the bottom of the registration page. This offer is not open to existing members, but I do have a complementary offer for them - see below.

For the benefit of potential new members reading this page the address of the LostCousins website is:  https://lostcousins.com/

There's no catch - you won't be asked to provide credit card or bank details, and after your 6 months is up you'll still have access to all the information you've entered, and all the connections you have made with cousins around the world. Of course, you'll receive an invitation to renew your subscription, but you will be under absolutely no obligation to do so.
Most people who buy a LostCousins subscription do so because they want to support the LostCousins project, and help LostCousins stay independent.

If you're already a LostCousins member you won't be able to take advantage of the offer for new members, but I have an equally good offer for you. When you enter the code HALFPRICECANADA on the Subscribe (or Renew Subscription) page you'll be able to buy a 12 month subscription for half-price, which means that you too will be getting 6 months free. You can do this even if you have an existing subscription, just so long as it doesn't have more than a year to run.

This offer is to thank you for telling potential new members about the LostCousins site - which you can do using your My Referrals page or by posting on blogs or forums. Remember to tell them about the 6 months free and give them the code (or else provide a link to this page).

Both of these offers WILL EXPIRE JULY 10^TH, SO ACT NOW!

FindMyPast Free Access to British & Irish Records

FindMyPast has announced on their home page that there will be free access to their British and Irish Records from June 22nd to Jun 26th.

DNA Special Interest Group - June Meeting

DNA Special Interest Group Meeting will be held on Wed., June 21st at 7:30 pm in the Branch Office. 


Topics for discussion will include MyHeritage's Ethnicity Analysis, Nancy's results from "Living DNA" and answering members' questions. All are welcome.

Super sale on Ancestry DNA kits at OGS conference next week

Gail Dever posted about a wonderful opportunity for purchasing Ancestry DNA Kits at the Ontario Genealogical Society's Annual Conference in Ottawa June 15 - 18. See her original post on Genealogy a la Carte.

There will be an exclusive super sale on Ancestry DNA kits at the event. Instead of the regular price of $129 CDN plus shipping, conference delegates will be able to purchase a kit for $69, including shipping. No limit to the number you may purchase.
Visit Global Genealogy in the Marketplace at Algonquin College to buy your kits.

Visit the conference website to learn more about the program, times, and location. Walk-in registrations are available at the door.

DNA Interest Group Meeting on May 17th

The May meeting of our Special Interest Group on DNA will be held on Wednesday, May 17th at 7:30 p.m.

For a map to our meeting place at the Branch Office, click here. Remember to park against the right hand fence, due to construction in the parking lot.

We can answer your questions, and we will show a webinar about DNA for this meeting.

Everyone is welcome.

May Meeting - Lynde House Museum

Trina Astor-Stewart, Executive Director for Whitby Historical Society at Lynde House Museum in Whitby, talks about the importance of Lynde House from an historical viewpoint and the genealogical relationships of the Lynde family in this area as representational of some early settlers to Southern Ontario. One of the most loved homes in Durham Region, Lynde House has been moved twice in order to preserve it and its story for future generations. Thousands of people lined the streets for each of its moves, most recently in 2015 from Cullen Gardens. The stories surrounding Lynde House during the war of 1812 provide a romantic portrayal of the times and now that it is being operated as a museum housing thousands of artifacts, the tales this house can tell grow daily. Come and discover more and find out why this house and the lives of those who lived here make an impact on us even today.

Mini-talk: Deborah Wilbur - "The Princess Mary 1914 Christmas Gift" to WWI soldiers, with family artifacts.

We meet at the Oshawa Public Library, downstairs Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. All are welcome.

Our meetings are often streamed on YouTube starting at 7:30. Our channel for streaming ishttp://www.youtube.com/ channel/UCiHiKL0pfzXzG- G9YARS8Sg/live .

Library parking is free after 6 p.m. 
“This program is not sponsored by the Oshawa Public Library and does not carry any responsibility for its content”

DNA Special Interest Group Meeting on Wednesday April 19th

Wednesday, April 19th at 7:30 pm. will be our DNA Special Interest Group. It will be held at our Office, 1000 Stevenson Rd. N., Oshawa (at the base of the NavCan Tower)

See the map here.

All are welcome who share our interest in DNA for Genealogy.

Because of construction, parking is against the fence on the right hand side as you approach the tower.

Legacy Family Tree Webinars - Free this Weekend

From Linda Reid's Toronto Branch Electronic Bulletin:

Legacy Family Tree Webinars
Legacy Family Tree Webinars are all free this weekend (from Friday to Sunday).  There are 500 to choose from. Presenters include prominent genealogists such as Judy Russell, Blaine Bettinger and Lisa Louise Cooke. For those who want to learn about genetic genealogy, for example, there are lots of choices.
https://familytreewebinars.com/

From their Facebook page, comes the information that this Friday will be their 500th webinar! Congratulations, Legacy Family Tree Webinars!
What a wonderful opportunity to explore everything that they have to offer.

"What Am I?" - Meeting Tonight, Tuesday April 4th at 7:30 pm.

Paul Jones - "I am not a Jones, but what am I?"

Paul will tell the story of researching two generations of 'father unknowns' and his true surname. This involved 25 years of research, including family oral history (often proven wrong) along with some usual and not so usual documents. Finally, a puzzling Y-DNA test, and an autosomal DNA test yielded solutions.

Come and join us to hear Paul's story. Everybody is welcome. Our meeting is held in the basement Auditorium at the Oshawa Public Library, Bagot Street in Oshawa (across from City Hall). Library parking is free after 6 p.m.

Mini-talk: Methods for backing up records

Our meetings are often streamed on YouTube starting at 7:30. Our channel for streaming is http://www.youtube.com/ channel/UCiHiKL0pfzXzG- G9YARS8Sg/live . 

“This program is not sponsored by the Oshawa Public Library and does not carry any responsibility for its content”

Victory at Vimy - March 7 - Ted Barris - 7:30 p.m. - Oshawa Library Main Branch

“Victory at Vimy” – Story of the birth of a nation
What the world witnessed that Easter Monday morning – April 9, 1917 – was a near miracle of ingenuity, co-operation and courage among volunteers of the Canadian Corps. That day, 80,000 of them – fighting for the first time as a national army – swarmed up that strategic ridge in north-central France and in a matter of hours accomplished what no Allied army had, in nearly three years of blood-letting in Europe. They seized Vimy from an entrenched German army. Some say those young citizen soldiers also breathed life into a fledgling nation – Canada.
In a talk/visual presentation, based on his book Victory At Vimy: Canada Comes of Age, April 9 – 12, 1917 Ted Barris reconstructs the blow-by-blow moments of that historic four-day operation, that some say changed the momentum of the war. It put Allied troops in control of the strategic Vimy heights for good. For the first time, it sent the most powerful army in Europe into full retreat. It also firmly established the four Canadian Infantry Divisions as the most effective fighting force on the Western Front. Archived on YouTube: https://youtu.be/T31S9Lfizuk
Visit our website:  www.durham.ogs.on.ca

“This program is not sponsored by the Oshawa Public Library and does not carry any responsibility for its content”

DNA Special Interest Group Meeting Wednesday

We have a DNA SIG meeting this Wednesday, Feb 15th at 7:30 pm.

The meeting will be held at our Branch Office. For a map, Click Here

Nancy will be discussing some items she got at the RootsTech conference.

Maps and Mapping for 21st Century Genealogists

Our speaker for our February meeting will be James F. S. Thomson who will be discussing "Maps and Mapping for 21st Century Genealogists"

Maps are an essential tool in family research. James will discuss how to locate both print and digital maps that are relevant to your research and then how to select those most appropriate to your needs. Finally, he will discuss how to go about creating maps and selecting the best tools to use when preparing maps. James has spoken at OGS conferences and is always a well-informed, excellent speaker.

This meeting will only stream out the business portion. The links mentioned by James Thomson will be posted in our "Members Only website". Those in attendance will hear James' presentation and receive a handout.

Mini-talk: Anne Delong – Backing up your files: – strategies. 

Date: Feb. 7, 2017 at 7:30 p.m.

Oshawa Public Library, 65 Bagot St., Oshawa (across from City Hall), downstairs Auditorium

Parking is free after 6:00 p.m.

“This program is not sponsored by the Oshawa Public Library and does not carry any responsibility for its content”.

Land of Canaan - OGS Webinar February 2nd

February OGS Webinar

Guylaine Petrin

Guylaine Petrin - Land of Canaan: Researching Black Ancestors in Canada before Confederation.
Thu, Feb 2, 2017 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM EST

In 1793, the Government of Upper Canada approved a law that ensure that any slave coming into its territory was automatically freed.  Upper Canada became a haven for African Americans seeking freedom and political rights.  This correspond to a difficult period researching genealogy. While this webinar will use examples from Black genealogy, many of the sources used are useful for anyone who has ancestors who lived in Upper Canada during the same time period.

DNA Special Interest Group Meeting Wednesday Jan. 18th

Our next meeting of the DNA Special Interest Group will be held this coming Wednesday at 7:30 pm. We will convene at the Branch Office, which is in the NavCanada tower at the south end of the Oshawa Airport.

See the Map here

Parking is available and everyone is welcome!

The Truth About Ancestry's Hints

I should have known that there were drawbacks on such an easy-to-use service, such as Ancestry's shaky leaf hints, but I didn't know what they were!

The truth has surfaced, thank to Amy Johnson Crow's post on her blog posted on January 4th.

Check it out here !

There's also some good pointers in the comments.