National Day for Truth and Reconciliation

Urban Iskwew - Hawlii Pichette©

September 30th has been designated as the "National Day for Truth and Reconciliation". As we take this day to reflect on the legacy of residential schools, we wish to honour the survivors and their families.

Oshawa raised the Every Child Matters flag on Friday, September 24th in Civic Square. The best thing that we can do is to educate ourselves about indigenous matters. The following website from the City of Oshawa can help:

https://www.oshawa.ca/residents/national-indigenous-history-month.asp

Check your own local area to see what is being done to recognise this holiday. Every child matters.

FamilySearch Completes Digitization of Massive Microfilm Collection

 

On Tuesday, FamilySearch announces the completion of the their ambitious project to completely digitized their microfilm collection. This project started in 1998 with a projected timeline of 50 years. They finished 30 years early! This is absolutely amazing and due to technological advances that they themselves pioneered.

See their news release here.

Next step -  to digitize their massive microfiche collection.

Ongoing: to index these digital images. Take part here and sign up to be one of their massive team of volunteers!

Lesley Anderson of Ancestry.ca Speaks at Durham Branch' October Meeting

 

Search Tips – Researching Women on Ancestry

Tuesday, October 5th @ 7:30 p.m.

This session will provide strategies for searching for women in the Ancestry databases, including methods to uncover females using name variations and other search techniques. Famous or interesting women will be highlighted wherever possible using the new Ancestry databases from around the world, as well as the core record groups. The presentation will appeal to new and experienced researchers alike.  

Everyone is welcome and bring a friend! Pre-registration is required:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0kcumgpjwpGdNFOQpBM7JSYxKDx_krFcg_

Lesley Anderson has worked for Ancestry.ca for over 14 years as their Canadian Spokesperson and has done numerous presentations for genealogy societies and conferences across Canada as well as TV and Radio appearances.  

She has been involved in the personal research of her family tree for over 50 years specializing in Canadian, British and Irish records.  Her passion for genealogy has branched out to DNA genetic genealogy, teaching classes, speaking at seminars and conferences, consulting and doing research for others.  For years she was well known for her computer and genealogy classes offered through the Ottawa Catholic Board Continuing Ed and her “field trips” to various archives and libraries.

She was the Director of Education for BIFHSGO (British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa) for many years and volunteered at the Ottawa Stake - LDS Family History Center.  She gets great enjoyment out of helping new and experienced genealogists with their research.  

 

Join Us For More Eastern Europe Research Skill-Building

 

Durham Region Branch and the Uxbridge Genealogy Group announce a special joint presentation!

Topic: I Just Can't Get Enough of Eastern Europe with Eva Kujawa

Time: Tuesday, September 7th, 2021 @ 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time  **Note: earlier time**

In her intermediate level talk, Eva Kujawa will go more in depth with regards to Civil Registration records, how to locate places within the various countries that make up Eastern Europe, how to locate Church records as well as how to decipher and read the many languages and alphabets. Migration patterns, identify & research Clusters, newspapers, land, military and more records will also be covered.

Branch members will find Eva's introductory lecture from April 15th on the Durham Region OGS Members’ Only section of our website.

Eva Kujawa was born in South Africa and specializes in German, South African and Eastern European genealogy with 30 years of research and learning. Currently, she is a member of Ontario Ancestors' East European Special Interest Group and many other societies. 

You must pre-register at the following link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYqcO6ppz4uHdEa6m0GX0XQYxLjWzPbyFM5

My Roots, Your Roots, Our Ontario Roots: The Keynote Lecture Tonight

 My Roots, Your Roots, Our Ontario Roots:

At the opening session for the virtual Ontario Ancestors Annual Conference, Janice Nickerson gave a very inspiring keynote speech about diversity, inclusion, marginalization and the imbalance of the lack of diversity of members involved in our hobby of genealogy in Ontario. It was an amazing talk which included many hints on what can be done to redress this imbalance. As soon as it finished, I felt the need to explore Durham Region's history and makeup of our population. Five minutes of Googling found the following links:

https://www.durhamimmigration.ca/en/moving-to-durham-region/history-of-durham-region.aspx

https://bit.ly/3uRHKLL - Land Acknowledgement from Durham College

I challenge other readers of this blog to find further links that explore Durham Region's diversity! Please post in the comments.

Nancy

Durham Region Branch Hosts Thomas MacEntee June 1st

 

Successful Collateral and Cluster Searching on Tuesday, June 1st at 7:30pm

While you may think you’ve hit a brick wall with your research, have you tried using cluster and collateral search strategies to look for an opening? Researching non-direct relations as well as those friends and neighbours in your ancestors’ network can pay off in ways you might not imagine.

Learn why researching those in-laws, “shirt-tail cousins” and others who may not be a direct-line ancestor as well as “friends, neighbours and associates” can help you break down your genealogy research brick walls.

Durham Region Branch, Ontario Ancestors is pleased to host professional genealogist and presenter extraordinaire Thomas MacEntee. He specializes in the use of technology and social media to improve genealogical research and as a means of interacting with others in the family history community.

Please register at the link below:

Tuesday, June 1 at 7:30pm: Thomas MacEntee - Successful Collateral & Cluster Searching

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAtdu6gpzkiGdz-Y_y-8nH1Kv_kxaZOqTEW

Join us and bring a genealogy friend! All are welcome.

May 4th Meeting: Tracing 20th-Century Ontarians with Janice Nickerson

 

Title: Tracing 20th-Century Ontarians

Description: When tracing Ontario families we usually start with census records and civil registration. But these records are closed for most of the 20th century. So where do you start if your earliest known ancestor was born after 1921? Or maybe you've traced your ancestors, but now you want to find out what happened to their brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews? Don't despair, not all 20th Century records are closed. In fact, if you know where to look, you can learn a great deal about your recent ancestors and relatives. This lecture will walk you step-by-step through my research process, introducing you to the records and strategies you need to peek behind the "closed" curtains of 20th Century Ontario. Using these tips, you'll probably even learn something new about family members you thought you were done researching!

About Our Speaker: Professional genealogist Janice Nickerson loves a good challenge - whether it's identifying elusive ancestors, tracking disappearing descendants or telling richer family stories. Her specialties include early Ontario research, criminal justice records and fur trade history. Her website is UpperCanadaGenealogy.com

Everyone is welcome! Please pre-register for this Zoom meeting at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcqd-ugrDspHtU65xuj2h306rnruetmy17M