Inheritance in Ontario: Estate Files and Beyond

Jane MacNamara
Ontario researchers looking for records of inheritance usually stop once they’ve found the estate file. True, it is the richest single source, but the court register, minutes, and other documents that track the estate’s progress through the court can add valuable family history clues and help tell the whole story.

The presentation will review how to find an estate file and how it can lead to other sources both inside and outside the court system.

Mini-presentation: Jean McNulty A Photographic Puzzle

My Interesting Ancestor

Another wonderful evening of members sharing their stories . The following members have volunteered to give a 5 minute talk about an Interesting Ancestor in their family research :

Elayne Lockhart
     Grand-mère – in Prison Again??
Donna Dilello
     « Pop » Spencer, the Kidnapped Taxi Driver
David Reed
     Rooming Reeds
Bill Whiteside
     The Names of My Interesting Ancestors
Trish Jones
     No Business Like Show Business
Diane Schillaci
     In Search of my Elusive Great Grandmother
Linda Reid
     Rachel Revie – I Thought I Knew You
Joanne Green
     More about John Eagle
Ann Rexe
     The Travels of George Blanchflower, Wesleyan Methodist and      His Family
Judy Gauthier
     Amanda and her Dogs - not always "Man's Best Friend"
Gwyneth Pearce
    Great-great-grandfather Walton... death by accident?
Jane MacNamara
     Robert Manners, Pioneer of Middlesbrough

How to Plan a Fabulous Family Reunion

Cathy McNamara
Genealogists like us, feel close to our families mainly because we spend so much time researching our ancestors. If you are fortunate enough to have a family that organizes Family Reunions, you are lucky. Family Reunions can be daunting to organize but they are a perfect excuse to gather up all the family members young and old and celebrate being family. This presentation will take your through the ABC’s of planning a reunion, big or small, from start to finish and how to have some fun along the way. Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to get involved with planning your next Fabulous Family Reunion.

Mini-presentation: Paul Jones Determining how much confidence you should have in your genealogical inferences

What Really Happened? A Genetic Genealogy Success Story

Elizabeth A. R. Kaegi and James F. S. Thomson
Using several traditional genealogical techniques in conjunction with new genetic genealogy tests, Elizabeth and James have been able to solve a six decade old mystery, and have the findings conclusively confirmed.

The drama and its resolution ranged across seven countries, and finding the answers consumed many hours especially in the last five years. The end result was very satisfying and Elizabeth acquired seven close family members including two very new ones!

Mini-presentation: Beth Bow The best Betts house

Great Moments in Genealogy

Members' 5 min. presentations on "great moments" in their genealogy research.

The Juggler's Children: A Journey into Family, Legend and the Genes that Bind

Carolyn Abraham will discuss the research for her book, primarily in India and Jamaica.

How Academic Institutions are Helping genealogists: Free Digital projects That Family Historians Should Know About

Marian Press
Most genealogists never consider visiting an academic institution, either in person or online, for help in their search for family and social context. But academic institutions, especially university libraries and history and social science departments, are in the forefront when it comes to the digitization of research materials – and more and more of these are directly relevant to family history, although this is not their original intent.

We will be examining some of the many projects undertaken by universities and by humanities and social science funding bodies, sometimes with the help of commercial companies. Many of the UK projects, for example, are funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and we will discuss how to find out what such bodies are funding.

All of the examples chosen to be included contain information of genealogical interest and provide digital full-text results. All are available free to the public. The emphasis is on UK sites, as this is where the major academic digitization projects are centred.

Many of the databases are for the early historical periods before civil registration, a period that is often more difficult for record discovery and, therefore, of particular relevance for us as family historians.