One Note

Jim Onyschuk
Microsoft OneNote is a computer program for free-form information gathering and multi-user collaboration. It can gather user's notes (handwritten or typed), drawings, screen clippings, and audio commentaries and share them with other users of Microsoft OneNote over the Internet. The desktop version of OneNote is available for the Microsoft Windows platform. (Wikipedia)

Mini-presentation: Greg Marlatt : The Flight of William Lyon Mackenzie

Unusual, Underused and Underappreciated Resources Online for Genealogists

Marian Press
It is all too easy to get comfortable and keep going back again and again to the same “big name” genealogy web sites. These sites are indispensable for today’s genealogist, but there are many other web sites that are worth a regular or an occasional visit. Some are genealogy specific, but often underused; others do not have family history as their primary purpose but have valuable content for family historians. This presentation will provide an eclectic journey through sites of this kind that the presenter considers unusual, underused and underappreciated. The addresses for all the sites will be provided on Toronto Branch’s Electronic Bulletin.

Mini-presentation: Kathy Shorney : All for Silver and a Future

Women, Bicycles and Animals: Humanizing the First World War

Melissa Ellis
Melissa will look at some databases of women's involvement in the war effort and the bicycle corps' work in reconnaissance gathering.

Mini-presentation: Elayne Lockhart : My DNA – the Genealogical Gift That Keeps on Giving

Legal Research for Family Historians

Gwyneth Pearce
Caselaw and legislative documents are staples of traditional legal research. But they can also provide valuable leads for family historians. This presentation will point out some of the key free on-line resources for legal research, demonstrate techniques for researching court and tribunal decisions as well as the Canada and Ontario Gazettes, and offer examples of genealogical finds in legal collections.

Mini-presentation: Guylaine Petrin : The Importance of the Mother's Maiden Name

What's New on Ancestry

Lesley Anderson

Mini-presentation: Mary Newel : Pandora's Shoe Box

The War of 1812: Why Canada is Not a U.S. State

Ken Weber
We all know Isaac Brock (and we should!) but what Canadian has ever heard of Charles Plenderleath? He may very well be the man who kept the Americans from winning the war. We know Brock died at Queenston Heights (he was losing the battle at the time) but his most important battle was at Detroit two months before. And Laura Secord? Her warning scored a victory for our side but it was natives who did the fighting. The story of the War of 1812 is one of myth, mixups, bravery and some utterly stunning incompetence on the part of military leaders, mostly__but not always__officers of the U.S. forces. Who won this war? Everybody and nobody, but the native people had the most to lose and lost it all. What the war did do was shape forever the way Canada and the U.S. relate to each other, and the way the two nations conduct themselves today.

Most Canadians know very little about the War of 1812 and Americans even less, yet it can be argued that for Canada, this conflict was the first important step in becoming a nation that is distinguished from its southern neighbour not just by a border but by a very different value system and a different view of life.