OGS conference in retrospect

Having now returned from the Ontario Genealogical Society conference at Brock University I'm starting to contemplate the event.

With six or seven parallel presentations we all experience the conference differently. Chris Paton has summarized his experience on British GENES as did Kirsty Gray at Family Wise. Search for various Facebook and twitter posts.

For me, as far as new substance is concerned, the highlight was the presentation Determining how much confidence you should have in your genealogical inferences by Toronto genealogist Paul Jones. It deserves a separate blog post, and a lot more.

Four others I enjoyed were:

- Chris Paton, who in delivering the J. Richard Houston Memorial Lecture, once again showed why he won Canada's Superstar Rockstar Genealogist in 2013. I understand he already has another speaking engagement in Ontario booked.

- Stephen Young speaking on FamilySearch mentioned Canadian databases expected to be added in the coming months. He gave but "didn't want to be quoted" on the exact schedule. It will include a new indexing of the 1881 Canadian census with the addition of pages missed from PEI previously, BMDs from Ontario, New Brunswick records and censuses from Newfoundland.

- Kirsty Gray's talk on Publishing and Publicising your Records showed how to use family history blogs, websites, gedcom-based websites, print on-demand, slideshows, social networking,  publishing platforms, books and eBooks. Each utility was categorized by ease of use and cost. Kirsty will be back in Ontario, in Toronto, for an event on 1 November.

and

Marian Press on Local History Online: Adding Social Context to Your Family Tree with a cornucopia of resources.

There was conference bling too, including a personal collapsible water bottle, and a wrist-strap USB key from lead sponsor FindMyPast.com.

Congratulations to the conference committee

Chair: Steve Fulton
Secretary: Bev Craig
Treasurer: Bob Smith
Program: Sherry Bell, Rod Craig, Robert Halfyard, Lois Johnson
Registration: Marilyn Gomme
Marketplace: Jennifer Marcoux
Website: Steve Fulton
Banquet: Dianna Fulton
Syllabus: Jennifer Marcoux
Volunteers: Dianna Fulton
Wall of Ancestors: Lillian Santesso
Door Prizes: Lynn Butler
Steve is shown wearing a blue techie shirt and was everywhere, ably assisted by a group of fimilarly attired youngsters which included his kids.

Ontario Genealogy Conference 2015 will be held 5-7 June at Georgian College in Barrie.