September 13: a full day of genealogy in Ottawa

From 9 am to 4 pm Saturday, September 13, offers a full day of genealogy in Ottawa.

Starting at 9 am at Library and Archives Canada the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa offers a 30 minute education talk Tracking Your Scottish Immigrant Ancestors to be given by Christine Woodcock who will talk about how the Scots began their emigration to the new world — the colonies of North America — in the 1600s. Initially, this emigration entailed the New England states and the maritime provinces of Canada. Descendants of these early immigrants gradually moved west and settled other parts of both Canada and the US. In this session, you will learn about: the difference between emigration, immigration and migration; reasons for leaving Scotland; online emigration databases including covenanter indices, Jacobite rebellion ships lists, and Selkirk Settler ships lists; accessing trade directories; and resources available on GoogleBooks.

Following a break the main event gets underway at 10 am. Announcements by the new BIFHSGO president Barbara Tose will be followed the mornings major presentation, also by Christine Woodcock, on Preparing for a Research Trip to Scotland. Christine will look in depth at the records in the major repositories that are only available in Scotland and that will help move you along in your research. You will get to a point in your Scottish research when you can no longer find the information you seek online. You will either be looking for records that are too new to be published online or too old to be readily found online. This is when it becomes necessary to either travel to Scotland to spend time in the archives or to hire a genealogist in Scotland to do the work for you. These include: Scotland’s People Centre, national and local archives, national and local libraries, and Scottish Genealogy Society and local family history societies. She will also discuss where to stay, planning an itinerary and discovering your own Scottish Heritage.

Find out more at http://www.bifhsgo.ca/eventListings.php?nm=127 and listen to an interview with Christine here.

In the afternoon the action moves to the City of Ottawa Archives where the Ottawa Branch of OGS offers a presentation on Resources at the Leeds & Grenville Archives given by Patti Mordasewicz who is the Vice President of the Ontario Genealogical Society as well as the Chair of the Leeds & Grenville Branch of the OGS. The presentation, preceded by announcements by the new branch chair Doug Gray, will start at 1:30 pm.

Following the OGS meeting the branch computer special interest group will get together.