During Cathy McNamara's mini-presentation, Sort, Scan, Share, Solve and Scrapbook Your Old Photos I noted her use of secret Facebook pages to share scanned photos with select family and ask for information on unknown people. Even the elderly can chip in with help of a tech-savvy younger relative or friend. Those pages will not show to people not authorised.
Marian Press gave the main presentation, Putting Your Family Tree Online: What Choice Should You Make? Commenting that several sites are no longer operational since she first gave the presentation, she recommended having trees on Ancestry and FamilySearch for their likely longevity, plus GenesReunited and Lost Cousins if you have British ancestry and GeneaNet for European Ancestry. She also recommended having your own genealogy website - especially a blog from WordPress or Blogger.
What I hadn't expected to hear was news about the 2016 OGS conference from the Chair Paul Jones:
• Program Chair Janice Nickerson had to take compassionate leave, without notice, on account of a major illness in her family. That has delayed finalization of the program.
• The hotel venue expects to be rebranded this fall complicating plans to market the hotel aggressively.
• The closure of the Canadiana collection at the North York Public Library.
• News that OGS may be moving from it's offices in the midst of the key marketing period for the conference.
Branch vice-Chair Connie Culbertson added further information to help prevent the spread of unfounded rumours regarding impact of the latter two items on Toronto Branch operations.
Good summary. I was attending and you have captured the essence very well.
ReplyDeleteI would like to add that:
+ the meeting was extremely well attended;
+ there was a large amount of pre-meeting interactions including a book swap, and mini-meetings; and
+ the room was literally abuzz with positive energy.
None of these aspects could be noted by virtual attendees, as streaming only started at 7 p.m.
Therefore we still encourage members (and visitors) "to come on in."
I myself drove in from Hamilton (taking 1.6 hours) and I felt it was worth the drive.