A Brief History of BIFHSGO: celebrating 25 years (Before BIFHSGO Education Talk)
9:00 am to 9:30 am
The Chamber, Ben Franklin Place, 101 Centrepointe Drive, Ottawa, Ontario
The Cowkeeper’s Wish: Transforming Family History into a Great Story
10:00 am to 11:30 am
The Chamber, Ben Franklin Place, 101 Centrepointe Drive, Ottawa, Ontario
Gathering names and dates of ancestors is an addictive, exhausting task, and while it’s satisfying to put the facts in order and fill in a tree’s branches, what’s more fascinating is exploring who these people were as individuals and how they fit into the times and places they occupied. Anyone who’s snooped in their own tree knows that even the most ordinary family contains great stories. Kristen den Hartog and Tracy Kasaboski discuss how to create a rich and wonderful story from a family archive, drawing on official documents as well as personal treasures like photographs, letters, and passed-down memories, and weaving them with events of the times. The sisters’ latest book, The Cowkeeper’s Wish, spans nearly a century, and is set in both England and Canada. They’ll talk about finding the thread of their story and putting several generations in context.
About the speakers
Kristen den Hartog and Tracy Kasaboski are sisters and co-authors of two family memoirs. The Occupied Garden: A Family History of War-Torn Holland was published to rave reviews in 2008 by McClelland & Stewart, and chronicles the lives of their father’s family in the Netherlands in WW II. Their most recent collaboration, The Cowkeeper’s Wish: A Genealogical Journey, delves into their maternal British roots, beginning in the 1840s, when their 3-times great-grandfather walked from Wales to London with his cows, in search of a better life. A working-class chronicle stitched into history, the tale follows the family line for nearly a century, through poverty, war, and love, and ends with the authors’ grandparents in London, Ontario, in the 1930s. The sisters blog about eclectic offshoots from their genealogical journey at thecowkeeperswish.com.
Open to the public
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