Toronto Tax Assessment Rolls for 1853

The Toronto Branch of the OGS has produced an indexed transcription of the Toronto tax assessment rolls for 1853. The original assessment rolls for 1853 are at the City of Toronto Archives.

There are two parts of the assessment rolls -

The first part of the project is a searchable online index available on this web site www.ontarioroots.com/ogs

The index (more than 9,000 names of owners and occupiers) and images is available free of charge to researchers around the world.

The second part of the project is a book and CD version of the index with lots more information for researchers with interests in mid-19th century Toronto.

There are maps and descriptions of the wards and streets, vital records, religious records and cemeteries, land records, immigration, directories, published sources and historical background.

You can order the book or CD version Toronto in the 1850s: A transcription of the 1853 tax assessment rolls and guide to family history research. The ordering instruction are on www.torontofamilyhistory.org/otherpubs.html#assessrolls

One More River to Cross: Tales of the Underground Railroad

The Canadian Museum of Civilization is going to present the story of Isaac Brown, a Maryland slave. Historians and masterful storytellers Shannon and Bryan Prince bring to life this remarkable true story with hauntingly beautiful songs by Denise Pelley and Tom Starks.

It will be held on Saturday, February 21 in the theatre of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and tickets are $5.00. They are available online, at the Museum Box Office, or by calling 819-776-7000

The website of the Black History month is at www.civilization.ca/event/one-more-river-to-cross-tales-of-the-underground-railroad?calendar_date=2013-02-23&cm_mid=2217850&cm_crmid={76C38DEF-186A-E211-9333-005056A35E1C}&cm_medium=email

Genealogy Fair

There will be a Genealogy Fair at the London Public Library, Westmount Branch, 3200 Wonderland Rd. S. London from Saturday, 16 Feb 2013 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.

The Westmount Branch is planning a Genealogy Fair in honour of Heritage Week. For details, please check with staff .

No Registration Required

Feel free to drop in anytime during the day.

The web site for information is at www.londonpubliclibrary.ca/research/genealogy

Irish Palatine Group Sponsors Ontario Genealogical Tour

The Irish Palatines have the Irish Palatines in Ontario Tour in September of this year. And it seems like they will be visiting many spots of interest to the Irish Palatines in Ontario.

Here is the press release that was sent out a few days ago -

The Irish Palatine Special Interest Group (IP-SIG) is pleased to sponsor a 10-day Irish Palatines in Ontario Tour to take place September 5-15, 2013. You do not have to be a member of the IP-SIG in order to join us on the tour.

However, seating is limited and the bus is already over half full so if you want to be part of the Tour, book your seat today. Download the Tour brochure that outlines the places we will visit, as well as the cost. The tour brochure is available at http://briandunk.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/tour-brochure-final.pdf

The tour will highlight several Irish Palatine settlement areas and we will meet various Palatine descendants along the way. The tour also includes visits to many major historical and tourists sites across Ontario. Accommodations will be at quality hotels in the heart of several major Ontario cities as well as a one night stop at a lovely, large Ontario cottage country resort.

If you are interested in joining our tour, please do not hesitate to contact "Great Canadian Holidays" for details at 1-800-467-8687 (ext. 280).

They now have a WordPress page at www.ogs.on.ca/ip-sig , in addition to the website at www.ogs.on.ca/ireland

Reminder: If you want the GenealogyCanada blog updates to come to you everyday in your email, send your address to genealogycanada@aol.com with the subject heading Blog Update, and I will put you on the email list.

UPDATE: Cemetery Project – Ontario GenWeb

The Cemetery Project Section of the Ontario GenWeb was updated Feb 11th.

Additions have been made to the names, when the person born, and when they died.

The following are the cemeteries that were updated –

Brant County:

- Farringdon Cemetery

Essex County:

- McDowell Cemetery

Grey County:

- Greenwood Cemetery

- Salem Cemetery

- St George's Cemetery

Haldimand County:

- Canborough Cemetery

Halton County:

- Lowville United Church Cemetery

Huron County:

- Greenhill Cemetery

Leeds County:

- Abandoned / Brennan Cemetery

- Blanchard Cemetery

- Maple View Lodge Cemetery

- Soper's Cemetery

- Weeks Cemetery

Middlesex County:

- Oakland Cemetery

- Strathroy Cemetery

Norfolk County:

- Port Ryerse Memorial Church Cemetery

Simcoe County:

- Minesing Union Cemetery

Waterloo County:

- Elmira Union Cemetery

- Riverside Cemetery

- St James Evangelical Lutheran Cemetery

Welland County:

- Hansler's / Christ Brethern Church Cemetery

Wentworth County:

- Hamilton Cemetery

- Winona (Fifty) Cemetery

Thanks to the many volunteers who put this information, and take the photos, and to Sherri Pettit who puts it on the Ontario GenWeb site.

This is a FREE site, and the volunteers do not get paid.

You can go to
http://canadacems.blogspot.ca/2013/02/ontario-update.html

Ontario Genealogical Society’s Cemeteries Project

There will be a meeting at the Hamilton Branch of the OGS on Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 2:00 pm. The meeting will be held at the Hamilton Room, Hamilton Main Public Library, 55 York Blvd., Hamilton .

The topic will be Ontario Cemeteries, and the speakers will be Diane Clendenan and Marjorie Stuart.

The presentation will describe what is available at present in Ontario with respect to records and plans of cemeteries, photos of gravestones, and future plans for the Society’s Ontario Cemeteries Project.

You may contact www.ogs.on.ca/hamilton

Ontario Cemetery Locator http://ogs.andornot.com/CemLocat.aspx Records for all Ontario cemeteries, both existent and non-existent, cairns, columbariums, family plots, and burial registers, that have been identified by the Ontario Genealogical Society at this time

Cemeteries and Name Indexes www.ogs.on.ca/services/indexes.php This index includes names taken from transcriptions of the monumental inscriptions, cemetery records, and other sources that have been identified by various groups.

Family Heritage Day

There will be an open house at the Brant Branch OGS, 118 Powerline Rd in Brantford on February the 18th from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

All our facilities will be available for examination and research.

No admission charge.

There is adequate parking.

For details and directions please call 519-753-4140 or e-mail brantogs@bellnet.ca

To go to the website, click on to www.ogs.on.ca/brant

Leeds and Grenville OGS Involved with Marking Lost Cemetery

A long-neglected cemetery connected to the House of Industry that is now Maple View Lodge near Athens, Ontario will be cordoned off this spring with a fence surrounding approximately 150 gravesites.

The facility was built in 1895, it was the first house for the poor east of Toronto, and it could hold 90 'inmates'. Among the first inmates were 38 Canadians, 15 Irish, nine English, two French and two Americans.

Leeds and Grenville Branch of the OGS has been busy with the project, and if you want to know more about it, you can go to the Brockville Recorder newspaper site at http://www.recorder.ca/2013/01/15/project-marks-lost-cemetery
The Leeds and Grenville ranch of the OGS websuite is at www.leedsandgrenvillegenealogy.com

© Elizabeth Lapointe All Rights Reserved

East Nissouri History Book – Sold Out

We get this news from The Tracer, the newsletter the Oxford Genealogical Society that “The East Nissouri History Book was published late last year and we hear that it is now sold out. However, it is not too late to submit your family story or something about the East Nissouri community. The History committee will be publishing an annual supplement that they hope will be a repository of bits and pieces of history that might otherwise be lost.

If you didn’t get your family story into the History Book and you run across old photos in the attic or if you want to share your knowledge of the history of a business, an organization or a person in your community. Please contact Patti at eastnissouri@gmail.com or call 519-539-2013.

If you didn’t get a copy of the East Nissouri History book, a copy is available for research at our Resource Centre, 82 Light Street, Woodstock.

The website of the Oxford Genealogical Society is www.oxford.ogs.on.ca

Waterloo Region Branch Will Hold Annual Meeting

The Region III Annual Meeting will be hosted by the Waterloo Region Branch on April 20, 2013, at the Preston Legion, 334 Westminster Drive North, Cambridge, Ontario.

Registration will start at 8:45 on Saturday, and at 9:30, there will be a talk by Darryl Bonk, founder “Waterloo Region Generations,” former Director London and Kitchener Family History Centres, member of Waterloo Region al Heritage Foundation, and Waterloo Region Branch Executive member, and his topic will be “What IS on the Internet”

Before the afternoon session starts at 2:00 pm, there will be vendors onsite to visit, the Waterloo Region Branch will have its AGM, and you will be able to find out what is going on at the OGS head office in Toronto.

The afternoon talk starts at 2:00 pm will feature Ruth Blair of Blair Archival Research, and she will talk on ”What is NOT on the Internet”.

To download a Registration form visit www.WaterlooOGS.ca

For further information contact the Branch at watogs@yahoo.com

Crouse-Wanamaker Lecture

Lynn Heale, Membership Co-ordinator of the Quinte Branch OGS tells us of a meeting which will take place (today) on Saturday January 19th at 1 p.m. It will be the Crouse-Wanamaker Lecture, honouring the founders of Quinte Branch.

This year, they will proudly present Historian & Author Gerry Boyce.

Mr. Boyce will speak on his project to update his book Historic Hastings published in 1967. "A lot has happened in the 45 years since Historic Hastings was published." This new book will highlight events of the past four decades and will be a companion volume to the original publication. Historic Hastings is scheduled to be reprinted with an updated index.

Mr. Boyce, who lives in Belleville and spent more than three decades in the education field, was instrumental in establishing several local museums and the Hastings County Historical Society.

The meeting will take place at the Quinte West City Hall Library, 7 Creswell Drive, Trenton, Ontario.

For more information, go to www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~canqbogs

London & Middlesex County Branch of the OGS Holds Meeting

On the 5 February 2013, David R. Elliott will speak on "New Strategies in Irish Parish Register Indexing". 

David is a professional genealogical researcher, historian, author, has spent several summers recording church records in Ireland.

The Annual Meeting of the London & Middlesex County Branch, OGS, will also be conducted.

The website is http://londonmiddlesex.ogs.on.ca

PostScript: David ‘s latest book Researching Your Irish Ancestors at Home and Abroad has just been released, and it will be excerpted and a book review will be in the May2013 issue of Families.

The Ontario Genealogical Society website is at http://www.ogs.on.ca

2013 Anniversaries of OGS Branches

The following Branches of the OGS are celebrating anniversaries this year -

London-Middlesex Branch OGS is celebrating its 45th anniversary this year, and they are going to have a new website. They are located at http://londonmiddlesex.ogs.on.ca

Kingston Brach OGS is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and its website is at www.ogs.on.ca/kingston

Kent County OGS is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, and it is located at http://ogs.on.ca/kent

Leeds & Grenville Branch OGS is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, and its website is located at www.leedsandgrenvillegenealogy.com

Perth County Branch OGS is celebrating its 30th anniversity this year, and its website is located at www.ogs.on.ca/perth

Sault Ste. Marie & District of Algoma Branch OGS is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, and its website is located at www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~onogsssm/index.html

I wrote about the 30th Anniversary Celebration to be held at the Simcoe County Branch on the 14th of January in a blog entitled 30th Anniversary Celebration at http://genealogycanada.blogspot.ca/2013/01/30th-anniversary-celebration.html

Ancestry Update: Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928

Ancestry.ca has updated some of the images on their database - Ontario, Canada, Marriages, 1801-1928.

Images are important because they are copies of original record and additional information may be found on them. So be sure to view the corresponding image, if there is one available.

If the ancestor you are researching does not have an original record yet, keep going back to the records to see if an image has been added. If the image has been added, more information is usually available in the images themselves than is found in an index.

For those who have yet to search these records, the database is a collection of approximately 3.2 million marriages recorded in Ontario, Canada between 1801 and 1928.

The records include -

•Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1928 (MS 932, Archives of Ontario)

•Division Registrar Vital Statistics Records, 1858-1918 (MS 940, Archives of  Ontario) [However, there are very few marriages in this record set.]

•Marriage License Books, 1907-1910 (MS 945, Archives of Ontario)

•Delayed Registrations of Marriages, 1892-1919 (MS 948, Archives of Ontario)

•District Marriage Registers, 1801-1858 (MS 248, Archives of Ontario)

•Roman Catholic Marriage Registers, 1828-1870 (MS 248, Archives of Ontario) Indexed by Genealogical Research Library (no images available)

•Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1919 (MS 932, Archives of Ontario), and County Marriage Registers, 1858-1869 (microfilm, Family History Library) (the FHL microfilm is of Archives of Ontario microfilm series MS 248, reels 5-18)

The records are at http://search.ancestry.ca/search/db.aspx?dbid=7921

Genealogy Day and AGM

The Lanark County Genealogical Society will hold a Genealogical Day and AGM on Saturday, April 27, 2013 at the Beckwith Township Hall, 1702 9th Line Beckwith, Blacks Corners, Ontario.

Join us at the Beckwith Township Hall, located at the corner of Highway 15 and Beckwith Concession 9. Free parking is available in the adjoining lot. Entrance is off Concession 9. The marketplace will include local heritage organizations.

Schedule:

9:30 – 10:00 Check-in. Coffee and tea will be available on arrival

10:00 – 11:00 The First Nations and Lanark County, Speaker David Murdoch, LCGS

11:00 – 11:30 Break

11:30 – 12:30 Region VIII Annual General Meeting

(Note: The AGM is open to all current and prospective members of OGS Region VIII whether registered for Genealogy Day or not; only paid up members are allowed to vote)

12:30 – 2:00 Lunch. Time to browse the book tables and displays presented by OGS branches, local genealogical/historical organizations and others.

2:00 – 3:00 The Forgotten Hero, Col. Alexander Fraser, Authors Irene Spence and Ron Shaw, LCGS

3:00 – 3:30 Break

3:30 – 4:30 Memory Trust – A panel of Lanark County “Old Timers”

Pre-registration: $25 including lunch. Deadline for Pre-registration is April 17, 2013

Registration at the door $15 (DOES NOT INCLUDE LUNCH)

Please make cheques payable to “Lanark County Genealogical Society”

Please mark your cheque/envelope “OGS Region VIII - Pre-registration” and send to Frances Rathwell, LCGS Treasurer, 68 Beckwith Street, Perth, Ontario K7H 1C1

For further information please contact Frances Rathwell at frathwell@cogeco.ca or phone 613-267-3178

The website is at www.globalgenealogy.com/LCGS

30th Anniversary Celebration

Simcoe County Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society will celebrate its 30th Anniversary Celebration with an Open House on February 2, 2013 from 11 am – 4 pm, and lectures.

The morning program will feature from 11:15 am to 12:15 pm

• Room A Kenneth Reese An Introduction to Genealogy

• Room B Nancy Leveque Researching Your Ancestors in Simcoe County

• Room C John Wright Beyond the Inscriptions - A Look at Cemeteries

• FHC Bonnie Henderson Brick Walls

The afternoon program will be a repeat of the morning program, and it will be from 1:45 pm until 2:45 pm. So if you can't get there in the morning, you can always go in the afternoon.

So you can learn how to start your family tree, break down the “Brick Walls”, and there will be resources there for you to search while you are there. It sounds like a good time!

Simcoe County Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society is located 79 Ferris Lane, Barrie, at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

For more information, you can contact them at www.simcoebogs.com

Is Your Conference Listed on Conference Keepers?

Jen Baldwin of the website Ancestral Journeys of Colorado has a website that is offering to list your conference (for FREE).

I checked the International Conference site to see if there were any Canadian Conference, and there are conferences there for British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Manitoba.

To have your Conference listed, you can connect Jen by filling out a contact page at http://conferencekeeper.weebly.com/contact-us.html

Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2013

The OGS has just opened their registration for their Conference 2013 to be held in Oshawa May 31, June 1 & 2 of this year. The theme of this year’s Conference will be “Pulling Up Stakes: Putting Down Roots”.

They have also put the program on the site and it does look interesting with a good mix of Ontario, and US speakers. Canadian such as Dave Obee, Marian Press, and Brian Gilchrist, and American such as Maureen Taylor, and Liza Also.

The Conference was held in 2006 at the same place, and at that time, they had a great Conference, so this one should be no different.

There are plenty of classes to chose from, early bird registration, lots of tours to take, and there will be a marketplace, so take a look at www.ogs.on.ca/conference2013/home

Conference 2014 Call for Speakers

The committee for Conference 2014 has launched their Call For Speakers. If you would like to speak at this Conference, please follow the instructions below for making your application.

The Niagara Peninsula Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society will host the Society's annual conference, May 1-4, 2014 at Brock University. The conference theme is GENEALOGY WITHOUT BORDERS.

Although borders are an important aspect in defining a country, they also often delineate an area of genealogical study. In the past, genealogists often had to travel across borders to complete family histories in their genealogical area. Today's genealogist can often cross these borders while sitting at a desk. We can trace the movement of settlers from European countries from the American states and other provinces to Ontario.

Our Saturday and Sunday, May 3rd and 4th seminar sessions are generally fifty minutes in length with ten minutes for discussion. We also have workshops on Friday, May 2nd, which are of three hours duration. We invite lecture and workshop submissions on a broad range of genealogical topics which will help to solve family history problems by any of the following methods.

1. Use of technology in genealogy (DNA, internet, software etc.)

2. Records at a distance (especially Eastern USA and European)

3. War records, 1812, W.W. 1

4. Land records, census, directories,

5. Early Ontario records, prior to 1869 and their repositories

6. Proposals are also solicited for the broader genealogical categories including the histories associated with the War of 1812, methodology, analysis and problem solving used in genealogy

If your proposal is accepted, you will be notified in early summer and we will request that you provide a 4 page summary of your talk or workshop for our syllabus by Dec. 31st, 2013. This should include references and web addresses mentioned, sample screen images etc. It will be submitted electronically (in Word, RTF or PDF format).

Please include your approximate travel costs, economy class to St. Catharines, Ont. Canada. Besides remuneration, food and lodging will be based upon the number of lectures given and transportation expenses will depend upon the speaker's home address. Workshop fees may be negotiated. Questions can be directed to conference2014@ogs.on.ca

Halton/Peel Branch Meeting

On Sunday, January 27, 2013 at 2:00 pm, the OGS Branch of Halton-Peel will hold its monthly meeting, and will feature a talk given by Douglas Hill called “Tripping over Tombstones: Searching Ontario Cemeteries.”

OGS member and cemetery researcher Douglas Hill, will speak about how to search Ontario cemeteries on-line, in print and on foot. Trends in burial practices, cemetery ownership, and cemetery recording will also be discussed.

The meeting will take place at the Four Corners Public Library (Auditorium), 65 Queen St. E., Brampton.

For more information, you can go to www.halinet.on.ca/sigs/ogshp