Membership Month at OGS

Do you know that the OGS has a blog www.ogs.on.ca/ogsblog, and that it is open to the public?

An example of a posting is listed below -

December 8th, 2010

It's Membership Month here at the Ontario Genealogical Society. If you're a current member, you have received, or will soon receive, your OGS membership renewal form with your November issue of Families. If you're not a current member, now is the best time to join us to ensure you get a full year's worth of OGS membership benefits.

So, why join OGS?

OGS Members receive our journal, Families, and our print newsletter, NewsLeaf, and the electronic version sent by email, e-NewsLeaf.

Families is a quarterly publication that includes researched, referenced, and illustrated articles; the Game, a queries column that members may contribute to; and a book review section on books of interest to genealogists.

NewsLeaf is our newsletter which is published quarterly, as well. It includes OGS news and happenings; a section announcing forthcoming gatherings and special events; and current news from the 30 OGS Branches and SIGs.

The e-NewsLeaf has links to other websites of interest to members, as well as timely news items and announcements.

Join us to receive these publications.

To become a member, click on to the Membership page.

Since I am the editor of both publications, I can say—modestly—that they are top-notch in passing along the latest news to, and about, the OGS and its members.

In the February issue of both NewsLeaf and Families will be articles on how to discover Jamaican and Trinidadian roots from Canada, an article on the Library and Archives Canada, and one on an Irish family from the Ottawa Valley in Ontario.

Canadian Families Database

Family events such as baptisms, marriages, and burials are key elements of genealogy and family history research.

From early times to the present, these events have been recorded in church records. Library and Archives Canada holds a small collection of church records, some of which are indexed by name.

To provide better access to those indexes, the information they contain has been entered in a database that will expand slowly over the next few years.

The records are in the Canadian Families database www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/whats-new/013-500-e.html

Although I am pretty certain that I do not have any direct descendants in Ontario on either side of my family (BARCLAY, BLADES), I just put the names in on the off-chance that there may have been something there.

And while no one directly related was discovered, at least I found out how it works.

However, the Barclay name yielded one entry on the database in Leeds County. There was nothing for Blades.

Name: Barclay family
Parish: Leeds County, Ontario
Fonds: Miller, W.J. (Bill) Collection
Volume: 2
Page: 67 - 68
Microfilm: H-1668
Reference: MG 25 G370

It should be noted that, at present, the Canadian Families database covers the St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Williamstown, Ontario; the Miller, W.J. (Bill) Collection; and the Kipling Collection: Card Index. Future databases will be added.

LAC has another database called That's My Family at www.thatsmyfamily.info/Metamoteur/explications_en.html.

It contains the Marriage Records Index for Canada, of which there are more than 3 million records for the Quebec population between 1621 and 2004.