Branching Out Spring Seminar at Campbell River

The Branching Out Spring Seminar of the Campbell River Genealogy Society of British Columbia will be held on Saturday 25th April at the CR Maritime Heritage Centre from 9:30-3:00 pm.

The speaker will be Dave Obee and he will present four seminars and they will be -

Travel Smart with Technology: Visiting an ancestral community is one of the greatest thrills. The presentation is designed to help travellers, both real and virtual, to maximize their research into family connections outside Canada.

Beyond the Online Basics: A genealogical guide to digital collections. This session provides ideas on how to find the documents that will help you learn more about your families, or the local histories of the areas where they lived.

A Fresh Light on old Newspapers: Thanks to the many digitization projects, there are millions of newspaper pages on the Internet. What are the pitfalls? This presentation takes you through the digitization process, from hard copy to your computer screen. It is designed to help you achieve the best results from your work.

Trinkets & Treasures: Things Your Ancestors left Behind - Items that your ancestors used or created will help you to gain a better understanding of the lives they lived and serve as a reminder of times past. Think of the stories they can tell.

The cost of the seminar is $50.00.

A Save-On bag lunch can be pre-ordered for an added fee. Refreshments will be available and there will be a draw for door prizes.

To register, contact Janice Wilkin before April 17 at wilkin1@telus.net or phone (250) 203-0585. A registration form can be downloaded from www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bccrgc/

Their website is at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~bccrgc/

The Facebook page is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/179838535426731/

The Conference has been cancelled!

On the website of the National Genealogy Conference in Canada at http://www.visiontravel.ca/heidiwilker it says that the Conference has been CANCELLED!

They say that “Regretfully, we must cancel the National Genealogy Conference in Canada for July 17-19, 2015.

Many thanks to the planned speakers for their willingness to support an inaugural national genealogy conference in Canada, to the companies and organizations who were willing to support the conference through sponsorship, and to those who generously helped to spread the word to their network of genealogists”.

So the Conference saga has come to an end. It wasn’t unexpected. Because the cost was too high for most people, and having lived in Halifax for 20+ years, I would go for an outdoors vacation where I could visit the sights, rather than stay indoors at a conference.

So maybe they can come back to underwrite another Comference at some future date. We shall see.

Meanwhile, here are two blogs I wrote on the Conference -

January 9, 2015 National Genealogy Conference in Canada http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/national-genealogy-conference-in-canada.html

January 27, 2015 The conference lowers its price – sort of ... http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-conference-lowers-its-price-sort-of.html

Do you know that PEI has a surname list?

Prince Edward Island has a surname list at http://www.islandregister.com/surnames/surname.php?

The surname list has grown by leap and bounds since it was first started in 2002.

1516 surnames have been listed to date.

There is also a list of surname by lot (of land) at http://www.islandregister.com/surnamelist.html

Surnames submitted to the original Prince Edward Island Surname List are from Prince Edward Island Genealogical Society (1891 Census Index),  Lovell's Province of prince Edward Island Directory for 1871, and National Archives microfilm #M-896 (1841 P.E.I. Census for Lots 21, 22)

Both of these list are housed on Dave Hunter on his The Island Register site http://www.islandregister.com/