Canada Has Three of the 101 Best Genealogy Sites in 2009

How about that!

Family Tree Magazine <www.familytreemagazine.com> has just put out its 2009 list — the 10th year of doing so — and Canada has three websites on the top "101 Best Web Sites 2009".

The first one I must mention is the Canadian Genealogy Centre website <www.collectionscanada.gc.ca>.

It came in second on the list for the "10 Best Virtual Library Sites" and it got a special nod for its census work and the other databases it has published online.

And this is the second time the site has been chosen - the first time was in 2003 when the CGC first opened.

A tip of the hat goes to Sylvie Tremblay, Chief, Project Manager, and her crew for doing such hard work. She is always thinking of new ways to present the information they have - and they do have a lot. We all want those databases to come faster, don't we?

Credit: Mario Lapointe, CD

Here is a picture taken of Sylvie two years ago at the OGS Conference in Ottawa. She was there with (now just recently-retired) Librarian and Archivist Canada, Ian Wilson (left), along with Don Harris (right) and Tim Sullivan of The Generations Network (far right) to announce a partnership between the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and Ancestry.ca.

The second on the "10 Best Sites for Vital Statistics" list is the Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics website <www.novascotiagenealogy.com>.

If you have ancestors in Nova Scotia, be sure to check this index because it will give you all sorts of information, and will tell you where you can send for the certificates.

With my family being one of the founding ones for Nova Scotia, I have used it on a number of occasions, and it has not failed me yet.

And the third one is in the "10 Best Sites for International Searches" and it is the Programme de Recherche en Demographie Historique website, and it came 8th in the list <www.genealogie.umontreal.ca>.

It has 750,000 entries from 1621 to 1850, and although you have to pay for a full search, you can search the index for free.

So, there are the winning websites for this year.

Congratulations to all!

Let's wait and see who will be on next year's list!

Ancestry.ca Publishes Canadian Census Records

Today - June 10th - marks the day that the 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891, 1901, 1911 and 1916 Canadian censuses are published online at <www.ancestry.ca>.

It includes more than 32 million names, of which 50% of Canadians will find their ancestors in these historical records.

I just did a cursory check on my ancestors to see if they were all there - and they were! It appears that it is quite well done and it contains 1.3-million images. The images matched the names, and the information was correctly transcribed for my ancestors.

Lesley Anderson and Glenn Wright are going to put on a Webinar next Thursday, June 18th at 8:30 p.m..

If you have the chance, you should register for it now. If it is anything like the talk that they gave last month at the FHC in Ottawa, you are in for an educational and interesting talk on the census.

Read my review of the talk they gave on the blog that I posted at <http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2009/05/saturday-was-treat.html>.

P.S. I just received notice from Daniel Rencher, the Chief Genealogical Officer of FamilySearch, that they have put online the 1851, 1861 and 1871 census in addition to the 1881 census already online at <www.familysearch.org>.

Toronto Branch of OGS Hosts Twenty Ten Conference

At the end of this year's conference, Jane MacNamara gave us all a special presentation on next year's conference.

Dubbed "Essentials, Innovations and Delights", the conference will be held in the Doubletree Hilton at the Toronto Airport. According to the organizers, it is very easy to get to, and the rooms will cost the same as they did in 2004(!), the last time it was held there. It will be sponsored by The Toronto Branch of the OGS.

It will be held from the 14th to the 16th of May, 2010. They have entered an agreement with the Librarian Association of Ontario, and the Association is going to put on a specific day of talks on the 13th of May for genealogical librarians at the same venue as the conference.

Next year, they will also have special lunches hosted by some of the speakers (as they do in the States). There will also be unique presentations for those people with roots in Italy and the Netherlands.

They will present three full days of talks and will have short speeches of 20 minutes each around the venue on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. One of the speakers will be Thomas W. Jones, FASG, the co-editor of the National Genealogical Society Quarterly.

As a special giveaway, Jane presented the winner of the first attendee with a free enrollment to three full days of intensive learning!

Basic information is available at <www.ogs.on.ca>.

They are also starting a conference blog at <www.torontofamilyhistory.org/2010>.

Some Closing Thoughts ...

In summary, I came away with the thought that a sea-change had just taken place in doing genealogy.

We have been given the challenge to "fill in the dash" when we do genealogy from now on. We will have to use, as Jane MacNamara so aptly put it, the "whole-family" approach - it will push us to write the family's history, not to merely record the birth and death dates of a person's life.

Some closing thoughts on the conference -

1. On Friday night, we were introduced to our new patron, The Honourable Vivienne Poy, a Senator in the Canadian Parliament, by OGS President Don Hinchley.


She spoke very eloquently about tracing her roots back though Hong Kong to China and she hopes to bring the same enthusiasm to her new position with the OGS.

She replaces Senator Lorna Milne, who did such great work in bringing the 1911 Canadian Census to the people so that everyone can research their family history.

2. On Friday afternoon, I attended the Irish Palatine workshop in which Hank Jones (right) received the first Eula C. Lapp Award in front of a sell-out crowd from Denis Jones for his work on the Irish Palatines.



I learned that the group is putting together a book of genealogies of the Irish Palatines in Ontario, and Ruth Chernia of the OGS Publications Branch is helping out with the gathering and proofreading of the manuscript.

If you have Irish Palatines in your family, would you please contact her at <publications@ogs.on.ca>.

3. On Saturday morning, at the awful hour of 8:00 a.m. (we were tired due to a reception after the Opening Ceremonies), we gathered to hear Brian Gilchirst talk about "Pedigree and Progress: Making connections in the digital age from the printed page".

He talked about the progress that has been made in digitizing the information, but said that indexing it is falling behind. Of what use is it to scan and yet not prepare an index so that people can put in their family names to see if there is anything on them?

He also talked about saving our own research in the local archives or library. How many of us make a copy for our local archives or library?

Right after Brian's speech, we had the AGM, and it was supercharged this year with the request for an increase in membership dues.

After much discussion and various amendments, the vote was taken, and it was a "yes" vote for the increase of the basic membership fee to $60.00 from the current $45.00, starting next calendar year.

The OGS also put out a call for people to index the OGS Library, which is going to be digitized and put online.

It will include over 3,000 family genealogies, but they need to be indexed so that they can be searchable online.

If you wish to help, please contact Dr. Fraser Dunford, Executive Director, OGS at <ed@ogs.on.ca>.

4. On Saturday afternoon, I went to the panel discussion on "From the Printed Page to the Digital Age ... The Professionals' Perspective".


The audience that was there asked many questions of the panel, which included Susanna de Groot, Janice Nickerson, Ruth Burkholder, Tammy Tipler-Priolo, and Brian Gilchist. It was moderated by Sharon Murphy.

It was sponsored by the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Professional Genealogists <http://ocapg.org>.

From the answers they gave, I gather it's quite a lonely life being a genealogist, looking at a computer screen all day long (something like a writer) and how important listserves are so that genealogists can talk over their research problems.

They talked about how the Internet has changed the way they do research, and people are asking different types of questions these days - more away from, "When was he born?", and more towards, "What can you tell me about his life as a grocer in Toronto in the 1850s?"

5. On Saturday night, we went to a local banquet hall to hear Charlotte Gray talk about what it is like being a biographer - which is where genealogy is heading. She is being introduced by Halton-Peel Chairman, Bob Crawford.



She gave us a sound footing of how to research history to write a biography, and she has written many, including one of Alexander Graham Bell.

At present, she is working on the people of the Klondike and she will be at the BIFHSGO conference this September, and at that time will give a talk on Sir John A. Mcdonald and his women!

6. On Sunday, I spent some time at the OGS Publications table to talk to people as they came by and generally got good reviews of the work I do on NewsLeaf and e-NewsLeaf.

All-in-all, another great conference, and well-worth both the fatigue of doing so much, and the sadness of having to say good-bye to old friends and acquaintances for yet another year.