Ontario genealogy conference 2018 at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario

We left home on Tuesday heading for Brantford and a meeting with my husband's niece before  heading on to Woodstock. Wednesday we went to the Princeton Cemetery to tend the flowers  on Ed's parents  grave and the grave of his Kipp grandparents which includes both sets of his great grandparents on his paternal side. We planted new geraniums  as well.

In the afternoon we met with two different sets of cousins  who have done their DNA for Ed. Always a good time watching these cousins remember their fun times as children growing up in the same area sharing ancestors.

The next day we went to St Jacobs and had an interesting day there.  Then on to Guelph for the conference. We picked up our registration bag that evening.

Friday, the first day we arrived a little early before lunch as I am signed up for an afternoon workshop - DNA and the Global Family Tree. I was looking forward to this particular workshop because I felt that WikiTree would be discussed along with the other large tree projects - Family Search, WeRelate and Geni. WikiTree interests me these days and I would like to put my research there. The workshop did fulfill my thoughts and I will soon move to Wiki Tree. I can also use it with my one name studies in Blake and Pincombe as I can just add in the material where these families are mentioned.

The evening we had a very pleasant evening chatting to a few people I had not met before whilst eating our dinner. The meals I would like to mention were absolutely fabulous.

The lecture given by Dr Jonathan Vance of Western University (my alma mater) was most interesting and he certainly brought to my mind the thought that I really should do a writeup on my few relatives who have been involved in government service or have served as part of the government as elected officials.

Saturday morning started early with an 8:30 lecture once again by Dr Vance and I found it quite interesting as well. He talked about Soldiers of the First World War and the number of Americans who had served in the Canadian Forces prior to their entry into the World War. That would have included my Great Uncle Edwin Denner Buller who was working in Chicago when he was called up for the draft there. He decided to return to Canada and volunteer here as all of his family other than one sister lived in Canada. I may write to Dr Vance to tell him that as they are into a project looking at all the soldiers in the First World War.

The Annual Meeting of the OGS followed next and my husband was going to present Awards from the Awards Committee that the two of us serve on along with three other permanent members of the committee.

We then attended the various lectures after lunch. I went to the Emigration/Immigration Experience: London, England to Upper Canada via New York and the Erie Canal. It was curiosity that brought me to that particular lecture. My Pincombe family had come into the Port of New York in January 1851 and traveled to Genessee New York to spend the winter with my 2x great grandfather John Pincombe's brother Robert and his family. They then went by sleigh in early March to Westminster Township, Middlesex County, Ontario (not sure where they crossed). The speaker, Vicki McKay, covered all different aspects of travel and it was a most interesting lecture.

The next lecture I attended was Researching Emigrants in British Workhouse Records and Sylvia Valentine, the speaker, was from the British Isles and did an excellent job of filling us in on Workhouses and had several specific examples. One of the examples talked about Coleshill Cottage Homes and I had thought they were all at Marston Green in Coleshill and run by the Birmingham Union. There were separate cottages for the Roman Catholic orphans/semi-orphans that were cared for by their own society. I found that quite interesting as my grandmother (her parents died when she was 11 for her mother and 14 for her father) had lived for a short time at Marston Green Cottage Homes and she had attended a Roman Catholic School at some point in her life (her mother was Roman Catholic) but her father was Church of England and they had been placed in the Marston Green Cottages. My Great Aunt Sarah (Buller) Winters talked about her experience at the Cottage Homes and she had found it to be a kind one; she was only four when her father died and when she was placed in the home it was with her eldest sister my grandmother. A few good ideas on what else to look for with respect to the records which I will follow up and a most interesting and informative talk.

Ed and I both attended Identifying Immigrant Origins. Janice Nickerson as usual gave an excellent talk. I actually know where all my ancestors who came to Canada were born, when they came and for the most part how they got here. I was more interested in her process as I am trying to learn about my Christopher Buller and I am wondering if he came from Germany. Until I did DNA the thought never crossed my mind but all of my German matches (with people who have never left Germany) have left me wondering if one of my ancestors in the late 1700s/early 1800s came from Germany.

Saturday evening was the Banquet and we really enjoyed ourselves. We were both tired from our busy week so headed back right after the talk "How to Preserve your Own Story" given by Amy Johnson Crow. Interesting that there is so much thought these days on writing up. I have completed the stories for myself, for my parents, grandparents and great grandparents including all of their children. I am working on my 2x great grandparents.

Sunday morning and not quite so early with the first lecture at 9:00 a.m. Ed and I both attended The Four Continent, Four Thousand Year Journey to Get Here by Ian Powell. This was a fabulous lecture and I highly recommend this speaker (liked them all actually) but his subject matter was heavy and well researched. We ended up at the same table at Lunch and I asked him a question but the speaker started just then and it had to wait. Later just as we were leaving we accidentally met at the door and he took the time to answer my question which I much appreciated.

The next lecture we attended Can My GPS Prove My Lineage? by Debra Honor. We sort of tossed a coin and this lecture won and we both liked it. Ed could join many of these lineage societies which she discussed and I am already a member of the Centenary Club at OGS but didn't know about the Upper Canada Society. My people were actually here at that time so will look into becoming a member of that society.

Lunch was special as Ancestry decided to step up the usual lunch and provide a speaker. Lesley Anderson did not fail to give her usual excellent presentation. I like Ancestry DNA (I also like their research site and we have been a member for nearly 15 years) and it is always interesting to hear stories of people having a successful family restoration because of DNA.

Our last lecture was You Found What? Where? Digging Deeper by Changing Your Research Strategies by Alan Campbell. Alan is an excellent speaker and we quite enjoyed his lecture.

Home again and we traveled east on 407 saving a lot of start and stop driving in Toronto.

Another Excellent Conference by the Ontario Genealogical Society.

New Directions

Life has turned around a new corner for me and I am sitting back and looking at the workload that I have assigned to myself. I want to do it a little differently to match my lifestyle.

Firstly, I want to continue blogging Blake wills and will try to get back to that at least 10 wills per month (I am a person who lives by numbers, I learn numerically and I live numerically - just me).

Secondly, I want to fix up an error that I have recently discovered in my Legacy charting. When I upgraded to Legacy 8 from Legacy 7 I seemed to have shifted the way that I opened and saved my files resulting in a set of duplicate files which contained changes somewhat erratically. Recently discovered after my busy year as co-treasurer of the OGS Conference 2017 (and there is still work to do; not yet finished as a final trial balance needs to be done and then the audit).

Thirdly, along with fixing that error I want to produce a new family chart to use with my DNA matching on the various services that I have tested at (along with my siblings). I am finding it very handy to have all this information and matching but it would be even more meaningful if my charting was consistent and so that is another one of my goals from this new direction.

Fourthly, I want to continue with my one name studies of Blake and Pincombe but I am in the process of teasing some of this information out of my personal records as over the past fourteen years of doing genealogy (yes amazingly I have now been at this for fourteen years!) so that I am able to hand off, at some point in the future, all of my records to the Guild in the form of DVDs to either be picked up by another as a one name study or into their archives for a future researcher who will do the same as I did - pick up the traces of work that someone else has done in the past.

Fifthly, I will continue writing my family story. I have "completed" the story of my generation, my parent's generation (although family get togethers continue to add new information to their stories), my grandparent's generation (new records add to this information and family get togethers) and my great grandparents including all of their children tracing them down as close to the present as I am able (a few exciting matches have lately come my way continuing to prove that the paper research that I have done is right on). Susan Courage, and I hope she doesn't mind my mentioning her name, has emerged as one of my 6th cousins 2x removed where we share 5x great grandparents Ellis Ellis and Sarah Wellspring (our family DNA match is with her sister but none the less very exciting to have found a cousin amongst the people that I have actually come to know). But now I am into my 2x great grandparents and continue to work on John Blake and Ann Farmer and their ten children, 49 grandchildren and hundreds of great grandchildren I am still pulling out of the records. I have been nearly a year working on this line!

OGS Conference - 50th Anniversary and the Guild of One Name Studies

Just back from attending the 50th Anniversary Conference for the Ontario Genealogical Society. I was a vendor this time with a table for the Guild of One Name Studies and over 70  people expressed an interest in the Guild. Since that was about 1/7 of the attendees I found that number to be most worthwhile. This year we had a door prize and it was a one year membership (plus as it does the rest of this year plus next year) and it was won by an individual who already has been thinking about joining the Guild which was truly remarkable.

I was also very pleased to have one of the speakers, Marian Press, drop by and mention my blog (and that she had mentioned it in her lecture). I am glad that my work is considered helpful to others and plan that it will continue to be so.

The weekend was very very busy and I have a few new ideas on how to set up my table another time. The conference itself was very well organized and moved along without a hitch. It was very nice also to see FindMyPast there and Paul Blake as I got a chance to mentioned my very strong conviction that FindMyPast could greatly benefit from having the Protestation Returns online on their site. We will see if that might come to fruition. If anyone can carry the ball on this one I think Paul Blake can do so. Thank you to him for his enthusiastic support in that regard. We shared a few minutes talk on the Blake one name study as he initiated the original study a few years ago now which I, along with the other members of my team, have since re-registered and are attempting to add to this great family name's history more and more details of the Blake family worldwide.