“Taking Your Irish Ancestors Back over the Pond”
Researching your Irish Canadian ancestors can be a frustrating exercise when the census and vital statistics records only provide Ireland as a place of birth. This lecture will help you begin researching your Irish family history in Canada and show you how to use the information to help you go back over the pond to Ireland.
“Researching your Irish Family History from this Side of the Pond”
This lecture will show you what online resources are available to help you research your Irish family history. We will look at the available digital images and accessing repositories to help you with your research. Records relating to the Irish in Canada and Ireland will be discussed. It is not only records relating to church, census and land but other sources that could help you with your research.
“Irish Diaspora – Not just the result of the Great Famine”
When most people think about Irish emigration they think of the Great Famine years 1845-1851. The Irish Diaspora began long before that time period and lasted long afterwards. This lecture will introduce you the migration patterns of the Irish and the varying reasons they had for emigrating. To understand why someone had to emigrate is to begin to understand the person and the time period in which they lived.
“Scottish Research from a Far”
The pay per view website ScotlandsPeople is usually the first stop for anyone researching their Scottish family history online. This lecture will take you through the process of using ScotlandsPeople and show how using other resources to help narrow down your search will enable you to use ScotlandsPeople in a more cost effective manner. Other online resources that can assist you with your Scottish research will also be examined. If you can’t go to Scotland to research your family then this lecture will help you find out what is available online for Scottish research.
“Scottish Research beyond the Census and Civil Registration”
You have researched the Scottish census and civil registration records to search for your ancestors. What’s next? Are you on the right track with the family you are researching? This lecture will provide you with some resources to take you past the basic records to help you find out more about your Scottish ancestors.
“The Whys and Wherefores of Scottish Emigration”
This lecture will cover the reasons why the Scots left and where they eventually ended up settling. Understanding the emigration of the Scots will assist you with your research and enhance your family history story.
UK & Irish Lectures
“Researching Your UK & Irish Ancestors”
This lecture will take you through the basics of researching your ancestors in Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales online. We will examine the major databases to help you with your research and provide you with some suggestions to further your research. This is a lecture for beginners.
“Researching Your UK & Irish Ancestors – Beyond the basics”
You have gone to the usual online databases and searched the available census records and civil registration indexes. You have ordered the certificates and you need to go further with your research but are not sure where to start? This lecture will take you through some records that may help you to move your research forward. The focus will be on records other than census and civil registration.
Ontario Research Lecture Series
“I Want to Research My Family History – Where do I start?”
Do you want to research your family history but don’t know where to start? This lecture will help you begin the search for your family history. We will be examining the basic records and methods needed to help you find information. How to evaluate the information you find and where to look next will also be discussed. We will look at information to be found online as well as in libraries and archives.
“I Want to Research My Family History – What’s Next?”
The second part of this lecture series covers such topics as: how to find a will; the importance of researching newspapers; where to look for your military ancestor; immigration, naturalization and citizenship; and municipal records including assessment rolls, collector rolls and pre-1850 census records.
“I Want to Research My Family History – Advanced Record Search”
The third lecture in the series will cover such topics as: land registry records, crown land records, land petitions and township papers. Land records are often useful in helping piece together a family's history, their place of origin and might even uncover a will!
“Why Can’t I find it Online? Other resources to help you with your research”
These days it seems like you can find everything online. While this can be true in some instances it is not true when you are researching your family history. There are a lot of great databases to help you with your research but if you are relying only on those then you will be missing out on a lot of useful information. This lecture will look at what is not available online and use case studies from England, Scotland, Ireland and Canada to show you what you may miss by focusing only on online records.
“The Genealogy GPS: How the Genealogical Proof Standard can help your research”
The Genealogical Proof Standard is the GPS of genealogy. It will help you stay on course and analyze the information you have found. There is a lot of information available online and some of it isn’t correct. How can the Genealogical Proof Standard help you decipher what you find online and elsewhere? This lecture will take you through the process of using the Genealogical Proof Standard in your research.
“A Brick Wall Chisel: The Cluster Research Project”
You have an ancestor and you know he should be found in that particular parish but he is nowhere to be found in the registers – now what? You have two people with the same name, age and living to adulthood, how do you distinguish the two? Are they related? This is where a cluster research project can be useful. This lecture will describe how to organize and start a cluster research project to help you breakdown a brick wall in your family history. A case study will be used to describe the process.
“Planning a Genealogical Research Trip”
You want to take a trip back to the homeland of your ancestor and do research in the local repositories. Maybe you want to take a trip to a large repository like Library and Archives Canada or the Family History Library. There is a lot of work that you need to do at home before you leave. This lecture takes the participant through the process of planning a genealogical research trip. It includes suggestions on preparation, organization, preliminary research and how to maximize your time once you get there.
General Topic Lectures
“Maiden Aunts of the Twentieth Century”
The First World War resulted in large casualties for all the countries involved. This is something with which everyone is familiar. What not many know is that this also resulted in a large generation of single women. They had to create a new kind of life for themselves with virtually no hope of a husband or children. In an era when women married and raised families these women were set apart from society. Learn how this generation of women created new lives for themselves and how during this process they affected society, the world and your family history.
“How Do You Solve a Problem Like Diana?”
You have a tombstone, an obituary and the information in the obituary is questionable. How do you find the real story? This case study follows the journey into discovering the true story of Lady Diana Taylour’s life. Lady Diana Taylour was said to have been born circa 1897 and died in 1957. This means that most of the research focused on the first half of the twentieth century. Some of these records are not open to the public. How to get around this issue and find information is addressed. The journey starts in Canada and then heads to England but is that the end of the story?
“What’s hiding in the Cubbyholes? The Importance of Ephemera”
Do you have a box or other container filled with ephemera from your parents, grandparents or other family members? It could be a box with letters, a photo album, a birthday book, an autograph book, or a pile of other papers. Have you gone through it yet? We accumulate family ephemera during our lifetime and it is sometimes passed down through the generations. What is it and how important is it to your family history research? This lecture will take you through several case studies that began using the family ephemera that had trickled down the generations. It is time for the ephemera to come out of the cubbyhole to see what secrets it may hold.