January 16, 2016 — Several Kingston Branch members spoke on the topic “Who Knew?” in which they described surprising discoveries in their family trees, and how they learned about them. Doug Morren: “A Big Surprise – Unearthing the Parentage of William Morren;” Joanne Stanbridge: “John Stanbridge, Bonfire Boy;” Alex Ross: “Who knew?” in which Ontario neighbours discovered a New Zealand connection; Joyce Fingland: “By Canoe to the Flin Flon Gold Rush;” Nancy Cutway: “Explained Insolvency.”
February 20, 2016 — The branch Annual General Meeting was followed by a talk by David Kempson called “My Computer Did What?!” in which he presented several excellent methods of backing-up genealogy research and computer files in general. Nancy Cutway then spoke about strategies for using Dropbox to synchronize a family tree across multiple devices (computer, tablet, laptop, etc.) while ensuring that an up-to-date copy is always saved to “the cloud.”
March 19, 2016 Ruth Blair, a professional genealogist from Oakville, gave an informative presentation to an extra-large Kingston audience. Her topic was “Researching your Irish Family History from this Side of the Pond.” She included many examples and screenshots of searches in various databases from subscription services to volunteer-run sites, public record offices, archives and libraries. A copy of the handout from Ruth’s talk is available on the Members Only page.
April 16, 2016 Elaine Farley, a Kingston Branch OGS member who lives in Athens, Ontario, gave a very interesting talk “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep: The history of the Old Hay Bay Church,” describing her family connections to this historic site, and her current involvement with preserving, restoring and researching it.
May 21, 2016 Kingston Branch member Bob Thomas presented an informative talk entitled From Cloth to the Cloth: Archibald Stevenson, Presbyterian Missionary to Canada.
September 17, 2016 Sher Letooze from Bowmanville gave a lively and informative presentation about Parish Level Research in Scotland.
October 15, 2016 Kingston Branch member and recording secretary Deb McAuslan presented an interesting slideshow and talk about Palatines: Refugees from another Time.
November 19, 2016 Joyce Fingland, Kingston Branch Library Committee Chair, and editor of Kingston Relations and Newsleaf, gave a clear and informative presentation on DNA: Which Test and Why.
Full write-ups of the talks can be found in the newsletters which follow each meeting date, available in the Members Only section of this website. Some handouts ncluding clickable web links are also available there.
