Friday, March 6, 2009

Ontario Genealogical Society

I am a member of the Ontario Genealogical Society and several of its branches.

My local branch is the Bruce-Grey Branch. I try to attend as many meetings as possible. Meetings are held in localities in both counties. In the past, the meetings have moved around to several places within the counties but in the future, the plan is to have most general meetings in two localities: the Bruce County meeting at the Bruce County Archives in Southampton and the Grey County meeting at the Family History Centre just outside Owen Sound in Georgian Bluffs. Meetings are held every month except in December. Many branches skip the summer month but for this area, this is the time for good driving weather and people visiting the area can visit as well. To see the current schedule of meetings, check the branch site The Fall event is held in Durham, Ontario. One speaker provides several talks during the day. The food is always a drawing card too.

The meetings have a variety of topics as you can see from the listing. I always leave having learnt something new. It is also fun to see friends.

This branch is very active especially in the area of publications. Some of their publications include cemetery transcriptions, 1861, 1871 and 1901 census extractions for all names for each township in the two counties. They have done extractions for births, marriages and death notices from several of the area newspapers. Recently, they have been scanning publications and organizing them by township and putting them on to CD. The Branch table in the Marketplace at the Ontario Genealogical Society is always a very busy place.

The quarterly newsletter is filled with news and interesting articles.

I am also member of the Toronto Branch and the York Branch but I do not attend the meetings because of the distance, but I appreciate reading the interesting articles found in the newsletters.

I plan to attend the 2009 OGS conference in Oakville, Ontario. Perhaps, I will meet some of my blogging friends there.

This article was written for the weekly blogging prompt.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Janet ~
    Now you are REALLY tempting me! I have looked at the conference info on and off, but keep telling myself "No"...however I have wanted to go to Toronto for quite awhile, as I believe my gr-great grandfather (James Ritchie) is buried there. I know that he died there in 1891, but not sure if there is any gravemarker. His brother, Alexander, is also buried there and I even have cemetery info. I think I'd better stop typing because I am going to talk myself into this if I don't stop!

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