The next meeting of the Toronto Branch of Ontario Ancestors will take place on Monday, June 22.
It will begin a little later than usual — at 8:00 p.m. — in order to accommodate their annual general meeting, which will get underway at 7:00 p.m. Both the AGM and the regular branch meeting will be entirely online due to COVID-19 restrictions, and the branch meeting will be open to all — but you must register in advance.
At 8:00 p.m., Carol Ufford and Dawn Kelly will deliver their presentation, Murder and Mayhem / Settlers and Sinners / Colonists and Criminals—More Thrilling Stories from New France, about unusual deaths, illegitimate children, witchcraft, and murder. As they tell the stories, the presenters will show some of the resources they used to trace their family histories.
Carol Ufford has been researching her family history for over 30 years. Her family has deep roots in Ontario, but she is jealous of her husband’s deep French Canadian and Acadian roots. Carol has served on the Toronto Branch Executive, and is currently the administrator of the branch Facebook Group, and a member of the branch Education Committee. While practising social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak Carol undertook a 14-day research challenge, and documented her progress on Facebook.
Dawn Kelly has been researching her family history for more than 25 years. She started looking for her Irish ancestors and along the way discovered she is more French than Irish. She has traced some of her family lines back into the 1500s in France and found that one of her 10th great-grandfathers was Samuel de Champlain’s valet at the time of the death of the founder of New France. Dawn has been a radio newscaster for 35 years, the last 22 of them at The Canadian Press. This spring she found herself doing national newscasts from her dining room during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Register here to watch the presentation. Limited attendance. The AGM has a separate sign-in.
