Events

This is a hybrid meeting:

• Join us in person at Knox Presbyterian Church (Lisgar & Elgin) in Geneva Hall. Please use the Garden Entrance on Elgin Street. Limited free street parking is available on Saturdays, and the City Hall Parking Garage is available for $2.00.
• Join online by registering here.

. This registration covers both events.

Holiday Social / 9 a.m. EST

Do you have a Christmas dessert that has been passed down through the family? Share the story behind it during the Christmas Holiday social. Scan and send the original hand-written recipe, complete with vanilla stains, (or a typed transcript) to programs@bifhsgo.ca and we’ll create a digital Christmas dessert cookbook online. If you can join us in person, we encourage you to bring samples for your fellow family historians to enjoy at the break. Please label them so people know what recipe to search for after tasting your delicious treat.

Great Moments / 10 a.m. EST

“To finding half the stuff”: A 1784 Ledger Entry Illuminates a PEI Ancestor’s Lifestyle

Presenter: Dianne Brydon

A random reference, to a random historical publication, led to a random article containing a transcript of a ledger entry. Dianne Brydon will describe that trip down a rabbit hole which led to a great moment illuminating her PEI ancestor’s status and lifestyle.

Dianne Brydon has used skills learned from her Masters in Historical Geography to research her various family histories. She likes nothing more than travelling to archives in the UK, Canada, and the US, where she has sneezed through bundles of dusty documents. The gems she finds help to piece together her ancestors’ colourful stories. In 2017, Dianne and her father published their family history, “The Stalwart Brydons: From Scotland to Galt to Portage La Prairie." Since then, she has written articles and given talks to family history/genealogy/local history groups in both Scotland and Canada.

From A Great Problem to Great Moments

Presenter: Gloria Tubman

Gloria Tubman will discuss how researching her home child grandmother went from a great problem to several great moments. She will share how, starting from no knowledge of the ancestral family and with the assistance of fellow genealogy friends, she has been able to produce a four- and six-generation ancestral tree for her grandmother.

Gloria Tubman has always enjoyed a good mystery. She has willingly spent over 35 years with genealogical and family history research and still has a number of brick walls. Her areas of expertise include British home children, Quebec, the Ottawa Valley, and the families of Pontiac County. She has done research for several TV episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? She is a member of the Ontario Ancestors Ottawa Branch Council and of BIFHSGO, and she volunteers at the weekly Genealogy Drop-In with the Ottawa Branch of Ontario Ancestors. Two books Gloria wrote on home children have been published by Global Genealogy (https://globalgenealogy.ca).

“The Logan Clan”

Presenter: Jeannette Logan

In 2024 Jeanette Logan had a “Great Moment” upon learning the Logans were a clan, with a gathering planned for April 2025 in Scotland. She signed up and found the last recorded chief, Hugh Logan, died in 1802 without a legitimate heir—an intriguing twist since both her father and brother share that name. The current clan doesn't have a chief, and hopefully DNA and good old genealogy will help to find the successor. 

Jeannette Logan’s interest in family history began with a 1983 trip to Scotland with her father, where she met elderly relatives and explored ancestral sites. With help from her grandmothers, she focused on her paternal Logan and Morton lines and soon discovered her grandparents were second cousins! The Logan clan gathering re-invigorated her interest in her Logan family.

Drop-in Chat Thursday, 18 December 9:00 – 11:30 a.m. EST

Want to chat over a coffee and sweet treat with BIFHSGO friends?

Drop in to The White Pine Café at Arlington Woods Church 225 McClellan Road, off Greenbank Road. 

This is an online meeting only: Join by registering here. This registration covers both events.

Who Pays the Piper? Wills and Testaments of Scottish Musicians 1513-1800 / 9 a.m. EST

Presenter: Robert Urquhart

Family historians sometimes think wills and testaments were only made by the wealthy, but many were registered in Scottish courts for people of “small estate,” including pipers and other musicians. This presentation uses such examples to explain the terminology of wills and testaments and show how these records reveal details of the lives and families of pipers, drummers, trumpeters, minstrels, and others.

Robert Urquhart is a retired archivist from Fife. He worked in local archives in Glasgow and Ayrshire, before joining the National Archives of Scotland (now the National Records of Scotland), where for 20 years he specialized in opening up access to archives via the Internet. He was involved in making record series like wills and testaments, tax rolls, valuation rolls and kirk session records available online, and coaching researchers on how to read early-modern records via the Scottish Handwriting website (at www.scottishhandwriting.com). He now runs Abbotshall Palaeography (www.abbotshall.net), a small business offering palaeography tuition and transcription services. Robert's recently released book, "Arran Rentals and related Records, 1576-1780,” includes a reference to the commissary court executry practice, particularly with respect to contentious executries and the process papers that go with them. 

“It All Started with Some Buttons… Looking for a Stewart Piper” / 10 a.m. EST

Presenter: Susan Iskra-Reaney

While visiting family in England some years ago, Susan Reany Iskra was shown a set of buttons and told of a connection to a Stewart piper at Drummond Castle. These buttons were the starting point for a research journey that Susan will be sharing in her presentation as she speaks about her search, the processes and some of the resources she used, and what she was able to learn about this piper in 19th century Scotland. 

Susan Reany Iskra lives in Dryden, Ontario, and has pursued her genealogical interests for over 20 years. She is a member of the Dryden Genealogical Society and regularly makes presentations to the group as well as participating in ‘Ask A Genealogist’ sessions at the local library. She’s a member of OGS, Simcoe Branch and the Scottish SIG, and also belongs to BIFGHSO (British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa). Her roots are in the United Kingdom and her research has been mostly focused on Scotland; she has travelled to Edinburgh to do research there.  

This is an online meeting only: Join by registering here. This registration covers both events.

Exploring Pictures with AI: the Good and the Bad / 9 a.m. EST

Presenter: Paul Cripwell

You’ve acquired a picture of an object, scene, or ancestor but have no idea of its location or timeframe. How do you find out? Ask AI! That seems to be the answer to everything these days. But how do you know if the information you get back is accurate? Paul Cripwell will walk you through the explorations he conducted on some of his own pictures—what AI got right, what it got wrong, and how he figured it out.

Paul Cripwell began his family history journey after retiring from NavCanada in 2018. Since then, he has encountered a flood of new databases, software, and research methods—and, fortunately, he’s no stranger to steep learning curves. His latest challenge is exploring how AI can be applied to genealogy. The possibilities seem endless.

Rain-Soaked Roots: Weather Shaped the Lives of Our British Isles Ancestors / 10 a.m. EST

Presenter: John Reid

Weather touched every part of our ancestors’ lives—from daily chores under rainy skies to celebrations on sunny summer days, from mild seasons that brought good harvests to the storms that forced people to adapt or move on. This talk explores how both ordinary and extreme weather shaped life across the UK, Ireland and beyond. Drawing on official records, newspapers, and personal diaries, John will trace how weather influenced work, health, migration, and memory, revealing a layer of family history often overlooked.

Dr John D Reid, a son of Norfolk, enjoyed a 31-year career with Canada's Meteorological Service and has now been researching and writing about family history for almost as long. Since 2006, he has blogged almost daily at Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections, an online resource for those tracing British and Canadian roots. A past president of BIFHSGO, a member of Ancestry.ca's advisory Board, and a past chair of the City of Ottawa Arts, Heritage and Culture Advisory Committee, he has authored articles in Canadian and UK magazines and journals and lectured internationally. His family history research has uncovered direct ancestors who were teachers, a motor mechanic, a WW2 prisoner of war, musicians, a Church of England Minister, a Rabbi, shopkeepers, a sergeant in the US Army, a cigar maker, a teenage coal miner, numerous homemakers, and loads of AgLabs. Perhaps, if some unrecorded event doesn't break the chain, also an Astronomer Royal of Portugal.