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2015 Branch
News
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The
Recent Discovery of Capt. John W. Meyers' Account
Book
Presentation by
Randy Saylor
Article by
John Carew, Photos by Georgette Green
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Quinte Branch held its final meeting for 2015 on Saturday, November
21 at the Council Chambers in Trenton. Our guest speaker was Randy
Saylor, a member of our Branch who is a well known genealogist and
historian in his own right. Never forgetting his roots, he has
developed and maintained a web site dedicated to early Bay of Quinte
area settlers and other interesting records, including those of his
own ancestors. See his website here:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~saylormowbray/index.html
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Presenter Randy Saylor and Peter
Johnson, Past Chair.
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While researching at the Archives of Ontario, Randy came across an
unidentified account book dating from 1790 to 1796, showing business
transactions in Sidney and Thurlow Townships. Based on his sleuthing
skills, the book can be reasonably understood to have been the
property of Capt. John W. Meyers. This was a very exciting find!
Randy captivated the audience with the examination and findings of
handwriting evidence, customer identities, occupancy and business
records timelines, property records and excerpts from the William
Canniff papers and various petitions, all which aimed towards the
conclusion that this was indeed the account book of John W Meyers.
Irrespective of any absolute and incontestable determination of
definitive proof of the ownership and authorship of the account book
(the audience was more than on Randy’s side as to the connection to
Meyers), the significance and authenticity of this account book as a
225 year-old historical business record of Sidney and Thurlow
Townships through the period of 1790-1796, in the early years
following the UEL arrivals in the Bay of Quinte area, was not lost
on the family historians in the audience. The insights to the
ancestors named in the book and their lifestyle needs was, to the
least, inspiring and a very special treat!
It was evident from the number and variety of questions following
his presentation that Randy had caught everyone’s attention, and
rekindled their fascination with the history of this place we all
call home, including, but not exclusive to, the life and times of
Capt. John W Meyers.
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Meyers descendants: Angela
(Walt) Johnson, Frank Meyers & Marjorie Meyers with Randy Saylor
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Northumberland County Records: some
great aids to finding your Quinte ancestors!
Presentation by Gabrielle Blaschuk
Article by John Carew,
photos by Georgette Green |
Our October 17th meeting featured an expose of the genealogical
resources available in Northumberland County, presented by Gabrielle
Blaschuk. Prior to this very valuable lecture, Bob and Barb Dawes
were presented with their well-earned Ontario Volunteer Service
Award pins and certificates marking 10 continuous years of volunteer
support and dedication to Quinte Branch, Ontario Genealogical
Society. Well done!
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Barbara and Bob Dawes receiving
their 2015 10 year Ontario Volunteer Service Awards
from Chair, John Carew
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Gabrielle Blaschuk has been involved in Genealogy for over 30 years,
including teaching researchers HOW to research along with doing some
research for them. She holds a degree in Genealogy for Canadian
Studies and Librarianship through the National Institute of
Genealogical Studies (NIGS), University of Toronto. Gabrielle has
given a number of workshops and presentations throughout Ontario
dealing with the very basics such as starting your family tree, to
the more complex and lesser known resources such as court records,
government records, etc. She is also a Library Technician and has
worked for over 15 years as the Local History contact for the
Cobourg Public Library helping to acquire, redesign and develop a
plan for the Local History Room - which is the main research
facility for genealogists looking for their ancestors in
Northumberland County. She was Archives Chair for 3 years before the
archives became the Northumberland Archives, and has written a
number of articles for various publications.
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Gabrielle Blaschuk speaking to
Quinte Branch members and guests about Northumberland County Records
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In addition to speaking directly about each of the several
repositories in Northumberland County, Gabrielle was kind enough to
provide the audience with a two-page handout summarizing the
features and subject matter of each location, along with the
necessary contact information. Going the extra mile, she was also
kind enough to allow us to offer the summary to our members who were
not able to attend the presentation. (Download
pdf file here) All in all, it was a very valuable and
informative afternoon!
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Vice-Chair Terry Buttler thanking
Gabrielle Blaschuk for her presentation
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Doors Open Quinte West 2015
Open House at
the Quinte Genealogy Centre/ Quinte Branch OGS
Article and photos by
John Carew
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Once again, Quinte Branch participated in the Quinte West Doors Open
Event on 3 October, at the Quinte Genealogy Centre in the Quinte
West Public Library. Quinte Branch Council Volunteers were on hand
to answer questions and assist visitors in the search for their
Quinte area ancestors.
For the most part, we were busy all day with a good number of
visitors who were starting out in their respective family history
journeys, and were looking for a few tips on how to proceed and for
a sense of what Quinte Branch had to offer. On that score, it was a
good day all around: we were happy to oblige, and they went away
armed with lots of advice and encouragement.
In the midst of all this, there were three other events which we are
pleased to pass along. A couple from Seattle, Washington spent the
entire morning researching their Canadian roots, a planned visit to
our library prior to returning to Seattle. This was the second stint
for that purpose, and I suspect they will be back again. During the
mid afternoon, Eben James dropped in for a visit and to have a look
at the Weaver and Mullett Genealogies, which had just arrived from
Vancouver in the mail, kindly donated by Dr. William Weaver. Before
leaving, Eben graciously donated a copy of the new book Senator
Billy Fraser: His Life and Times, authored by Alan R Capon, and
published posthumously with considerable contribution by Eben James
II.
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Weaver and Mullett Genealogies
Terry Buttler and Larry McQuoid
receive book donation from Eben James II
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Great Moments in Genealogy
Presentation by
Quinte Branch
Article by John Carew;
photos by Georgette Green
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At the opening of the meeting, the Chair offered condolences to the
family of the Honorable Hugh P O’Neil. Hugh passed away on Monday,
14 September in Trenton. He was an iconic community leader, a
veteran MPP, 1975-1995, and a very good and respected friend and
supporter of Quinte Branch. His 30 Volumes of Constituency
Scrapbooks covering his 20 year career in provincial politics which
he donated to us in 2008 remain a treasured and significant part of
our library resources.
Prior to beginning the afternoon program, Mary Culloden was
presented with her 10 Year Volunteer Service Award Pin and
Certificate.
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Mary Culloden receives her
Volunteer Service Award 10 Year Pin and Certificate from John Carew
(Chair)
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As advertised, our September meeting was an opportunity for members
and guests of Quinte Branch to tell the stories of their ancestors,
to share the frustrations and successes of research, to explain
brick wall breakthroughs and other serendipitous moments which we
have experienced as significant events in the pursuit of our past.
While we are all naturally reluctant to tell our stories, thinking
others may be more interesting, we have all had unique discoveries
and those that were shared this afternoon with friends and
colleagues did not disappoint.
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Lynn Heale speaking about finding her
lost great-grandfather
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Larry McQuoid speaking about the McQuoid
bible
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Cheryl Levy
speaking about her Nova Scotia ancestors
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Topics covered through the telling of these stories included:
finding the right home for previously unidentified photographs and
the value of Wills in clearing up facts about family relationships
(John Carew), tracing relatives through family bibles (Larry McQuoid),
discovering facts about ancestors indirectly through research of
military organizations which they belonged to (Cheryl Levy),
discovering the whereabouts of important “lost” relatives (Lynn
Heale), explanation of the connection of various local families
through examination of pedigree charts (Sharon Bunn), and the labour
of love and perseverance required to assemble the factual and
anecdotal history of Wallbridge and its role in the evolution of
Sidney Township (Alex McNaught), and the spontaneous amplification
of subject matter concerning the Wallbridge and Sidney Township
story (Peter Johnson). All of the above storytellers enjoyed a well
earned chance to brag a little, share a happy moment, share an
emotional accomplishment; share a learning experience, announce the
near completion of a book and share and add to someone else’s story.
Revelation upon revelation!
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Sharon Bunn speaking about her family
pedigree chart
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Alex McNaught speaking about Wallbridge
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Peter Johnson
adding to the history of Wallbridge
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Topping off the afternoon’s enjoyment, Jim Harrison, Mayor of Quinte
West, and his wife Jane, dropped in to hear some of the stories and
to present a Certificate to Quinte Branch on the occasion of our
35th Anniversary. Mayor Harrison came prepared for the event with
his own family history story which he shared with us. His
grandfather, a WW1 Veteran, after returning to Canada at the end of
the war, settled in Brighton and opened a store which he ran for
many years. Upon his return, he was asked about the most difficult
thing he had to deal with during the war, and he replied,” not
enough clean dry socks”. The back-story is that sometime during his
many years as the proprietor of the store in Brighton, he acquired a
knitting machine which he used to manufacture grey socks that he
proudly sold in his store.
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35th Anniversary Certificate from
City of Quinte West presented by Mayor Jim Harrison and his wife,
Jane Harrison, to John Carew (Chair), and Rodney Green (Charter
Member and
Past Chair
of Quinte Branch)
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Quinte Branch 35th Anniversary
Celebration
June 20, 2015
Article by John Carew;
photographs by Georgette Green and Susan Carew
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Cutting the Cake: John Carew
(Chair), Lois Duggan (Social Hostess), Rodney Green (Charter Member
and Past Chair), Susan Carew and Sharron Buttler
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The 35th anniversary has come and gone, the cake was devoured along
with some much appreciated Tim’s, and now we will get on with the
next 35 years.
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Larry McQuoid (Treasurer), Gerald
Belanger, John Carew (Chair), Alan Campbell (President OGS) and
Terry Buttler (Vice-Chair)
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So, what were we celebrating? Perhaps this: during the past 35
years, over 2600 members have joined Quinte Branch, and perhaps
double that and more of non-members have asked for and got support
and assistance from us in one form or another. Consequently, several
thousand family trees and genealogies have been improved by and made
more credible by the addition of facts and information obtained from
our library holdings. In addition, over that time, more than 500
volunteer person years of endeavour have enabled the Branch Council
to develop, maintain and deliver genealogical services and support.
After all, since the mission of OGS and of its many Branches is to
encourage, bring together and assist those interested in the pursuit
of family history, I guess you could say that we were celebrating
"mission accomplished." (Download
35th Anniversary Address here.)
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Past Chairs of Quinte Branch OGS in
attendance: Richard Hughes, Rodney Green, Roy Bruce, Ann Rowe, Peter
W Johnson UE and Marilyn Harry. (Carole Foshay was also in
attendance, however, she was not present when this photo was taken.)
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On a more personal note, the credit for Quinte Branch getting its
start in life and having a chance at being of value to community,
genealogical pursuits and preservation of heritage falls squarely on
the shoulders of the 26 Charter Members from 1980. It was because of
their vision and courage to make it happen, and the commitment to
see the fledgling organization through those difficult early years
when every element of the program of services was “Priority One”,
that on this 35th anniversary, we were able to
honour them, deservedly so, and in effect, “have our cake and eat it
too”. It was a pleasure to have 4 of the Charter Members present and
be able to honour them in person: Roy and Ruth Bruce, Amy Vader, and
Rodney Green.
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Charter Members in attendance:
Rodney Green, Amy Vader, Ruth Bruce and Roy Bruce
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To help us in our quest to reflect on the Branch’s accomplishments,
Ann Rowe (Campbellford Seymour Heritage Society), Thelma Coulter
(7th Town Historical Society), Richard Hughes (Hastings County
Historical Society), Peter W Johnson UE (Bay of Quinte Branch UELAC),
and Rita Turtle (Quinte West Public Library) offered anecdotes,
greetings and congratulations to the Branch on the occasion.
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Left to right: Ann Rowe (Campbellford
Seymour Heritage Society), Thelma Coulter (7th Town Historical
Society), Richard Hughes (Hastings County Historical Society), Peter
W Johnson UE (Bay of Quinte Branch UELAC), and Rita Turtle (Quinte
West Public Library)
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Alan Campbell, President of the Ontario Genealogical Society,
offered the Branch compliments on its accomplishments and presented
a 35 Year Certificate to the Branch representative, Rodney Green. A
35 Year Certificate and letter from MP Rick Norlock was also
received prior to the event and was acknowledged by the Chair during
the celebration. The Mayor of Quinte West, Jim Harrison, who was
unable to attend as planned will be joining us at one of our fall
meetings to congratulate the Branch on its milestone achievement.
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35 Year congratulations from the Ontario Genealogical Society was
presented by Alan
Campbell (President OGS) and accepted on behalf of Quinte Branch OGS
by Rodney Green (Quinte
Branch Past Chair).
A 35 Year Certificate and letter was also received from Rick Norlock (MP, Northumberland-Quinte
West)
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Unveiling our
"Marmora Project"
As
the finale for the afternoon before refreshments were served, the
Branch announced release of the Gerald Belanger Collection Volume
1, a DVD of over 7100 newspaper clippings of BMDs and
celebratory family announcements primarily, but not exclusively,
centered on Hastings County and covering life spans and events from
1800 to 2013. Gerald was our special guest for the afternoon and he
spoke to the assembly about his collection and the joy of seeing it
preserved by Quinte Branch OGS for generations to come.
DVD details here.
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Larry McQuoid presents special guest, Gerald Belanger
with the very first copy of the Gerald Belanger Collection Vol. 1
DVD
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Archaeology: How Can We Preserve Our
Heritage?
Presentation by
Shannon Millar
Article by John Carew;
photographs by Georgette Green
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Our presenter for our Saturday, May 16th presentation was Shannon
Millar, a Trentonian and a recent graduate of Wilfred Laurier
University with a degree in North American Archaeology. She has
participated in archaeological excavations in Ontario and Bermuda.
She volunteers at the Children's Museum in Kitchener and hopes to
continue her education in Museum Management and Curator-ship.
As a student studying North American Archaeology, questions
constantly arose: why should we preserve our heritage, how should we
preserve our heritage, and what is heritage exactly?
An exploration of these questions was the focus of this
presentation, with examples given from Shannon's field school
experiences on excavations in both North America and Bermuda.
Her assignments at Fort Erie on a dig relevant to the War of 1812,
and in Bermuda where the dig focus was on the merchant trade of the
17th and 18th Centuries, Shannon highlighted the links between
artifacts found and identified, and the lives and lifestyles of the
citizenry of the day. She also effectively employed the example of
the St Thomas Anglican Church grave exhumations done in Belleville
in the 1990s to show how answers could be arrived at about diseases
and identity of the dead to address questions which arose when 600
burials were discovered instead of the expected 90.
She closed her presentation with a very personalized and refreshing
point of view on the need for greater community awareness and better
forms of decision making about preserving heritage Vis a Vis
adaptive reuse of manmade structures rather than the all-too-often
overarching dollars and cents considerations for demolition versus
restoration.
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Shannon Millar and Georgette Green,
photographer |
Bermuda archaeological site |
Shannon Millar thanked by Bob
Dawes, Database & IT specialist |
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Quinte Branch
Workshop
Open Topic - Anything Goes
Hosted by
Quinte Branch
Article by John Carew;
photographs by Georgette Green
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This workshop was held 0n May 16th from 10 am to noon at the Quinte
West Public Library Multi-Purpose Room (off the lobby) as an open
forum discussion. Registrants were invited to bring their laptops or
other devices, and problems or questions. Bob and Barb Dawes led the
discussions and provided instruction. The topics below were
available for inclusion.
Technology issues
~ Computers
~ Other computing devices
~ Scanning
~ Software
~ Storage
~ Internet
Research issues
~ On-line resources
~ Local repositories
~ Strategies for success
Genealogy Standards
~ Recording information
~ Record keeping
~ Publishing and sharing
Most of the concerns tabled during this trial workshop were in the
realm of software alternatives and utilization.
At the conclusion of the session, it was the general opinion of
those who participated that their time was well spent and more
workshop events like this would be very welcome.
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What's New in Legacy Family Tree 8?
Legacy Digital Presentation by
Geoff Rasmusen
Article by John Carew;
photographs by Georgette Green
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On Saturday, 18 April, Quinte Branch hosted a Legacy digital
presentation from the Legacy Webinar Library to help us learn about
the 2014 updates and innovations in Legacy Family Tree Version 8
software.
This session with Geoff Rasmussen was devoted to not just what is
new in Legacy 8, but it also shone the light on many of the extras
that are available to Legacy fans and interested family historians
in the paid version of Legacy, over and above the solidly built and
feature rich free version which most of us satisfy ourselves with.
The topics included Origins reports, Migration reports, Migration
mapping, Instant duplicate checking, Potential problem alerts and
gaps, Enhanced sourcing, Enhanced chronology view, New wall charts,
Shared events, Expanded color coding, and much more.
Frankly, for most of us caught up in the excitement of research,
information gathering, tree building and the never ending cycle of
verification or refuting of our documented and undocumented
findings, on the surface, many of these extra features may seem like
more than is needed to make satisfactory progress in our quest for
truth and understanding of our genealogy and family history. On the
other hand, perhaps they should be looked at as special tools rather
than extras, above and beyond the basic toolkit. In that regard, as
the carpenter eventually finds a need for more than one hammer, one
screw driver and one saw blade, practical and useful additions to
the family history toolbox will be appreciated by most of us, on our
own schedules of conducting research, running into problems, and
trying to keep track of the thousands of persons and details of
their lives. When our analytical skills are being challenged, more
tools can be brought to bear to help solve problems, and better
understand courses of action to follow to knock down brick walls, or
simply provide better visibility of the facts (forest and tree
analogy) and what may or may not need refinement or resolution.
I for one have reached that point in some areas of my research, and
will be testing out the “extras” in Legacy 8 going forward.
Note:
This Legacy presentation is available for viewing here. Syllabus
is also available for download.
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At the Call of King
and Country
Presentation by
Bill Kennedy
Article by John Carew;
photographs by Georgette Green
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On Saturday, March 21, 2015, Quinte Branch was pleased to host Bill
Kennedy as our guest speaker, and to hear about Hastings County
volunteers of The Great War, 1914-1918. Bill has been a volunteer
with the Hastings County Historical Society for over ten years and
is currently a member of its Board of Directors and chairman of the
Educational Committee. He has served as editor of the Society’s
newsletter “Outlook” and is a frequent contributor to that
publication mainly through his articles on topics presented by guest
speakers at the Historical Society’s monthly public events.
His presentation centered on his recently published book, At the
Call of King and Country. Through military documents, photographs,
letters written home by frontline soldiers and Canadian Army Medical
Corps nurses, and many other sources, it tells the stories of some
of the hundreds of Hastings County men and women who served overseas
during the First World War, many of whom never returned home.
Bill provided us with a synopsis of two prominent Canadians, and of
their roles, played in mounting the Canadian contribution to the war
by Sir Sam Hughes, and the leading of Canadian troops in battle by
General Sir Arthur Currie. With that in hand, he then related the
personal contributions, stories and community perspective of
selected Hastings County volunteers, a handful of the hundreds from
our community who served and, many of whom gave their lives for King
and Country.
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Terry Buttler,
Vice-Chair and Bill Kennedy |
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Backing Up Your Genealogy Data
Legacy Digital Presentation by
Thomas MacEntee
Article by John Carew
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Our Quinte Branch presentation on 21
Feb was in the form of a webinar, hosted by Geoff Rasmussen and
presented by Thomas MacEntee. While the premise for the lecture was
the safety and security of genealogical data and files, the
underlying imperative wisdom and common sense to undertake and
execute a backup plan can and should be applied to virtually any
important files on your home computer, financial, personal and
anything you place high value on, which if lost, would cause you
grief beyond description. In all our cases, the loss of our family
history treasures represents years of research, and starting over
from scratch would be a monumental task. The fact is accidents and
equipment failures happen. There is no warning. That is why anyone
who values the time they spent collecting information, historical
records and photographs should be backing up their files.
MacEntee covered the subject in a logical fashion: make a backup
plan, identify what you need to backup, select the right type for
you, indentify a method such as CD/DVD media, external hard drives
or flash drives, and consider the various online backup programs
available for cloud storage. Some services are free, and some
require payments and those generally yield more features and storage
space. No matter what solution you chose, MacEntee highly recommends
a number of best practices such as identifying all of your data,
keeping to a regular schedule, automating as much as possible, and
testing your backups for the purpose of recovery, if and when
needed. Finally, start with current technology, and keep it up to
date as time moves on. There is no point having your data caught up
in outdated technology. For my part, I have dabbled with backup
systems over the years, got lazy about the process, and usually
needed prompting from someone to get interested again. If that
sounds like your experience, perhaps we should all get back to a
backup system that works for us individually, and keep at it. That’s
the key. Good luck!
More information about this Legacy webinar can be accessed here.
At the conclusion of the presentation, Bob Dawes led a Q&A on the
topic and offered an additional backup program option for
consideration,
SyncToy.
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Crouse-Wanamaker Lecture
Dancing in the Sky
Presentation by
Bill Hunt
Article by John Carew;
photographs by Georgette Green
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The Crouse Wanamaker Lecture, held
every January by Quinte Branch, is dedicated to the driving force of
Gordon Crouse and Loral and Mildred Wanamaker who were instrumental in
getting Quinte Branch up and running as a Branch of the Ontario
Genealogical Society in 1980. This year, in honour of Gordon, Loral and
Mildred, Quinte Branch was pleased to present a lecture by Bill Hunt as
a fitting example of that spirit of commitment and vision, the Royal
Flying Corps training program in Canada during World War I.
C.W. (Bill) Hunt’s book, Dancing in the Sky, is the first complete
telling of the First World War fighter-pilot training initiative
established in Canada by the British in response to the terrible losses
occurring in the skies over Europe in 1916. This program, which was up
and running in less than six months despite enormous obstacles, launched
Canada into the age of flight ahead of the United States. The results
enabled the Allies to regain control of the skies and eventually win the
war, but at a terrible price. Flying was in its infancy and pilot
training was primitive and unpredictable.
Bill gave us a very good overview of the British and Canadian government
issues surrounding the training initiative and the achievement which
resulted. Equally important, and perhaps more compelling and
appreciated, was his focus on the main characters in this wartime drama,
from both sides of the pond, the people who made it happen such as Sir
Sam Hughes, and some of those who gave their lives in the process,
during training and over the battlefields of Europe.
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Dancing in the Sky
Bill Hunt and Larry McQuoid, Treasurer |
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