Ontario Genealogical Society Governance Review

Shirley Sturdevant  – Ontario Genealogical Society President

As recently announced, the OGS Governance Review Committee completed its findings and the Board posted the report in our Members’ Only section of the website  www.ogs.on.ca . I asked Members to comment on the report and below are some of those received. I look forward to hearing from others as OGS moves forward in implementing th e recommendations within the report.

To that end, the Board formed a Governance Task Force to review the report in more depth and to plan for implementation. The draft implementation plan was presented at a Special Meeting of the Board of Directors on 16 April 2013. The plan dealt with:

·         Restructuring the Board and Its Processes which involves the makeup and conduct of the Board  including skill - based roles for Directors, more involvement of Branches/Special Interest Groups  (SIGs) and Members, improved communication and transparency, review of committees and projects,  possible affiliations, and related steps. This will require ongoing dialogue with our geographic and special interest groups since this affects our current regional structure.

·         Comprehensive Communications Plan to improve communication strategies and technologies within The Society between and among Members, Branches/SIGs, the Board and the Provincial Office as  well as with those outside The Society in efforts to learn from one another and strengthen  relationships including advocacy and marketing strategies.

·         Recruiting the Right People for the Right Jobs focuses on establishing the needs of The Society and defining the roles and terms of reference for Directors.

·         Strive for Greater Financial Sustainability involves establishing a strong OGS Finance Committee to  work with the VP - Finance to strengthen, monitor and evaluate financial processes and holdings;  assist in considering entrepreneurial activities and affiliations in which The Society might  involve itself;  and, strengthen financial reporting to the Membership.

Dialogue with Branches/SIGs and individual Members will be a large part of this process. If you have not already done so, please review the Governance Review Committee’s Report and send your thoughts now to president@ogs.on.ca or watch for other opportunities to be involved in relevant discussion.

Whatever decisions are finally made, many changes to the Society Bylaws will be required. None of these changes will happen without the work of many dedicated Members. A number are already involved but, please, watch the developments and find a spot where your skills and talents can assist in moving The Society forward.

Together we are OGS!  

Bytown/Ottawa Settlers No. 3

Soldier/Settlers Goulbourn Twp and area.
The Richmond Military Settlement is the second [Perth is the first and Lanark is the third] of the Rideau Military Settlements. Settlement in Richmond Settlement started in the fall of 1818.
A good Ref to start researching for an ancestor is Volume 5 of 'Index To The Upper Canada Land Books' dated Jan 1821 to Dec 1826. The soldiers/settlers would have completed their settlement duties and received their Land Patent during this date range. This is a nine volume series and a copy is in the Ottawa Branch, OGS Library at Ottawa City Archives. Any and all genealogical data was extracted and is listed in this book for each settler. The period covered by these nine volumes is from 8 July 1792 until Feb 1841.

The Goulbourn Museum deals with all aspects of the 100th/99th Regiment and is located at Stanley's Corners, just south of Stittsville  www.goulbournmuseum.ca  

Goulbourn Historical Society has the soldiers/settlers family files/records, etc in the Stittsville Public Library.

I have a collection of personnel files [3 binders plus] and they are presently at Ottawa City Archives in Ottawa Branch, OGS area

NOTE. One must know the following when dealing with the military settlers of Goulbourn Twp.
The 100th Regiment was raised in Ireland in 1804 and sailed to Canada in 1805. They fought in the War of 1812. Follow along at http://walkingwithjim.blogspot.com  In 1816 they were renumbered to the 99th Regiment and disbanded in 1818, a large number of soldiers electing to settle in Goulbourn area.

Next post will deal with the Rideau Canal Settlement,  after which posts will deal with persons who may not be well known to researchers.

FYI, the War of 1814 continues until the peace treaty is signed on 24 Dec 1814
Also WW1 starts in the fall of 1914 so its centennial starts next year

OGS Region VIII - Annual General Meeting and Genealogy Day - Saturday April 27

Saturday 27 April, 09:30 – 16:30

Beckwith Township Hall, 1702 9th Line Beckwith, Blacks Corners, Ontario (corner of Highway 15 and Beckwith Concession 9).

You are invited to attend the OGS Region VIII -  Annual General Meeting and Genealogy Day on April 27, 2013 (9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.) hosted by the Lanark County Genealogical Society.

Speakers:   
David Murdoch, LCGS                             The First Nations and Lanark County
Irene Spence and Ron Shaw, LCGS         The Forgotten Hero, Col. Alexander Fraser
David Murdoch, LCGS                             Memory Trust – A Panel of “Old Timers”

Plus

Market Place

Pre-registratio​n: $25 including lunch. The deadline for Pre-registratio​n is April 17, 2013.

Registration at the door $15 (DOES NOT INCLUDE LUNCH)

Please make cheques payable to “Lanark County Genealogical Society”.

Please  mark your cheque/envelope “OGS Region VIII, Pre-registratio​n and send to:  Frances Rathwell, LCGS Treasurer, 68 Beckwith Street, Perth, Ontario  K7H 1C1
The Pre-resistratio​n form can be found on the LCGS website:  http://www.glob​algenealogy.com​/LCGS/Special%2​0Day.htm

Contact: Frances Rathwell  frathwell@cogeco.ca  or phone  613-267-3178.

Ottawa Branch Meeting Saturday April 20

Saturday, April 20, 13:00 – 15:00
City of Ottawa Archives, 100 Tallwood Drive, Room 115

Free refreshments (cookies, tea, coffee, juice) and networking.

Anne Raina will be speaking about her book, Clara's Rib, co-authored with her sister Clara.

Clara's Rib is the true story of a young girl growing up in a tuberculosis hospital. Clara entered the Royal Ottawa Sanatorium in 1939 when she was 12 and was discharged for the final time in 1952, just after turning 26 years of age. Anne will also talk about how she came to an understanding of this disease that ravaged her family. People of all ages will be drawn into the evolving seasons of Clara's life of courage, faith, pranks, laughter, first love, despair and hope from the time she enters the San as a pre-teen until her departure as a young woman in her mid-twenties. Discover why, when Clara left the San for the last time, one of her own ribs was packed in her suitcase.

This meeting will be simulcast for members who can't join us in person.
To join the meeting, go to: http://genealogicalstudies.adobeconnect.com/ottawaogs/

If you have never attended an Adobe Connect meeting before: Test your connection: http://genealogicalstudies.adobeconnect.com/common/help/en/support/meeting_test.htm Get a quick overview: http://www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html

OGS Governance Review Report

At its September 2012 meeting, the Board of Directors of OGS agreed to establish a committee to conduct a major review of our Society governance structure. The OGS Governance Review Committee of four qualified OGS members was struck and worked from October 2012 to March 2013 when they submitted their report and recommendations to the Board.

The Committee Report is available in its entirety for members to review in the Members Only section of the OGS website.

Your OGS Board has established a small task force to report back on April 16, 2013. The task force will plan and implement the roll out of the new governance structure including those changes requiring bylaw changes, those which might be undertaken relatively quickly and those that will be ongoing or long-term. 

OGS Members are encouraged to review the Governance Review Committee Report and forward anycomments and ideas for the task force to Society President, Shirley Sturdevant at president@ogs.on.ca.

Please pass along your initial ideas immediately and further thoughts later as they become apparent after further reading and consideration.  

Implementation of these recommendations will not happen overnight; nor will they happen without input and further assistance from you, the Members. Remember, this is our Society.

We are extremely grateful to OGS members Dwight Turner (Chair), Jean McNulty, Anna-Louise Richardson and Douglas McWhirter who undertook this review on our behalf.

Together, we are OGS!

Shirley L. Sturdevant, President

TONI Coordinators Needed

TONI (The Ontario Name Index) is approaching the 2 million name mark and we have uploaded at least 100,000 entries per each of the last few months. The conversion of files from the Ontario Cemetery Ancestor Index (OCAI) has progressed well and is over 60% complete. Approximately 60,000 items are available through Pay-Per-View (PPV).

Although most of TONI is from cemetery transcripts (both OCAI and new indexes) there are over 200 000 non-cemetery items. By their nature these come in gradually so most of the following have additions every month: vital statistics from Arnprior and McNabb Township, family histories from the provincial library and from Ottawa Branch library, Millbrook newspapers (and soon Weston newspapers), obituaries from London, local histories from several historical societies, and so forth.

A fascinating collection of early documents from Eastern District (now the United County of Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry) will start appearing soon. The documents, owned by the County, will be indexed in TONI and scans made available in PPV. There are hundreds of documents, ranging in date from 1815 to the late 1840s. They will go up slowly because volunteers have to read each hand-written document and extract names, often from signatures. We probably can do between one and two hundred documents each month.

This is great news for Ontario researchers but, in order to keep this up, we need to increase the volunteers on the TONI team. Most of the coordination is now done by one person but we really need to get some more volunteers involved in the management of TONI. We are looking for some keen members who will take on one of these tasks:

1. TONI Volunteer Coordinator
   recruits volunteers, provides basic training, assigns volunteers to projects and monitors their performance (with the Project Coordinators)
2. Project Coordinators
   receives volunteers from the Volunteer Coordinator, trains them in any specific project requirements, prepares material for volunteers (may involve cutting and pasting pdf files), fields questions from volunteers, checks material received from volunteers, adds any fields needed for TONI or PPV, collates the material and passes it on at regular intervals to the TONI Input Desk.

The second task is very similar to the duties of the current Branch/SIG TONI Coordinators but focused on one of the specific projects listed below, or in the future.

The current projects needing a Coordinator are:

• London/Middlesex - London Obits
• Stormont Dundas & Glengarry HS - Family Files
• Arnprior & McNabb-Braeside Archives - Bylaws, Collector's Rolls, Assessment Rolls
• United Counties of SDG - Eastern District early documents
• Weston HS - Newspapers

If you'd like to get involved as the coordinator of any of these (or as a volunteers), please contact Mike More, TONI Provincial Coordinator toni@ogs.on.ca

Reminder for Ottawa Branch Genealogy Day 2013

Come to hear Speakers, attend the Marketplace and visit the Computer Room!
Date: Saturday, May 4, 2013
Time: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Location: City of Ottawa Archives, 100 Tallwood Drive, Ottawa
Complete details and On-line Registration can be found at: http://ogsottawa.on.ca/ottawa-genealogy-2013/
Registration will be limited so Book Early!
Cost:
$30 (OGS/BIFHSGO member)
$35 (Non-member)
Bagged lunch (optional) – $10
For more information e-mail: conference@ogsottawa.on.ca

TMG User Group Meeting 13 April

The Ottawa (Canada) TMG Users Group will meet Saturday 13 April at 2pm (Eastern) in Room 226 of the City of Ottawa Archives at 100 Tallwood (assuming we survive the storm on Friday :-)).

These meetings are now available to anybody with Internet access. See the details on our website at http://ottawa-tmg-ug.ca/

Branch Board Nominations

 

It is time again for the Nominations Committee (me) to try to find replacements for the Board members who have completed their terms or are stepping down for other reasons. For the first time in a long time, we do NOT need a new Chair as Norah Cousins-La Rocque will remain for a second term. However, her term will expire in 2104 and we do need a Vice-Chair who is prepared to step up to the Chair’s job in another year. Heather Oakley has filled in as Vice but she’s done the Chair’s job several times now and we could use some new leadership in the Branch (I speak from experience-too much experience).

We also have a vacancy as Secretary. Grace Lewis has filled in there but she is taking over as Librarian with the incumbent stepping down for personal reasons. We also have vacancies at Stray Coordinator and Member-at-Large.

Several others have spent many years on the Board and would welcome replacement: Editor of The Ottawa Genealogist, Publication Sales. If you don’t feel up to the task right away, you could work with the current volunteer before assuming full responsibility. Few of us knew what to do when we started and we learned our way with on-the-job training from those who were more experienced. If you are serious about genealogy then this is a great way to learn more about the hobby. I don’t have any Ottawa area ancestors but I help out with the Branch to give back for those volunteers who make it possible for me to do my research in the rest of the world.

Is there something specific that you would like to do? The Member-At-Large positions have no firm duties, so we could use people who would like to assist with tasks such as Gene-O-Rama, Outreach, Special Events, Social Media, Liaison or Publicity. Or would you like to run a project that would help the lot of genealogists in the area?

The Board meets once a month from September to June and we are now using Skype for those who cannot physically join us in the room. They generally run 60-90 minutes and over the last few years have become very efficient with the agenda, reports and minutes all sent electronically.  The meetings only deal with running of the branch while most discussion takes place beforehand by email. The Chair, Vice, Secretary and Treasurer must be members of OGS and Ottawa Branch, while there rest should be… but we can be flexible. The job descriptions are posted on our website at http://ogsottawa.on.ca/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/OB-Job-Descriptions-2010web-1.pdf .

We are one of the successful branches in The Society but this can all be for naught without people willing to contribute a few hours of their time to help run things. Several other branches are at risk to fold because volunteers will not come forward. This could happen here unless you step up. Please consider helping us; get in touch with me at pastchair@ogsottawa.on.ca so I can stop whining in the newsletter and before every general meeting. If you want to participate without a specific job we will welcome you to our meetings and find a way for you to help in an area that interests you. Thanks (with a tip of the hat to Bob Dawes of Quinte Branch for allowing me to steal some lines from his recent plea for volunteers).

Mike More
Past Chair Ottawa Branch OGS
pastchair@ogsottawa.on.ca
http://ogsottawa.on.ca/