My Experience at the 2011 British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa Conference

I wrote the following in 2011 after attending the conference sponsored by the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa. It was only the previous January that I finally stopped dabbling and started to do some serious work on my family history. At that time, I knew next to nothing and I knew it. Since then, I have attempted to attend every family history conference that I could afford to go to. Over the past 5 years, it has been relatively easy to do so as I lived in Ontario. This year is different. I do not currently live in Ontario, but in Newfoundland for the next few years instead. This year, I am doing a major trip abroad and, six weeks later, a smaller trip to a son's wedding. I am hoping that I can go to at least two major conferences next year, the one for the Ontario Genealogy Society (this will be hosted by the Ottawa Branch next year to celebrate the 150th birthday of Canada) and the one for the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa. My reasons for attending conferences have only slightly changed. I still use conferences as a means of educating myself in research methods and sources of information for research purposes, and to network with others that I have developed a relationship with.

The 17^th annual BIFHSGO Family History Conference took place at Library and Archives Canada on Wellington Street in Ottawa on the 16^th to the 18^th of September.  The conference program featured London and the Home Counties in England.  There was a good variety of speakers and topics, all of which I am presuming were well attended.  The sessions that I attended certainly were.  Conference attendees had the opportunity to learn more skills in conducting general research as well as research in more specific areas.

I certainly learned more about merchant marine records.  Maybe, I can now find some information about my mariner ancestors on the internet.  I have been provided with a great deal more information about some records that I knew about and other records that I knew nothing about.  Between my trip to England this summer and the conference, I have come to realize that there is information in a great deal more places than I realized.  I now have a lot more work ahead of myself than I realized.

In another session, I learned that I have not been using enough research methods to do a thorough search for the information that I want.  I have been going at my research only using basically one method.  I need to step back, go over the work that I have done, and try other methods to see if I can find more information to build the stories of the lives of my ancestors.  It is not enough to find the names, dates, and places.  I owe it to my ancestors to find all the information that I can so that they will be known by future generations in the same way that we may possibly be remembered.

Another tool that I learned something about was the social media.   Social media is a way of getting help from others who may also be researching some of the same people.  In the past, I have been discounting the social media as a research tool, but attending the session showed me that I just might be wrong in not using it.  I don’t have to use everything, but I should, at least, give it a try.

Every time I attend a family history conference, I come away with more information about how to better my research.  I also meet people who are interested in some of the same things that I am interested in.  This aspect is important as it is an outlet that can be used when your family and other friends don’t understand why you work so hard on something that they don’t see much reward in.  However, we, as family historians, gain a great deal of reward.  We get the chance of really getting to know our ancestors, the times that they lived in, and the conditions that they had to deal with.  We may live a life that is much more comfortable, but would you give up this life to deal with what your ancestors had to deal with?  We learn about their problems, their mistakes, and their solutions.  We can also learn about the family traditions that have fallen into disuse, discover why this happened, and determine if it is worth the effort to adapt the tradition to suit our “modern” lifestyle.