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The One World; One Family Conference will be held in Brampton on 21 August 2010 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Registration begins at 8:15 am) at 10062 Bramalea Road, Brampton, ON.

If you haven’t registered yet and would like to attend please visit the Event Registration page. A box lunch will also be provided.

The workshop schedule for the event is posted here.

Look forward to seeing you there!

From the weekly Family History Center Bulletin written by Helen Billing comes this info:

New Family History Online Film Ordering for Canada

The new Family History Online Film Ordering will be up and running today, Thursday, August 19th. All microfilm/fiche must be ordered online by patrons. As of today, no film orders will be taken at the FHC.

Patrons must now go online to Family Search Microfilm Ordering and register for an account. After you register, Salt Lake will send a confirmation email. Please check your SPAM folder for this confirmation email, if you do not immediately receive it.

When you register, you will be asked to choose the FHC you want your film/fiche to go to, from a list – it also includes some libraries, like the Toronto Reference Library. This can be changed whenever you want.

All designated film/fiche will still come to the Toronto FHC and remain on site to be viewed. No film/fiche will be sent to your home or any other site not on the online list. The Family History Centre will still continue to contact you when the film has arrived at the FHC. You will be able to track your order online.

The new prices for film/fiche are as follows:

Microfiche – $5.00 (All microfiche are the same price whether there is 1 fiche in the set, or more. Microfiche remain in the FHC.)

Short-term film loan – $6.00 (Patrons will have roughly the same time to view them as they do now. Films can be renewed for an additional charge of $6.00 and if the film is renewed twice, it remains in the FHC. Patrons must renew online before film due date.)

Extended film loan – $15.00 (Patrons can now order films as an extended loan. If you know you will want to keep a particular film at the FHC indefinitely, this will save you $3.00.)

All film/fiche orders and renewals must be done online, by you, the patron, with a credit card.

Eventually all the films we (the Toronto FHC) and other FHC’s have on site will be entered into the online system and patrons will be able to check if a particular microfilm/fiche is at an FHC in their area. For now, please check our List of All Resources at the FHC or with the pdf file available on request.

The Paginebianche.it (Italian White Pages)can be very useful if you are trying to locate living relatives in Italy or just interested in finding how people people with your surname still reside there.

In the tab which says chi / cosa you type in a surname or you can type a surname plus a first plus an address if you have one. You can also put in the tab that says dove the location in Italy you are searching.

Normally I would just enter a surname and see what comes up. My surname pulled up the names of 111 persons still living in Italy. The majority are living in the province of Reggio Calabria, which is where my ancestors were from originally *but* I have noticed an increase in the number of people living in the North now compared to when I first checked a few years ago.

There are some other very cool features on this site like the curiosità tab which allows you to search the significance and origins of a surname. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Family Tree Magazine and David A. Fryxell just announced their choice of 101 Best Genealogy Websites for 2010 and frankly, I am a bit disappointed. While some of the tried and true favourites such as Ellis Island, One-Step Web Pages, Family Search and Cyndi’s List were chosen, there were many other wonderful sites that were overlooked.

In the category European Ops: Sites for researching in Continental Europe only 9 sites were chosen and yet not one site was recognized for Italian, Spanish, Hungarian or Irish Genealogy despite the fact that there are several note worthy sites available to choose from. Clearly they missed the boat on this one and it appears the magazine is catering to a particular demographic audience.

Year after year we see the same sites listed in these lists and year after year very few European websites, if any, are ever chosen. When they are chosen they seem added as if almost an after thought. While I enjoy using some of these sites as much as the next guy or gal, I honestly believe it’s time to broaden one’s horizon’s and start thinking outside the box to help break down those brick walls. How many times can a person talk about the same genealogy sites or special offers that so and so is promoting for a limited trial period? What about the endless online sites funded, maintained, updated and made available freely 365 days a year?

Perhaps it’s time to start our own list of top 100 websites and recognize some of these unsung heroes. Then maybe they will realize all the wonderful resources they have been ignoring all this time.

Today through July 4, Ancestry will be making the 1911 Canadian Census available for free in honour of Canada Day. This is great news for those with Canadian Ancestors so don’t miss this great opportunity.

Check out the Genealogy Insider for more great links to Canadian Records.

From Helen Billing’s weekly Family History Newsletter:

Barbara Billing has informed the Bulletin that the Trentino Department of Emigration has placed a database of birth records online at Nati in Trentino. The database contains information about 1.2 million residents of Trentino born between the years 1815-1923, including full name, date of birth, village, and names of parents. Your search can be by surname only or by first and last name in 10 year increments. Access is free but you must register for access to the site. Future plans include marriage and death records and adding the names of grandparents. With the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, Trentino was annexed to the Tyrol County. From 1815 until December 31st, 1923, the birth registers were maintained by the parishes, which also acted as registry offices. FamilySearch has just started indexing the Trento, Italy records, as well.

You an subscribe to this newsletter by contacting:

Toronto Family History Centre
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
24 Ferrand Drive (Don Mills & Eglinton) M3C 3V4 Phone: 416 422 5480 Ext. 111.
Email: Toronto_FHC@bellnet.ca

Toronto Family History Centre Current Opening Hours.

(Always phone if you do not have a booking to ensure that we are open.)

Monday 9.30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Tuesday 9.30 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Wednesday 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Thursday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon and 6.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m.
Friday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon
Saturday 9.30 a.m. to 12 noon.

Summer Closures: July 31 to August 2; August 21 to August 23; August 31; September 4 to 6.

You can request, by email, a copy of a searchable listing of all the films, fiche, CDs and books held at the Toronto Family History Centre. These will be sent to you as a pdf file attachment to an email but are about 2Mb in size and so high-speed internet connection is desirable.

Beginning today Ancestry.ca will be making it’s French-Canadian Records collection free for three days in honour of Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day. The Drouin Collection is also available on Ancestry.com but it will not be available free there so if you don’t have a subscription to either, then you must register for a free Canadian subscription in order to access the records.

With over 37 million records to view from including birth, marriage and death records from Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, it is defintiely worth checking out.

For the full Ancestry announcement, visit Dick Eastman’s Blog

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries millions of Eastern and Southern immigrants left their countries for America with the intent of making enough money to return home one day in a better financial position. They worked long hours during the peak seasons and returned home to their families during the winter months. These immigrants were commonly referred to as Birds of Passage. It is not uncommon that some of the children born to these men were conceived during a visit home which is a great hint for looking for additional manifests for your ancestor.
Southern Italians were often discriminated against. Many changed their names to sound more “American” and often lived in very poor and unhealthy environments in the larger cities in New York. Often groups of immigrants from the same towns migrated to the same areas.
My great grandfather and many of his paesani all settled in Colorado to work in the mines there. Once the mining industry died down, some returned home, others moved to places such as Utah and Idaho and some, like my great grandfather chose to remain.

About 75% of all Italian immigrants eventually returned to their homes permanently once they had earned enough money to live a more comfortable life. It is also not uncommon to see the descendants of those same immigrants leaving their homes for the US many, many years later.

This just in from our friends at Find My Past:

Our World Cup widows offer for the second England match is now much more flexible, particularly for those of you based outside of the UK.

• It’s simple – sign in after 9am on Friday, and choose when to use your 90 minutes

You are now able to use the records at findmypast.co.uk at a time that suits you. We’ve been working hard to improve the speed of the site after the overwhelming popularity of our first offer so that even more customers will be able to benefit from it.

The free 90 minutes are available as a single continuous period and will begin the moment you sign into findmypast.co.uk between the times above.

Please note: If you have asked findmypast.co.uk to remember your details and are normally signed in automatically, your 90 minutes of free access will begin from the moment you visit findmypast.co.uk during the free period.

If you need a helping hand with your research, take a look at our video tutorials or our Getting Started page which provide clear advice on how to use our records.

We’d love to hear about any discoveries you make while our records are free to view – post anything you’d like to share with us and our readers on our Facebook page.

Pass this on to friends, family or anyone else you think might want to make the most of our free family history records. Also see Special Offer from Find My Past written 11 Jun 2010.

Not everyone watches Soccer so for all those genealogy non – soccer fans, findmypast.co.uk is offering a special deal.

From our friends at findmypast.co.uk:
The World Cup is now upon us and we thought it would only be fair to provide some entertainment for all you non-football fans out there:

Whenever England play a match, you’ll be able to access all our records for free!*

What you need to know about this fantastic offer:

• When England play, you don’t pay: 30 minutes before each England game kicks off, all the records on findmypast.co.uk will be free to view for 3 hours

• You can view our original images and transcriptions of all our records for free including birth, marriage and death records 1538-2006, census records including the 1911 census and our Chelsea Pensioners British Army Service Records 1760-1913 – to name just a few

• Normally you would need a subscription or PayAsYouGo credits to view our records – some of which normally cost 30 credits each – so to be able to see them for free is a rare opportunity

• Keep an eye on our blog for a competition to enter during each England match. You’ll need to answer all the questions correctly for a chance to win, so make sure you don’t miss any. The prize is a goodie bag containing a digital camera, vouchers for a year’s Full subscription plus much more

It’s simple – just register and start viewing.  All you need to do to make use of this unique offer is register on findmypast.co.uk as you’ll need to sign in to view the records.

Visit our World Cup page for more information.

If you need a helping hand with your research, take a look at our video tutorials or our Getting Started page which provide clear advice on how to use our records.

We’d love to hear about any discoveries you make while our records are free to view – post anything you’d like to share with us and our readers on our Facebook page.

Pass this email on to friends, family or anyone else you think might want to make the most of our free family history records.

Happy researching!

The findmypast.co.uk team*All records available using our Full subscription (including the 1911 Census) will be free: Living Relatives searches and Memorial scrolls are not included.