Rum Runners, Gamblers, and Flyers:  A Look Back at Quinte's Fascinating Past
By Bob Dawes, photographs by Georgette Green

Quinte Branch's final meeting of the year featured local author William C. (Bill) Hunt who recounted area stories from his books. Bill covered the use of Deseronto as a training facility for Royal Flying Corps during WWI. He has done extensive research into the young men who trained there and then went overseas as well as listing the many casualties from training accidents and enemy action. The establishment of several flight training centres in Ontario gave rise to the start of the aircraft manufacturing industry and aeronautical engineering programs after the war which saw aircraft for the US Naval Air Service built in Canada. An interesting anecdote was that the wartime industry during WWI employed more than 600 women at the same wages and benefits as men. Bill's book which covers this period is called Dancing in the Sky.
He then went on to expand on his other books about prohibition and rum running from the county. These books are Booze, Boats and Billions and Whiskey and Ice. Bill told stories of local families who were involved in the rum running trade and how the big distilleries got around the rules.

Researching British Immigrants to Canada
By Bob Dawes, photographs by Georgette Green

Seventy people filled the Quinte West council chambers at the branch meeting on October 17th to hear John Reid explain how to trace their Canadian ancestors back to England. John started his presentation by reviewing the immigration patterns from the UK countries of Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Éire during different times throughout the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. John outlined a shopping list of different record types and their value by using the Parato Principle or 80-20 rule where 80% of your results come from 20% of the records--he concentrated on just the census and vital registration records as his primary resources to demonstrate how to back trace Canadians to the UK.
Using three case studies, John showed the audience how to trace surnames as hard as Smith through the different records. He started with the 1911 census for Prince Edward County and then used the Ontario vital registration records for births and marriages to find out as much as he could before leaping across the pond. By doing this he was able to identify a husband's middle name, the wife's maiden name plus their county of origin in the UK. He then used both FreeBMD and Ancestry to find the immigrants and trace them back through two generations to 1841 when the census and vital registration records start to dry up.
John finished his presentation by adding some colour to the lives of his case studies through early church records, city directories and newspaper accounts of their prize winning produce at the local fair. Throughout the presentation he would constantly refer to Google Maps to show the relationship of the various villages and parishes with each other and how these people travelled throughout their lives. John has kindly reproduced all of the web sites he used on his blog Anglo-Celtic Connections where you can use the links to access the same resources.
His final piece of advice was to make your ancestor unique by finding out as much as you can about the correct spelling of their surname, full middle names and maiden names before crossing the pond.

History of the Family Dairies of Prince Edward County
By Richard Hughes, photographs by Georgette Green

On a spectacular Autumn afternoon on October 3rd an enthusiastic audience gathered at The Victory in Picton to hear historian Phil Ainsworth present the history of the family dairies of Prince Edward County. In a county filled with fascinating history, Ainsworth has chosen to document the families who established no less than 15 dairies from about 1900 into the 1960s and which have all now disappeared.
Beginning with private farms, these enterprising families generally began by selling raw milk at the farm gate and expanded to the door-to-door delivery by horse-drawn wagons. The early dairies were simple farm buildings with hand washing of the glass bottles. The presentation was coloured with tales which many in the audience could recall including the early morning sounds of the delivery man and the dairy horse which could plod through the route without any guidance.
Gradually government regulations required pasteurization and progressively other sanitary procedures, with the result the smaller producers were either forced to close down or to sell out to larger producers. By the 1960s all of the local, family dairies in Prince Edward County had disappeared.

Sandra and John Horwat transcribe 9,600 stones during nearly 100 visits to the Belleville Cemetery
By Richard Hughes, photograph by Bob Dawes

As Quinte Branch launched its Fall program of public information presentations on Saturday 19 September, it also announced the completion of its largest ever cemetery project, the new transcription of the Belleville Cemetery on CD-ROM. This massive project, undertaken by Quinte Branch volunteers, Sandra and John Horwat, required one year and almost 100 visits to the Belleville cemetery to examine every stone plus the Columbariums, Niche Walls, Mausoleum, Urn Garden and Scattering Garden. The 31,700 names drawn from 9,600 stones is a record of the early settlers, the United Empire Loyalists, community and political leaders, soldiers and the thousands of residents over the 137-year life of this cemetery--an extensive history of the people and families who settled and developed this area.
The Quinte Branch has published this 1,500 page fully-indexed cemetery transcript on a searchable CD-ROM. Copies are available from Greenley’s Book Store on Front Street in Belleville, at Quinte Branch meetings, or by mail order (click here for details). The cost is $25.00, plus postage and handling.

Family Research at the Archives of Ontario, On-Site or from a Distance
By Bob Dawes, photographs by Bob Dawes

Over eighty people attended the Sept. 19th meeting to hear Sean Smith of the Archives of Ontario explain how to use the new archives building and website. The new archives building is located at 134 Ian Macdonald Blvd., Toronto and is on the campus of York University. Parking can be a problem but the site is well served by the TTC, Go Transit and York Region Transit so he suggested that you park your car elsewhere and take public transit to the archives.
While the reading room is 75% bigger than the old location and contains state of the art microfilm viewing and printing equipment the downside is their hours of operation have been reduced to normal business hours Monday through Friday so the days of evening or weekend research at the archives are over. Another change is the new readers ticket which will now be permanent rather than needing to be renewed annually. While the new microfilm equipment is capable of using USB flash drives and the internet these features have not been enabled yet so you will still need to copy or print whatever you find.
The collections are basically the same as the old location although these are now growing quickly because of the additional storage space. A lot of the collection is located off-site so it is wise to check that your material is available or have it ordered in before you visit. They have a new automated phone system at 1-800-668-9933 which makes it easier to get to the department you need using voice menus.
You can view all of the holdings on the Archives of Ontario website at http://www.archives.gov.on.ca. A lot of new research guides for specific types of documents and collections have been added to the site, so it is a good idea to have a look at the list to see what's available before you visit. The best way to drill into the catalog is through the Descriptive Database under the Start Your Research button on the home page. Sean explained that this will allow you to look at individual items, groups of records by type or listed by their origin or creator.