Friday, October 12, 2018

Just Over Three Months to the Scottish ViC


The Scottish ViC is just over three months away. This is the only virtual conference dedicated to Scottish research. It is a great way to learn about Scottish research from key speakers on Scottish research, all from the comfort of your own home. 

Although it sounds like a daunting task to spend 8 hours in front of your computer, it is amazing how quickly the day will pass. 

This year's topics and speakers:


Opening Plenary: The Highlander and the Lad o' Pairts: Patterns of Scottish Migration to Canada. History professor Kevin James, of the Scottish Studies Dept at the University of Guelph will get us started with a change in our understanding about why most Scots emigrated. Kevin is a very dynamic speaker and promises to get the day off to a wonderful start. 


Scottish Poor Law Records. Dr Irene O'Brien, Senior Archivist at the Glasgow City Archives will show us the incredible wealth of information that can be gleaned from the poor law records. Glasgow has perhaps the richest poor law records in the country and these records are a great resource for helping you understand the lives and circumstances of your Scottish ancestors. Dr O'Brien has an intimate knowledge of these records. 


High Court Records. Archivist Margaret Fox will help us to see the wealth of information that can be gleaned from the High Court Records. These include records for people whose sentence was transportation to the colonies, America or Australasia. Before her retirement, Margaret formerly worked in the National Records of Scotland. Margaret is back by popular demand following her highly successful presentation on Scottish Church records at last year's ViC. 


Sheriff Court Records. This presentation will be given by genealogist Emma Maxwell. Emma is co-founder of the online index website Scottishindexes. Emma has an intimate knowledge of the Sheriff court records and the details they can provide around illegitimacy cases, assault cases and other "minor" offenses. Emma has indexed many of these records and made the indices available for researchers around the world who have roots in Scotland. 


LivingDNA: LivingDNA co-founder David Nicholson is going to present an Introduction to LivingDNA. One of the many wonderful things about LivingDNA is their work to finely tune the geographic locations associated with our Scottish DNA. LivingDNA is also a vendor in our virtual marketplace and will have discounts specifically for those registered for the ViC. 


Family History Resources at the National Library of Scotland. In this presentation, NLS Enquiries Assistant, Elaine Brown will delve into the enormous and rich collection of holdings in the NLS that will enhance the stories of your ancestors. This talk is always attended by my tour participants and is jam-packed full of information. This is one talk you won't want to miss. 


Online Resources for Scottish Genealogy. In this presentation, genealogy educator, Christine Woodcock will show you the resources that are online that will assist you with your Scottish research. 

How the ViC works:


The virtual conference is a series of webinar-type presentations. They are pre-recorded and released throughout the day on a timed basis- just like a live conference where presentations are scheduled to follow one another.

The presentations start at 8 am Eastern time. There will be a break for lunch. The day is scheduled to wrap up at 6:30 pm Eastern. 

Following each presentation, the presenter will be available for a live Q&A in our closed Facebook group. If you are not comfortable with Facebook you can email your question to me.

ViC registration allows access to the presentations as they become available on the day of the virtual conference and that access continues until midnight on January 31 (eastern) so that people who are attending from the west coast of North America, from Australia and from New Zealand can watch the presentations during waking hours.

After January 26th there won’t be the opportunity to ask the presenter questions. Everything else remains available, including downloadable handouts and the deals offered in the virtual marketplace. Registration is just $99 cad ($75 usd)


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