My children – well one son – gives me an incredibly hard time because I like to talk about food. Not just that there is food but what makes the food what it is. He says “Mom, you think you are a foodie”. Pshhaww! I also like beer and talk about the crafts brews I find on my travels. He never calls me a fake “beery” when I talk about choicest hops, barley and malt (Barn Owl Malt in Ontario – shameless plug for a friends Ontario Malt). So fun today, in the hotel lobby with all my bags packed waiting to run to the train station, to meet a Chef. I went to a great Genealogy Conference and met a Chef, The Edible Genealogist, Mark Drew, UE. (@ChefMark Drew)

Much more happened at the Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2018 than my last minute drool over meeting a Genealogist who is a Chef!

Meeting up with old friends all through out and networking rise to the top of the list for things to do at Conferences, but I got to spend 6 hours on Friday talking about my passion, Genetic Genealogy. Two workshops on DNA! I hope the confusion people brought with them to the sessions was lessened after we were done.

Ontario Genealogical Society Conference 2018 Round Up

Jonathon Vance’s opening Plenary Lecture was fabulous, just a fabulous way to start a Conference and then having Amy Johnson Crow weave threads of Jonathon’s lecture and other sessions into her closing lecture – It takes talent to recognize a thread and it takes something of a humble speaker to change her planned lecture, turn the phrase or theme touched on by other speakers and weave it into their own. Amy and Jonathon and all the rest of the speakers and venders and volunteers made the conference comfortable and consistent- it was very nice to have the theme carried through and tied with a bow.

The Conference was held on the sprawling campus of Guleph University in Guelph, ON. Beautiful setting with the architecture of the school marrying modern and historic buildings and green spaces into perfect symmetry. BUT. The Sprawling campus offered a unique challenge to the Conference co-chairs and committee. Getting all of us from our various hotels or campus residence rooms into the heart of the conference buildings. They had golf carts! A fleet of Golf Carts supplied by Family Search kept the attendees moving on time to our respective activities and sessions.

Take Away? Golf Carts Rock!

Well, the whole conference rocked really. Sessions on building a nation – Canada. Sessions on preserving our records. Sessions on how to care for our precious research once we have passed – What!? you haven’t included your genealogical research in your will? Or talked with the Genetic Genealogists about working to preserve your DNA for future researchers? I was talking about that and work Blaine Bettinger is doing with his Committee for the Preservation of DNA Records in my sessions.

I am headed home now.

I have a huge list of “to-dos” on the go from meetings and discussions had this weekend. Two of them promised while traveling on this very train back to my home. Promises made and promises kept and a sense of loss as I leave all the wonderful friends <appendage> I have and the new ones made and… the Chef? He is in the seat right in front of me.

A Chef who talks about the foods of our ancestors is sitting right in front of me. He is probably praying that I don’t lean over the chair and ask him questions again about the food that sustained Champlain on his initial forays into the Canadian shield – Sun Choke/Jerusalem Artichoke…and what about…