I had the great pleasure of attending the Scottish Family History Workshop hosted by the Canadiana Department of the North York Central Library and the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society.
There were three speakers at the workshop: Chris Paton, Marian Press and James F.S. Thomson. Marian and James are excellent speakers and I had heard them speak on many occasions. Chris Paton had travelled from Scotland to present four lectures to the enthusiastic Toronto audience.
The audience members were not just from Toronto. I had travelled from Oakville and met others from Kingston and other parts of the province. Many of us knew Chris from his two blogs: Scottish GENES (Genealogy News and EventS) and Chris Paton: Walking in Eternity.
Chris did two plenary lectures “The Godly Commonwealth” and “Scottish House and Land History.” The first lecture provides a history of the many variations and types of churches to be found in Scotland.
The second lecture was the one I was particularly interested in hearing and I was not disappointed. Chris kindly went through an eleven page testament record of my four times Great Grandmother. It turns out she was a feuar of land that was part of the Blythswood Estate owned by Archibald Campbell. She got the rights to the land upon her husband’s death. Thanks to Chris I now understand the land system in Scotland a little better and have lots of research to do which may mean a trip to Scotland.
I had heard Chris talk about his “The Weavers of Perth” and “There’s Been a Murder” lectures on his blog so to actually get to hear them in person was a real treat.
Let’s hope this will be the first of many visits Chris makes to Canada to present lectures.
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Glad it helped Ruth – good luck with the rest of your research, and I’ll email you the full summary when I get back to Scotland! 🙂
Agreed, a very instructive day! Looking forward to more about your testament and the divorce case … more interesting than Highland stone walls.