We’ve all been obligated to face many new challenges this year, and it was with some concern that the Historical Society of Ottawa chose to make a transition to on-line meetings so that we can continue to reach out to our members and the community during this difficult time. We weren’t certain how well the transition would go. Perhaps people might pass on HSO presentations if they were to be presented via computer. However, for our second online lecture we gathered 86 participants. That compares favourably to some of our most well-attended live meetings.

Our October guest speaker is no stranger to on-line communication. As a part-time teacher at the University of Ottawa, Jo-Anne McCutcheon has been working with her students through Zoom since COVID restrictions began.

Jo-Anne talked about the many resources available to students, historians, genealogist and researchers online. Her presentation, which you can watch anytime at the HSO website, shows how to link to newspapers (current and historical), photo galleries, documents, academic papers, and records of meetings of Parliament. Jo-Anne’s presentation walks you through the process of creating your own files for storing information and even adding and sharing your own content.

You may be surprised to find out just how much is out there to help you do research or just surf the web for sites with unique, authentic historical content. In this HSO presentation, Jo-Anne has picked out some of her favourite sites and shows how to take advantage of their features.

You can link to Jo-Anne’s presentation by visiting our website, and choosing Videos on the ‘Resources’ tab.