I made enough handouts for 30 people (I heard somewhere that people like them), in addition to the master one I kept for myself to read from throughout the evening… the indenture form, my father’s “form of admission” and “visitation records”.

There was a huge crowd in attendance. Far more than the 30 I had expected My best guess would be upwards of 60 and maybe as many as 75. A number of visitors came because I was doing a talk on home children and they had home children in their ancestry. Others came because they had an interest in the subject. Folks came from Kingston, Perth and Ottawa just to see/hear “littl e old me”.

I’d like to say that for the hour I spoke and took questions from the floor, I had the audience eating out of my hands but I don’t think I was that good. Still, my presentation was well-received. And best of all, I wasn’t nervous!

I suppose it helped that I knew some of the folks from the genealogical society who were there, and a neighbour from when I was a little girl came, too. I had a chance to speak to him afterwards and he told me he didn’t recognize me at first, then I mentioned my father was a Home Child and he put two and two together and realized who I was.

Afterwards, it was great to speak to the folks who came up to ask me questions on a more personal (one on one) basis, or just chat.

My performance was recorded on video DVD so I’ll work on getting it up on my website or here on my blog.