April 25, 2017 - DNA for Genealogy - Sharie Argue

The guest speaker at our April meeting was Sharie Argue. She has been President of The Clan MacKenzie Society of Canada since 2013 and is also the Commissioner for Saskatchewan with the society.

Sharie is a very committed amateur genealogist with a database of over 50,000 collected through personal research, with contributions from cousins worldwide. Reading history books and studying maps, traveling, and interviewing others provided much of her information. More recently, her research also includes DNA testing.

The Y-DNA test provides information about the direct paternal line. The Y chromosome is passed from father to son, with very few mutations. The Y-67 marker testing will provide enough information to be useful in genealogy research. If you are a female, the Y-DNA information for your father’s ancestors can be obtained by testing your father, your brother, or an uncle or male cousin who has the direct male lineage to a shared paternal ancestor.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from a mother to all of her children. The mtDNA testing can be done on males or females to learn more about the maternal line.

The Autosomal DNA testing may not be as useful for genealogy research because it tests for DNA that you have received from both of your parents. It will be difficult to differentiate between your maternal and paternal lines when using autosomal DNA results.

After the presentation there was a discussion about the various companies that offer DNA testing.

March 28, 2017 - Picture Perfect - Renae Grubb

At our March monthly meeting, Renae Grubb provided guidance on how to preserve our family photos. She gave recommendations for organizing the photos and safely preserving them. Renae also showed us a few of the family albums that she has made, as examples of her techniques.

Store your photographs and albums in rooms that you are living in, as room temperature is the best environment for preserving photographic items. Always avoid a damp basement or a hot attic as locations for keeping your photos. Sunlight can damage photos that are on display.

Magnetic album pages are chemically destroying the photos that are securely attached to the cardboard. The first priority should be to get those photos out of the albums. Dental floss may be helpful in removing photos that are stuck on. Any photos that are difficult to remove should be scanned on the computer, before attempting to remove them from the album. In some cases you may have to cut around the cardboard and leave the photo attached to the cardboard.

Gather the photos and begin to sort them. Use many 12x12 inch pieces of cardboard to simulate album pages, and set your sorted photos on the cardboard sheets. The best and most meaningful photos can be organized into themes (special events or family branch). Next place these in chronological order and then arrange as album pages. Leave room on the pages for documenting and adding other keepsake items.

Double photos can go into your research folder or there may be another family member who would like to have a copy. Photos of mystery people or places should be kept and shared with distant relatives, who might be able to identify people in your photos.

Photos that you wish to preserve can be scanned on the computer. These photos can easily be shared with others. Be sure to make a back up copy of these scanned photos.

The original photos can be stored in photo albums. Use photo albums and products that are acid-free and lignin-free. With scrapbook style photo albums you can document the history right on the album page. Include family stories, handwritten letters, your feelings, recipes, etc. Store albums upright on shelves, which provides less pressure and abrasion on the photos.

    Homestead registers and homestead files
    Historical maps including township survey maps and Cummins maps
    Community history books
    Henderson’s city directories for Regina
    Many Saskatchewan newspapers, on microfilm
    Passenger manifests for ships that arrived in eastern Canada, on microfilm
    Department of Education records concerning early school districts

Feb 28 2017 - Legacy Genealogy Program Part I - Chris Krismer

Chris Krismer introduced us to the Legacy program and explained how to use several of the options that are available in the program. She demonstrated how to add a child to a family and then showed the various ways that the family information can be viewed.

If you decide that a person does not belong in a particular family, you can “unlink” that individual and their information is still in the program. Names with variant spellings can be entered with an Alternate Name. A source citation should be entered for every event and additional notes can also be added. If entering a location or a source citation that has already been entered into the program, you can select it from a drop-down list instead of typing it in again. Additional events or facts can be entered to create a timeline for a family member. Some useful facts could be an alternate birth date or death date, schooling completed, naturalization, residence at each location and medical events.

The program can be customized to suit your preferences. The names of those who are in your direct line can be displayed in bold. The font colour for the children’s names can be set to distinguish between girls, boys and unknown gender.

TO BE CONTINUED...
Chris will continue her presentation in May, with Legacy Genealogy Program Part II scheduled for our meeting on Tuesday, May 23. This gives us an opportunity to start using the program and to try out the many hints that Chris suggested before we learn additional information about Legacy.

Nov 24 2015 - The Importance of Using Maps - Pat Ryan

Back by popular demand, Pat Ryan gave this insightful presentation at the AGM.
Maps play an intrinsic part in solving virtually every genealogical puzzle.
How could this couple have met? Did they move, or did the border of some juristiction
or name of their village change? Which church did they attend and would it have kept
their records? Did they travel far to attend school or work, or was it just next door?
Land holdings far apart or right together?
Historical maps are crucial in family history research. Maps come in various scales,
from extremely local and detailed, to world-wide, each useful for different purposes.
There are also many types, such as political, physical and topographical.
They display different information, including land ownership, parish borders,
population, weather, and such things as migration and trade patterns.
Have at least one relevant map handy while doing your research. Use maps often.
Pat has graciously given us permission to post the handout from her presentation,
which contains links to several websites featuring maps useful to genealogists.
Visit Pat at her blog: PastRelations Genealogy Family History.

From your priority list,
create a plan, do your research, and log each search (successful or not.)

Tue Nov 25 - Who's Your Momma? - Pat Ryan
Pat Ryan, popular Regina-based professional genealogy researcher and educator,
presented one of her popular interactive programs at our AGM.

She started us off with two innocuous-looking reports from rural newspapers:
a bridal shower and a wedding. Both contained a couple of village names and
long lists of participants, with husbands' initials rather than first names.
First: Consult a map for the exact location of the places named, and their relationships.
Second: Read very very slowly and carefully. Don't leave anything out.
Many of the names become relevant to your research, although initially you may care
only about the bride. Such secondary sources tell so much about the social history
and context of your ancestor's life, providing many clues to the fuller life story.
And they may lead to primary sources such as birth, marriage and death certificates.

Later, Pat revealed that the subject of our detective work was her own mother.
The bride's history was far more complicated than appeared from a village
wedding report. For example, she went by 7 or 8 different names in her lifetime.
Family history is not always as straightforward as it may appear!

See Pat's blog at PastRelations Genealogy Family History
and her bio on The National Institute for Genealogical Studies website.

Pat and Gerry took us through the history, describing the many categories of Loyalist,
and what documentation each needed to be officially recognized as UEL
for the purpose of land grants and other privileges.

Descendants of the original Loyalists are entitled to the Hereditary Title "U.E.",
Canada's only hereditary title. Proving that descent requires all of the rigor needed
to prove any genealogical descent. At least one piece of primary source evidence is required to connect each generation to the next, although a preponderance of multiple pieces of secondary source evidence may be accepted in some cases.