“Tracing Your Family Tree”
Genealogy Workshop
Saturday, May 3, 2014 in Castlegar
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of the West Kootenay Family Historians Society, the society and Selkirk College are sponsoring a genealogy workshop on Saturday, May 3, 2014 designed to meet the needs and interests of family tree beginners as well as experienced researchers.
The “Tracing Your Family Tree“ workshop will go from 10 am to 4 pm at Selkirk College. The workshop fee of $30 plus GST includes lunch. Register through Selkirk College Registration 250 365-1208 or email castlegarce@selkirk.ca
SESSIONS:
Did you glean all there was from the Census record? – Donna Fraser 10am-11:25am, Sentinel Room 220
Census records are one of the most useful sources for family history research. They show the family living together on a given date with names, relationships, age, occupation and place of birth. Those are the main topics that researchers are interested in but there is often much more if we dig a little deeper. In this talk Donna will show the additional information that you can learn about your family.
Local history as viewed through historic West Kootenay postcards – Greg Nesteroff noon–12:45 pm, Room 220
Greg will present a show of historic Slocan Valley postcards from his collection.
Effective use of the universal genealogy web site https://familysearch.org — Richard Wolff OPTION A 1pm–2:20pm, Room 222
The old way of doing things at Family History Centres involved Personal Ancestry File (PAF), an early genealogical program going back to the 1980s; the International Genealogical Index (IGI) with 187 million names (including 58 million from England and Wales), Ancestral File, integrated Latter Day Saints (LDS) member-submitted genealogies; and Pedigree Research File (PRF) of stand alone submitted genealogies. These have been succeeded by https://familysearch.org , encompassing:
Search – billions of names across hundreds of collections;
WIKI – Get research advice or learn where to find record collections;
Forums – Ask and answer questions;
Catalogue – Search the catalogue of books, online materials, microfilm, microfiche, and publications;
Learning Centre – Hundreds of online genealogy courses;
Family Tree – The family of man starting with you; and
Indexing – Volunteers create digital indexes for scanned images of historical documents.
Aboriginal issues in genealogy
— Jackie Cole OPTION B 1pm-2:20pm, Gathering Place
Jackie will share the “Four R`s of Indigenous Story Work“ as laid out by Joanne Archibald of UBC. She will use her family and the topic of genealogy to explore how we learn value for our current lives by exploring our personal stories from our ancestors. The 7-generation perspective will be part of this.
Planning a successful family history research trip
– Donna Fraser 2:30pm–4pm, Room 220
This talk is based on Donna’s experience in the last dozen years with travel across Canada, trips to Salt Lake City and annual trips to Britain to do family history research. She’ll demonstrate the preparation you should do before you leave home, explain the types of record repositories that you’ll use, and give tips for planning your visit, mapping a strategy and how to spend your time wisely once at your destination. This presentation will help you plan a research trip to the nearest LDS Family History Centre, a library or archives, or a trip to your ancestral country of origin.
Plus exhibits, displays, prize draws and demonstrations
For more information, contact Sam at 250 365-9860 or Inge at 250 367-0076, email to wkfhs@shaw.ca, Twitter @wkfhs, or www.wkfamilyhistorians.wordpress.com
clockwise, from top left: Donna Fraser, Richard Wolff, Jackie Cole and Greg Nesteroff
Presenters:
Donna Fraser is Director of Education for one of the largest family history societies on Vancouver Island.
Donna has been doing family history research for over 25 years and is passionate about the subject. She has given presentations to various family history societies within British Columbia and Britain and looks forward to her return visit to Selkirk College.
Richard Wolff is a lifelong genealogist and Director of the Family History Centre in Trail.
Richard and his wife Nina were among the founding members of the West Kootenay Family Historians Society, and continue as active members of the society today.
Greg Nesteroff , writer and historian, is renowned in the West Kootenay and beyond as a skilled reporter who keeps on top of the issues of the day, and as an enthusiastic and rigorous researcher uncovering remarkable stories of the region`s past.
Jackie Cole is a Metis woman whose family have been moving slowly west across Turtle Island for the last 500 years. She has lived in the West Kootenays for most of her life and finds inspiration and peace in the territory of the SINIXT people. As a Music Therapist and Aboriginal Educator she is constantly interweaving story, culture and history into her interactions both professionally and personally.
She is a descendant of fur-traders, slaves, farmers, European aristocrats, slave owners, and peasants spanning 12 cultures. Jackie lives in the Slocan Valley with a partner who is of Doukhobor heritage, and says her two sons are the only people she knows who have more cultural diversity than her.
Thank you:
The West Kootenay Family Historians Society gratefully acknowledges the financial support of this workshop by Teck Trail Operations and the Kootenay Savings Credit Union.
thebravestcanadian 
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