Family History Fireside Chat – 7 May 2016

Recently, I had an opportunity to attend a Family History Fireside Chat which was sponsored by the Family History Centers of Newfoundland. This was originally planned as a one-day conference but because of lack of preregistrations, it was considered to be unfeasible to continue on as a conference.

As Lesley Anderson was scheduled to fly into St John’s from Ottawa and already had her ticket booked, there was a certain cost that had to be covered whether Lesley came or not. So, the decision was made to have her come and change the venue into a fireside chat. It gave Lesley a chance to tour St John’s and to visit places that she hadn’t been to before.

The committee decided to also ask Yvonne Sorenson from FamilySearch.org to also speak. Yvonne was invited to Skype in from Salt Lake City which is what she did.

There were four locations where you could go to attend the fireside chat. They were the chapels of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in St John’s, Bay Roberts, and Corner Brook as well as the meeting place for the members in Grand Falls-Windsor/Gander area. Those attending in St John’s, Bay Roberts, and Corner Brook were treated to a potluck dinner. Those attending in Grand Falls-Windsor had light refreshments during the fireside chat. This was because the facility in Grand Falls-Windsor is not big enough to be able to have a meal like the others and then immediately go into the other room for the program.

I am not sure of the attendance in the other locations, but in Grand Falls-Windsor, we had eight people in attendance. It looked like the other locations had approximately 20 to 30 people each. I personally think that, for this area and the fact that this is the first time that we have done this, the fireside chat was a success.

Lesley Anderson was the first speaker and spoke about Ancestry.ca. She explained how to get started on your family history as well as how Ancestry can help you with it. Ancestry has come out with some new initiatives and Lesley explained how they worked.

Yvonne Sorenson then spoke, giving a quick history of Newfoundland, the Atlantic provinces, and the northeastern states and how they related to each other. She then demonstrated what kind of records that are available online with FamilySearch.org and also mentioned some of the records that are available through Ancestry, Find My Past, and My Heritage. Yvonne also touched on the Indexing program and how anyone could index the records through this program. She mentioned that the Indexing program is about to make available some additional options that will be offered.

As we know, there are many records that are not available online as of yet. There are some in archives that may never be online. However, all of the records held in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City will eventually be online. In the meantime, these records are on microfilm that can still be ordered into Family History Centers for viewing. Personally, this is the case that I have, some of my records may be the last records to be digitized and put online. Living in Gander, we are hours away from the closest Family History Center, but, at least there are two here on the island.

This Family History Fireside Chat was an initiative that may have been a way of making the best of things for the conference, but I can see that it can produce good things. We are hoping that we will be able to continue with them, highlighting various organizations here in Newfoundland that hold records and explain how they can help us find and understand our ancestors.

My direct ancestors did not settle here in Newfoundland. My mother’s ancestors went to what is now Lanark County and Huron County in Ontario, and my father’s parents and grandparents left Liverpool and moved to Toronto.

However, there are records pertaining to my great-grandfather here in Newfoundland. This is part of the reason why my husband and I are here. These records are the ships logs for the British Merchant Marines for all the years except those ending in 5. These also have the crews’ lists. I am also thinking that I might be able to find some passenger lists in them as well. I have already made one trip to St John’s but I have more than just my great-grandfather who was a sailor in the Merchant Marine. I have a number of indirect ancestors who were sailors and I want to find their records and be able to tell their stories to my children, my grandchildren, and possibly even my great-grandchildren.

May we work towards finding the records of our ancestors to tell our descendants about these people who came before us. May Heavenly Father help us to find the records, the people and the stories to become the family historians that we need to be. May our ancestors help us by prompting us about where to look for this vital information. May our love for our families, past, present, and future grow to encompass every member from the babies that died so young to the parents and grandparents who guided their children, to the black sheep and the white sheep, the adventurers, the tree-huggers, those that stayed at home, and those that trusted that the future would be all that it could. These are they that come before us and come after us. Let us remember them all as we find them. Everyone deserves to be remembered no matter what they have or have not done.

Day One Of Field Trip April 2016

Today was my first day of travel. Before I could travel, I had to do a number of things that took me most of the day.

In order to pack for my trip, I wanted to do my laundry today so that I would have the maximum amount of clothing to choose from. Because of the time of year, I chose to bring both some lighter winter clothing and some spring/summer clothing. I had completed my laundry, folded my clothing, and took out what was not going. I had been thinking about taking my medium-sized suitcase. I even got it out and started to put a couple of things in. I looked at what I was bring and decided that there was no way that I would be able to put everything into my suitcase that I needed/wanted. So…. I pulled out the big suitcase. I will be gone for just over two weeks and I am bringing enough clothing that if I can’t get a load of laundry done, I have enough clothing except for underwear. I can wash out some underwear in the bathroom sink if need be.

I also didn’t get a chance to print some business cards yesterday. I set that up to print while I was trying to complete something else.

Before I was able to have the time to pack, I had a couple of medical appointments this morning. So, I was able to manage to get the laundry into the wash machine early enough that I was able to put the clothes into the dryer before I left for my appointments. A couple of months ago, my doctor had a blood test done for cholesterol and put me on some medication. Today, we were reviewing the results of a blood test that was done earlier this week. He was very happy with the results and is letting me go without the medication until I come home again. I just have to watch what I eat.

Every time I tried to complete a task so that I could get everything completed by the time my husband came home, something else came up. I almost forgot the books that I make annotations in regarding records that I find. I don’t know how many times I reopened my suitcase to add something more. I had to print off some flyers and invitations to a family history fireside chat in May.

Finally, I was able to pack my laptop and remembered that I should take a spare pair of glasses. I found about three pair that I can use as a spare pair. I almost forgot where the suitcase locks were. Finally, I was packed and I didn’t think that I had anything more that had to go in. I can just lift my suitcase to put it into the back of our vehicle. Fortunately, there will be a few things that won’t be coming back.

As most family historians know, when you visit an archive, you can get excellent service if you give them a little gift, preferably something from your part of the world. As most people that are going on this trip are from the Ottawa area, they are bringing souvenirs of Canada. I decided that I had to be different. I am the only person from Newfoundland going on this trip that I am aware of. So, about a month ago, I went looking. Do you realize how hard it is to find souvenirs when it is not tourist season? Well, I managed to find six shot glasses, three of each of two different designs, small Newfoundland flags, some large chocolate bars, and, we just happen to have a number of pins representation of the Canadian Army. I can only hope that these will work their magic for me and get me the help I need to find certain records.

By 5 pm, I had everything into the vehicle, my husband had changed and we opted to stop along the way at a Timmies for some supper. I just happen to have some gift cards for Timmies that we hadn’t used yet and we didn’t have to pay any money.

So, now, I am ready to crash to get some sleep before getting on a plane tomorrow morning to travel from St John’s, Newfoundland to Toronto, to meet my brother and most of the other members of our group going on our expedition.

My Life's Work and Life's Necessities

I wrote this article in October of 2014. It is now April of 2016 and we no longer live in the Ottawa Valley, but in Gander, Newfoundland. I completed the work for a certificate in Medical Transcription in December of 2014 and received my certificate a couple of months later.

It’s a drizzly day in October and I am sitting at my desk wondering what I should write about. I should have finished working on the Timberline over a week ago. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, my schedule for the last two weeks seemed to fly out of the window.

This year has been an extremely busy for me and it is not quite finished. Since January, I have been working on a certificate in Medical Transcription and I will be finished in December. I have been working online at home for all of the courses, nine in all. The reason that I have been doing this is that Veterans Affairs decided last year that it was time for me to prepare to return to full employment outside of my home. Since they are providing an income for me and were willing to pay for the education upgrading, I was obliged to cooperate.  Thus far, it had not interfered with the publication of the Timberline. I do not anticipate any other problems with working on the Timberline.

Other people have had to do similar. It’s just disappointing that I do not have the credentials to be able to work in the genealogy field. Maybe, someday I will have those credentials. It will take time, money and effort on my part in order to accomplish this. Right now, I have the interest in doing this but I don’t feel that this is the right time. I have said before that everything happens for a reason. I don’t presently know why I was to prepare for employment in the medical field. However, I know that when the time is right, I will know the reason. It might be as simple as eventually being able obtain a position with an online company and working from home. It could just as well be that there is someone out there somewhere that I will be able to either help, or influence in a positive way and this is the route that I need to take in order to do this.

My time in the Ottawa Valley is not finished yet. It may be that there is still work that I need to do here. It is my firm belief that I will be here until the right time comes that we are to move, whether it is because my husband needs to be in another location, or I have completed the work that I was to do.

I believe that family history is a major part of the reason why we came to the Ottawa Valley in the first place. If I had been in the Niagara Region when I retired from the Military, I may not have learned what health problems that I have. I may not have been at home as long as I have been. Being here has given me the opportunity to start to learn how to research thoroughly for my ancestors. It has also given me the opportunity to visit Lanark County looking for records on the family that four years ago I knew next to nothing about. I have also learned that I have a rich French Canadian heritage that I have just begun to research. Come the new year, I will need to learn to fit family history around the future employment schedule that I will have.

I still want to do the day trips to find the records that I need, but I will need to take my future employment into consideration. I will also need to learn to balance employment, family history responsibilities, church responsibilities, and personal downtime in a manner that allows me the most flexibility.

I enjoy working on my family history. It is refreshing to me that when my brother asks whether I have found anything new, I can say, “Yes”, and then be able to let him know what it is that I have found. It is my life’s work that I am doing when I work on family history. The employment will give me the financial ability to do so.

In this article, I mentioned about the purpose of our time in the Ottawa Valley. I would like to emphasis that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. We may not know what the reason was until much later in life. Sometimes, things happen for a number of reasons. For example, our move to Newfoundland was for more than one reason. There are records in St John’s that I need to access for my family history. I have a number of mariners in my family history and these records will explain things that happened. 

The second reason was that my husband needed to go to a job that was not as demanding as his job was before we left the Ottawa Valley.

The third reason was that my husband and I both have a number of years of experience as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that we have skills that we have already put to use here. It was as if the Lord had said that He would give us Newfoundland so that I could do my research and in return, we would assist in the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so thankful that I have already had the opportunity of doing some research in St John’s and I know that I will be able to go again. 

The Drive Home

Earlier today, I drove into Grand Falls-Windsor from Gander. It usually takes approximately an hour to do so. I had a number of things that I needed to attend to, the last of which was to watch a recording of the women’s session of General Conference for church which took place last Saturday. If there is a broadcast slated for anything after 6 pm Central Time, we make arrangements to get together within a few days to watch the video. Since today was the day that we planned to do this, I decided to go into Grand Falls-Windsor to do the other things that I had to do. A couple of them did not take very long, but another visit that I wanted to do would take perhaps an hour, maybe more. I was able to complete the smaller tasks, but, unfortunately, I was not able to do the last task. Someone else was to be involved with it and, because I had a problem contacting this person, I was not able have a meeting with her.

In the meantime, Samantha called me to see if I could give her a ride to the Chapel on my way in. She did not realize that I was already there and we made arrangements for me to meet her at her house.

Because we have a member that lives in Gander but spends part of her workweek in Grand Falls-Windsor, the decision was made to have a potluck supper before watching the video so that Evelyn would not have to go all the way to Gander and back. Evelyn was looking forward to this activity. However, something came up so that she was unable to attend.

Samantha and I had a good visit while we were waiting for others to arrive. We had five women ready to sit down when we received confirmation of Cathy coming. We felt that we would not have enough for all of us, so the decision was made to order in a pizza. Cathy arrived just as we were ready to eat, so we started with what we had and the pizza arrived about 15 minutes later. We finished our meal with banana bread, maple mini cupcakes, and apple pie.

Within 15 to 20 minutes, we had everything cleaned so that we wouldn’t have to do it late and started the video. It was agreed that all of us enjoyed it. It was worth the effort that we made.

We walked out of the door about 8:30 pm and were greeted with about a half inch of snow on the ground. The car had to be cleaned off. I took Cathy and Samantha home, which was easy as they live on the same street. Then Henriette and I started the drive back to Gander. That’s when the “fun” started. It was dark. The snow was blowing. The road was potentially slippery. Most of the trip was done at less than 80 kilometers per hour with a good chunk of time at just under 70 kilometers per hour. There was a couple of spots that I could go as high as 95 to 100 kilometers per hour. What should have taken approximately an hour took at least 90 minutes to do. We finally reached Gander and both gave a sigh of relief. We were blessed.

The next time this happens, I am going to a motel and calling my husband to tell him not expect us back until the next day.

Introducing Me

I am the Wanderer. I currently live in what is considered a semi-isolated community in Newfoundland. I call myself the Wanderer because I have lived in many places, some of which I liked and others were not so well liked.

I do have opinions which I will be expressing in this blog. These are my opinions and not my spouse's. I am a family historian and will "spout off" about things to do with family history or genealogy. I will also be expressing my religious convictions. If you do not agree with my comments or convictions, do not hesitate to express your opinion. I cannot hold your opinions against you but I will not tolerate any off colour comments or foul language. If I deem that your language is foul, I will delete your comment. If you wish to use my blog as a rant against any religion, think again. It will not be tolerated. Yes, I am Christian. No, I don't like the fact that there is terrorism going on in the world in the name of religion. There are good people and bad people in every religion. 

Please, do not be offensive in your comments.