Links Family History Blog

Introducing the BRANT family.   In this post, I introduce my father's paternal grandparents, Canadian BRANT family founders Jack BRANT and his spouse Edith Jane BROWETT. Meet Jack BRANT. The first ancestor in my BRANT family line to migrate to Canada, Jack BRANT was born on 9 February 1876 at 39 Caroline Street in the industrial city of Leicester, England. Son of a bricklayer, Jack was the youngest of two children born to parents John BRANT and Elizabeth RICHARDSON. Fig. 1: Snip from Jack's birth registration recording his 9 February 1876 birth in Leicester, England.  (Photo credit: General Register Office of England, 2008; click to enlarge) By the time Jack was five years old, the family was living within St. Margaret’s Parish in Leicester, at 25 South Church Gate. By 1891, when Jack was 15 years old, he was already working as a shoe maker. His family still lived in the same parish but had moved to 47 Grafton Place. When he was 20 years old Jack married Edith Jane BROWET...

Two Favourite Scottish Ancestor Resources In this post, I talk about two DIY genealogy resources that, in my experience, are foundational to researching Scottish ancestors in Canada and in Scotland. For those interested in researching their Scottish heritage but aren't sure where to start, as a Canadian genealogy enthusiast with Scottish heritage these two resources have stood out for me as being invaluable:  Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada before Confederation (Volumes 1-4); and Scotland's People online database with pay-to-view scans of original documents. Disclaimer: This post is not a paid endorsement and I do not receive any royalties or associate fees from either Ontario Ancestors or Scotland's People; my discussion of these resoruces reflects my own personal opinion and research experience, which I freely share in the spirit of collaboration. Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada before Confederation Compiled from primary sources and family lore coll...

AncestryDNA's October 2025 Update AncestryDNA overhauled how it categorizes and presents DNA results, and rolled out this change in October 2025 on their popular DNA platform. For my AncestryDNA kit, that meant a big change to the breakdown of my Ancestral Regions and some interesting historical context added to my Ancestral Journeys. (See also blog page The Inside (DNA) .) AncestryDNA Summary Report - After the October 2025 Update Ancestral Regions My previous 6 ancestral regions that broadly aligned with national boundaries or broad ethnic regions, are now broken out into 13 ancestral regions that reflect more precise local ethnicities - ones which don't necessarily translate easily into the earlier broad regional categories. (For example, 26% France has been refined to 12% French Canada...but it is not clear how the remaining 13% France was reallocated - possibly being lumped into the new region Southeastern England & Northwestern Europe).  What was previously my 6 ances...

The Search Begins.   In an earlier post, I introduced a family mystery and a controversial family question: Who was the biological father of my paternal grandmother?   In that post, I discussed this particularly emotional brick wall and shared some of the currently-known information and some frustrating roadblocks.  To try to overcome some of those roadblocks, I committed to engaging in a more methodical research process, one set out in the Family Locket Genealogists ' books, Research Like a Pro: A Genealogist's Guide (2018)  and  Research Like a Pro with DNA (2021).  In this post, I will share some progress after completing initial steps discussed in their first book. Initial Progress.  After working through the intial research steps, I have established the following in the quest to identify my paternal grandmother's biological father: Research Question (Type - To prove a family relationship.) Who were the biological parents of my paternal grandm...