Links Family History Blog

Signed Up for RootsTech 2026?   Running this year from Thursday, March 5th to Saturday, March 7th, time is running out to sign up for your favourite courses at  RootsTech 2026 . Go to the  FamilySearch  website's Home page, then click on the RootsTech links to register. Start Your RootsTech 2026 Journey at the FamilySearch Home Page (click image to enlarge) What is RootsTech 2026? RootsTech is the annual global family history and genealogy learning conference hosted by FamilySearch. Customize your learning experience by choosing from a large variety of courses, webinars, and keynote addresses presented by premier genealogists in their field. From beginner to advanced skills development classes on a wide range of topics and themes, RootsTech 2026 has something for everyone. Why sign up for RootsTech? Free to attend online, or starting at $79 USD to attend in-person (at Salt Lake City, Utah, USA), RootsTech is a budget-friendly way to ramp up your DIY genealogy sk...

Researching French-Canadian roots? In this post I share one of my favourite free  online resources for researching and establishing my French-Canadian lineage. If your research is in the "collecting ancestors" phase (i.e., you are building out lineages in your family tree), this resource is especially well-documented and, in my view, foundational for budget-conscious DIY genealogy enthusiasts: Généalogie du Québec et d'Amérique française Fig. 1: Snip of the Home Page (French version) of Généalogie du Québec et d'Amérique française (click image to enlarge) Don't read French? The website offers an English version called Genealogy of Canada although the original source records they refer to (e.g., BMD or notarial records) are in French. What is it? Also known as NosOrigines ("Our origins"), the website hosts a crowd-sourced database of French-Canadian family lineages and individual records. It is free to search or to add your own family tree. If I'm stu...

Introducing Cole FAN: Henry A COLE.   In an earlier post,  "Cole FANs: Joshua Levi Cole" , I introduced the youngest child of my brick-wall ancestors - and founding Canadian COLE family members - Henry "Harry" COLE (Abt. 1790-1849) and his spouse Elizabeth "Eliza" CHURCHILL (Abt. 1790-1875). Now meet Joshua's oldest sibling, Henry A COLE. Fig. 1: The immediate family of Henry A COLE (1812-1897) (click to enlarge) Henry A COLE was the oldest of nine known children born to Canadian founders and parents Henry COLE and Elizabeth CHURCHILL. Of Irish Palatine and English-Irish descent, Henry was (probably) born in Ardcanny, County Limerick, Ireland and baptized on June 7, 1812. At the age of 12, he immigrated to Canada with his parents and younger brother Peter (and possibly sister Mary Jane) and settled near Streetsville in Toronto Township, Peel County, Ontario.  Not a lot of information survives about his family’s early years. But it is known that Henry’s...

Continued Progress. In an earlier post, I introduced a family mystery and a controversial family question:  Who was the biological father of my paternal grandmother?  In a recent update to that post, I discussed my approach and early progress on developing a research plan for identifying my grandmother Fern ELDER's biological father. Fig. 1: Fern Caroline ELDER in early 1954 In working to develop the broader research project plan, it became clear that a lot of traditional research would need to be performed to try to answer this research goal, with no guarantee of success. Without even a name for my grandmother's biological father, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack - not impossible, but definitely labour-intensive. The question had to be asked, "Was this effort necessary? Or was the answer already before me in research already done, or in DNA test results and associated matches already available?" The answer was, "Possibly." So, I paused...

From my family to yours, I wish you all the best this holiday season and for 2026.