Links Family History Blog

My personal experience with do-it-yourself genealogy. With this post I begin a new series called, "DIY Genealogy." I will be sharing my personal approach (a collection of my own experiences, insights, tips and methods) to conducting and coordinating amateur "do-it-yourself" genealogy research. Why do-it-yourself genealogy? When I first started researching my family's history over 15 years ago, I often wished that this hobby (passion, obsession) of mine came with an instruction manual, or a genealogy coach.  At the time, I lived in a remote community in northern Canada, so I was always researching at a distance. Access to online help and resources were only starting to become more widely available and it seemed too early in my research efforts to go to the expense of hiring a professional genealogist.  When getting started on my research, I didn't know enough about what I wanted, so how could I explain it to a professional genealogist? Being budget-conscious,...

Family Line Founder Series With this first ancestor profile featuring my 3rd great-grandmother, I begin a series of posts about relatives who immigrated to Canada and were the first to found their respective family lines - in other words, my family's first Canadians.  Their names and stories, even with only the barest of details known, tell the story of the European settlement of Canada at a human level. Remembering these individuals recognizes their courage in leaving behind all that was familiar - family, friends, their homeland - for the dream of a new and better life in a wild and sometimes harsh new world. Eliza Emma (Essex) Sutton (1850-1919) Eliza Emma Essex (ca. 1910) On this day, the 105th anniversary of her death, I wish to remember my 3rd great-grandmother: family-line founder Eliza Emma Essex.  Born in Stepney, England (a region of East London) on 14 March 1850, Eliza was the only child born to middle-class father William Essex (a manufacturing chemist and widower)...

Access Family Histories and other research materials at Ontario Ancestors. The Family Histories page of the Huron County Branch ( Ontario Ancestors ) website just helped me with a research breakthrough. If you're a member of the Huron County Branch of the Ontario Ancestors genealogical society, check it out; if not, consider joining the society and subscribing to the Huron County Branch to view this and many other family histories of Huron County, Ontario pioneers. After years of beating my head against a difficult brick wall, I began working a hunch that my 4th great-grandmother Elizabeth (Churchill) Cole (abt 1790-1875) from Tipperary, Ireland was somehow related to a newly-discovered group of families, the Goderich Township Churchills.  Poking around the Huron County Branch's Family Histories web page (located under Members Corner), I recently found a scan of the family history of the Goderich Churchills (called, The Churchill Family of Huron County, Ontario, Canada ) by Da...