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Bursting with useful information!  Looking for a free resource for your Scottish ancestors in Quebec, Canada? Try the Huntingdon Gleaner Extracts  hosted by the Huntingdon County branch of the  Canada GenWeb  genealogy website. Fig. 1: Gleaner Extracts indexed by year at Huntingdon County GenWeb The Gleaner newspaper was established in 1863 and included regions such as Elgin, Godmanchester and Huntingdon in Beauharnois Regional County (now part of Monteregie Region), Quebec, Canada.  It is notable that the newspaper's first editor, Robert Sellar, also wrote a contemporary social history on the area,  The History of the County of Huntingdon and the Seigniories of Chateauguay & Beauharnois from their settlement to 1838  (published by The Canadian Gleaner in 1888). An early settler to this region my founding ELDER ancestor, George ELDER, Sr. (1780-1848) , is mentioned in this work. The Gleaner Extracts are are primarily birth, marriage, and...

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...

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...