News

Katherine Gilks, Education Coordinator at Heritage Saskatchewan

From April 15-17, 2016, I had the privilege of attending the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society’s 2016 Conference entitled Diving Into the Genealogy Pool. It was an excellent and educational event. For those just getting into studying their family history, the weekend was a chance to learn about the various resources available and the different ways in which one can share their family stories. It was also an opportunity to learn a lot more about the history of our province and country.

Family history and genealogy are fascinating in part because it is not about the wealthy, famous, and influential. It is about the everyday, ordinary person. With Heritage Fairs upon us, I look forward to all of the projects, but I especially look forward to learning about students’ family stories. Many of these are new and unshared, specific to each student’s family. Furthermore, the students have gained insight into and experience with their own relatives and personal heritage. Even if they do not win any awards, these students have built connections within their families.

Genealogy is often something that one gets into as one ages. Tracing back one’s ancestors can be time-consuming and more conducive to a retiree’s schedule. However, especially with online resources and digitalization of records, it is becoming easier for anyone to take a few hours and do some research. It is easy to take older relatives for granted that they will always be there – until they are not. Waiting for retirement to explore one’s family history only means that the most important connections to the past – parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and older cousins – have gone. Hearing about the past from those who lived it is worth much more than all of the records in the world no matter how accurate they are.

But even living memory only goes so far. At some point, even if one gets into family history early in life (as I did), it is impossible to have a living connection with one’s ancestors. Everything becomes fuzzy as records are patchy, memory mixes with legend, and language/education barriers creep up. After 150 to 200 years, genealogy becomes a list of names and dates.

That is why stories, and Living Heritage, are important. This is what gets passed down the generations. Not everyone will have a passion for family history – especially when it seems to involve nothing but names & dates, but passing down stories and traditions is what gets the one or two individuals in the family interested to learn more. Every generation or two, there is someone who finds a passion for both the names & dates and the stories.

Furthermore, names & dates invite further stories and speculation in of themselves! How did the 35-year-old Prussian end up married to a 16-year-old Irishwoman? Why does the same woman have four first names? How did someone miss being on the census? What was it like to be an early immigrant to what would eventually be Canada? What various places did they travel to? How many ways was the same name spelled? Where did cousins end up?

Some of these questions can be easily answered, but most cannot – at least, not definitively. But they are nonetheless part of my family’s story, as well as that of many other families. Our heritage is more than names & dates.

Genealogy is indeed like a pool to dive into, and one can swim as deep as one wants.