Sudbury District branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society

By Vicki Gilhula

Lynn Gainer grew up listening to her grandparents’ stories. But when she started digging deeper into family history, she got a surprise.
Her Scottish maternal grandmother, Alice Foster, had a secret she never shared even with close family members. She was one of approximately 110,000 British children who came to Canada as indentured farm labourers or domestics between 1869 and 1948.
https://www.britishhomechildren.com/
Few British home children were orphans. Most were from large poor or working- class families, and despite their parents’ hopes that they would have a better life in Canada, many faced hardships.
Home children, who were indentured to the age of 18, were often neglected and overworked by their Canadian hosts and considered intellectually inferior.
Alice was ashamed of her humble roots and, like many home children, never talked about her early years in Canada, said Gainer, who followed up her discovery with research into the relatively little-known immigration scheme run by charitable organizations.
Gainer joined the Sudbury District branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) shortly after it was started in 1979 by Gary Peck, a popular history teacher and city councillor.
https://www.sudbury.com/obituaries/peck-gary-10353807
Over the years, the branch has grown to 110 members as interest in tracing family history has become a popular hobby especially for people in their prime.
Retirees have the time to do the research and are often motivated to leave family history to their grandchildren, said Gainer, who is the chair of the Sudbury branch.
“When the television show “Roots” (1977) came out, people really started to get interested. And in those days (before the internet and digitalized records), it involved paper, letter writing, microfilm and dusty archives in museum and church basements.”
An Ipsos Reid poll on behalf of Ancestry.ca found 80 per cent of Canadians said they are interested in learning more about their family’s history. Reasons for this interest include general curiosity and wanting to learn about their family’s health history.
Although websites such as Ancestry.ca make it easier to do research, OGS membership provides many benefits, said Nancy Vaillancourt, the branch’s program and social media co-ordinator.
In addition to guest speakers and networking opportunities, OGS members receive newsletters and can access monthly webinars and OGS databases.
They also pick up tips about how to use free online sites including one that translates into English and summarizes records from foreign countries. Members who are doing research outside of Sudbury are invited to join other Ontario branches for a small additional fee.
Meetings with guest speakers are held on the third Tuesday of the month (except in the summer) and a drop-in general discussion session is held on the last Thursday of the month at the main branch of the Greater Sudbury Public Library on MacKenzie Street.
“The first meeting is a presentation followed by questions and answers. It is available on Zoom for anyone who wants to hook up anywhere in the world… from across Canada, the States and Europe,” said Vaillancourt, who first fell in love with history as a teenager thanks to her Grade 10 teacher.
One of her first searches was her grandfather’s World War One records. “When I saw his signature at the bottom (of the page), I cried.
“When I retired, I had more time, and I got really involved.”
Vaillancourt had always thought her father’s people were Scottish. She too got a surprise and a history lesson. Her ancestors were Scots-Irish immigrants who had moved to northern counties in Ireland from Scotland about a hundred years before coming to Canada.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Scots_Irish
Future guest speakers at Sudbury branch meetings are Robbie McCauley presenting on the 1910 Spanish River derailment, Liisa Kovala discussing Sudbury during the 1930s, and Terry Martyn speaking about Ukrainian-Canadians.

The Sudbury genealogists maintain a large collection of books and documents at the main branch of the library where the city’s local history collection is also housed.
But “it is not about dates, it is about the stories,” Gainer said.
Both Vaillancourt and Gainer have made contact with distant relatives who they found in their searches.
Vaillancourt met a fourth generation cousin at a genealogy conference in London, Ont., after first discovering their shared DNA with a testing kit. Their Irish third great-grandfathers were brothers.
“We have become good friends ever since and found out some amazing things,” she said.
Beginning genealogists can find a treasure chest of free information on the Canada.ca website https://www.canada.ca/en/library-archives/collection/research-help/genealogy- family-history.html
Be careful, genealogy is addictive.

Vicki Gilhula is a freelance writer for Sudbury.com