Most of us know who our parents and our grandparents were. Have you ever wondered about your great-grandparents and those who came before them?
There is a resource in this community for researching genealogies that many people don’t know about.
The local chapter of the Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) maintains a genealogy center next to its meeting place at the former Star Lake School.
Keeping track of genealogies is part of Mormon beliefs. They take is so far that they have millions of records from all over the world buried under a mountain near Salt Lake City. The information is available to everyone, Mormon or non-Mormon.
Phil Sansom recently volunteered to demonstrate how it works.
Your editor plans to take a trip to Scotland shortly to check out where all the McNeills came from. My family has good information about my great-grandfather, who apparently was born and died in Prince Edward Island.
According to a family tree left by one of my aunts, however, it was my great-grandfather’s great-grandfather who came from the island of Barra off the coast of Scotland in the 1770s.
With Sansom’s help and about an hour on the computer I was able to locate my great-grandfather’s family in the 1901 and 1881 Canadian censuses. The next step will be to try to find something about my great-great-grandfather.
If you’re interested in finding out what the genealogy center has to offer, give Phil Sansom a call at 250-674-0202.