Join us at a BCGS General Meeting

BCGS General Meetings are the second Wednesday of each month.

Please note that for the April 10, May 8, and June 12, 2013 general meetings, we wll be at the Danish Lutheran Church, Downstairs Hall, 6010 Kincaid St., Burnaby, BC. (The Edmonds Community Centre is closing so we will no longer be meeting there.)

Our Hospitality Committee will welcome you – anyone interested in genealogy and family history is welcome to attend.

Usually there is a short business meeting, followed by refreshments, and then either there will be a speaker, or two or three of the special interest groups (SIGs) will meet.

Meeting details, including information on the Special Interest Group sessions, are listed on the BCGS Calendar ahead of time. If you’d like to be in touch with a Special Interest Group facilitator before the meeting, see the BCGS SIG facilitators’ contact information here on the BCGS Education page.

Our BCGS Boutique and Publications Committee members are often at meetings with tables of books, BCGS publications and genealogical tools – and fun items too.

You’ll be free to see more about our past projects and talk to members about our current activities.  We hope you will then join us as a BCGS member! See BCGS Membership benefits and application information here.

BCGS General Meeting Reminder – Wednesday, 9 January 2013 – Burnaby

The first BC Genealogical Society Meeting of 2013 is Wednesday, January 9, 2013, at 7:30 pm, Edmonds Community Centre, 7282 Kingsway (Kingsway & Edmonds), Burnaby V5E 1G3.

Two group sessions after the general meeting:

Genealogy 101
European group

This will be the last night to enter the BCGS Bring-A-Friend Membership Contest!  To enter, or to renew your own membership, please see the friendly people at the Membership Committee table, or see the BCGS membership webpage to renew with PayPal.

BCGS General Meetings: the second Wednesday of every month, 7:30 pm at Edmonds Community Centre, 7282 Kingsway (Kingsway & Edmonds), Burnaby V5E 1G3.

BCGS Downtown Vancouver Genealogy Group meets 8 January 2013

The next Downtown Vancouver Genealogy Group meeting is Tuesday, 8 January, 2013 in the Board Breakout Room, 7th Floor at the Central Branch, Vancouver Public Library.

Bring your 2013 genealogy resolutions! And your questions and new tips too.

Our meetings in 2013 will all be on the 7th Floor in the Board Breakout Room. Our thanks to the Central Branch staff, Vancouver Public Library for their co-operation in providing space for us this year.

BCGS Christmas Social, December 2012

Some photos from the BCGS Christmas Social, held in Burnaby, December 2012.

BCGS members, Christmas social, 2012.

Left: BCGS members at the Christmas social, Judith Ueland, Elvin Meyers and Cynthia Hamilton.

 

BCGS journal volunteers, December 2012

 

 

BCGS Pocket Book Sale, December 2012

Above: BCGS journal volunteers, Shirley Hammer, Jean List and Elizabeth Christie.

Right: A feature of the BCGS annual Christmas social is the pocketbook sale. Shown at the front left is Richard P. Murray, the 2012 winner of the BCGS Most Improved Genealogist competition.

Photographs, courtesy BCGS member, George Caldwell.

BCGS Christmas Social Reminder – 12 December 2012 – Burnaby

MEETING REMINDER – The BC Genealogical Society Christmas Social will be Wednesday, December 12, 2012, at 7:30 pm, Edmonds Community Centre, 7282 Kingsway (Kingsway & Edmonds), Burnaby V5E 1G3.

Special Guests: Lisa Anne Smith & Barbara Rogers, authors of Our Friend Joe: The Joe Fortes Story (Ronsdale Press, 2012).

Our Friend Joe - book cover“When a young black man named Seraphim ‘Joe’ Fortes arrived in Vancouver in 1885, with little to his name, no one could have possibly suspected that one hundred years later he would be voted ‘Citizen of the Century.’ Our Friend Joe is the first biography of the West Indian sailor who became a local legend, saving dozens of lives and teaching three generations of Vancouver children how to swim. On a chance rowboat ride not far from the city, he would find his “perfect place” in English Bay, where the untold story truly begins.”

Also featured at the Social will be the BCGS annual pocket book sale and the announcement of the BCGS Most Improved for 2012.  Refreshments. All welcome.

BCGS General Meetings: the second Wednesday of every month, 7:30 pm at Edmonds Community Centre, 7282 Kingsway (Kingsway & Edmonds), Burnaby V5E 1G3.

BCGS Downtown Vancouver Genealogy Group meets 11 December 2012

The next Downtown Vancouver Genealogy Group meeting will be Tuesday, 11th of December, 2012 in a gallery room on Level 6 at the Central Branch, Vancouver Public Library.

Bring your latest finds and your questions too. New Year’s genealogical resolutions might be on the discussion list too!

Our thanks from the Downtown Vancouver Genealogy Group to the Central Branch, Vancouver Public Library for their co-operation in providing meeting space for us this year.

DNA Group Meeting Notes – Nov 24, 2012

A good meeting yesterday! Thanks everyone for attending. Here are the promised links and notes on a few things we covered.

Follow this link for a copy of the BCGS – Genetic Genealogy Handout (from April 2012).  This link is also posted on the BCGS Education Handouts page. One thing has changed – the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation sold its databases and testing company to Ancestry.com. For information about Sorenson (especially important if you contributed DNA to the Sorenson databases), see this previous DNA Group News article. And Ancestry.com is now offering new DNA genealogy testing, but not yet in Canada.

The DNA testing companies we talked about included:

FamilyTree DNA – tests on sale till 31 December 2012: http://www.familytreedna.com

23andMe – for health and genealogy DNA testing: https://www.23andme.com

National Geographic – new Gene 2.0 testing for deep ancestry:  https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/

The ‘Smith and Jones’ article I recommended reading is at Roberta Estes’ blog, DNAeXplained.

and Genome BC  has a good Education section which may be of interest: http://www.genomebc.ca/education/education-overview/

For those interested particularly in British Isles and Ireland DNA research, here are some links to projects and sites discussed.

The new book, Britain Begins by Barry Cunliffe (October 2012) is worth a read. Here is one review by Francis Pryor at In the Long Run.

People of the British Isles Project: http://www.peopleofthebritishisles.org

Irish DNA Atlas Project: http://www.familyhistory.ie/index.php/en/component/content/category/90-irish-dna-atlas-project

Scotland’s DNA, University of Edinburgh: http://www.orcades.ed.ac.uk/news.html

And Tyrone Bowes’s 3 websites:  English Origenes: http://www.englishorigenes.com , Scottish Origenes: http://www.scottishorigenes.com and Irish Origenes: http://www.irishorigenes.com

And lastly, here is a website link to Anna Hepburn, the actor who recently performed her play ‘Mary Queen of Scots: The Last Letter’ for Simon Fraser University’s Scottish Studies Department: http://www.annahepburn.com  (A great performance – if you’re interested in Scottish history, and you get a chance to see this play, do go – even if you’re not sure you’re related.)

M. Diane Rogers, BCGS DNA Group Facilitator