Speaker - BCGS Members Meeting
10 September 2025
About Linda Yip
Brickwalls and Breakthroughs: how researching a historic B.C. family made me an Accredited Genealogist®
Presented by: Linda Yip
This is a story with layers. On one level, it’s the story of the Won (温) family, who had a baby in Port Douglas, Colony of British Columbia, in abt. 1861. This baby would grow up to be a famous Canadian in his own right, and one of Canada’s first Chinese Canadian citizens. It’s also a story about finding records for finding a pre-confederation family and how that took the author into archives from Vancouver to Winnipeg. Finally, it’s a story about reaching for the genealogy stars and becoming Canada’s first AG® in the region of Canada Western Provinces.
Photo taken in Edmonton, August 2025, beside a framed quote by Linda,
at an exhibition of Canadian Chinese.
"Here's to the laborers, who raised generations of professionals.”
Linda Tracey Yip (葉秀映) was born in Vancouver, BC. Her family's historic home - the Wing Sang Company - is today the site of Canada's national Chinese Canadian Museum.
Linda is an Accredited Genealogist® professional in the region of Canada Western Provinces, encompassing BC, AB, SK, and MB. She is the first Canadian to hold an AG® in this region. As a professional genealogist, Linda has traced families in Canada, China, the U.K., and the U.S., with a speciality in the records created by Canada's Chinese Immigration Act (1885-1947). She has worked on several documentaries, the most recent being “Exclusion: Beyond the Silence,” (2024), with Keira Loughran. Linda is a member of the Ancestry® Canada Advisory Board of Genealogists. Linda has lived in BC, AB, NS, and spent a year in Massachusetts. She currently resides in Saskatoon with her husband.