Researching Indigenous Ancestors in Northern Ontario
This presentation will cover aspects of researching Indigenous people in Northern Ontario, as it presents unique challenges. I will cover researching online using Ancestry and FamilySearch, using Library and Archives Canada to access Government records, and taking advantage of local archives and local historians. Some challenges include the lack of indexing in the censuses for Northern communities; the shifting of regional names, boundaries, community locations, and community names; lack of birth, marriage, and death records; and difficulties in determining what Residential School, if any, an ancestor may have attended.
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Jenna Lemay
- currently work for the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre at Algoma University in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario as the Digital Archives Technician.
- previously worked for the Brantford Branch of the Ontario Genealogy Society in 2017 as a summer student researcher where she helped numerous people looking for information on Indigenous ancestors, mostly from Six Nations.
- carried out two presentations on this topic for the OGS, one on May 27, 2018 as part of the Sunday Speaker Series, and another on November 3, 2018 as part of the Researching Indigenous Families workshop
- greatly interested in the topic of Indigenous genealogy and would love the opportunity to help teach people how to carry this out
