Tag: BCGS

52W Mark III – Week 50: Chosen Family

As Amy noted in describing this week’s prompt for the 52 Ancestors Challenge, family isn’t just those to whom you’re genetically related. Many might add that it goes beyond just people. I know lots of people who consider their pets as part of the family. I suggest you can go beyond that, especially if you’re a child. For many children, a favourite stuffie can be as much a part of what they consider to be family as any living creature.

Our youngest definitely considers his favourite stuffy, Vivi, to be part of his adopted family. Not only that, he has created a whole “biological” family for her! Of course, he knows it’s not real and that Vivi is just a toy, but he has a very active imagination, wonderful creativity, and a lot of empathy.

Mere moments after unwrapping Vivi – she still had her tag on her!

He received Vivi from my youngest sister as a gift for his fourth birthday. The moment he tore off the wrapping paper and I caught a glimpse of Vivi, I did not think much of her. Of course, our little guy took to her and hugged Vivi right away. At that time, he had been forming strong attachments to a “favourite” stuffie that lasted only a matter of weeks. Looking at Vivi, I figured that pattern would would continue and she’d be quickly forgotten. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Vivi has been by our son’s side since he got her. He is connected to Vivi the way Linus is connected to his blanket. Our son has created a whole world, history, and back story for Vivi. He named her very quickly after receiving her. I thought he could not have chosen a less likely name. Later, he gave Vivi a surname – “Okayer”, which is pronounced “Oaker”. Over time, he had named Vivi’s birth parents. Vivi is a “Specktogosaurus”, a species of dinosaur of our son’s own imagination. In video games, he creates characters that are named Vivi or Okayer.

Just chillin’.
Buckled up for a car ride!
Vivi plays goal. She loves hockey like a true Canadian!
Hibernating for the winter. She was in for a huge surprise when it came time to vacuum.

I was not understating it when I said our son has created a whole biological family for Vivi. Like his big brother, our son has developed an interest in genealogy. Not as passionately as me or his brother, but he is interested nevertheless. He enjoys sitting in beside me for portions of the monthly online meetings of the BC Genealogical Society. He loves to join me on trips to the BCGS library. His big project is trying to find a genealogical connection to his best friend, who he has known since pre-school. His other project has been to build a database for Vivi’s family tree.

Our boys share a home computer. One of the first things I installed when we got it was a copy of RootsMagic for our eldest. About a month or so ago, our youngest asked me if he could use it as well. Of course! I sat down with him and walked him through the basics, starting with a brand new database. I thought he was going to track our family, or the research he’s done of his friend’s family (which is pretty impressive for a nine-year-old!). Nope, he wanted to enter Vivi’s family.

Vivi’s pedigree on RootsMagic 10
Vivi’s genealogical information, with his birth parents and adoptive parent (owner).
The family group for Vivi’s biological parents. I hadn’t known Vivi was a middle child!

Last week, he asked his aunt where she bought Vivi. Could he be looking for an addition to her family? No, he just wants to know that there is a place where there were more Specktogosauruses and that Vivi hadn’t been alone. I then reminded him that we had once seen another Specktogosaurus at the Calgary Airport.

A long-lost relative?

52W Mark III – Week 17: War

In Week 45 of the 2022 52 Ancestors Challenge, I wrote about my maternal grandmother’s cousin Lee Anton. I also wrote about Lee as one of the Featured Articles for the 2023 Book of Remembrance published by the British Columbia Genealogical Society. With this week’s writing prompt, I’d like to share what I’ve learned since writing these two pieces.

              The cover of the book.                                        Feature about Lee on page 98.

First, to recap, Lee was a Trooper of the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment (14th Canadian Hussars, also known as the 8th Recce) R.C.A.C. Lee was killed in action on April 12, 1945, age 22, less than a month before V-E Day, in the northern part of the Dutch province of Drenthe, the day before the start of the Battle of Groningen. Along with many of Canada’s other fallen soldiers, Lee is memorialized in two very special ways.

One is through the Second World War Book of Remembrance for the Second World War. Lee is commemorated on page 491.

Lee was also memorialized through Saskatchewan’s “Geo-Memorial” program. You can see Anton Lake, which was named after Lee, on Google Maps. This project is documented in the book, Their Names Live on: Remembering Saskatchewan’s Fallen in World War II.

Lee is interred at the Holten Canadian War Cemetery, located just outside of Holten, Overijssel, Netherlands. It is not far from where Lee was killed.

It was only a few weeks ago that the significance of the date on which Lee had been killed dawned on me. April 12, 1945 is the day that Canadian troops liberated Camp Westerbork. It was the transit point where the Nazis gathered Dutch Jews before sending them to the death camps. It was the first place they interred Anne Frank after she and her family were betrayed.

Going through the regimental diaries for Lee’s regiment, I discovered that it was the 8th Recce that liberated the camp, which the Germans had abandoned hours beforehand.

Entry from the War Diary of the 8th Reconnaissance Regiment for April 12, 1945 documenting the liberation of Camp Westerbork.

Based upon the chronology set out in the diaries and other war records, advancing on the camp was the first thing Lee’s regiment did that day. It means that the fighting in which Lee was killed occurred after the camp was liberated. While the entire regiment was not involved, there were at least 100 members of the regiment present at the camp, so there is a good chance that Lee was present for the liberation of Westerbork.

Lee’s grave as seen on Find a Grave

52W Mark II – Week 45: War and Peace

With Remembrance Day (Veteran’s Day in the United States), this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge theme is “War and Peace”. Rather than write about my own ancestors’ experiences with war and peace, I’d like to call attention to an exciting undertaking by the British Columbia Genealogical Society (“BCGS”).

Every month the BCGS publishes The BCGS News. For the last few years, it has been only published in electronic format. Every issue since January 2020 is available on the BCGS website. You don’t have to be a member of the society to access this part of the website (although there’s lots of benefits to be one – they just launched their 2024 membership drive!).

In November 2021, the BCGS published a “Veterans Special Edition” of The BCGS News. Members were invited to submit stories about their veteran ancestors, regardless of what conflict in which they had served. Submissions included veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Lower Canada Rebellion, the North-West (Riel) Rebellion, the Fenian Raids, the South African War (often referred to as the Second Boer War), World War I, World War II, and the Korean Conflict.

This year, The BCGS News team (spearheaded by its Editor/Designer Sue Sullivan) is going even bigger and better – they’re doing a book! Throughout most of 2023, BCGS members have been encouraged to submit stories and photos of their veteran ancestors – any time in history, any conflict, any place. Moreover, it’s not limited to those who actually fought, it includes those who served in peacetime or on any peacekeeping mission.

The book will be available to BCGS members as a digital download. The editorial team is also considering publishing it in print form, but that has yet to be determined.

Remarkably, I have very few ancestors who served in wartime. They were usually too young or too old to have served in the conflicts of their time and place. However, I provided two submissions for the veterans book, both of which involve individuals I’ve written about in this blog: my maternal grandfather Leo Burgess; and Lee Anton, my maternal grandmother’s second cousin (also her first cousin once removed through a different ancestor). The editor invited me to submit a larger piece on Lee, as she hopes to have a few “featured” veterans.

Lee Anton commemorated on page 491 of the Second World War Book of Remembrance.
My maternal grandfather Leo Burgess during basic training in Peterborough Ontario.

Hopefully the book will be ready by Remembrance Day. I know that it has been a huge undertaking by a small band of volunteers, so it would be understandable if it comes out sometime later this month. Either way, I am really looking forward to it!

52 Weeks – Week 32: At The Library

Despite having spent the last two weeks on a staycation, I’ve done precious little genealogy. You’d think that with all that time, I wouldn’t be completing Week 32 of the 52 Ancestors Challenge with minutes to spare before Week 33.

My eldest son and I attended the monthly on-line meeting of the B.C. Genealogy Society (BCGS) earlier this week. Otherwise, even with a four-hour block of time to myself today in which I planned to tackle some long-outstanding genealogy tasks, I got through exactly three documents. However, what I have managed to do is create all sorts of family memories, especially with our sons. We’ve had lots of outings around our city and participated in all sorts of fun activities, many of which were on the kids’ bucket lists. Creating family history is just as important and fun as studying it!

One thing we didn’t get up to was a trip to the library, which is normally a regular part of our lives. We love outings to the library, which is easy since we live so close to the Steveston branch of the Richmond Public Library. The kids have had library cards since they were very little. In fact, our youngest went to pre-school in the same building as the library, so it was easy to pop in for a library visit.

Trips to the library were also a regular thing with my family when I was little. My earliest memories include trips to the library with my parents – I can remember doing so as far back as when I was three years old. Family trips to the library continued even into high school, although by that time I was going there more often on my own. Nevertheless, I became quite familiar with my parents’ reading interests while cultivating my own. Usually I’d read not only the books I signed out, but often those of my parents, especially my father. He tended to read a lot of biographies and non-fiction, which was closer to some of my interests.

I also loved the school library. In grades five, six, and seven, I volunteered in the school library. Most days of the week I’d be there after school. The librarian was extremely encouraging and supportive. My favourite activity was helping the librarian with the bulletin boards she was always creating to promote reading. They often had a seasonal theme and more often than not involved some form of play on words. It was always a great source of pride when the librarian liked one of my ideas and let me design a bulletin board using my idea.

I needed proof of residence to get a library card with the city library. I hadn’t yet received any bills with my address on it and none of my ID had my new address. Luckily, the library accepted any postal mail with your name and address as proof of residence, so I used this letter and the envelope in which it came as proof of residence. The library accepted it and I have had that library card to this day.

After graduating with my history degree, I had a summer job as a librarian’s helper in a small government agency. A year later, after I found a career-path job, I took on a second part-time job at the local library for the extra income. I was worried during the job interview, as I had inadvertently incurred some late return fines that I hadn’t yet paid. Lucky for me, it wasn’t an issue. My job mostly involved shelving books and packing shipments for inter-branch returns, but it was a fun place to work and I got to know a lot about how libraries work.

Of course, libraries are a large part of genealogical research. In the days before on-line research, I was quite dependent on the LDS Family History Centre in Burnaby. From the Vancouver neighbourhood where I lived in the 90s, the Burnaby FHC was a 90-minute bus ride each way. I made that trip a lot. After I actually moved to Burnaby in the early naughts (twenty years later, I still don’t know what we’ve decided to call the first decade of this century!), I never visited the place. Developments in technology had minimized the need to so.

One library I wish I could visit in person more often is the BCGS Walter Draycott Library. It’s a wonderful library. In fact, it’s almost TARDIS-like. It seems so much larger on the inside than it appears from the outside. Unfortunately, it’s a 90-minute round trip and its Saturday hours conflicted with our children’s activities. However, due to the kids’ activities coming to a halt due to COVID, my eldest son (who is also a BCGS member) and I have been able to make the trip to the BCGS library after it reopened following its closure due to the pandemic.

It’s bigger on the inside!

We’re very lucky to have such a gem of a resource, even if we’re only able to take advantage of it infrequently. Of course, with two weeks off work, you’d think I’d be able to squeeze in a visit – if only the BCGS Library wasn’t closed for the summer break!

It was only near the end of my time off that I realized that I could have gone to the Cloverdale Branch of the Surrey Public Library, which has an amazing family history library. The irony is that our most recent family staycation activity took us within 100 meters of the library. In addition to genealogy, our eldest child is crazy for anything transportation related, and whatever the eldest is interested in, little brother is too. So we took them to ride the historic tram operated by the Fraser Valley Heritage Railway Society. Big brother doesn’t have to know that we were practically across the street from the genealogy library.