It will be family history at your fingertips tonight when the Fort Frances Museum holds its first of three genealogical open houses at the Family History Centre, which is located at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on Keating Avenue.
“We decided to hold this event to give people the opportunity to learn what kind of resources we have in town for tracing your family roots,” noted museum curator Pam Hawley.
“We are hoping that by having these open houses, we will be encouraging people to research their family history, which will in return help us out in compiling information for the [town’s] centennial history book.
“I haven’t even been to the centre so it is going to be a learning experience for me, too,” she added.
With two other open houses scheduled next month, Hawley is hoping people will drop in tonight from 6-9 p.m. and take the time to discover the resources in the community–and possibly something about their own family history they didn’t already know.
“We are going to be holding two more research sessions in May,” Hawley remarked. “On May 7, we will hold a workshop at the library where people will be able to use the Internet to look up information on genealogical Web sites and other research [bases].
“To attend this open house, people should call ahead to register because we don’t have enough computers to accommodate everyone,” she noted.
Hawley said the final open house is slated May 26 at the museum.
“We have called this workshop, ‘Hatched, Matched and Dispatched in the Fort Frances Times,’” she said.
“We have a large supply of old newspapers at the museum and people will have the chance to look through them to find out birth dates and deaths of people, as well as any other information that might be helpful for the history book.”
In addition to the open houses, Hawley also is excited about the community history scrapbook that she and members of the centennial history book committee have created.
“We came up with this idea to have people share their community memories and own family history,” she remarked. “There will be opportunities to reminisce throughout the community at various locations.
“We are just looking for people to come in and tell us about what they may remember about the community. We also want to encourage people to bring things in they may have at home that would be of use to us.
“If they have a package from a product that used to be made locally, or even a bag with advertising on it from a store that is no longer here. All of those types of things are very helpful to us,” Hawley stressed.
For more information on the upcoming genealogical open house, contact Hawley at the museum (274-7891). To register for the May 7 search on the Internet at the library, call 274-9879.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
