Your Family Roots

..."Family stories provide a sense of identity through time, and help children understand who they are in the world."

If you carry Neanderthal DNA you may have inherited their slightly elongated brain.

If you have done an AncestryDNA test, you may have noticed that there has been an update to your ethnicity estimates. This video from Ancestry helps explain why your UK and Irish results may have changed. If you need help interpretings your results or need assistance using your cousin matches to extend your family tree, we can help!

Now that winter is upon us, here are some great ideas for those cold nights inside. https://www.familytreemagazine.com//fall-genealogy-projec/

The first use of the name "Toronto" is found on a map from 1678. https://www.thestar.com//geographer-finds-first-use-of-tor

A really cool way to look at old Toronto photos. This site pins each photo to a map. See if you can find your street! #oldphotos #Toronto #oldTO https://oldto.sidewalklabs.com/

If you have Manitoba roots this may interest you.

This weekend we will celebrate Canada's 146th Birthday! Enjoy your long weekend with family and friends!!

Happy Father's Day! Family Tree DNA has an upgrade sale on right now in honour of Father's Day! Sale ends June 19th!! http://www.familytreedna.com/products.aspx... I recently upgraded a test and was contacted this week by an exact match. We are comparing info trying to find our common ancestor and hopefully I can break through the genealogy "brick wall" I have looked at for 6 years!

Historical Maps of Toronto now available online!!

These are links to American Newspapers, but there are plans to expand into other countries including Canada. Some users are commenting with other links to additional digitized newspapers in Canada and other countries as well. I have found a lot of helpful hints through old digitized newspapers. Something worth looking at when you are researching your family history.

I really love this photo and thought I would share. c.1910s: "Indian Women and owl, Blind River, Ontario" "The Blind River empties into the North channel of Lake Huron. French explorers discovered the North Channel and made it a renowned voyageur route. Fur traders, loggers and miners followed to seek natural resources. A fur trading post was established by the North West Company in 1789 at the mouth of the Mississagi River."... "This river was called a "blind river" because the river's mouth is not easily seen from the lake. Its native Ojibway name is "biniwaabikong", which mean "at the fallen rock" due to the smooth, sloping rockface along the river." *Information on Blind River, Ontario, Canada from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_River,_Ontario)

If you are interested in reading about Tom Cruise's Irish ancestry check out the April issue of Irish Lives Remembered. I really enjoy reading this Genealogy magazine!

This is a great reference chart from GenealogyInTime Magazine. http://www.genealogyintime.com//list-of-first-name-abbrevi