Wednesday, May 26, 2021

My May 2021 Webinar: "Finding Our Female Ancestors"

In May 2021, I was invited by the Essex Branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society to present a webinar entitled "Finding Your Female Ancestors". This one hour presentation is now available on the Essex OGS Ont YouTube channel.

Link to Webinar on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KisqCSGOsZU

Below is a brief outline of my remarks as well as links to the two handouts that I created that include worksheets and links to resources.

It was an honor to be talking about female ancestors in the month of May, the month traditionally set aside every year since the early 1900s to honor motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. 

I started my presentation with the slide (below) that featured the many matriarchs in my family tree starting with my mother on the top left all the way to my 3rd great grandmother featured below her.

My matriarchal ancestors: Dawn (Creighton) Moynahan, Rhea (Coughlin) Moynahan; (Rhea on the ice boat as well); Mary (Hussey) Broderick; Dorothy (Moreland) Creighton; Mary (Steinbraun) Hess; Elizaneth (Annal) Coughlin; Mary (Hess) Annal; Florence (Curd) Moreland; Nellie Moynahan and her mother Mary (Brennan) Moynahan
 

The goal of my presentation was to honor ALL of our women ancestors: mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, married and unmarried and explore ways to find them in historical records.

Finding records for our female ancestors (especially prior to the twentieth century) can be very challenging because:

  1. Historical records of the day were created largely by, for and about men. 
  2. Surnames, maiden names and nicknames make simple searches for female ancestors challenging.
  3. Laws and social norms limited women's rights and roles in society.
  4. The invisibility of women's work meant women's contributions were seldom written about, celebrated or recorded

My presentation covered:

  • Five strategies for locating female ancestors using five common genealogical records (birth, marriage and death records; census records; newspapers (especially obituaries); cemetery records (family plots); biographical indexes
  • Some uncommon records that maybe useful for finding female ancestors (oral histories; land records; military records; church histories; city and county directories; local and county histories; bible records and family histories; letters and diaries; immigration and naturalization records; court and asylum records; genealogy websites and google search engines)
  • Five case studies of female ancestors in unique scenarios (from my own family tree: unmarried women; orphaned children / British Home Children; marriage elopements and estranged marriage partners; relocated women; infirm women )
  • Some unique Essex County records and resources that are a gold mine of information for finding female ancestors.

Watch The Webinar Here

Not EVERYTHING Is Online

Although the webinar covered online genealogical records for locating female ancestors, I emphasized that not everything is online.

I shared the story of Myrtle Crowder who collected stories for decades in Essex county, Ontario. 

In 1950, Myrtle was elected curator of the newly formed Oldcastle Women’s Institute and contributed to the Tweedsmuir History which is an incredible resource for finding female ancestors.

Myrtle Crowder's legacy serves to remind us to get offline and visit Essex county museums, libraries, historical societies (links listed below) and/or undertake oral history interviews with folks in the community who can recall events from the past.

Lets Reclaim Women's Stories and Share Them For Future Generations

When Madelyn Della Valle wrote about “The Lives Of Women in the Detroit River Region” she stated that, 

“The history of women is a relatively recent field of study. In the late 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of women historians began to question women's exclusion from the historical record. Believing that history should be more than a chronicle of wars and politics, these historians began the slow process of reclaiming women's past. What they have found is both astonishing and exciting. Family and personal papers found in archives and attics across the country and around the world reveal that women have a richly textured past that is at once different from and connected to the history of men.”

"What it means to be a "woman" changes from generation to generation, from culture to culture, and from society to society. And, although women as a group share the experience of gender, they are divided by the equally significant experiences of race, ethnicity, class and sexuality."

I hope that this presentation inspires present and future family historians to search for their female ancestor's story.

 Handouts and Worksheets

There are many useful resources that I referred to in my presentation that can be found in my thirteen page handout. The links are primarily focused on Essex County, Ontario resources. The handout is available at the Essex OGS website.https://essex.ogs.on.ca/meetings/

I also created a three page worksheet for note taking while researching female ancestors using my suggestions in the webinar. It is also available at the Essex OGS website: https://essex.ogs.on.ca/meetings/


Essex Museums & Heritage Centres 

Essex County Local History and Genealogical Societies 

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