On November 11, 2011, Remembrance Day, the program was all about Remembering the Peacemakers with a good turn out at Bethany Manor's Fellowship Hall. Leonard Doell and others covered the war and peace issues, and helped those present to honour our peacemakers.

The next day was Genealogy Day. That always produces a good turnout too. Here are some highlights with photos and a testimonial of a good genealogical discovery by Bob Wahl.

Conrad Stoesz from the Winnipeg Heritage Centre, Manitoba, refreshed our minds about Conscientious Objectors, and the progress on his project to research and honour them.

Ed Schmidt explained about the many online genealogy resources, with special emphasis on how to add photos to the GRANDMA database by linking to them on Flickr.

Victor Wiebe talked about the many interesting things to collect, using examples from our MHSS archives in the basement below.

Otto Driedger shared some of his thoughts and stories.

Among a few others, Dennis Fisher talked about trying to find his historical roots, and his collection of native artifacts, which were recently presented to a museum.

Bob Wahl has informed us of a discovery he made while networking with these resource people;

The most wonderful thing that happened to me this weekend was after I mentioned to Conrad Stoesz how much I had searched for the place my great grandfather, Johann Wall (Grandma # 107486), came from in Russia or who his forbears were. To my absolute astonishment Conrad found the information in the latest version of Grandma Windows. FANTASTIC!

Not only do I [now] know the village (Neuendorf) but also who his father, grandfather and great grandfather were. I had searched and searched and there it was. That was great.