Genealogy Gems

We had our Canadian Thanksgiving last weekend and the family gathered in Vancouver BC to celebrate my Uncle Bob’s 80th birthday.

Bob is the genealogist and family historian of my Mom’s side of the family, the IRVINES…and he has been grooming me for years to step into his shoes.  Big shoes they are too.

He has done a phenomenal job of tracing and documenting the family and its various branches. Bob’s knowledge was also invaluable for an article we co-authored featuring my Grandmother Isabel Irvine (his mother)  that will be published in the Saskatchewan Genealogy Society’s 40th anniversary book, The Women Pioneers of Saskatchewan due out in November of 2009.

One of Bob’s most enduring legacies for our family is the transcription of his father’s (William John IRVINE) diaries. This was my Grandpa.  Grandpa wrote about the life and times of being a pioneer in Saskatchewan.   The weather, the crops, the politics (he was big into politics).  He wrote in those diaries for SIXTY Years. In the most awful handwriting too.

You may recall the romantic story of  my Grandma and Grandpa’s courtship in my blog post  The Mail Order Bride?  The details came from these diaries.

Bob has probably transcribed a third to half of the diaries and has now handed the task to me to carry on.  It is an awesome responsibility.

I’m considering the best ways to do this to share it with as much family as possible and also with the historians who may enjoy the recounting of the pioneer life.

It will be in a blog format I think, and I’ll start with the entries that have already been transcribed, then possibly move onto entries surrounding major events during those sixty years.

I want to honour this genealogy legacy that Uncle Bob has handed me and to honour all of his hard work as the genealogist and family historian.

I welcome any suggestions regarding how best to present this genealogy gem,  my Grandpa Irvine’s Diaries.

Please comment below.