Find out more about your family history at genealogy workshop

By Cody Starr

BELLEVILLE – On Saturday April 1, the Belleville public library will be offering the first of two genealogy workshops being held this spring.

Shannon Bryan, the organizer of the workshop will be teaching the public about the many resources it has to offer that can help people find out more about their family history. There will also be a tour of the library’s  facilities that will include their local history collection.

Bryan, says the collection is extensive. Among other things, it contains old phone books, old city directories, yearbooks from the now-closed Belleville Collegiate Institute, county atlases, family history research that has been donated, and microfilm from the Intelligencer and other newspapers which Bryan said is the library’s “number one used” historical resource.

“It is geared towards beginners”, said Bryan about the workshop. She wants to help people who have been interested in learning about their heritage but don’t quite know how to go about it.

The last part of the of the workshop will be some hands on training with the website Ancestry.ca, which is designed to help you to discover and create your family tree, as well as the library’s own Belleville History Alive database. This data base is being slowly built up with information scanned from the local history collection and being put online for easier access.

Bryan says, that this workshop is already full up but she encourages people to put their names down on the late list or to sign up for the next one in May. The number to reserve a spot or put your name on the late list is (613)-968-6731 ext. 2237.