Welcome
In February 1942, in the middle of a world war, Joanne Cornelia Bader married James Edward Lowe in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada....
Occupation Research: Farmer vs Gardener
One of my favourite aspects of researching family history is discovering the various occupations or jobs that my ancestors had. Of course s...
Identifying a Photo from Clues in the Image
A couple of years ago I created a family archive using a steamer trunk. You can read about the project here: http://lowebader.blogspot.com/2...
DNA-based Ethnicity Between Siblings
I bought an Ancestry DNA kit awhile ago for one of my siblings and the results came in just before Christmas 2020. I had another sibling tes...
Capturing Life’s Big Events for Posterity
Throughout my adult life, I've owned framed originals of my parents’ wedding portraits. The portraits were done in a photography studio,...
Creating My Family Archive
A few months ago, I was in a Zoom virtual meeting with my genealogy research group. One of the members asked about where to find archival m...
My Ethnicity Part 2 — Do the Math
I knew that the ethnicity results from Ancestry DNA were estimates and how those are determined (see previous post), so I hadn't pai...
My Ethnicity Part 1 — How it Works
When I had my DNA tested, I received an initial ethnicity report that showed the percentage of my DNA broken down into several ethnic/geogra...
Why I still Use Spreadsheets — Part 3 Identifying Offspring
Once I’d identified the right Henry, then I used a spreadsheet to identify his offspring. Like his son, Henry Lowe was also in the arm...
Why I still Use Spreadsheets — Part 2: Eliminating Wrong Records
When I began researching one of my great-great grandfathers, all I had was a name, Henry Lowe, and the occupation of tailor. I only had tha...
Why I still Use Spreadsheets — Part 1: Timelines
My tree on Ancestry provides a timeline for each person, so does my genealogy computer program. But when I’m trying to complete the life ...
Solving DNA Puzzles with Triangulation
DNA is the future of genealogy, or at least that’s what everyone had been telling me. Which is why I did an Ancestry DNA test in 2019. To...
A Question of Parentage Solved
Isabella Rochester Pickles My grandmother on my father’s side, Isabella Rochester Pickles (known as Isabel or Belle), was born in March ...
Taking a Hint: Cross-researching Records with DNA
Anyone who has a tree on Ancestry knows that the service sends hints about the people in your tree. Ancestry’s algorithm takes the data a...
Confirming My Great-grandfather’s Records
After accepting the possibility that Henry Lowe & Bridget Fox could be my great-great grandparents, I had to accept that the man I’ve kn...
Transforming Joseph Henry into Henry Joseph
I had two DNA matches who had Henry Lowe & Bridget Fox in their trees. After viewing our shared matches and my tree, they believed that...
DNA Chips Away at the Joseph Henry Lowe Wall
When I received my DNA results, I went straight to my matches (after a brief stop at ethnicity). In an ideal world, I’d have hundreds of mat...
Ancestry DNA Results — Ethnicity
While the main reason for me taking an Ancestry DNA test was to find matches (both to connect with long-lost living relatives and to hopeful...
Ancestry DNA Results — 102 Matches
After having poor match results from my brother's Y-DNA test (see earlier posts), I decided I should do a DNA test myself. There are se...
How DNA Helps with Genealogy
I've received some questions about DNA testing and how we can learn about ancestors from generations ago by having someone who is ali...
Trying to Prove the Scottish Connection
While disappointing for research leads, the Y-DNA test my brother did provided at least one significant piece of information. Nearly all the...
A Lowe by Any Other Name
The results from my brother’s Y-DNA test were disappointing at best and confusing at worst. Of the 178 total matches at all marker le...
Can DNA Break Through a Brick Wall?
In Journey #33 I explain the largest and strongest brick wall in my genealogy research: my great grandfather Joseph Henry Lowe (see lat...
The Brick Wall Built by Joseph Henry Lowe
Although my father was born in England, he claimed Scottish ancestry on his father’s side and Irish ancestry on his mother’s. He explained ...
Canadian War Diaries Help Build a Story
When I mention "war diaries" to anyone who isn't researching military history, they look confused and wonder if war diaries re...
Canadian Service Records - Worth the Wait
Both my father and my uncle served in the Canadian forces during World War II. My grandfather joined up to serve in WWII, but was discharge...
Debunking the Black Irish Myth
Originally published in The Victoria Genealogical Society's Journal Winter 2016 edition. I was well into my genealogy research wh...
Family Myth or Truth? The Dick Turpin Case
I've mentioned before that everything my father told me about our family has (so far) proved to be true — and surprisingly accurate i...
Mind the Gap
Filling out families is something I do when I am stumped on direct ancestor research, but it is also an important part of genealogy. ...
Micro Films = Maximum Frustration
To date I’ve ordered seven microfilms from Salt Lake City. They are ordered online from LDS’s Family Search website, cost about $8 eac...
