MMHS Genealogy Committee Report for 2008


Committee members: Bob Strong, Evelyn Friesen, Marianne Janzen, Bert Friesen and Alf Redekopp


  1. Henry E. Plett Award

Two winners were awarded prizes for their family history essays in 2008. First prize went to Kathryn Boschman, a student at MCI (Gretna), for her paper entitled “Survival in the 20th century: the story of my Oma and her family.” Second prize went to Brett Smith, a student at WC Miller Collegiate (Altona) for her paper entitled “Grandma Smith”. The contest is again in process for 2009 and winners will be announced in due course.

  1. Family Roots day

This event was held in on April 5, 2008 at the Mennonite Heritage Village (Steinbach) Steinbach in cooperation with Eastmenn Local History day. In additions to the displays, Bob Strong gave a presentation on “Obituaries: a genealogical goldmine” and “How to keep track of changes to the GRANDMA database”.

  1. Danzig Flemish Church register project

This is part of a project to transliterate all the church registers extant from the Prussian Mennonite churches. This project is now in its second phase with proof-reading the drafts. It is intended to post the results on the mennonitegenealogy.com site with links to the scanned images of each page in the original. Francis Dyck, Marianne Janzen and Bert Friesen did the initial transliteration.



Submitted by Alf Redekopp and Bert Friesen.