Stepping Into The Past

Kathy Ironside & Mina McGean - The Genealogy Research Sisters have moved their Reference Library Collection to a new location in Niagara Falls, and opened it to the public.It is a combination library and resource center to access family research classes, guidance, tools, and space for projects, gifts or crafts that incorporate history. Beginners and experienced family historians will find there are computers loaded with the popular genealogy software programs, weblinks for research, and app recommendations.

Kathy & Mina began researching their family history forty years ago and became so enamored with researching as well as the results they found that it continued to generate more questions, that we started to share the excitement we felt in it.

It was not easy to do family research on your own then, without much guidance or direction, and without the internet. We went to wherever the records might be held, sat in front of microfiche machines scanning for hours. Library reference departments, local museums and newspaper or cemetery records, and if you didn't find what you needed, you kept looking and travelling to cemeteries looking for the right details to match. Hard Proof is sometimes there to find, and sometimes not, but the Circumstantial evidence should be considered as the next lead.