I enjoyed writing this piece, comparing my little garden journal and its experiments in growing against the vast body of historic knowledge transfer from thousands of years ago to today. It got away from me twice, and I had to edit out entire sections, but one of the discoveries I made as I was writing was the rich sources of possible genealogical data available through agriculture: almanacs, newspapers, journals, county fairs, agricultural and horticultural societies, diaries, weather stations, and even the Canadian Pacific Railway.

It was fascinating to apply new technology to an old problem. I learned more about the problematic 1891 census of Victoria, found an alternative census I didn't know existed, and was able to tabulate some information about the men, women, and children of Chinese ancestry in the Victoria area.

At various points, I have been a member of genealogy and history societies across Canada and the U.S. If you've never considered joining your local society, here's a gentle reminder to check it out, wherever you happen to be.

Researching this case has given me new insights into the Drouin Collection, from why you might want to invest in two databases, to why you might not be able to find that elusive ancestor.

In genealogy there are a hundred ways to spend money and we all need to be judicious about what subscriptions we need. Now that I'm paying for ChatGPT, I've been finding ways to incorporate it into my daily genealogical processes. For today's blog, I couldn't wait to share my newspaper search tricks with you, to come up with better ways to research.

Over the decades, my life-long passion for learning about early Chinese immigration in Canada and the specific historical/political contexts for my grandfather and other relatives, grew exponentially. Rich connections have been forged with a handful of aging relatives. Enhancing the research include academic scholars/authors, memoirists, historians, kindred amateur genealogists like me, and those invested in ancestral research in North America and, abroad. Truth be told, the research is a labor of love.

For those of us who care about archival records, this moment is worth celebrating. Better records do not happen by accident. They happen because people decide that accuracy, context, and access are important, and they give their time to make them better. This recognition is welcome not only because it celebrates an achievement, but also because it acknowledges that communities themselves can help reshape the archives.

Genealogy encompasses all that life has to offer, and food is a big part of that journey. Food connects us to our roots viscerally, like a direct path to our memories. In this post I used AI to convert a fifty-year old recipe for muffins to modern day tastes and preferred baking methods. It's not perfect yet but with AI, it has the chance to get there.

Enjoy this free video short (25 mins) where I reflect on my latest three (four in practise) presentations given in British Columbia: Getting Started in Chinese Genealogy, 24 Feb 2026, Victoria Chinatown Museum, 2 pm and 7 pm. Finding the records for impossible genealogy – lessons learned from a Chinese Canadian genealogist – for genealogists who are researching historically excluded and difficult populations using examples from Chinese Canadian genealogy; featuring a discussion of archival records and how not everything is as it seems in archives…

As a genealogist, I celebrate every effort to make records more visible and more usable. The issue is not the records themselves, but access. More access means a deeper understanding of the stories that shape individuals, families, and communities. Over many months, my team and I have worked with the good people at LAC to improve understanding of, and access to, records that matter to our community. That work has produced real, methodical progress. We are already seeing better search functionality and greatly improved finding aids, and in some instances new finding aids were created through that collaborative effort. At the same time, I have heard firsthand about the pressures and challenges facing LAC staff. That is why I am dismayed by any suggestion that this progress may now be curtailed, shelved, or slowed in response to a government-wide call to reduce expenditures. Better finding aids are important, but if ATIP capacity is significantly reduced, the bottleneck does not disappear. It simply moves from finding the records to gaining access to them.

Using artificial intelligence, I have created a work I never would have been able to do on my own. I have struggled to understand laws separately, such as the Chinese Immigration Act, 1885, the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1906, and the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923. My analytical framework is a synthesis of dozens of laws, from the British North America Act, 1867 to the repeal of Chinese exclusion in 1947. It’s not perfect, as a historically accurate work never can be, but it’s a foundation. It’s a process, a developing method, and a tool. Soon I might be able to use it to analyze cases.

It's become a needed ritual. During the long, dark nights that are December in the Paris of the Prairies, I take time to reflect. I look at my blogs, the events from my calendar, the photos on my phone, and the stats on my site. I review the work I've done, and wonder how I can do better.

I'm building a custom analytical framework in ChatGPT Plus (paid version, 5.2 as of December 2025) to help me understand Chinese Canadian records. Along the way, I've been blasted with one revelation after another. ChatGPT isn't like google. ChatGPT and other large language models are the T-Rex dinosaurs of computing: massively powerful but also with scary downsides. I want to use the big, powerful beast and I don't want to get eaten, and I think the slower we are to get on board, the harder it will be. I've learned in a short time how to set it up, what it does with private data, what keywords are important, how to create my first ChatGPT-generated prompts, and a few limits of the model. In the meantime, I am agog at what I've got so far, and this is only the beginning.

In this post, I looked at the iterations of Canada's western quarantine stations, where medical inspectors inspected incoming immigrants to Canada for disease. As a genealogist, I want to fill in the bare bones of facts with ideas about what life was like, and this post was by turns enlightening and horrifying.

Despite pulling birth, marriage, and death records (BMDs) back in 2018, I'd forgotten this trick for reading registration codes.

Every conference and institute I attend is memorable for different reasons. With the in person events, it's about the networks, people, and travel. And now with the East Coast Genetic Genealogy Conference, where I'll be madly applying new techniques and taking notes until they close the site and lock me out.

The process for finding Chinese Case Files at Library and Archives Canada has changed considerably since I first wrote about the finding aids in 2020. Some individual Chinese Case file information is now findable through Collection Search. Use Advanced Search for searching by numbers.

Genealogists are interested in a wide variety of court records from adoption to wills. I don't know about you, but I learn best by doing. In this series, I'll share what I learned about researching Supreme Court records at the Royal British Columbia Museum and Archives, Victoria, in April, 2025. For the record - haha see what I did there? - I'll be discussing an 1885 criminal case, and then a 1955 probate search.

I enjoyed The Riveter. It's rare to read fiction about the Second World War which centres an Asian Canadian perspective. A writer tackling that subject cannot avoid discussing heavy issues such as exclusion, history, and racism. These themes are the background noise to my work, and I appreciate every writer who tackles them in a story with universal themes of identity, love, and struggle.

Each May in Canada and the U.S., it's Asian Heritage Month. I spent the first part of the month in Vancouver, where I had the distinct pleasure of seeing "Exclusion: Beyond the Silence," at the Cineplex Odeon Theatre, International Village, Vancouver. On 14 May 2025, I had a chat with writer and director Keira Loughran, and Helen Lee. Also joining us were producer Bradley Lee ("Operation Oblivion"), members of Genealogy for Asian Canadians, and the community.

In Canada, most Second World War military files are only available on request. In this blog, I'll explore the difference between ordering a complete file and a genealogy pack by looking at two requests for the same records for the same person. If you're new to Canadian military files, see my posts Exploring First World War Files online at LAC: A Top 10 List…

Because our democracy is not going to make it through the next years without strong journalists.

In examining the events surrounding Won Alexander Cumyow's rapid downfall from aspiring Chinese Interpreter to convicted felon in 1885, key questions arise regarding potential bias, the role of prominent figures like E.M. Johnson, and the peculiarities of a seemingly swift and prejudiced trial. Cumyow's eventual imprisonment highlights systemic challenges faced by the Chinese community in British Columbia.

YouTube video by TINA Turner Blog

Won Alexander Cumyow, the first-known Chinese Canadian (1861-1955), was a prominent figure and an activist. Despite his contributions, he faced challenges, notably in 1885 when he was arrested for fraud. His trials involved questions of forgery, partnerships, and trust within his business, ultimately leading to a conviction for embezzlement. Cumyow's story highlights the systemic racism prevalent in BC, late 19th century, and his struggle against discrimination during a pivotal time in Canadian history.