Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

Although we found mention of Birch during our research, we really don't have any information about it.<1> Given the context of how Birch was mentioned, we believe that it was a community rather than a locale or some type of landmark. We have done a cursory search and if it was a community, we haven't been able to find any evidence that it still exists..

One piece of information that we would especially like to find is the location (ie- GPS coordinates) of Birch. If you can help us locate Birch, please Contact Us.

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Birch (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Birch. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Birch:

Websites specific to Ontario
- Jump to Cyndi's List
- Jump to Family Search

Cemetery Information and Directories for Ontario
- Cemetery Junction: Cemeteries of Ontario
- Cyndi's List
- Cemeteries of Ontario
- FamilySearch.org: Cemeteries of Ontario
- Find-A-Grave: Home Page
- Interment.net
- Cemeteries of Ontario

Cemeteries Near Birch ...

We're sorry, but we don't know of any cemeteries in the area around Birch.

This is a new section of our Gazetteer and we're still collecting data about cemeteries and their location. If you know of a cemetery that should be included, please let us know.

We are looking for information such as the name of the cemetery, its GPS location, whether the cemetery is still in use or if it is historic (ie- defunct, abandoned, etc.). If it applies, we would also like to learn of any past or alternate names that the cemetery has been known by.

If you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our collection of Genealogy Websites.

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Birch. See our List of 1890's Communities around Birch.

Off-the-Road Links ...

The official website for Province of Ontario: https://www.ontario.ca/

Footnotes ...

<1>

If we encounter the name of what might be a community, our methodology is to add that name to our Gazetteer. For example, we might find a sentence like "He went north past Birch and then turned west". While Birch could be some kind of landmark, we think that it's more likely to be a community. We've added Birch as a placeholder with the hope that we'll be able to add more information in the future.

Just as a reminder: Our definition of a community is rather broad and includes those places (or areas) where several families lived and had a name which identified that place. For example, you might hear somebody say that they are going over to Mile's to see Pete ... Mile's is just a gas station and a couple of homes at the crossroads. While it might not be on the map, everybody in the area knows it by that name.

Places of interest include buildings at a crossroad, several families clustered in a hollow or maybe the location of a way station. It also includes places like mines, lumber camps, ferry crossings, etc. The community might still exist, is now gone or only existed for just a short period of time.

Also keep in mind that Birch could have been on the original document by mistake, misspelled, the original/alternate name of a community that we've listed elsewhere or was placed in the wrong . Sometimes a post office or train station would have a different name than the community where it's located, so two names might be referring to the same community - we're working to straighten it all out.

Since confusion between is common, we searched and weren't able to find another Ontario community named Birch.