General Meeting and a presentation via Zoom and in-person on 20 November, 2024 at 7:00PM Pacific Time

Destination Canada
More than seven million people arrived in Canada from Europe, the United States and Asia between 1815 and 1930. This session deals with the wide variety of sources that deal with immigration to Canada, including ship passenger lists (available from 1865 through 1935), border crossing records, and naturalization and citizenship documents. Many of these sources have been indexed and placed online, making it possible to access them quickly and easily. It pays to know, however, the scope and limitations of those Internet resources, and how to obtain information from other sources. Dave is the author of the book Destination Canada.

About Dave Obee

Dave Obee is a journalist and genealogical researcher who has written a dozen books and given more than 700 presentations at conferences and seminars in Canada, the United States and Australia since 1997.

He is Editor and Publisher of the Times Colonist in Victoria, British Columbia. He has worked as a journalist in British Columbia and Alberta since 1972.

In 2012, Dave was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws by the University of Victoria for his work as a historian, genealogist and journalist. In 2023, the university named Dave an honorary librarian and archivist.

Dave’s latest book is the second edition of Royal Oak Burial Park: A History and Guide, a 192-page look at the largest cemetery on Vancouver Island. The book includes 400 mini-biographies of people buried or cremated at Royal Oak.

Dave runs CanGenealogy, a link site that is selective and sorted for ease of use. He also runs Volhynia.com, a website dedicated to the old German colonies in the northwest corner of Ukraine.

Dave was born in British Columbia, and his roots there go back to the arrival of his great-great-grandfather from Manitoba in 1890. Some of his paternal ancestors arrived in North America from England and Ireland two centuries ago, settling in New York State and Ontario. His mother was born in a German colony in the Soviet Union, and came with her parents to Canada in 1928. Dave has lived in many areas of British Columbia (including Victoria, Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna, Prince George, Smithers and Fernie) and Alberta (including Calgary, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat and Falun).

He has been researching his own family history since 1978, when he took a continuing education course through Camosun College in Victoria, British Columbia. After puttering about for a few years, he started making real progress with the guidance of Rena Derricott at the Family History Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta.

For a complete list of Dave’s many accomplishments: http://www.daveobee.com/bio.html