A newsworthy field trip. AFHS volunteers have a long history of documenting cemetery burial information, going back as far as the mid to late 1970’s, even before the Society’s creation in 1980. Over the years, many members have stepped up to lead teams of intrepid volunteers around Southern Alberta cemeteries to photograph grave markers, record inscriptions, and help fill in the blanks for genealogists searching for information on persons of interest in and around the Calgary area. The latest volunteer team lead is AFHS member Wendy Schultz, who took the reins over from our always-amazing Heather Williams in early 2021. Since that time, Wendy and her team of volunteers have managed to update over 100 cemeteries and over 200,000 persons as of Summer 2023, as showcased on our cemeteries’ website www.albertaancestors.ca. Quite an accomplishment!
In August of 2023, while AFHS was at a cemetery field trip in Okotoks, several local media outlets including CBC News were on the scene to conduct interviews with some of the volunteers present, which included Ron Gilmore, Wendy Gilmore, Melanie Gilmore, Roy Aggarwal, John Casson, Ann Casson, Wendy Schultz, and Laura Schultz. CBC put together a great 3 ½ minute video which you can view here. The video does a great job of showcasing the work being done and is a wonderful PR piece for the Society. And we’re just getting started!
For other newsworthy item see out main news page at afhs.ab.ca/news.
