Council & Executive

A high school field trip to the Manitoba Archives and a family history assignment piqued Marni's interest in genealogy. Years later, in 2003, the desire to learn more about her Slavic roots led her to the EEGS, becoming a member in 2006. Marni joined the council in 2009 and has served as Membership Chair and President. In addition, she has authored articles for the EEG journal and has given several monthly meeting presentations.

She has traveled to Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania to visit her ancestral villages. Her Polish and Ukrainian roots are from locations scattered in the west to the far eastern border of Galicia of the once Austro-Hungarian Empire and Lublin gubernia of the Russian Empire.

Joe has been actively researching his family history since the early 2000s on both his father’s Irish side and mother’s Ukrainian (Galician) side. He has since traced his Irish ancestry back to the time of Norman invasions of England and subsequent invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. His maternal grandparents came to Winnipeg in 1910 from Galicia and settled for a time near Glenella, Manitoba. They later returned to Winnipeg to settle but refrained from talking about their life prior to coming to Canada. With all of the ancestors who came from Galicia long departed, Joe joined EEGS in the spring of 2024 to seek help with his family search.

Finding a knowledgeable and welcoming group of people in the EEGS, Joe answered the call later in 2024 to help the executive and council members. He hopes that his experiences in engineering management, business ownership, and leading academic programming at RRC Polytech will benefit the organization, and help develop a path to sustainability and growth of the EEGS.

Oksana considers herself an amateur genealogist, as she has only been doing research since 2019.

She started with her father's WWII story after she went through her father's many letters, pictures, and writings after his passing. In 2020, she decided to delve into her grandfather's (on her mother's side) WWI war story. He served and fought on the eastern front in Ukraine; first against the Russians and then against the Polish. This started a research into towns, villages, battlefronts, and ship records. That same year, a family member from another branch of the family reached out to her and together they researched their ancestry on her father's maternal side of the family. Shortly after this time, she joined the EEGS for help in finding birth records in the Eastern Galicia area of Trembowla where both sides of her family are from. She realized records were an important factor in putting family stories to rest as she was able to disprove a couple of them and also expand on others.

Donna's maternal Polish ancestors settled in the Cooks Creek area of Manitoba. She became interested in researching her Galician family tree after attending an intro-genealogy session in 2008 with her mother before her passing. The session was co-presented by EEGS volunteer Lisa-Haji Abassi at a local Winnipeg Library. Two years later, Donna attended the 2010 EEGS seminar “Galicia: Multi-Ethnic Roots in Ukraine and Poland.” Upon realizing the valuable information, support, and networking opportunities the East European Genealogical Society had to offer, she became a member in 2012. Donna hopes to travel one day to Poland to trace her family further. All the preliminary research she has been able to accomplish through her membership at EEGS will be invaluable during this trip.

Donna joined EEGS Council as Recording Secretary in 2018, and moved on to the Treasurer role in 2020.

Brian is a founding member and was first President of the East European Genealogical Society. He served as an editor of the East European Genealogist for 30 years, from the very first issue, including seven years as Publications Chair and Chief Editor. Brian is currently a member of the Archive Committee and continues to share his time, dedication, and knowledge.

Brian is the author of the Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia (1993, expanded edition 1999) and numerous Polish, Ukrainian, German, and other East European articles on a variety of topics. He has lectured at conferences in the United States, Canada, and Germany. Brian has conducted genealogical research for over forty years, including more than twenty-five research trips to Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria.

Mavis is a founding member of the East European Genealogical Society. She served on the Executive and Council holding various positions for 21 years, including eight years as President, before being bestowed with the title of President Emeritus in 2015.

In 1980, Mavis became interested in her family's history, but quickly encountered a brick wall on her mother's family from Bohemia and Moravia. She volunteered at the local FamilySearch Centre, and in 1986, she was hired as Secretary at the Manitoba Genealogical Society (MGS). There she collected names of patrons interested in east European research that eventually led to the formation of the East European Branch of the MGS and later the EEGS. Mavis credits EEGS guidance in helping her locate records in Czech Republic.

Chris' interest in genealogy began in 1988 with a conversation with his German grandfather. A visit to the Manitoba Genealogical Society office introduced him to many of the people still in the EEGS today. Their generous help and patience gave Chris a great start in an area of the world where the borders have changed and Empires have fallen. His research has taken him to Prussia, Poland, and Volhynia. Chris continues doing family history research to this day.

Chris held Executive positions in the EEGS for eight consecutive years while also serving as Correspondence-Research Chair during the same time. The title Councillor Emeritus was bestowed in 2013. During his tenure as President, our website was launched and he organized a bus trip to many of the small Ukrainian, Polish, and Mennonite settlements on the east side of the Red River. Chris has also written articles for the journal and given presentations at the monthly meetings.

Sarah Story is a settler Canadian of mixed Eastern and Western ancestry. Rural-raised in Manitoba's Parkland, Sarah now lives in Winnipeg on Treaty 1 Territory. She is a digital archivist and advisor with many years of oral history experience. She is passionate about social justice, activist and community archives, and ensuring access to archival evidence in support of truth telling.

New to the EEGS, she is keen to learn from genealogists how to effectively navigate records as she is in search of her own eastern European ancestors. Her aim is to use the sources to reconnect to her lost heritage and ancestral knowledge, to document family history for future generations, and to retell family stories in new ways that challenge dominant settler narratives.

Jeneen started to help her mom collect family tree information in 2008 and found it fascinating as new-found archival documents revealed the names of earlier ancestors and place names from Galicia, Austria. After finding the EEGS in 2012 and attending a presentation, she became a member and explored the resources for new ways to advance her research and knowledge of this region. She joined council in 2013.

The highlight of her genealogy adventure has been travelling to Poland and Ukraine to visit ancestral villages, research in archives, and meet relatives. She is passionate about language and has been working on learning Ukrainian for a number of years.

See the Publications Chair for Chris’ bio and the President for Marni’s bio.

In 2010, Noreen came across a newspaper article that caught her interest with the tagline “Who's Your Baba?” about Brian J. Lenius. She clipped it out knowing that one day she wanted to pursue genealogy. Ten years later she pulled out the clipping and joined the EEGS.

In less than six months, she realized the value of this Society. When an opportunity arose for a position in the Society, she volunteered wanting to give back and contribute in some small way. She served as co-Library Chair with Janina Smithson in late 2021 assuming full responsibility in 2022.

Noreen has travelled to the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, and Russia, but all before her genealogy journey began, meaning return trips could be a part of her future.

Miranda's interest in genealogy was influenced by her uncle who was also an EEGS member. He was researching her paternal family from what is now Sukhovolia and Bovdury, Zolochiv Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine which resulted in a book. She began researching her maternal roots in Poland and is currently working on a family history book for this side of the family. After her uncle passed away in 2014, she took over his research and is updating his book.

Miranda joined the East European Genealogical Society in 2017 after attending one of their monthly meetings. In late 2017, she joined Council as the Membership Chair, a position she has held since then.

Sophie is an avid genealogist and recent member of the East European Genealogical Society. In 1983, Sophie began researching her family tree and was successful in tracing one line of her paternal lineage to John Hodgson (1763–1826) a long-time employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company and one-time Chief Factor of Fort Albany. The maternal side of her father’s lineage has been traced back to the mid-1600s in the eastern United States. This was in the day when one relied on Canada Post for correspondence!

Most recently, she has started to do more research on her maternal side of her family tree as they were from Poland at the time of their immigration to Canada. This is proving to be a very challenging project because of the language barrier. The EEGS has been an invaluable resource for tools to aid in this genealogical research.

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Charmaine's interest in genealogy was sparked when she was a teenager. Her dad received a letter in the mail from someone who was researching their shared German surname, and Charmaine was given permission to respond.

Over the years, Charmaine held out little hope for researching her maternal grandmother's branch of the family tree. Her Baba was an only child who immigrated from what is now Poland, and the language was not passed down to her children. A few months after Charmaine's Baba passed away, Charmaine received a message on Ancestry from someone who turned out to be a relative on her Baba's side of the family! Through that connection, and some DNA tests, Charmaine has learned more about that branch of her family tree than she ever thought possible.

Charmaine decided to join the EEGS and become a volunteer to strengthen her skills in genealogy.

Chris has been a member of the EEGS since 2001. Her interest in genealogy began in earnest in the late 1990s. Since joining the Society, Chris has volunteered extensively in a variety of capacities. She has held many council and executive positions over the years, authored articles for the journal, and given presentations to our membership and other organizations.

The highlight of Chris' genealogical experiences to date is the trip to Ukraine that was the basis of her article “Adventures in Ukraine: A Success Story.” Her Ukrainian and Polish paternal roots are from Galicia in what are now the Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts of Ukraine. She writes about her research on her blog My Meandering Roots - Searching for my Ukrainian, Polish, and French Ancestry.

Linda has been a member of EEGS since 2015 when her genealogical research broadened to include her husband's family who were from Galicia. By that time, Linda had been researching her own family tree (English, Irish, Swedish) for many years with good success. She luckily collected basic information when her grandparents and her husband's grandmother were still alive and recorded it in a book entitled Our Family Record. As an information technology professional, her interest was later piqued when she found Canadian census records online in 2004 and grew from there.

With the help of EEGS members and presentations, she has made a good start on her husband's family tree and will continue to research his ancestors from Płazów and Ruda Różaniecka, Poland and Korsiv, Lviv Oblast and Novosilka, Pidhajets'kyi Raion, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine.