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May 26, 2011

Another Genealogy Find

Recently I found, bid on, and won, a really neat genealogy item on EBay.

It's a very small (3"x6") booklet called "Annual Commencement, Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute" The date is Friday December 22nd, 1931.

Written in faded pencil at the top is the name [illegible] Jackson

Inside are 16 pages of names of staff and students in all years.  It also has lists of scholarship and other awards winners.

I haven't gone through it carefully as the fonts are very small, but I'm hoping that one or both of my parents' names are in there! They both attended GCVI and in 1931 my mom was 15, my father 19. There's a good chance my mother's name will be there.

This little booklet was not much money and shipping was free. Even if I am not lucky enough to spot my mom's name, I'm pretty sure there will be some McGinnis, Peer or King relatives in it's pages.

Update: I just spotted Leonard Peer's name along with a list of the subjects he took. Leonard was my dad's cousin and I love finding these little gems to add to the family history.

And there's my mom's name under the heading TYPEWRITING AWARDS and a sub-heading 30-50 words per minute. So another new fact to add to my knowledge of my mother. I knew she was in Commercial but didn't know she'd won an award. I wonder what happened to it.

Under VOCATIONAL DIPLOMAS I spot two of my father's cousins - Albert McGinnis and John McGinnis. Albert pops up under another heading - as winner of the 2 Industrial Prize, while John's name appears as #4 in the Top 5 students in Industrial.

So a little booklet bought on EBay on speculation, having no clue what might be included in it's pages, has turned out to be a genealogical treasure in my eyes.

3 comments:

GeniAus said...

I'm impressed. What treasure.

I'd love to know how you have your ebay alerts set up to find such gems.

Olive Tree Genealogy said...

I wish I could say I do have my ebay alerts set up, since I'm so fascinated by technology! But I confess I do it the old fashioned way - I log in once a week and do a search for my keywords.

I bet there's a way to set up a search alert but I've never checked!

Jim's Girl said...

Time for me to get back on eBay. What a great find!