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She said the weekly sessions at the library are drop-ins, so people don’t need to make an appointment.

“Their questions don’t have to be related to Wellington County, they can be researching anywhere in the world,” she said.

Members also hold various workshops which can be found on the library’s event calendar. They hold ones on basic tips, learning about specific ancestries and using different means of research.

Salsberg said she thinks each member has an interesting family story and something that piqued their interest in genealogy.

“That’s what makes it fun to do research. You’re like a detective,” she said.

For her, she learned following her father’s death that her parents were both British Home Children. She wanted to learn why they had come to Canada on their own without their families and what had happened.

Susan Arness, vice-chair of the group, said she has been interested in her family history since childhood.

“I had another career, but then later on I just said to myself, you’ve got to do more with this, and I went to school and got my certificate in genealogy,” Arness said. “I come here, to the library because I learn a lot from people and books, we help people learn a lot and it’s just fun to share.”

Some weeks they have lineups, so they always have a few volunteers there to help.

Member Joanne Green said she has always been interested in history and started putting together family trees for her nieces.

“This was my retirement project,” she said. “I knew when I retired that I’d be doing this full-time and actually, my first ancestors came to East Garafraxa, so I’m in the neighbourhood. I moved to be near my ancestors.”

The group includes townships of Minto, Arthur, West Luther, Maryborough, Peel, Pilkington, Nichol, West Garafraxa, Guelph, Eramosa, Erin and Puslinch.

There are more than 1,000 resources at the library that are related to Wellington County, adjacent counties, other areas of Ontario and the Canadian provinces as well as the United States, England, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Poland and Italy, and you can search the library catalogue online for the Ontario Genealogy Society. The library is also affiliated with FamilySearch which allows patrons access to more than 400 million digital records on library computers.

“We help people who are just trying to get started, and people who come in that have been researching for many years, but they’ve hit a roadblock,” said Salsberg. “We have some people who come in almost every week and some who come to check in, get some homework and then go and work on it. We give them some ideas.”

They also research local history, buildings and land.

“People like to know the history of their houses or the property,” said Green. “We have some great maps and land records. It all overlaps with the local Ontario and Canadian history. Why people came when they did, where did they go when they got here and why did they come.”

She said her favourite part is when they can find photographs and she also loves finding maps.

The group is looking for ways to involve younger audiences, and said they are doing a workshop with the Teen Advisory Group at the library and have a couple of projects coming up.

“One of the challenges we have is that people usually wait until they’re retired because life is so busy,” said Salsberg. “But any time we can engage the younger generation, we’re trying to do that.”

For more information on the Wellington County Branch Ontario Ancestors, visit  or head over to the library on Friday afternoons.