Rick Dondo's Family Tree
What's New (past 30 days)
Date of Last GEDCOM Import: 14 Jan 2026 08:01:21
2026/01/14
I have refreshed the site with data from a current (to this date) data extract; version sixty-one. There are changes resulting from various avenues of research, many undertaken in response to queries from people who noticed the presence of a relative or ancestor on this site.
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
2025/12/19
I have refreshed the site with data from a current (to this date) data extract; version sixty. There are changes resulting from various avenues of research, many undertaken in response to queries from people who noticed the presence of a relative or ancestor on this site.
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
2025/10/31
I have refreshed the site with data from a current (to this date) data extract; version fifty-nine. There are extensive additions pertaining to research done for a cousin to be married in 2026 to a young lady with a heritage that intersects with many of the families from the Saint-Claude - Notre Dame de Lourdes / Somerset, etc area and SW MB I had previously documented. The results are... FASCINATING!
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
2025/09/29
I have refreshed the site with data from a current (to this date) data extract; version fifty-eight. There are some additions pertaining to research done for cousins who recently lost parents or grandparents.
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
2025/06/16
I have refreshed the site with data from a current (to this date) data extract; version fifty-seven. There are some additions pertaining to research done for cousins who recently lost parents or grandparents. There are also changes and additions derived from my work to document burials in the St Boniface Cathedral Cemetery.
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
2025/04/23
I have refreshed the site with data from a current (to this date) data extract; version fifty-six. There are some additions pertaining to research done for cousins who recently lost parents or grandparents. There are also changes and additions derived from my work to document burials in the St Boniface Cathedral Cemetery.
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
All comments and suggestions are welcome!
2025/04/18
BIG NEWS!!!
I have just completed a transition of this website to a new and much faster server. Please feel free to get in touch with any concerns, observations, or suggestions you notice as arising from that change.
2025/02/19
This is the fifty-fifth full refresh of this site which uses a specialized website building application and it is based on data taken from your host's Ancestry tree on 2025/01/01 starting at 12:30 CDT.
It leverages the recent implementation of version 15 of the TNG application which includes many fixes for reported problems and new features.
It leverages the recent implementation of version 15 of the TNG application which includes many fixes for reported problems and new features.
As will be the case for the foreseeable future, that data was transformed considerably to ensure that more information pertaining to sources and citations is available to demonstrate why I believe what I have published.
Think I'm wrong? Bring your evidence and we will discuss your suggestions!
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*** My Main Tree:
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Though some family lines were extended back in time, this update reflects a level of attention to personal profiles over the past several months that was occasional, at best. This is largely due to the fact your host became engaged in a project with members of the Manitoba Genealogical Society's Cemetery Committee. This work is intended to develop a complete list of locations and contacts for cemeteries in Manitoba. Given the fact there are on the order of 1,470 such places in the province, we have much work ahead of us. Visitors here will benefit from the fact your host has already begun using the available processes to update the descriptions of cemeteries across the province.
There was one notable exception to the above. Your host lost his Uncle Alan Wood on 2025/02/09. He undertook to document his family history on behalf of his children, siblings, grandchildren and beyond; in other words, all the people who share in his heritage to some degree. It was an honour.
There was one notable exception to the above. Your host lost his Uncle Alan Wood on 2025/02/09. He undertook to document his family history on behalf of his children, siblings, grandchildren and beyond; in other words, all the people who share in his heritage to some degree. It was an honour.
I have since diverted into an intensive update to the Find a Grave content for the St Boniface Cathedral Cemetery. As a result, there are now hundreds more memorials documented there with thousands more et to come. This work has driven much of the work mentioned above aimed at extending family lines back in time .
In fact, there are updates that reflect activity related to two main areas of focus aside from the occasional change to simply reflect recent events affecting family members. Those are:
- specific research related to interest expressed by or identified to me by cousins or other family researchers with common interest
- new information contained in the 1931 Canada Census
*** Locations ***
This update reflects few of the effects of my continued efforts to normalize place names used in people's stories in order to leverage best the powerful feature of this website that relates to the map-based display of information about them.
As a reminder: this feature is the basis for the "Heat Map" option on many lists, a map that highlights the number of places mentioned in the stories of the people or places on a list. It also means it is possible on many displays to see pins placed where events took place and thus visualize how a person might have moved about during the course of their lives.
In the time since the last update, your host's focus has been to reduce the variety of spellings of some of the names of places in key Rural Municipalities in Manitoba. This is complicated by several factors, not the least of which are source usage of federal election ridings as a way to group locations in the province and the fact boundaries of many if not all of the RM's have changed over time, with some being absorbed and amalgamated. This process will take time to complete. For now, the results are beginning to be seen on the main "Places" page for Manitoba.
There is certainly work left to do.
As a bonus to all of us, this process of reviewing place names results in feedback resulting in changes to the profiles of the people whose lives or some portion of them are associated with the place(s) being reviewed. Thus, this update also includes some changes and additions to the information pertaining to various people and families that were already on my tree AND the addition of new ones.
Your host will continue to apply effort to improve both the accuracy of the place names and the assignment of appropriate GPS codes and level indicators to them (e.g., country, state / province, county / region, city / town, etc.). The statistics below now reflect the existing gap at the time the data was captured. Your host expects the NUMBER of unique place names to decrease for the next while, as redundant spellings of the same name are identified and eliminated.
*** Ongoing ***
This update also reflects changes to a variety of profiles on my tree that really centre around six ongoing activities:
- capture of current events observed by your host
- extension of the heritage my tree records for selected people based on expressed interest
- rendering visible more details from certain sources to enhance the understanding of why my tree reflects certain events and people
- rendering visible more of the citations my tree holds to support the events it reports (including other Ancestry Family Trees)
- adding more entries in the "Media" section, especially links to the "local history books" that are part of the University of Manitoba's Digital Collection and pertinent to the families on the tree
- an ongoing low-level effort to "normalize" place names for events that happened prior to Canadian Confederation in places that were NOT to become Manitoba
*** Cemeteries ***
As has been for some time and will continue to be the case: My work to catalogue graves and other final dispositions represents my contribution to bringing closure to as many people as possible by ensuring access to the virtual versions of the tributes made to those who have gone ahead. In my opinion, these efforts may assist many in planning visits to the physical locations in which the physical tributes persist. I expect to continuously improve this asset as I uncover misalignments between the best definitions of those places and many profiles on my tree. Correcting them will always improve the records offered here, and to Ancestry offering me new information about the affected people and their families. The tree is better for it. I invite you to browse the available list of cemetery definitions.
*** Public Sources ***
My work includes an interest in making available to all, selected information from my Ancestry tree that can be readily accessed via free and public resources. This is especially true of the links to memorials on the Find a Grave service, but extends to some of the Government of Canada resources organized by its "Library and Archives" department, in particular, and other departments.
I invite all visitors to seek out and read carefully the descriptions of those resources here. These are wonderful places to start your OWN research!
*** Subscription Sources ***
Also -- Still the case and expected to be this way for a long time:
Many of the records (items) specifically cited, regrettably, are stored in databases as part of the Ancestry service; to view them, an active Ancestry account is required. However, as part of my efforts to transform the data provided to me by Ancestry, an effort is made to make much more of the "descriptive" information about them available on this site.
That being the case: should you identify a SPECIFIC document or record cited to be of high value to you in remembering and honouring your ancestors, please feel free to get in touch. I will very likely be both willing and able to provide you with a digital copy of some kind.
*** Current Status ***
My research continues and new information and connections are revealed on nearly a daily basis. For the foreseeable future, as was the case for the past many months, I plan to continue to update this site on an irregular basis; one that I expect to be no less than once a month.
The site allows anyone to see all of the information I have recorded about deceased people. Without an account and specific privileges assigned to it, access to information about living people other than their name on this tree is restricted. Even with such privileges, at your host's discretion, they may give you access to only information about people with whom you share direct ancestors. In the event you want to see more, please get in touch.
Documents
| Thumb | Description | Linked to | Last Modified |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Archives départementale de Lozère (France) Departmental archives of the department of Lozère in France; Births deaths marriages and so much more! | 14 Feb 2026 | |
 | Patrimoines et Archives du Morbihan - Departmental Records Search A search facility providing access to the records of the department of Morbihan; it is a part of the Brittany region (Bretagne) of France and was the home of majority of the Breton settlers who came to southwest Manitoba in the early years of the 20th century One service offered by the Department among many that describe its 7000-year… | 14 Feb 2026 | |
 | Archives de l'Ain - Departmental Archives of l'Ain, France Consultez les registres paroissiaux, d'état civil et les tables décennales. Le plus ancien registre existant contient les baptêmes, mariages et sépultures de la paroisse de Bourg-en-Bresse à partir de 1509. Seuls les registres d'état civil de plus de 100 ans sont diffusés en ligne. | 14 Feb 2026 | |
 | Eure et Loir (Centre, France) Departmental Archives Eure-et-Loir (Centre, France) Departmental Archives, including, but not limited to documents, oral histories, and much more | 14 Feb 2026 | |
 | Haute-Loire Departmental Archives Departmental archives of the Haute-Loire, department 43 in France containing a collection of civic, cartographic, and other documents that help tell the stories of the people lived lived, or at least started or ended, their lives in the area | 14 Feb 2026 | |
 | Winnipeg Divorce File Index, 1917 - 1984 This index was created by the Archives of Manitoba to facilitate access to Winnipeg divorce files. The index covers all Winnipeg divorce files (ATG 0009A) from 1917 to 1984. This index was created from the microfilmed index for these records originally created by the Court of Queen’s Bench (ATG 0210, GR3722, microfilm reel M1228). The… | 13 Feb 2026 | |
 | Warcimaga / Wyrcimaga Family Tree Book - Ancestry by Eleanor Padzierski Authored by Eleanor Padzierski in late 2006, this family history starts with Michel Wyrcimaga and his wife Warwara Biliuk immigrating from Borszcziw, Ukraine. It covers the descendants of their ten children. The entire family arrived at Halifax, NS, Canada, on July 6, 1902, aboard the Assyria. After clearing immigration, their destination was… | 2 Feb 2026 |
Histories
| Thumb | Description | Linked to | Last Modified |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Société d’histoire de Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures Capteur de mémoire matérielle et immatérielle en favorisant la recherche sur l’histoire de Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures et sur la généalogie des familles qui y ont vécu au fil des ans. Passeur de mémoire en présentant des conférences, des expositions, en organisant des visites commentées, des activités thématiques, en proposant des… | 26 Jan 2026 | |
 | Reclaim the Rercords Reclaim The Records is an activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and journalists. We work to identify important genealogical record sets that are not online anywhere and not broadly available to the public. We then use state Freedom of Information laws to force government agencies and archives to hand over copies of these records… | 25 Jan 2026 | |
 | Before Manitoba: Buildings that predate the province Before Manitoba was created and became Canada’s fifth province in 1870, churches and forts were already shaping life on the prairies. While most of those early structures have long since disappeared—lost to fire, flood, redevelopment, or neglect—several still stand today, offering a glimpse of what life was once like in the past. Built by… | 25 Jan 2026 | |
 | Provincial Archives of New Brunswick - Federated Database Search The Provincial Archives of New Brunswick collects, preserves, and makes available for research, documents and records bearing upon the history of New Brunswick. | 19 Jan 2026 |
Individuals
| ID | Last Name, Given Name(s) | Born | Location | Tree | Branch | Last Modified |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I402333636006 |
 Cauvin, Albert |
b. 18 Jul 1915 | Brest, Finistère, Bretagne, France  | Rick Dondo's Family | 5 Feb 2026 |
| I402262455025 |
Houle "Houde", Marie Louise "Mary" |
b. 2 May 1853 | Saint-Jacques, Lanaudiere Region, Quebec, Canada | Rick Dondo's Family | 4 Feb 2026 |
| I402427714291 |
Dawson, Gilbert Francis |
b. 14 Apr 1800 | Newmarket, Cambridgeshire, England | Rick Dondo's Family | 28 Jan 2026 |
| I400159616843 |
Goulet, Joseph Léo "Leo" |
b. 12 May 1911 | Saint-Vital, Manitoba, Canada | Rick Dondo's Family | 22 Jan 2026 |