Genealogy Club Presentation: The Role of Remembrance and How to Research Your Ancestors' Wartime Histories

This month, we are welcoming, Vanessa Kirtz, a High School teacher and the Department Head of Contemporary Studies at All Saints High School in Kanata, Ontario.

Since 2020, Vanessa Kirtz and over 300 of her Grade 10 students have worked to research Canadian soldier's lives and craft their biographies.  Using information from families, the community from which the soldier was from, researchers, books, documents and websites, their “life story” is written and then subsequently published on the Dutch Foundation Faces to Graves' website whose mission is to document and share the life stories of 2,610 soldiers buried at Groesbeek Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands.

To date, 189 Life Stories have been written and submitted to Faces to Graves to be published on their website.   In addition to the Faces to Graves website,  life stories written by students have appeared in newspapers, magazines, and books. One notable publication, Faces of Liberation, which was released…