It can be unusual to find a husband and wife duo who get into family history together, but Steve and Dianna Fulton are both all-in—and all-in together. And their mission in life is to help others discover their own family connections. Dianna says, “This is our time together. We do it together.”
In the Beginning
Steve credits his wife for getting him interested in family history some 25 years ago. She wanted to know about her Biggs family grandfather in England. She traced her “fair dinkum” family back to 1783 England and across the ocean to the Commonwealth of Australia. Steve and Dianna have maintained her Commonwealth connections but also began to explore his Ontario Canada connections on the top side of the world. Steve was pleased to learn that he has a “United Empire Loyalist” ancestor who served in the War of 1812 as a captain of the Colonel John Butler Corps.
Dianna Fulton is humbly proud of her own “British home child”—Frederick Biggs—in her own ancestry. British home children were children who were orphans, destitute, or relinquished by their parents across the United Kingdom. More than 100,000 children were sent to Canada. Dianna's connection came from Britain to Canada in 1940 as an orphan—care for by the Barnardo's organization. He was then age 7 and put on a farm in Huntsville, Ontario. He worked at the farm until he was 18. Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of the popular Anne of Green Gables book series, likely built the stories on her own personal experiences as a British home child and an orphan in one of the homes.
Ontario Ancestors—Ontario Genealogical Society
Steve and Dianna are both very much involved with Ontario Ancestors—the Ontario Genealogical Society (or the “OGS”). He is a past president but still very involved with the local branch in Niagara. Steve’s qualifications come in many forms from work, family, and volunteerism. One thing that ties them all together is service for others before himself. Steve has been a member of the society since 2008, including branch chair of Niagara since 2009. In addition to serving as vice-president of the society from 2016 to 2018, he was the society president from 2018 to 2020. Steve is also the "tech guy,” the head of the Technological Support and Innovation committee for the society.
Dianna is also very involved. She has been a long-time volunteer with the Niagara Branch and has served as the board-branch liaison. She is chair of the British home child SIG (special interest group), was co-chair for the 2019 conference of the society, and was co-chair of the conference in 2018. She enjoys the excitement of working with other volunteers. Her past attendance at many board meetings as a society member and as board-branch Liaison gives her a strong understanding of the society’s governance processes. Dianna has a strong interest in encouraging the society to reach out to younger age groups to engage them in genealogy. Dianna and Steve live in St. Catharines, Ontario.
With Steve and Dianna’s connection to the Ontario Genealogical Society they worked on a key alliance with FamilySearch International. In 2020, it was announced that Ontario Ancestors had signed an agreement to help with book scanning in cooperation with FamilySearch. Under the agreement, FamilySearch provides specialized book scanning equipment and volunteers in exchange for access to the society's extensive library holdings. Through the project, digitized documents are made available on both FamilySearch and Ontario Ancestors websites.
Ontario Ancestors has worked with FamilySearch on past projects—including the indexing of the Vernon Directories for Ontario back in 2019. A link to the news release of that project is worth revisiting.
Getting Involved
Steve and Dianna have their own ideas for people wishing to get involved with family history. “Get started,” they suggest. “Start with yourselves. Write down everything (even it is a half-truth at present). Go to your family and gather facts to prove or disprove what you do or don’t know.” Steve adds, “Go to the Royal Canadian Legion in the community where your people lived. And the first guy you see, buy him a drink. Then listen to his story. And who knows, he might know all about your ancestor.”
Steve and Dianna also tout the RootsTech 2022 annual conference theme of “Choose Connection.” Steve agrees that “it’s all about getting people to connect.” He loves the Relatives at RootsTech feature of the RootsTech conference.
And speaking of his work for the OGS, Steve feels his main goal is to empower volunteers to get the job done since they are giving so freely of their time. Steve has worked and brought together many groups for the benefit of family history, building bridges and meeting new people. That is what Steve and Dianna do best—empowering others and bringing together all the family history records and resources they can. Talk about “influencers”—their influence is definitely felt in their parts of the world north and south, and beyond.
