During this year’s Remembrance period, Ancestry, the global leader in family history and consumer genomics, brought Canada’s wartime stories to life through the History Revealed event, an immersive, augmented-reality exhibit showcasing the famed works of Canadian wartime artist Molly Lamb Bobak. Bobak (1920 – 2014) was born in Vancouver to celebrated photographer Harold Mortimer-Lamb and she aspired to become an artist. She was dubbed the first Canadian woman war artist; her love of painting led Bobak to join the Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC), which brought her overseas serving in London wherein she depicted phenomenal scenes of parades, marches, gas drills and a multitude of training exercises for female military officials. Bobak was a veteran artist, having been one of the first women to make a living off of her earnings and she married fellow war artist, Bruno Bobak. Known for her style of painting, drawing and watercolours, Bobak was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 1973 and presented with the Order of Canada in 1995.

This exhibit is completely immersive. From Bobak’s eye-catching illustrations to portrait sessions with famed photographer George Pimentel, audiences were subject to a unique experience. Ancestry immerses audiences right into Bobak’s artwork. Similar to a virtual reality experience, the canvas comes to life right in the palm of your hands – using your phone or a tablet provided by event organizers. Whether you are a history expert or art enthusiast this revealing exhibit offers a new take on both the history of Canada and historic Canadian artworks. Many of Bobak’s iconic works were featured in the History Revealed exhibit including Private Roy, Canadian Women’s Army Corp (1946), Canadian Women’s Army Corps Officer Cadets and N.C.O.’s Waiting for the Montreal Train and Basic Trainees Learning to Stand at Ease. The projectile nature of the pieces showcased offer audiences the opportunity to truly engage with the intricate details of each work of art.

Ancestry brought this experience to Toronto in an effort to showcase the unique history of Canada. Genealogists, Crista Cowan and Jenn Utley were on-site providing attendees with take-home DNA kits and consultations. Having sat down with Cowan – who could only be described as a lovely blend of vivacious energy mixed nurturing energy – she provided a wealth of knowledge on the importance of learning about family lineage and interesting facts about human evolution, including the theory which suggests homo sapiens today (modern day humans), have a common ancestor. This means, to some degree, we are all related through what is known as a Mitochondrial Eve. Cowan offered her expertise on a host of topics including genetic patterns present in different areas of the world, how statistics suggest some populations are less reluctant than others to trace their genealogy and how the process of DNA collection and analysis has evolved since Ancestry started this mission of genomic exploration in 2006.

If you are interested in learning more about your lineage, geographic roots or meeting any unknown relatives, then check out Ancestry and order your DNA kit today! Pimentel can be contacted via his website.

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A box arrived at my home that contained a tube and a funnel for you to deposit your saliva in. Another box is provided that will protect the sample in transport. Once the lab has received your sample, they test it 40 times to find different variations and post the results as a mean average, and a range of results from the 40 tests, to your Ancestry.ca account.

My background, as far as I knew, was this. My mother was born in England with Irish ancestry and my father was born in Morocco with Jewish ancestry coming from the Middle East. I was expecting to see pretty much 50% British Irish and 50% of Middle Eastern/North African. In my case, this is pretty much what I got.

It seems, from the results, like my mother’s side is very english and all the ancestry is confined to the UK and Ireland. My dad’s side of the family you can almost see the journey from the Middle East to Morocco where my dad was born. Along the way, genes from the area around Greece and Italy were picked up before picking up more genetic markers from Spain and Morocco. Roughly 50% of my dad’s DNA came from the Middle East and 50% came from southern Europe and North Africa.

The Ancestry website goes into great detail on the history of each of these regions. There is a wealth of knowledge on genealogy and history of the world located through the pages of the site.

On top of getting the ethnicity results from your test, you also get matched with potential relatives. I personally had 45 potential cousins that were thought to be between 3rd to 5th or even 8th cousins. The top result of mine I found out was my grandmother’s cousin’s son. So crazy! Apparently after about 5 generations back it becomes harder to know for certain that you are a relative. The matching program also uses location to pinpoint matches which can sometimes lead you to a possible match that was really just a neighbour.

There are 3 million people currently in the Ancestry database giving them a huge pool of people to match you with. They are also talking about adding traits to the tests to see your chances of having curly hair or developing baldness. With the cost of running these tests declining, it allows more people to take the test, growing the database and improving the research of human’s origins.

Check out their website for more info.

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