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omfrcinfo@gmail.com

Who is the Ontario Métis Family Records Center?

The Ontario Métis Family Records Center Inc. (OMFRC) is and organization dedicated to researching and documenting the aboriginal and Métis families of Ontario.  While Ontario is our primary focus, it is impossible to restrict our research to only Ontario.  Many aboriginal and Métis families traveled extensively throughout the United States and Canada.  Our research therefore encompasses both countries.  We have been gathering information for over 40 years and we have records as far back as the early 1600s.

Thousands of people have family traditions of an Indian ancestor but don’t know the exact details.  With each generation the information passed down to the next generation becomes more obscure.  We want to document as much as possible before the opportunity is lost forever.  If you haven’t already done so, we encourage you to talk to any elderly relatives before their knowledge is lost forever.  Talk to all of them.  Don’t assume that brothers and sisters know the same things.  Grandma may have told one of them something that the others never heard.

Old family records and photos can be helpful in research.

Old family records and photos can be helpful in research.

Traditionally family research is done by starting with yourself and working backwards to previous generations.  We do the same but also document every aboriginal individual we find in historical records and seek out their descendants.  By working both from the present to the past and from the past to the present we are often able to connect our two methods of research.

We believe that it is possible to find these unknown ancestors by entering the details of these oral traditions into a database and comparing the information with other families’ traditions. Coupling tradition with written records vastly improves the chances of identifying your aboriginal ancestors.

We gather our information from a variety of sources:  our members, public records, genealogy records, family histories, local histories, government records, interviews, land grants, scripts, military records and census records, to name a few.

Anyone with aboriginal ancestry can apply for their Certificate of Aboriginal Status.

For those of you interested in doing your own aboriginal research, see our ‘Research Basics’ for suggestions on how to build your First Nations or Métis family tree.  First Nations and Métis genealogy can be difficult and we want to help with your Native research.  We hope you will share your findings with us.