Mennonite Historical Society

of British Columbia

Research and Articles

This section of the MHSBC website is for writers to post research and short articles in support of items in Roots and Branches, or as stand alone documents.

Send your contribution to the MHSBC Webmaster as an email attachment in .doc or docx format. Include pictures within the document or as email attachments.

Glenn Penner’s Y-DNA Wish List As of 1 Dec 2023 gpenner@uoguelph.ca

Click for the PDF document for instructions and list of YDNA contributors: Glen Penner YDNA Project

Note that Y-DNA is passed down from father to son, just like traditional family names. In all cases below we are interested in the Y-DNA results of men with the specific surname mentioned.

Note also that the Y-DNA part of the Mennonite DNA Project is interested in having any man who has paternal Low-German Mennonite join the project.

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Gerhard Willems (1820 – 1900) - Glimpses of his life and times by Keith Kroeker.

The attached article is an excerpt from an upcoming book on one of my ancestors, Gerhard Willems (1820 – 1900). He was born in Prussia, emigrated at a young age to Lichtenau in the Molotschna and relocated to Karassan c1860 before emigrating to Minnesota and finally Rosthern, Saskatchewan.

Click for the excerpt from the book: Chapter 9 - Karassan.

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The Yarrow Athletic Association by Elmer G. Wiens

The Yarrow Athletic Association operated in the Mennonite community of Yarrow, BC from 1947 to 1953. It was founded in late 1946 when a group of young men gathered in Bargen’s Carpentry Shop with the intention of providing Yarrow’s residents with secular recreational activities and facilities.

Click for the complete article: The Yarrow Athletic Association.

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A History of Yarrow by Elmer G. Wiens
PowerPoint presented at the Yarrow History Booth, Yarrow Days, June 3, 2023.

In 1927 the ten thousand acres of lake-bottom land obtained from draining Sumas Lake were ready to be settled, including Chauncy Eckert’s one thousand acres between Vedder Mountain and the Vedder River. After Eckert advertised his farmland for sale in the Winnipeg Free Press Farmer, Mennonites from the Prairies took up Eckert’s generous financial terms and Yarrow was born.

Click for the PDF version of the PowerPoint presentation: History of Yarrow.

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The Glory Days of MEI Basketball by Vern Giesbrecht

When a sports committee headed by Henry Klassen painted lines for basketball on a small, concrete-floored auditorium at Mennonite Educational Institute in the late 1940s, no one could have imagined that teams from this school would eventually dominate the competition in the Fraser Valley and sometimes the entire province.

Click for the complete article: MEI Basketball Glory Days.