ghosts of camsell

https://news.uwinnipeg.ca/online-research-guide-will-help-families-locate-missing-tuberculosis-patients/ [Full text below]

A friend sent me this announcement about Dr. Margaret-Anne Lindsay joining the TB History group at the University of Winnipeg. It looks like their aim is to have a website up in January 2022 that will help families and loved ones locate missing tuberculosis patients from the Indian Hospitals.

The Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project is thrilled to add Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Anne Lindsay to its team.

We are extraordinarily fortunate to be working with Dr. Lindsay… She has a broad and deep knowledge of Indigenous history, is extraordinarily generous, and has an intellectual curiosity that is infectious and energizing to all around her.

DR. MARY JANE LOGAN MCCALLUM

Drawing on her extensive expertise in the records of the Department of Indian Affairs and church organizations, Lindsay will produce an online research guide to assist families and communities attempting to locate the burial places of missing Indigenous tuberculosis patients, including residential school children, who were sent to Manitoba Indian hospitals and sanatoriums.

Lindsay will work under the supervision of UWinnipeg Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Archives, and History Dr. Mary Jane Logan McCallum. 

“We are extraordinarily fortunate to be working with Dr. Lindsay,” said McCallum. “She has reflected on the archival problems and the interpretive and organizational issues associated with investigating the Indigenous history of health care in Manitoba.  She has a broad and deep knowledge of Indigenous history, is extraordinarily generous, and has an intellectual curiosity that is infectious and energizing to all around her.”

Lindsay is a settler scholar, an archivist, and a historian who is currently involved in several efforts to identify and honour the children buried in Residential School cemeteries. Her most recent article, authored in partnership with Cross Lake band member William Osborne, is The Three Sisters, a case study of three sisters whose family spent decades searching for where they were buried.

Finding them was not straightforward.

According to the article, “Access to the combination of records needed to find the three sisters required comfort with written English or French, fluency in records management and archival databases, familiarity with residential schools and Indigenous health-related records, good internet service, and access to computer and printing equipment, as well as the ability to pay for services remotely with either a credit card or cheque.”

Lindsay’s career is focused on archival primary source research, particularly in areas relating to settler interactions with Indigenous peoples. She previously worked as an archivist and researcher for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and has spent years assisting individuals and families research connections to Residential and Indian Hospital Schools.

“She is the expert on records associated with residential and Indian hospital burial records in western Canada,” said Dr. Erin Millions, Research Director for the Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project. “Her work on burials through this postdoc will draw on her expertise gained through years of work with the archival records and Indigenous communities in Manitoba to accelerate efforts to recover the burial sites of missing patients and students.”

The results of this research will be made publicly available as an online research guide to be hosted on a new website planned for January 2022. For more information on this project email [email protected].