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Since 1993 the Brebner/Bremner Genealogy Project has been taking shape. My interest in family history was sparked when
hand-written pages that my grandmother had compiled for me some thirty years earlier turned up during spring cleaning.
The lure of being able to input that data into a computer and to output family ancestral charts was the spur to beginning research on the
Brebner/Bremner families worldwide.
I was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1949, and came to Canada with my parents in 1957, where we settled in Kingston
at the eastern end of Lake Ontario. That was my home until 1981. After a brief study of electrical
engineering in the early '70s, I expanded my main interest and love for photography into a small business that ran until
1979. Tiring of weddings and babies, I accepted a position as scientific photographer with the
Communications Research Centre in Ottawa. That has been both enjoyable and satisfying
employment for the past 32 years.
At the end of 2012, the Federal Goverment decided that they no longer needed a site photographer, so I have now joined the ranks of
the retired. The transition to having unlimited time for hobbies took a couple of months to establish, but now I'm ready to
apply my time with renewed vigour to both the Brebner/Bremner genealogies and my freelance photographic and video production
business.
My addiction to genealogy fits well with a passion for photography. On my travels both around Canada and visits to Scotland,
my cameras are always at hand. In 1998 I began a series of gravestone photographs that accompany some of the
many monumental transcriptions in these pages, as well as
photographs of landmarks, farms and homes linked to the various individuals.
The more information uncovered, the greater the scope of the project still ahead.
When I started, I had no idea that I would be finding links to the various families on such a worldwide scale.
The research, first limited to Aberdeen, then to the North-East of Scotland, has expanded to a worldwide search.
Many of the early families emigrated to North America, Australia and South Africa. The research is very much ongoing,
with various projects always in progress.
With the growing popularity of the internet, the global BREBNER/BREMNER family is starting to
emerge. I welcome all contacts, additions, corrections and speculation on the family groups.
Please have a look at my research philosophy. If this is your first visit
to my pages, please drop me an e-mail and let me know if I can help in your search for BREBNER/BREMNER ancestors.
Good luck in your research endeavours.
John A. Brebner
April 2013
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