Who’s In That Photo?

Discovering Brandon’s Polish Roots in Photographs?

Daly House Museum is pleased to announce the opening of their latest exhibit Who’s in that Photo? Discovering Brandon’s Polish Roots in Photographs.  The exhibit, on loan from Ottawa genealogist Frank Cedar, features 58 reproduced photos that shed an interesting light on immigration to Canada and the Prairies in the late 1800s.  It focuses on Polish families with surnames such as Broda, Konieczny, Bojarski, Sowa, Dolny, Walchuk, Wielgosz, Lorenowics, and Koldziejczyk that came from a small village in south east Poland called Kazcyce to settle in Brandon, Manitoba and Melville, Saskatchewan.

Unfortunately, the knowledge of some of the people in the images has been lost to time.  Therefore, exhibit creator Frank Cedar is calling on the public to help him identify those individuals before he takes the exhibit to the Canadian Embassy in Poland.

“Frank in a sense has rescued these photographs and is bring back the stories of the individuals depicted in them.” Commented Curator Eileen Trott. “It is Daly House’s honour to share that story on Frank’s behalf with the community.  We hope that the public will help us help him identify the unknown and reconnect us to their forgotten history and our province’s shared history with Poland.”

Early in 2025, Frank Cedar will be returning to Brandon to give a presentation at Daly House on the exhibit and how to research your Polish ancestry.  The date of his visit to be announced.  In the meantime, the exhibit will be on display in the Museum’s second floor gallery until April 30, 2025. 

Daly House Museum is located at 122-18^th Street, Brandon, Manitoba. The Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday 10:00 am to 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm.