Linda Mortsch is a Senior Researcher at Environment and Climate Change Canada as well as an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo. Her research areas include impacts of climate change on water resources and wetlands in Canada, climate change scenario development, and "effective" communication of climate change information. With over 20 years of research experience, Mortsch has led a Canada-U.S. integrated climate change impact assessment in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Basin, been federal co-chair of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) Indicators Task Group, was a lead author for the Water Chapter the Canada Country Study and a co-author in Environment Canada’s “Threats to water availability in Canada” and has provided expert advice to organizations including the United Kingdom Climate Impacts Program (UKCIP), the U.S. National Climate Assessment, OURANOS, Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, Natural Resources Canada, International Joint Commission, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In 2007 Mortsch was co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work as the Coordinating Lead Author of the North America Chapter of the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.

The Kitchener branch of the Motz family came to Canada on June 2nd, 1848 when John Motz (1830-1911) followed his elder sister Regina Motz (1819-1909) and her husband Frederick Noll (1810-1871) from Germany to Waterloo County. John Motz was born to Johannes Motz and Margaretha Schroeter in 1830 in Diedorf, Germany. As his elder brother Lorenz was set to inherit the family land, John opted to take the 64 day ocean voyage from Hamburg to Quebec City to find a new life for himself in Canada. Once he made his way to Kitchener he stayed with his sister and brother-in-law and worked briefly as a farmer and woodcutter before finding work as an apprentice tailor with Christoph Nahrgang. John Motz apprenticed with Nahrgang for three years and in 1857 moved to Rockwood, Ill. It was here that he met Joachim Kalbfleisch and the two moved back to Canada to settle in Kitchener. Kalbfleisch would later go on to run the Canadische Bauernfreund Newspaper of Waterloo.
On his return to Kitchener, John Motz enrolled in grammar school with the objective to learn English and become a teacher. However, his plans were sidetracked by his friend Frederick Rittinger who had come to Canada from Germany in the same year. Rittinger had been apprenticing as a printer with the Deutsche Canadier and in 1859 the two attempted to buy out the paper. When this proved to be unsuccessful, they decided to set up their own printing company and establish a new paper, the Berliner Journal. The first issue was published on December 29, 1859 and the two continued in partnership for almost 40 years until October 12, 1897 when a sudden illness took Frederick Rittinger. In 1880 John Motz was made mayor of Berlin and in 1900 he was appointed honorary Sheriff of Waterloo County after his 1899 retirement from the newspaper.
By this time John Motz had met and married Helena Vogt (1832-1924) on February 17, 1868. Helena had emigrated from Germany with her family in 1852. Helena’s older sister Barbara (1823-1890) married Rienhold Lang (1817-1883) in Germany and the two of them also immigrated to Canada in 1846 where they would found the Lang Tannery. John and Helena had four children: Mary (1868-1933), William John (1870-1946), Louisa (1874-1944) and Carl Joseph (1878). Mary became Sister Maria Anna, a nun of the order of the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Louisa married John A. Zinger (1871-1903) and lived on a portion of the Motz family lands in Kitchener with their daughter Leone, and William John followed in his father’s footsteps.

William John Motz took over his father’s place in Rittinger & Motz in 1899 when John retired. He and Frederick Rittinger’s son John Adam continued to run the company and the newspaper. By the time that William John took over from his father, the Berliner Journal had begun to amalgamate with other newspapers in the area. In 1897 they purchased the Daily News and Berlin Daily Record, in 1899 the Berlin News Record and Berlin Daily Express, in 1904 Die Ontario Glocke, in 1906 Der Kanadische Kolonist, in 1908 Canadische Volksblatt, and in 1090 Der Canadische Bauernfreund. In 1917 the Berliner Journal is renamed the Ontario Journal and absorbs the Daily News and Berlin Daily Record becoming the exclusively English language Berlin News Record, and in 1918 the Kitchener Daily Record.
While the name of the paper was undergoing its own changes, so was the ownership. In 1915 John Adam Rittinger died and his share in the company was purchased by Senator William Daum Euler. Euler and William John did not see eye to eye and correspondence in the collection shows that their business relationship was tense. Euler’s share in the company ended up becoming a minority share and was eventually purchased in 1953. In his personal life, William John had married Rose Huck (1875-1950) in 1901. Together they had two children, John George (1906-1908) and John Edward (1909-1975). William John was very involved in the publishing community and served as the President of the Canadian Daily Newspapers Association.

In 1946 William John died and his share of the company passed to his son John Edward who took over his father’s position as publisher. In 1948 the paper was renamed the Kitchener-Waterloo Record, a name that it would be known by until 1994. John E. Motz married Mary Helen Stoody (1912-1967) in 1932 and together they had eight children: William John (1933-?), John Edward (1934), Rosemary Eileen (1935-1962), Margaret Ann (1937-?), Mary (1941), John George (1943-?), Ann Elizabeth (1947-?) and Paul John (1950-?). In 1975 John Edward stepped down from his position at the Record, but three of his sons were still working there. In 1990 the Kitchener-Waterloo Record finally left the hands of the Motz family when it was sold to Southam.

Motz was elected mayor of Berlin in July 1880 following the death of Louis Breithaupt, Sr and re-elected again into the position in January 1881.

Abraham was born to Samuel Meyer (1767-1844) and Anna Meyer (nee Bechtel) (1770-1832) on January 29, 1809 in Lincoln, Ontario. He married Mary Gross Nash on March 23, 1880. The couple had nine children: Anna N. Moyer (1831-?), Tobias Moyer (1832-1909), Samuel Gross Moyer (1835-?), Abraham Nash Moyer (1837-?), Mary Gross Moyer (1840-1935), Jacob Nash Moyer (1842-?), Levi Nash Moyer (1845-1916), Sophia Nash Moyer (1847-1870), Jessie Gross Moyer (1850-?). Abraham died on April 21, 1865 and was at Mountview Cemetery in Campden, Ontario.

Abraham Nash Moyer was born to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) on August 10, 1837 in Haldimand Co., Ontario. He married Nannie Entrekin on September 7, 1870 and together they had two children: Metta Sophia (1873-1963) and Clyde Entrekin (1879-1954). Moyer died in Missouri September 12, 1919.

Anna N. Moyer was born to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) on January 9, 1831 in Lincoln Co., Ontario.

Anna married John Wismer (1819-1858) on April 11, 1852.

Following the death of her husband, Anna married William W. Moyer (1823-1891).

Anna Elizabeth Tomlins was born May 1855 in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. She married Jesse Gross Moyer on October 15, 1874 in La Salle, Illinois. Together they had several children. Moyer died in April 1929 and was buried at Mount Hope Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas.

Barbara Helen Moyer was born August 28, 1912 in La Grange, Illinois to Ela Bliss and Jessie Watt Moyer. She married James Alexander Kidston in 1950 and together they had two children. Barbara died July 22, 1993 in Illinois.

Born January 1890 in Kansas.

Charlotte Hayes was born in Kings Basin, Illinois. She married Harry Rollin Moyer in 1896 and together they had four children. The Moyers lived for several decades in Plainfield, New Jersey. Moyer died January 15, 1950 in New York and was a resident of Far Hills, New Jersey at the time of her death.

Dorothy Louise Moyer was born February 19, 1910 in La Grange, Illinois to Ela Bliss and Jessie Watt Moyer.

Ela Bliss Moyer was born February 11, 1869 in Peru, Illinois to Samuel and Emma Moyer. He married Jessie Watt in 1899 and together they had two children: Dorothy Louise and Barbara Helen. Ela died in 1954 and was buried in Parkholm Cemetery in La Grange Park, Illinois.

Emma Brainerd was born February 14, 1849. She married Samuel Gross Moyer in 1867.

Born February 1887 in Kansas.

Born October 12, 1879 in Ontario.

Jacob Nash Moyer was born to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) on October 23, 1842.

He married Mary Jane Miller (1854-1913) on April 20, 1886.

Jennie Moyer was born in Iowa in February 1885 to Levi Nash and Mary Elizabeth Moyer. She died at 18 years of age in Cook County, Illinois on April 26, 1903.

Jesse Gross Moyer was born to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) on February 28, 1850 in Ontario.

He married Anna E. Tomlins on October 15, 1874 in La Salle, Illinois.

Jessie Watt was born in Galva Illinois on June 30, 1878 to Charles R. and Mary C. (née Ward) Watt. She married Ela Moyer on June 13, 1899 at her sister Mrs. F.M. Ferris' home in Danville, Illinois. She died in 1961 and was buried in Parkholm Cemetery.

Levi Nash Moyer was born in Ontario to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) on June 19, 1845. He emigrated to the United States at twenty years of age first going to Illinois before settling in Cedar Falls, Iowa and work for several years in the dry goods industry. He moved to Chicago in 1890 where he worked with Carson, Pirie, Scott & Company. Moyer eventually landed in Plainfield, New Jersey where he spent the last seven years of his life.

He married Mary Elizabeth Raymond (1851-1914) on June 20, 1871 in La Salle, Illinois. Together they had six children. Levi died in April 13, 1919 in Bridgewater, New Jersey at the home of his son Harry.

Louise Moyer was born February 24, 1880 in Cedar Falls, Iowa to to Samuel and Emma Moyer. She graduated from the Iowa State Teachers College in 1900, teaching at the school for two years as a faculty member, before relocating with her family to Chicago and then Plainfield, New Jersey where she pursed a career in banking. She also attended the American Institute of Banking and completed post-graduate courses at New York University. Moyer retired from the Plainfield Trust Company in 1948 after a 30 year career with the company. During that time she worked as a head teller in the women's department before taking on roles as trust solicitor and director of publicity and new business.

Moyer was active in the Plainfield community serving as one time board member and finance chairman of the YWCA. She was a charter member of the Business and Professional Women's Club of Plainfield and was as the group's president from 1919-1922. She was also affiliated with the Plainfield Art Association and Historical Society, and was at one point the director of the Financial Advertisers Association. She was a member of the Plainfield College Club and the Plainfield Branch of the American Association of University Women. In 1936 she was named as one of Plainfield's outstanding women by the Business and Professional Women's Club.

Moyer died in Belle Mead, New Jersey on February 24, 1958 and was buried at Hillside Cemetery.

Born February 3, 1881 in Canada.

Mary Elizabeth Raymond was born April 17, 1851 in New York City to John Coe and Elizabeth (nee Bladwin) Raymond. She married Reverend Levi Nash Moyer in La Salle, Illinois on June 20, 1871. Together they had six children. Mary Elizabeth died March 2, 1914 in Bridgewater, New Jersey at the home of her son, Harry Rollin Moyer. She was buried at Fairview Cemetery in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Mary Gross Nash was born to Abraham Abram Nash (1778-1823) and Mary Krall Gross (1778-1861) on March 2, 1808 in Tinicum Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Mary married Abraham Bechtel Moyer on March 23, 1830. The couple had nine children; Anna N. Moyer (1831-?), Tobias Moyer (1832-1909), Samuel Gross Moyer (1835-?), Abraham Nash Moyer (1837-?), Mary Gross Moyer (1840-1935), Jacob Nash Moyer (1842-?), Levi Nash Moyer (1845-1916), Sophia Nash Moyer (1847-1870), Jessie Gross Moyer (1850-?).

Mary died on November 8, 1885 in Plumstead Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States.

Born July 7, 1877.

Samuel Gross Moyer was born to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) on March 19, 1835 in Lincoln, Ontario. He married Emma Brainard Bliss on May 22, 1867. Samuel died in 1917 and was buried Parkholm Cemetery in La Grange Park, Illinois.

Sophia Nash Moyer was born to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) on October 10, 1847 in Haldimand Co., Ontario.

She married John H. Book in 1869.

Sophia died on November 13, 1870 in Lafayette, Missouri, United States.

Tobias Moyer was born to Abraham Bechtel Moyer and Mary Gross Moyer (nee Nash) in 1832.

He died on December 28, 1909 in Kitchener, Ontario.