As a kid growing up in the 70's and 80's I often wondered where my family came from. Why was there no grand story of our great great great grandfathers and grandmothers. I felt disconnected from my heritage. At school I met kids who knew when their parents or grandparent's came to Canada. How I wished I knew more.
My mother's side was easy. Her dad was born in Glasgow, Scotland. And, his father was born in Dublin Ireland. I knew how to follow that line. My dad's side was a mystery. His parents both died young and few questions had ever been asked about their parents or when they came to Canada.
In 1998 I started fiddling around with a free ancestry website called Rootsweb which has since been absorbed by Ancestry.com. I stumbled through adding what information I could. I found I loved researching for hours and hours. I learned from the mistakes which caused me to delete months of research when I found I had a wrong match.
There was also some help with the Latter Day Saints website https://www.familysearch.org/ which is a great free resource and provided the vital link in research my Dad's family tree past my great grandfather. I am eternally grateful for their dedication to maintaining the amazing gift of family for future generations.
One day it became apparent that access to more records was needed. I bit the bullet and signed up for https://www.ancestry.ca. I had to re-enter all of my information but over the course of months and years I had leaves popping up. Keep in mind this was at the infancy of ancestry.ca. Records were sloooooowly being added at this time. Nowadays I get more leaves than I can possibly attend to, but I try.
Years truly did pass. I would beat my head against the keyboard in frustration. I called out to my ancestors asking "Don't you WANT me to find you??? Lol. They did. But they wanted me to do the work. Periods of frustration would eventually lead to major discoveries and total elation. I would look at maps and read stories about the time and place imagining who these new family members were and how they lived. I was obsessed.
My first real JACKPOT moment was when I was able to tell my Dad that his family came to New France (now Canada) in 1665 as a member of the Carignan Saliere Regiment. This Regiment was sent by France to protect the settlers along the St. Lawrence from frequent attacks by the Iroquois. When their duties ended in 1668 some of the soldiers chose to remain in New France and start a new life.
The tree climbing continues 20 years later (God, has it really been that long?). The story will never end. I have family in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, The U.S. and more. I want to find them all. Then I look around me and realise they are all here in my siblings. Every story is continuing. I love that about life.
