Where do I come from?
Seems like a pretty easy question to answer. Some might say the city or country they were
born in, while others might take the more obvious approach and respond with “my
Mom”. For myself the question is not
this cut and dry, because a large portion of my family’s history was lost when
the world went to war for the second time.
It is for that reason I decided, last year, to act upon my curiosities
and began researching my families lost roots.
When I
sat down to begin researching I realized I had no idea where to begin. I decided I would talk to my parents and
extended family to see what they might know.
I was excited to find out that my late uncle, on my father’s side, had
started working on our genealogy.
However, I quickly hit a wall when I contacted my cousins. Turns out, since his passing sixteen years
ago, they had not come across any information.
So, I was right back where I started, only having a few stories which
might or might not have been true. Being
that I didn't have much to go on, I decided to follow the green leaves and
signed up with Ancestory.com.
Once I
was signed up with Ancestory.com, and had submitted my credit card number to be
billed the monthly minimum, I had access to their Canadian records and began my
search. Luckily, Ancestory.com is a very
user friendly website and anyone with a credit card can get an account to use
it. It was just like the commercials
say, “Simply type in a name” and see who you will discover. As it turns out my uncle had been using
Ancestory.com to research some of the family, unfortunately his searches had
not rendered many results. Thus, the
second wall. So where do I go from
here? I then remembered a school project
I worked on which required me to use the public library archives to access
information. It got me wondering, what
if some of that information has been put online now.
The
first website I visited in my search for information was the Canadian
Government Archives, looking into census records. Sure enough, there was more information. I had finally found pay dirt. There in front of me on the screen shining
brightly was the names of my ancestors, along with countries of origin, ages at
time of census and so much more. I
finally had my starting point. From
there, I was able to search a number of provincial archive sites to locate even
more information. Thus far I have
managed to fill in a number of missing pieces of my family’s complicated
puzzle, however there are many pieces still missing. I have hit another road block in this journey
but I intend to break through it to find as much as I can regarding my family.
The
most amazing outcome from this journey, into my families mysterious past, is
that it has laid before me a path I had never expected. I have always loved a great mystery and lost genealogy
is one of the greatest mysteries of all.
Attempting to rediscover information about my loved ones sparked a fire
in me for research. Therefore, I have
decided to have a midlife career change and went back to school to become a
librarian. As a librarian I hope to use
my spare time to gain more information into my families past and help others
who might be venturing out on a similar journey as me.
So if
you are like me and have an interest in searching for your family roots, I
leave you with this advice. Searching
for family history can be very difficult at times and you will run into walls
which you must break down brick by brick.
Fortunately, there are a number of online sources available to the
public which can aid in their searches.
Unfortunately, there is a large amount of paper information stored in
many library archives which has yet to be put online. This means you might have to go old school
and spend time in a musty room in the back corner of the library. Lastly, I leave you with this thought, I am
only one branch in my family’s tree, and however the roots grow deep, which
give me strength to weather any storm.
