Some people are just lucky. Their parents or grandparents kept the family history alive and passed it on.
Take George Wood of Lombardy, for example. On the way back from fighting a barn fire as a teenager, George’s dad showed him where their ancestor Clark Nichols (1780-1856) was buried. There, on Lot 16 Concession 1 of South Elmsley, a property the family owned, was a simple grave of a War of 1812 veteran.
What George didn’t know, was other descendants of Clark Nichols were still searching for the grave. Later in life, while George was researching family history, he met another descendant, Myrtle Johnston, who with her sister had been trying to locate the final resting place of Clark Nichols. Through the Leeds & Grenville Genealogical Society, these three were able to meet and share information.
Ultimately, a small group was able to repair and move the headstone to the Lombardy Cemetery.
Genealogical societies are one way to trace your ancestors and are often very social and supportive networks for so doing. If you are considering researching your family through such societies, the annual conference of the Ontario Genealogical Society is meeting in Kingston June 1-3, 2012.
Not everyone has the time to dedicate to an organised, group, however.
Some subscription-based services also help make researching family history easy. As the Alliance’s Director of Community Development, Brandt Zatterberg, recently shared, one of the best and fastest ways to trace ancestors is through Ancestry.ca.
If, however, it is the thrill of the search that lures you, tracking ancestors through historical records is always an option. The information already available on your family will impact where to begin. If you can name ancestors as far back as 1812 with birth and death dates, you might head straight for National Archives sources to see if you descend from an actual veteran. There are many original sources, such as muster rolls, that can also be scoured.
Sometimes a bit of research might need to be completed before heading to pensioner files or lists of veterans. Depending on how recent the gap in your family history is, government birth and immigration records can be helpful. Likewise, church records on marriages and baptisms are extremely useful in tracing a family tree.
From experience George Wood encourages would-be family researches to definitely do one thing: “never assume because you know some details that everybody else knows too. Record your information and share it.”
If you have sources or ideas on where family historians can find more information, please share below.
