Due to a cancellation, I have ONE space available for the
Edinburgh Research Tour in Sept of this year. Dates are Sept 1-7 inclusive.
To register:
https://www.genealogytoursofscotland.ca/event-details-registration/edinburgh-genealogy-tour-2024
One of my goals when I started offering genealogy research tours to Scotland was to be able to offer my services at organizing tours for already existing groups who might want to travel together to research their Scottish ancestors. This might be a formal Special Interest Group for Scottish research, a society that specializes in Scottish research or an informal group that gets together on a fairly regular basis to work on their Scottish research.
If you belong to such a group and think your members would
be interested in this opportunity, check out my new webpage. There is also a page which will answer the questions I get asked most frequently. Scroll to the bottom of the home page or use the navigation bar at
the top.
I am so
fortunate to belong to a family that believes in capturing memories. My dad had
a old Brownie camera and then went state of the art when he was gifted a Polaroid
Land Camera for Christmas one year. My uncle was the “videographer” although we
didn’t call it that back then. He simply took the home movies.
My cousin
and I were avid photographers. Not in any sort of professional sense. But when
it came to capturing glimpses of family gatherings, special events or
vacations, we could certainly be counted on to be the ones behind the camera.
So could one of my aunts.
My cousin and I kept our photos in photo albums. I always wrote a bit about the photos so that anyone who was looking through the albums could tell what was happening then the photos were taken. We didn’t always document who was in the photos, but fortunately, between us, we have been able to identify almost everyone.
I had shelves and shelves of albums. So did my cousin. Most of my photos have since been scanned. My cousin still has her albums, but has allowed me to scan hundreds of photos to share with other family members.
When my
children were young, I turned to traditional scrapbooking. I had dozens of
large, heavy albums detailing our vacations. And I have dozens of traditional photo
albums of our daughter. My husband bought me a digital camera for Christmas the
year our son was born. Few of those photos made it to albums, but are safely
tucked in digital albums and stored in the cloud. I am in the process of
creating photobooks using those photos.
My husband inherited his dad’s video camera when our daughter was young so we also have at least a dozen videos of our kids. While those are also safely stored, they need to be edited so that they are easier to watch and the kids aren’t sitting through feature length films in order to enjoy the memories of their childhoods.
About 8
years ago, I moved from the traditional scrapbook to digital photobooks and
have actually started having my traditional scrapbook pages digitized so that
they can be recreated as photo books.
My cousins have always been a big part of my life. I was an only child for the first 10 years of my life, but my cousins up the street substituted for siblings since we were together almost every day. My older cousin was our babysitter on bowling nights. We would put on puppet shows for her.
I might not have seen my cousins who lived twenty minutes away as often, but I certainly saw them two or three times a week, so we were also very much a part of each other’s lives. I remember as each new cousin arrived, how excited we all were. How much love there was for the new baby. Everyone eager to hold, snuggle, kiss the new little clan member.
We gathered for birthdays, Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day. We went places together – Ontario Place, Wonderland, the Science Centre, Niagara Falls, vacations. I was the eldest and once I had my driver’s license, I would gather the cousins and away we would go. No parents. Just us. Thinking back on it, it was an incredible responsibility but at the time it was just a day to have fun together.
My mum and her sisters had two cousins who lived within an hour’s drive. My aunt up the street spent a great deal of time with one of those cousins and we spent a great deal of time with the other. Those adult cousins were “aunt” and “uncle” to us and their children were our cousins. Deep connections were formed as we spent weekends together. We have a shared history and shared memories.
I am also incredibly grateful for technology that allows me to be connected to my cousins up north (Northern Ontario) and my cousins across the pond. We can share photos, videos and keep each other updated on our families and lives.
Cousins are
peers, friends, comrades, confidants. I cherish each and every one of mine. And
to those who have been with me from the start, I share this quote "God
made us cousins because He knew our mothers could not handle us as
siblings."
“We’re having company” This statement was usually issued at a family dinner – either one of the birthdays in March or April, or perhaps at Easter. It was the first indication every year that an aunt or uncle was coming to visit during the summer and this may or may not include their children as well. With my mum and her sisters being part of a very large sibling group (20 living children), we generally had family come for a holiday every year. Sometimes more than one sibling would come at a time or they would sort of book end one another.
This meant
lots of time spent together. Welcome gatherings, dinners, lunches, tea, drop
ins. It was fairly standard. My aunt up the street was usually where any
company that came stayed while they were in Canada. Her door and our door were always
open and often revolving with people in and out to spend time with whoever was
over.
And the
sightseeing day trips were also fairly standard – Niagara Falls, Dundurn Castle,
Wonderland, St Jacobs or the Bell Homestead. But most days were just time spent
together to enjoy each other, get caught up, reminisce and have a few laughs. It
was at these get-togethers that we heard the family stories. Again and again
and again.
I was raised to understand “there but for the Grace of God, go I” And I have witnessed the truth in that more times than I care to count. Life can literally change in the blink of an eye. We are all one race – the human race – and we need to be our brother’s keeper to the best of our ability.
My mum was very spiritual. She lived her Christian beliefs quietly and without need for accolades or fanfare. She never preached and often gave devout evangelicals a run for their money when they started spouting off. My dad was raised in a church going family. His mother was a Sunday School teacher. We went to church when I was younger. However, my dad had zero tolerance for people who are deeply religious but not terribly Christian and so he quickly decided that church was not or him.
I attended a number of churches in my youth. Baptist, Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran and even the Synagogue. For me, it’s not so much about organized religious groups, although I do appreciate that they provide a deep sense of community. For me, it is about serving others when we are called to do so or supporting others when life is proving difficult for them to navigate. Fortunately, my career allowed me to do just that in many different ways.
A friend and I were fortunate enough to experience a brief mission in Jamaica. I attended twice, she attended several times. We were with a medical mission team and worked as support to the medical staff. We had the joy of being stationed at a hospital in Montego Bay and spent time with new mothers as well as on the pediatric ward. We went with the traveling teams out to the clinics in the outlying villages in the hills. And we loved it. It was an incredibly humbling experience. But the opportunity to chat with and support the locals was unrivalled.
Once I became a mother, I knew that I wanted my children to
also have the mission experience. And so we did. Twice we went on a family mission
in the hills of southeastern Kentucky and provided VBS for the local kids.
The kids were able to understand on a real-life basis that
everyone is the same, it is merely our circumstances that are different, and
life is so tenuous that any one of us could end up in similar circumstances so
it was important to treat those who were struggling with the same dignity that
we would want to receive. I am so incredibly blessed that both kids turned out to
be caring, compassionate and helpful human beings who are also strong advocates
for those less fortunate than them.
One of the
joys in our family comes from our pets. Pets have always had a special place in
our family – both immediate and extended. When I was young, we had a black lab.
My dad named him. McTavish McGregor McDonald. Dad made the wire rope that he
attached to our clothesline for Tavish to have free reign in our yard without intruding
into the neighbours’ yards. Fences weren’t really a thing back then. One
morning, we discovered that Tavish had chewed his way through the drywall in
the basement. He was relegated to our really large laundry/utility room but
decided he should investigate the rec room. He got himself stuck in the duct
work. He and dad were never really friends after that.
Then when I moved to my own place back near my family home, I bought Libra. She was amazing. We also bought a cat, Chisa. The two were best friends. My mum and dad watched Libra when I worked shifts. She was almost as much their dog as she was mine.
I had
little Benji when I first moved to Brantford. Another spitfire. He had the best
howl and frequently let his opinion be known.
My husband was a cat person. One afternoon, my son, then three, was getting his bike out of the shed and saw what he thought was a baby racoon. He called for his dad. The baby animal was actually a kitten. She and her four brothers were born at the side of our shed. Mama had made a nest in a bucket that had been turned sideways for storage. We never did find any trace of Mama cat so figure she must have been victim to cars. We took the five kittens in and fed them through eyedroppers.
Sadly, we lost the biggest when he was 10. I missed him. He not only thought his brother was an extension of him, but he also thought that I was his Mama cat. Probably because he knew I fed him.
We lost Spice girl when she was 16. She went down hill quickly. And then we had to send Baby over the rainbow bridge when he was 18. He was a needy old man by then but full of personality. We had our two golden retrievers and he quickly realized that they weren’t going anywhere any time soon, so decided to join them. I often said that he saw himself as a miniature Golden. Although he tended to get into far more antics than they did. It has been two years since he left us and I still miss him. He was cuddly, pliable, and took no nonsense from the dogs. He, too, had a personality that was bigger than him.
Our two beautiful Golden Girls are such a joy to us.
