When I first made an Ancestry.ca account, it was for a high school class where we had to build a family tree. When I made it, I added the few family members I knew about; my parents, my grandparents and my few aunts and uncles. I stopped there, logged off and didn’t think about my family tree for a few years.
In 2017, I started watching a lot of a show called Long Lost Family (you should watch it too), and in between tears, I became interested in tracking down my own family. As a kid, I was told some things about their journeys but knew no specifics. Who were my ancestors? Where and when did they emigrate? How did my family get to where it is?
I renewed my account and called my grandparents. With that, I began adding more and more names. I started with 13 family members, myself included. Six months later, I’m currently at 353 and adding more every day.
Digging into my family’s history has been one of the most interesting adventures that I’ve undertaken. It’s felt like time travel from the comfort of my own home. Beginning to build my family tree pushed me out of my comfort zone, reaching out to distant family members; great-aunts and third cousins who each gave me a little piece of the puzzle.
Some of the most rewarding moments I’ve had has been to sit with my family for hours and asking them questions about their childhood, their lives and the family members that they knew before I was even born. We went through photos together, they told me their stories, and I found out more about them than I ever would have known had I not begun this journey.
Author’s grandmother on a family trip in 1946. Photo found after hours of searching through boxes with family.
When looking for your family history, at some point you’ll reach a wall where you can’t find out any more information. This happened to me within a month of using Ancestry.ca (all these websites have limited collections), and I thought about giving up and being thankful for what I did find. However, I decided to give it another chance and branched out to other resources; Billiongraves.com (a collection of worldwide cemetery data), MyHeritage.com and specific Google searches with any information I had. Suddenly, an incredible wealth of information flowed through. I found photos, immigration records, publications and other family trees which included my ancestors. With this new information, I was able to build 7 generations in my family tree.
There are also many times where you will come across contradicting records. Check multiple sources, verify the information and keep searching for confirmation. For example, I often found that I had three or more different dates for certain events; one from my family and two others from different online sources. The most reliable source is usually not your family (memories fail), so rely on government documents. Try spelling variations of names and consider every piece of information a clue, no matter how small.
I’m still on my journey to finding all the stories of my ancestors, but every day I get closer to seeing the full picture. If you choose to embark on your own time travel through your family’s history, ask a lot of questions, spend time with your family members and learn about what their lives were like before you. Find out about how you got to where you are and keep track of any information; there will come a day when somebody will be asking you for “the story”.