One of my younger cousins stopped into the shop today and my Mum made a comment about how I’d been working on the family tree off and on for about 20 years.   It took a minute and I realized that she’s wrong, I’ve been working on it (off and on) for about 30 years.

I think I first started working on it as a way to keep the people I’d lost close to me, it was a web in which we were all entangled.  I’ve always been a history geek and somewhere along the way it became a quest of sorts, a mystery.

When I first started, I knew what you’d expect the average genealogy newbie to know.  I knew who my parents were, I knew who their parents were (even if in name only for my paternal grandmother), a few critical dates and that was it.   I spoke to everyone I could think of as a possible source of information – my uncles, my aunt, a few cousins.   I learned a valuable lesson – the second generation doesn’t know half of what they think they do.   I was told first names that turned out to be completely wrong, last names that were spelled completely differently, dates that were all over the place.

Future posts discussing the family tree will refer to several major last names.

Dad’s side:  Richards, Boucher, Tod, Schellin

Mum’s side: Humphries,  Desrochers (Brien dit Desrochers),  Rothwell, Callaghan.

I’ll post the occasional family sheets but nothing with anyone still living so if you’re family, you’ll have to ask me privately how you fit into the mess.