My Family Tree

My great-grandparents Acheles and Albertine

I have been getting into a new obsession lately. I absolutely love history and learning about the past.  I finally decided to start learning about my family tree. For someone like me it has been absolutely exciting to see all the names of the people who have come before me. I've learned a lot about who I am and where I come from. 

3 or 4 year old me with my great-grandma Albertine

One of the most interesting things I have learned is that my ancestors and both my dad's side and my mom's side were mostly born in Canada. I found relatives on both sides that can be traced back to being born in France before 1633. My ancestors were some of the early settlers in "New France" -what we now call Canada. I knew my background was French I just had no idea how French!

Baby me with my dad and his grandma Lillian

My dad's side of the family is about four generations in the USA and then mostly in Canada. I also learned one of my great grandmothers had 18 kids! That poor woman. Sadly she passed a few months after I was born. I have a picture with her. My mother is a first-generation American and her parents were both born in Canada. They later moved to the USA after they married and my mom and her brother were born in the States. 

My uncle and my dad with my great-grandma Agnes

I've been using a family history app with great success. They have scanned in documents available to view on the site for some people. I saw scan of my great-grandmother Agnes's birth certificate. That was amazing. She passed away in 2010. I still miss her but I'm enjoying learning more about her.

My husband's grandma Nicolina on the far left

As I've been delving into my family's background I decided to look into my husband's at the same time. His background is a mix of Italian, Polish, the British isles and a lot more! I have taken the time to sit with his grandmother and go over there family tree together. It was so much fun chatting with her about her memories of her parents and grandparents. Since I've been delving into family history I've been privileged to see old photos.

Nicolina 

Delving into all of this family stories inspired another idea. We live relatively close to my husband's living grandmother and grandfather. This has created an opportunity to start visiting them and filming interviews with them. His grandmother is about 86 years old. She loves to talk and has so many stories to tell. It is slow going process to edit everything together but I'm enjoying the work. It will take a while but I hope to eventually have some clips to share with you all. I would like to make it into a "documentary" of sorts for the family

My great grandparents Wilfred and Rosa

All the information I'm learning, and all the stories are a bit overwhelming. But I'm so happy to be doing this. When I talk to my grandparents about what I've learned and names of people in locations they were living in their faces just light up! My grandmother told me she was waiting for one of the grandkids to start looking into the family tree for her.

Have you ever looked into your family tree?

Love, Rebecca

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