In January of this year I decided to try out www.ancestry.ca to search into my family history. I had reached the limits of what my living relatives could tell me about it but wanted to know more. Ancestry offered a free two week trial. After two days I signed up for a one year membership which would provide me with access to all Canadian documents that Ancestry has access to. There were doubts of course given it is a website. Fortunately I had a decent understanding of my father's side of the family going back to the 1860s which allowed me to test its accuracy. It matched what I had been told, or had seen in old photographs.
The French portions of my family tree have been the easiest to trace. Most of them settles in the same areas from Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa and up to Mattawa and places in between. They remained in that area some branches moving slowly west from 1649 up til about 1860 when they suddenly stopped moving westward. Some branches broke off and stayed in Quebec, others went south into the United States which is where their trail dries up.
The English/Irish portion on the other hand has been quite difficult. By comparison to the french sides of the family they haven't been here very long. My great great grandfather Burton came to Canada from Ireland sometime between 1848 and 1850. Given that Burton is a Welsh name the family must have originated somewhere in Britain rather than Ireland. Unfortunately I have not been able to track those records. My great great grandfather's name was "John Burton", a very common name in Ireland in the 1830s which unfortunately makes it difficult to figure out exactly who his parents were. The other Irish branch of the family would be the Rileys who came to Canada around the same time. Luke Riley came over and married an English woman named Mary Coleman. I still haven't found the exact date of their wedding, or of their arrival. I do however know when and where they were born, died and had children. They also settled along the Ottawa valley. Some of their children also went into the United States, others went up into Northern Ontario.
The German parts of the family are easy enough to find records for but understanding them is another issue. I know what happened from the time they arrived in Canada until today, but their lives before that and that of their ancestors remains a mystery to me due to a language barrier. Most of them started out in Canada working at the lumber mills in Quebec and Ontario from the 1850s to the 1880s. There are two distinct German branches, the Meyers and the Priebes who came at different times and did different things once they got here. Two generations after their arrival my great grandmother was born. She outlived all of my great grandparents and died only about five years before I was born.
While on Ancestry I've met and collaborated with distant relatives I knew nothing about before I started looking. Some of us may only share one relative from nearly two centuries ago, but it is still a connection. I haven't spoken to all of the ones I've encountered as there are too many. They are all scattered across North America and Europe. Some are relatively close by. My earliest known relative to arrive in Quebec has more than 400 Ancestry users linked to him as a common ancestor. It makes me wonder if I've ever seen one without knowing it. I may very well in the near future.
As many of you know I will be moving to Ottawa in the near future which is quite convenient for me for many reasons. One of which is that its right in the middle of where most of my known family history happened. Many were born, married and died within a few hours drive of Ottawa over several centuries. And thanks to google earch and google streetview I can see some of their homes as they appear today (few are still there) without leaving home. This is something I definitely plan on persuing while in Ottawa to find something more tangible than words and images on a computer screen. My father is also a member on Ancestry and has found several graves online of ancestors he'd like to see. We are hoping to go there at some point this summer. Thats a start.
