Delete. Delete. Delete. All family historians and genealogists fret about what will happen to their research once they are dead. Before the digital age, they worried about their research being chucked in the garbage or, more recently, tossed into the recycling bin. Now they worry about the word DELETE.

Those of us who post our research on web sites and blogs know th...

The wedding of a thirty-six-year-old widower and his nineteen-year-old orphaned cousin took place the day before the Feast of St. Jean in 1750. The marriage bolstered a resilient family community that remained in the Saguenay through local strife, high taxes, and the burning down of their farm by the British in 1759. Together, the couple produced six children, including our a...

It must have been a happy wedding. For a girl from humble American roots to marry the owner of one of Lower Canada’s (Quebec) vast seigneuries, this must have seemed like a wonderful match. And the groom had recently lost his parents, so his family members were no doubt pleased to see him marry.

Unfortunately, there was no fairy-tale ending to this story...

It is the 25th of March, 1967, and my father, my then-boyfriend, John, and Dad’s second wife, plus me are on our way to St Austell, in Cornwall, England. We were visiting Dad’s mother, my Granny Bulford, whom I never really knew, as my parents had divorced when I was seven.

We were in Dad’s new white Mini Minor, a small car. In fact, a very small car. Dad’s head bru...