Links Family History Blog

Introducing the ELDER family. In an earlier post, I introduced the founders of the TULLY branch of my father's maternal family. They arrived in the Huntingdon region of Quebec, Canada from Scotland about 1817. Their story, and my ancestral heritage, is interwoven with two other Scottish families who settled in the Huntingdon region of Quebec around the same time: the ELDERs and the TAYLORs. Today, I introduce the founding members of my ELDER family line. Figure 1: ELDERs, TULLYs and TAYLORs - Interwoven family connections in Huntingdon, Quebec, Canada The ELDER family (like the TULLYs), are also on my father's maternal side and arrived in Canada - specifically Lower Canada - from Scotland around 1817. They settled in the region of Huntingdon, Quebec and, along with other families such as the TULLYs and the TAYLORs, were part of a migration of British immigrants to North America that took place over a number of years following the War of 1812. The Canadian founder of the ELDERs...

Who was my grandmother's unknown father?   Family secrets and a burning question that has been whispered throughout my youth: just who was my paternal grandmother's father? That my grandmother was illegitimate was one of those open secrets in the family that no one talked about. I'm not certain that even she knew who her father was.  But like a stone being thrown into a pond -- whatever the intent was in keeping it quiet -- the waves that the secret created has had a real impact on her children and grandchildren. I personally feel a sense of loss of family connection and history, of something that can never be fully reclaimed. My uncle, aunt, and father never got to know their grandfather and they grew up thinking their grandmother was their "aunt"; we grandchildren (my brother and paternal cousins) missed knowing our great-grandfather and having anything but a distant-aunt relationship with our great-grandmother. While I understand the motivation for silence, the...