Learning about the Acadians, fur-traders, immigrants, soldiers, farmers and business people who are among my ancestors usually gives me strength and fills me with gratitude. I know that the decisions they made led to opportunities that have enabled me to thrive.

My parents and ancestors gave me many gifts, including a safe, happy child-hood and ongoing friendships with my aunts, uncles and cousins. I grew up knowing all four of my grandparents and some of their siblings, something that lots of children don’t enjoy. I especially appreciate those relationships now that three grandparents have died and my great-aunt and grandmother are both bedridden.

But what about the liability side of that leger? Do my children and I bear any responsibility for the mistakes of ancestors who are now dead?

There’s no inheritance to consider and Canadian law doesn’t require families to honour the debts of people after they die. If they did, there would be at least one ancestor who could cause us problems. The scoundrel got his clients drunk and stole from them. I’ll probably find others like him as research continues, although I hope not.

There are several ethical considerations beyond finances though. Do my children and I have a moral responsibility to atone for our ancestors’ actions too?

If the answer to this is yes, then what would the limits be?

Are we responsible for only people in our direct line or do cousins’ actions count too?

What if there are family stories about misdeeds but no documents? Do those count?

How far back do we go and does it matter where they lived? A century? In that case, my responsibility is limited to actions in Belgium, Canada, England, France and North Dakota, I think. (My mom’s dad’s parents emigrated from England and a few women came from Belgium but so far everyone else has been in Canada since the mid-1600s or so. As far as I know. I haven’t done my mom’s side very far back yet, but my great grandmother and her parents were born in Canada.)

Would the actions of step-grand-parents count? If so, then add Scotland for my grandfather.

My kids get all those plus Portugal.

If we do bear responsibility for ancient wrongs, what could we possibly do to make up for the actions? Apologize? Pay the victims? Say a bunch of hail Mary’s in private? Volunteer for organizations that make up for the misdeeds? Donate to these organizations? Find the ancestors of people my ancestors hurt and make some sort of deal with them?

How do you ensure that searching for reconciliation does no harm? We have lots of soldiers who participated in wars long-past. If we attempt to atone for those, don’t we risk reviving historic family blood feuds that are better left alone?

Those are just some of the questions raised by the idea taken on an individual level.

On a societal level, things get even more complicated. Nonetheless, successive Canadian Governments are taking responsibility on our behalf for historic wrongs. They’ve provided funds and apologies to communities for:

• The Chinese head tax (http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2006/06/22/prime-minister-harper-offers-full-apology-chinese-head-tax)
• The Komagata Maru tragedy, in which 376 Indians who arrived in Canada by boat in 1914 were sent back to India (http://www.canadavisa.com/layton-joins-indo-canadians-in-calling-for-apology-for-komagata-maru-incident.html);
• Ukranian internment during WWI;
• The St. Louis Incident in which 900 Jewish refugees who came by boat in 1939 were turned back to Europe;
• The Japanese internment during WWII (view Brian Mulroney’s apology at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxVZtQULIMQ);
• The high Arctic relocation in the 1950s (http://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1100100016115/1100100016116); and
• Residential schools (view it on CBC at http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/society/education/a-lost-heritage-canadas-residential-schools/a-long-awaited-apology.html),

All of these issues are heart-breaking and I’m relieved that the government found a way to direct some funds to the living people who suffered from past policies. The payouts to communities on behalf of people who have died trouble me more, but I imagine that these were made to limit potential payouts from future lawsuits.

I also question how the Canadian Government can act responsibly to atone for the past on these issues and yet refute the argument that today’s population is responsible for past errors during worldwide negotiations to deal with climate change. Canada clearly benefited from historic industrial development while poorer countries did not. This decision pit the Canadian Government against environmentalists and was part of the impetus behind the Idle No More movement (http://www.idlenomore.ca/).

Idle No More raises Canada’s most difficult challenge on both an individual and society level—reconciling with our First Nations people.

Reconciliation is hard enough if we look only at people currently living. It becomes even trickier when the lives of ancestors are considered.

I believe that this is where individuals can make a big difference. We’ll all be able to tell better stories if we carefully trace, document and repatriate our Cree, Ojibway and other First Nations people along with the rest of our family members.

Our families need to be whole.

A few of them made long car rides to Ontario flow by quickly. Others made visits to the doctor seem shorter. I’ve even heard a couple while sitting in the sauna.

So far, twenty experts have taught me how to improve my genealogy research while sitting around. All thanks to CDs I ordered of sessions from the Federation of Genealogy Societies (http://www.fgs.org/) 2013 Conference in Fort Wayne Texas.

The Helen F.M. Leary Distinguished lecture by Elizabeth Shown Mills, from http://www.historicpathways.com/ is my favourite so far. Her story about figuring out that a marriage lasted three years by examining a housekeeping bill compels me forward when going through multiple series of papers for some clue to reality. (Also, I found a series of online interviews with Leary herself for free at  http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/cs/publications/videos/helen_f_m_leary).

Tips are good too. Peter Drinkwater, the product manager from http://www.newspapers.com/ convinced me that printing pdf’s is the best way to keep copies of things I find online, because the source information is automatically printed as part of the image.

Eric C.M. Basir convinced me to save photos as tifs.

I never knew that orphans used to be indentured as a way of earning their keep until Angela Walton Raji spoke about the Freedman’s Bureau during the James Dent Walker memorial lecture. Never even heard of James Dent Walker (http://www.aagsnc.org/articles/walker.htm), despite him being the 14th person nominated to the U.S. National Genealogy Hall of Fame.

Lots of different people have spoken about the importance of keeping detailed research logs.

Iowa, Scotland, the Midwest, Iowa, Desmoines—I don’t even know whether I have ancestors in any of those places or not, but listening to research experts describe all the different details about everyday people that were revealed through documents, photos and official records has been so inspiring.

There’s still another 63 conferences to go too, just from the one conference. And next year, the Federation of Genealogical Societies will be combining their conference with RootsTech in Salt Lake City. The dates are set: February 12 to 14.

You can order your own copy at http://www.fleetwoodonsite.com/index.php?cPath=299#.UvbSIPldVvk.

You can get more detail about your ancestors if you consult the service records in person.

My grandfather’s previous job as a baker, his relationship with women and the letters send to his family were all part of his service record, but I had to scan every page carefully for these fascination details. I still remember reading those words in the middle of a long form: “burned letters from girlfriends.”

Oh I wish they hadn’t done that.

That crucial form wasn’t part of the genealogy package my mom got before she died either. Nor was the form that talked about his job as a baker before the war or his leave without notice. Nor his will. Perhaps other family members wouldn’t want to know such things, but they are crucial hints to his impulsive character.

Researchers can consult the military service records of anyone who died while serving for the Canadian Armed Forces via Library and Archives Canada.

You can also consult the records of soldiers who died after they served, although you may have to provide staff with copies of obituaries.

The process is straightforward, but time-consuming. Request the records you need prior to visiting Library and Archives Canada, if you can.

I began my search at this site:

http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/Pages/military-heritage.aspx

To find the records of Richard Charles Himphen, I selected the World War II Military Service Collection and typed his last name and first names into the box.

That gave me this screen:

This provides all the information you need to access the records.

Click on order records and you get this window:

I highly recommend that you go  look at the entire record. My mom got the genealogy package of her father’s service record before she died. It didn’t contain nearly as much as his service record shows.

Hope your search is a worthwhile as mine was.

I have been searching for any information about my dad Sergeant Richard Charles Himphen since I was a very little girl. My mother has now passed away and did not ever want to share information about him and I suppose always found it to be such a sad time in her life.”

My mother wrote these words in an email on June 9, 2005.

Similar words are read frequently by librarians, archivists and others who hold sacred information about our ancestors.

My grandfather was among 45,000 Canadian soldiers who died during World War II. In addition to his wife and daughter, he was grieved by parents Charles and Violet, brother Robert and two sisters, Rita and Margarite.

Other women grieved too, including Miss M.E. Cull from Kent, who thought she was his fiancée.

Our family found out about her because of a single page in his service file report that says she made a claim as his fiancé.

She wasn’t his only special someone either. Another page in that same file says: “destroyed letters from girlfriends.”

Those same records detail Richard’s military career, which began on a part-time basis at the age of 17. He’d already worked for two years as a baker’s helper at the Canada Bread Company by the time he joined the Active Militia of Canada in October 1937. He was assigned to the 30^th Battery of the RCA, where he served until June 1939.

A year later, he left his job to enlist full-time as a private. He signed up with an infantry battalion called the Irish Regiment of Canada, which trained at Camp Borden. His enthusiasm for his chosen path seems clear from a statement on a form he filled out in April 1941. His answer to “state any employment or ambition you may have,” was “soldiering.”

He married Evelyn Doris Johnson in June at the Silverthorne Avenue Baptist Church and shipped overseas in August 1942.

His daughter Marilyn Violet, my mother, was born the following April. He got notice of her birth by telegram in Britain.

His regiment was sent to Italy before he could get home to see her. They arrived in Naples in November.

On May 4, 1944 Richard stuck his left thigh on a bayonet while taking cover in a slit trench during shelling in Cassino. He couldn’t walk for 13 days, but recovered fully.

He fought in Italy for four more months. On September 13, during an action taking Coriano from the enemy, he was mortally wounded.

Major Gordon Brown, who took part, described the day afterwards in a history pamphlet:

in the early hours of the morning, before dawn, the Irish swept down from Besanigo Ridge into the valley which separated it from Coriano Ridge, and began to work their way up towards the town…“B” Company, under Captain Bill Elder, completed the job by finishing the clearing, and covering the Castella feature.”

Richard was pierced under the spine and suffered a “sucking wound to the chest” on his right side. He was brought to the 93 BG Hospital, where he died October 12.

His will was a single signed page in his pay book:

In the event of my death, I give the whole of my property and effects to Mrs. R.C. Himphen, 663 Old Weston Rd, Toronto, Ont”

It was signed, but neither dated nor witnessed.

According to my genealogy software, there are 66 people in my current family tree who were alive when Canada declared war on Germany on September 9, 1939, including all four of my grandparents.

By the time the last battle in continental Europe ended on May 20, 1945 the number of people alive was up to 70, even though 45,400 Canadians died in the war, including my mother’s father. My mother and father were among the people born during this time.

According to demographer David Foot, 2.2 million people were born in Canada during this time, just ahead of the baby boom that began two years later.

I never realized how clear demographic trends become while doing genealogy.

The first ancestor I chose to research in detail was a woman who lived in Quebec City two centuries ago. She was born during a war, married a carpenter at 18, bore 10 children, grieved the death of four children, and died when she was only 38 years old.

Other than feeling grateful that my life is easier and longer than hers, what can I possibly gain by learning about her life?

More importantly, why should you, my reader, care about her at all?

There are lots of answers to this, depending on who you are, what you’re doing and what you need now, but for me, all these reasons can be described in a single word: hope.

The best thing about researching and reading about ancestors is the feeling of hope created by those actions.

Much of my drive is personal. I’m writing to learn about myself. If you’re one of my relatives, you probably read my stories hoping to learn something about yourself too. We both want to know whether the lives of our ancestors affected those of our grandparents and parents especially if that changed where we live now and who we know.

In the case of that woman from two hundred years ago, if her children died because of genetic health risks, we’ll want to know so that we can try to prevent the same thing happening to ourselves or our loved ones.

Her history might illuminate some of the personality quirks in our family, or you might wonder whether our long line of strong independent women began with her.

If you’re questioning whether that applies to you, think again. The more I do genealogy, the more I realize how many people might be connected to my family either through blood, historic friendship or past quarrels. Anyone in the world might be related somehow. Judy Russell writes about discovering some of these lost family members via genealogical research and new DNA tools in “Oh Charlie” at http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2014/02/02/oh-charlie/. Her article is making me reconsider genetic testing.

Researching our ancestors and sharing about the experience enables all of us to contribute to a wider understanding about who we are, what we’ve been and where we live in a bigger context too.

Even if we aren’t related in any way, the stories genealogists tell have lessons for anyone interested in righting past wrongs, illuminating communities or exploring a particular place. Janice Hamilton’s research on one of her ancestors, for example, has provided helpful background to a group of locals who provide tours of the Mile End neighbourhood of Montreal. You can read her stories about the Baggs and the community they helped found at http://writinguptheancestors.blogspot.ca/.

So often, the stories we hear about the past are myths made up of half-truths. Looking into the details of an actual person’s life reveals a series of events that are complicated, nuanced and full of foibles. Circumstances often carry people in different directions than what might have otherwise been expected.

By figuring out what actually happened to whom and sharing any surprises we discover widely, we all get closer to the truth. Getting closer to truth creates possibilities for beauty, understanding and diversity.

Note: This post is cross-posted from http://arialview.ca.
Then again, maybe you’re different? Why do you research your family history?

Today is the beginning of Family History Writing 2014.

Lynne Palermo, from http://www.thearmchairgenealogist.com/ challenges all of us to place a family history story on our blogs every day this month. She’s also created an online forum so that those of us participating can ask questions and share our work with one-another.

I’m participating for the first time. My challenge is to begin communicating some of the stories about ancestors identified by my grandmother, Anne Marguerite Hurtubise Arial, in a family tree that goes back to 1589. Looking through her documents shows how hard researching family history used to be prior to the on-line resources we have today. Marguerite’s documents include letters to researchers, cousins and authorities, mostly in Quebec, where many of her ancestors hail from. She’d be blown away by the National Archives digital resources now available via http://www.banq.qc.ca/, especially Iris and Pistard.

Although all of her work seems to be accurate so far, few sources and original documents are included in the package of material passed on to me. After digitizing her work, I’m now redoing her research and attaching sources to it for future generations. I’m also working on the family tree on my mother’s side.

This month, I’ll share some of the stories I’ve discovered while redoing her research.

Note: This post is cross-posted from http://arialview.ca.