Grandma's Granny's Family Album

In the US, siding with England in the Revolutionary War makes you at best a loser and at worst a traitor.  But in Canada, being a United Empire Loyalist is a badge of honor.  If you can prove your descent from one, you can apply for a lineage society, earning the right to put UEL after your name and on your license plate. The town of Shelburne, Nova Scotia, where we visited my grandfather's family most summers, was the setting for my first genealogy discoveries. (see Acker Pedigree Chart and Acker Family Descendant Charts) Shelburne has a tourism economy based on the town's founding in 1783.  At the entrance, a large sign flanked by a redcoated colonist, ripe for photo ops, proclaims that Shelburne was founded by United Empire Loyalists.  After one childhood photo op, I asked my mother's cousin Doris if our family were UE Loyalists.  She said she didn't know.  At age 8, I decided that someday when I was old enough, I would find out. me with my mother's cous...

When I was 14, I saw Roots on TV and knew that I wanted to do that too.  Trace my family back to the Old Country and write a book about it.  So when I was 15, my mother gave me a genealogical research trip to Germany as an early graduation present. Here are my mother and I at Sulzbach am Taunus on the way to the Hotel Sulzbacher Hof.  On  right ,  me at train station for Sulzbach am Taunus (Ts)

Before genealogy was popular, I was asked a lot why I liked it.  Because it's a puzzle, I said, and everybody likes puzzles.  Family history is a seek-and-find puzzle:  in these 100 random letters, can you find the names you want?  Sometimes they are easily found in the top horizontal line, and sometimes you have to catch a break to discover them bafflingly diagonal and backwards. 

 That's right!  I have been having so much fun with this, and you can too! Go to https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/ You can join for free, or you can just look.  Type in any ancestor's name and see who you are related to.  For best results, pick the furthest back ancestor you know. If you are a descendant of Phoebe Esther Rushton Spence (Grannie, Grannie English), or her mother Susan West, you have a ton of famous relatives:     Royalty!  Queen Elizabeth II - 20th cousins twice removed.  I always felt I was related to Princess Anne!   My bride dolls - Princess Anne  and Princess Diana And 21st cousins once removed from Princess Diana! As well as the last kings of France, Belgium, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

 The most fun part of the tree was....well I guess it was all fun.  But I really enjoyed finding a clipart for each person.   I was looking for something else when I saw this pipe. I felt all warm and cuddly inside and knew it just had to represent my father.  But he was an engineer too, so I added the tools.

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time.  I've been working on a long-hoped-for project, displaying my family tree on a wall in my house.  Here it is in all its glory!  Do you think it is worth the wait? I received the tree itself for Christmas, and started working on it the next day.  It was just finished yesterday!

 Last year's episode of Anne Searching for Ancestors in Nova Scotia ended with our missing links in the Mayflower Descent still missing.  As you will remember, the descent of Passenger Richard Warren on down to Planter Samuel West is proven.  My documents of my 2xgreat-grandmother Susan West Rushton down to me are solid.  It's how we get from Samuel to Susan that's the problem. 1782 1804 1810 & 11 1853 1854-1875 1861 & 71 1881 1891 1901 1911 19 18 Saml born Samuel marries Samuel has kids                           Levi lives in Roslin w wife and kids Levi lives in Kings Co   w son     ...