Growing up I always thought, when I thought about it all, that my ancestry was Canadian/English/Scottish. Those were the relatives I knew, my parents and grandparents. It was only as an adult that I learned my father鈥檚 mother had died when he was a baby and that my paternal grandma was actually my step-grandmother.
About 15 years ago, I found I was often thinking about that missing part of my heritage and that it was unfair that my grandmother was basically forgotten. Thanks to the Internet and a single letter to my father from his maternal aunt, I was able to begin the research to find the roots of my Canadian family tree which, it turns out, run deep through that forgotten grandmother.
I discovered that my eighth great-grandmother emigrated from Normandy to New France in 1652 and my eighth great-grandfather in 1664, also from France.
From that union came my first Canadian-born ancestor 鈥� my seventh great-grandfather, born in 1673 in C么te-St-Michel, Que.
I have been incredibly lucky in finding online the image of an 1832 portrait of one of his descendants, my third great-grandmother, displayed in a Quebec City Fine Arts Museum.
Though I still have many blanks to fill in, I fully expect to find that my ancestors were involved in the battle of the Plains of Abraham and that we were on the losing side, something I never even contemplated back in Grade 10, 1967, at Oak Bay junior high.
That was a year I remember so well. There was a celebration planned to take place for three nights in June at the Memorial Arena, 鈥減resented by the schools of Greater Victoria.鈥�
I was chosen to be one of the narrators and that is my fondest memory of the city鈥檚 events of the 100th anniversary of our country.
To this day I remember going downtown to a recording studio to pre-tape my speech and what I wore for the gala 鈥� white top, a predominantly pink mini-skirt and white go-go boots!
Now, 50 years later, my only child has left sa国际传媒 to chart his own course in another country and I find myself wondering if I am destined to be the final tip of my twig on the Canadian branch of my family tree.
If that does turn out to be the case, I am comforted in knowing that my descendants will know of and, hopefully, cherish their strong Canadian connection. 鈥� Jean Wood (n茅e Weir)r