From the beginning...

In 1992 I embarked on a project to record the memories conveyed by my beloved maternal grandmother - my Nanny - Evelyn Thompson McKenzie. I was absent when she passed away in 1990, and at the age of 22, her loss was the first time in my life I experienced real grief. It took a couple of years to realize it, but I felt a strong sense of responsibility to pass on the family stories she had shared with me throughout my childhood. What I didn't know at the time, that the gift she conveyed wasn't the family legends, but rather the insight to begin a journey that would be the greatest (and longest) of my life.

When it came to Evelyn's life, I knew "details" - but as I soon came to realize, I knew very little about the "facts". As any budding family historian knows, you always start with yourself and work backwards, documenting what you know and gathering the source documents which support that vital information - birth, marriage and death. So upon completing my first pedigree chart (only from the available information in the family's archives) what did I know?

• Evelyn Thompson was born on February 14, 1902 in Calais, Maine to Herman Harold Thompson and Lilian Maude McKay;
• As a teenager Evelyn had lived with her family in Quebec City where her father was a chocolatier;
• On her 21st birthday Evelyn moved to Toronto, where she lived with her Aunt Mae and cousins Phylis and Jacqueline. Phylis married into a prominent Toronto family (the Corks) who were the co-founders of the Loblaw grocery store chain;
• She was soon employed in one of the first Loblaws stores in Toronto as head cashier. This is where she met co-worker Ken McKenzie whom she would later marry (a man 8 years her junior);
• She had 2 children during the 1930's - son Blair and daughter Sandra (my mother);
• Her marriage failed shortly after the birth of her daughter - she would never remarry;
• Ken McKenzie died in January 1975. I found his obituary from the Toronto Star amongst her belongings - it listed his wife as Mary with 2 children, John and Mary.
• Evelyn passed away in March 1990.

This was only the tip of the iceberg. The more I learned, the more papers I found, it only left me with more questions, wanting more answers. I joined both the New Brunswick and Ontario Genealogical Societies and began to learn the fundamentals of genealogical research. In a time before Ancestry.com and other popular Internet resources, I found LDS Family History Centres, Provincial and National Archives the place to gain access to an untold variety of records which would provide greater insight into the questions that lives too often allow to remain unanswered.

I am glad I began my genealogical career in a time before the Internet. In addition to the confidence of navigating though archives from the smallest to the largest - I gained vast knowledge in areas I never before exposed myself. Aspects of Canadian, American and British history that they don't teach in schools - the technical expertise to operate (and at times repair) microfilm and fiche readers - traveling to parts of the Province, and beyond, in search of that burial plot, homestead, courthouse, and record to answer the most obscure of questions. Times spent with my extended family, interviewing and listening to their stories, brings my Nanny back to me every time.

This is the gift - the legacy she has given me. For her strength, her wisdom and her life - I will always thank her.