The other day, after I posted about our summer travel plans, a friend of Leon’s wrote to invite us to his summer residence in Quebec.  In that correspondence, he commented on my family name.  Of course, Leon had to look it up and that’s how the whole thing started…

When I got home on Thursday, Leon had been looking up my ancestry and I couldn’t remember which of the 3 ancestors who had come to Canada in 1642 was mine.  So I sat down and starting looking up grandparents and great grandparents and great great grand parents, and so on, until it was time for bed at 11pm.  In the meantime, Leon was researching from the top down.  We eventually managed to confirm the right ancestor by bedtime.

Well I guess looking up your ancestry is addictive because it didn’t end there.  Leon spent a good part of Friday looking up more details, people and places, that we might visit when we travel east.  He’s compiled quite a list so far. There are plaques, sites where the store existed and maybe even a burial site.  Cool!

Coat of arms
Coat of arms

Today, we resumed our research as Leon looked up his side of the family.  I continued adding details to my children’s lineage until I finally had to put it all way sometime in the late afternoon.

So, this is a serious warning.  Stay away from Ancestry.ca and all those other geneology sites.  Unless of course you have the time and interest.  Leon is still at it as I write this.  He’s found a great app that put all his research into a beautiful report format.  Doesn’t that sound like a nice gift for his children?