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Our son, Archie Murdoch Fielding, was named for two other great-grandfathers he also never knew. My husband, David, was born two years after his grandfather Archibald Reid passed away. Murdock was one of my grandpa Pehleman's middle names; we lost him on the first day of spring in 2004.
Looking for family roots
It's surprising how sentimental I became once Archie was born. Filling out the family tree section in his baby book, I thought about all the people who had been important to me growing up, and realized how little I knew about my relatives.
Suddenly I wanted to know more. Through email, I contacted my Aunt Lin (after many years, we're back in touch – the magic of Facebook!), who had researched my father's family, the Weavers, and she sent me an organized history, complete with generations of names, dates, stories and photos. Hrmmm, compiling a family tree for Archie – seems like the perfect project for a maternity leave. Forget the laundry!
My first stop was the Internet: I signed up for an account at ancestry.ca, and created a simple family tree by typing in the few details I knew. Because the website alerts you to any info in its database that matches what you've entered, I discovered that my mother-in-law, Moira, had started the research.
Page 1 of 4 – Find out how to work around a "dead end" in your family's history on page 2.
