Have you caught the bug yet? The one where you disappear down rabbit holes searching for ancestors in your family tree?
It seems to become an area of intense interest once retirement provides the time – not just to research, but to reflect about the lives of those who may have impacted our own course.
Knowing your ancestors’ stories can have benefits that may surprise you. If one of your wishes is that your family is resilient in the face of an uncertain future, read on!
I felt compelled to write the story of my parents’ 54-year marriage and include the background that would explain who they were and what, or who, contributed to their story. I grew up with a lot of detail about my father’s family, thanks to his story-telling skills, but I didn’t have much to go on about my mother’s family.
Thanks to Ancestry.ca, a global pandemic and retirement I was able to complete Beneath the Wings of Love, which I published as a paperback on Amazon in 2021. This success followed years (I started this project in 1998)of drought when there was no writing, and then significant writing and re-writing – at one point I lost the entire project in a computer crash, but thankfully I had printed out hard copies for editing.
I remember wishing my mother had known more about her own background as I thought it would have made a positive difference in her self-esteem. Turns out I was right on that count, and I had underestimated how important the stories would be for my grandchildren.
Bruce Feiler wrote in the New York Sunday Times about a study conducted by psychologists Dr. Marshall Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush that tested the hypothesis: children who know a lot more about their families tend to do better when they face challenges.
“The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned,” Feiler wrote of the study’s findings.
Then 9-11 happened, and although the families were not directly impacted by the horrific events of that day, the children in the study would have been impacted by news of planes hitting the towers. They were reassessed. Feiler quotes Dr. Duke, “the ones who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate the effects of stress.”
Why? According to Dr. Duke, these children have a strong sense of an “intergenerational self” and know they belong to something bigger than themselves. Things like family traditions, family holidays, telling stories about the family, whether hardships met or positive tales, all contribute to a strong family narrative.
You don’t have to publish a book to contribute to the family narrative, but safe-keeping what you know in some format is clearly beneficial. If your children or grandchildren are not asking questions yet, we know there will come a time when they will wonder. So, take up a pen, or get on your computer and type what you know – now. At the very least, store the pages in a three-ring binder. Talk to relatives still living to get their stories and write them down, and add to the binder!
If you have adoption in your story, don’t avoid this. A family tree can be a tree of people who love me and the stories still contribute to the narrative of what your child knows about the family they call their own.
Sometimes the family history contributes to the history of the commercial development of an area. Such was the case when a former schoolmate of mine, Lynn Thorne and her cousin, Evanne Ketchabaw got together and created a road trip out of their shared Zurbrigg family history. The trip took family members, in their cars, through villages, along county roads, and by specific sites surrounding the Listowel (North Perth) area where four Zurbrigg siblings had moved in the early 1860s.
The family had many entrepreneurs so stops along the way highlighted the businesses as well as the homes and final resting places of multiple ancestors. The cousins wrote a script to accompany the journey so at specific stops, the history was read out loud for the 15 participants. After the event, everyone received a booklet, bound in a clear plastic cover; family details shared during the road trip were included along with photos from the day.
What an amazing, interactive way to share the family narrative.
Other family histories are relevant beyond the family because they are a history of national importance. Such is the case for Tracy Lee Johnson of Guelph.
I attended a fascinating presentation by Tracy, a 5th generation Black Canadian, who shared an historical look at an area called Queen’s Bush, one of the largest Black settlements in the area, near Wallenstein. Her ancestors travelled to the area in the 1830s via the underground railway and were early pioneers before this nation was even created. The year 1806 is the earliest date for which she has found a record of her family in the Niagara area.
Tracy’s story reinforces what the psychologists’ study showed. “Had I known the information about my family when I was younger, I would have held my head up higher. I would not have felt so uncomfortable in my own skin,” she told me.
There was reason for pride in her ancestors’ early contributions, yet our history books have largely ignored their story. When we think of pioneers, we tend to think white, and Little House on the Prairie, Tracy points out. She’s right.
As well as effective story-telling (Tracy is an actress), she also sings as part of her presentation. She presents in schools, helping to educate the broader community about Black history in this area. In fact, you can book Tracy, through her website, to share her amazing historical story with your group, club or organization.
If, like me or Tracy, you don’t know a lot about your background, tools such as Ancestry.ca help. This program allows you to build a family tree and each name on the tree links to a page of details where you can fill in the names of parents, siblings, and children. Links to census details and old newspapers are revealing. I was able to discover causes of death, adding detail not known before, and pointing to a possible inherited trait. I was finally able to fill in the blanks about my mother’s history. Even the painful knowledge of early ancestors who farmed on native land in the U.S. and had deadly run-ins with Native Americans (Shawnee) in the area.
As I worked on the memoir, I was not unaware of the privilege I enjoyed in being able to conduct this research. Especially as I uncovered these earliest settler stories, I brought 21st century eyes to the issue of European settlers believing they were bringing civilization to savages, ignoring the multiple generations of history lived by these Indigenous people. I thought of Indigenous children who were stolen from their parents by the Canadian government and then turned out of residential schools at age 18 with no understanding of how to cope on their own. They didn’t fit with their own community any longer, unable to speak the language and with no knowledge of their customs. They had no family history. And they were spurned by the predominately white settler community they lived in. They had both their past and their future stolen from them. The studies that connect resilience, happiness, and self-esteem to knowing your family narrative reinforce the horror of what was done and explain the generational damage that has resulted.
We must evolve as we learn, and then share our knowledge. So, if you are down a rabbit hole of family research, or if you have stories stored in your memory, start making notes to be shared. Share the good, the bad and the ugly. You will be doing your grandchildren and great-grandchildren a huge favour when they know the intergenerational narrative that is theirs to claim.
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Bruce Feiler, The Stories that Bind Us, New York Times, March, 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/fashion/the-family-stories-that-bind-us-this-life.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Tracy Lee Johnson, Website, https://tracylcain.wordpress.com
Tracy Johnson shared a newsletter that “honours the creativity, scholarship, and dreams of Black mamas, women and girls in Canada.” Tracy’s story is featured in the November 2025 issue. Check it out here: https://www.animawrites.com/newsletter
Beneath the Wings of Love, the memoir of my parents, is available on Amazon. If you are interested in the process of self-publishing, please connect with me. Beneath the Wings of Love is written under my pen name, Roberta Kim.
StillKim 