My Family Ancestry Research & Discoveries

I am an amateur genealogist who started formally documenting my family tree back in 2002 soon after I realized that I didn't know as much about my family as I thought. What started off as curiosity soon became a full-blown obsession. I wanted to know more about who my family members were, where we came from, and what circumstances landed me where I was. 

Through the years I have used all sorts of research tools. I started with a good old fashioned review of as many family records as I could find. I then started relentlessly (but nicely!) questioning other relatives to try to point me in the right direction. I also visited dozens of cemeteries here in Southern Ontario looking for information about known family members and then looking for those who had previously been unknown to me. When I had exhausted those clues, I joined Ancestry.com which opened up a world of information which both helped and hindered my research. I learned quite quickly that even information contained on Ancestry.com must be carefully vetted and all facts checked and verified. 

In my opinion it is very important to ensure that the data used in a family tree is correct whenever possible. Since I started finding "interesting" ancestral discoveries in my lineage, I have even gone as far as to have paid a significant amount of money to professional genealogists to verify my information (which they did, except for 1 minor mistake). Once I was satisfied that my research methods were valid, I pushed ahead with renewed confidence in my abilities as an amateur genealogist.

My relentless (some might call it "obsessive") research quickly yielded some astonishing information. From finding long-lost relatives to illegitimate births (I don't like the word illegitimate myself), to connections to Colonial America and European nobility, I was soon awash with more information than I could have possibly had hoped for. I had no idea that my lineage - primarily my parental lineage which had been mostly unknown to me - included so much documentation. Most astonishing to me was the people that this documentation pointed to -  historical figures with incredible documented family histories dating back over a thousand years. I would have been thrilled just to trace my family history back 4 or 5 generations, but what I found was quite simply incredible.

Even more astonishing were my discoveries that not only did I have famous ancestors, but through these same people, I discovered a mind-blowing number of famous and infamous distant cousins with whom I shared a number of these ancestors. This discovery continues to happen to this day, and each discovery sends me off on yet another mission to learn as much as I can about these incredible direct and distant relatives.

I want to be clear on one key point: I have not met, nor do I have any personal relationship with any of my living (or dead, for that matter!) distant relatives (mostly cousins),  so if you are looking for information about how to contact them, what their favorite color is, etc., then I'm not the person to ask. I have simply included their stories so that other family members who are distant or close,  can learn more about our shared family.

My goal with documenting as many relatives as I can - famous, infamous or just "plain" folks - is to satisfy my own need to understand where I come from. I also think that it can be quite helpful for other relatives to know what they can achieve if they really put their efforts into accomplishing their dreams. I know that there have been many times in my life that knowing that my DNA is shared with others who have lead or are leading such incredible lives may have helped me believe in my own abilities a lot more than I did. If this information helps just one family member believe in themself and help them to achieve their dream, then my work will have been more than worthwhile.

I am always open to helping other family history researchers whenever I can, so if you see a relative's name on my website, feel free to reach out to me and I will do my best to try to help you with whatever I can. You can reach me through the contact page on this website.

Aside from my interest in genealogy, I am also an avid car enthusiast, traveler, writer, business person, animal lover, gardener and history buff. I am not big on having my photo taken, but it's always nice to know who is behind the work, so the above photos are some rare shots of yours truly...me at a chateau in France for a friend's wedding; my 50th (!) birthday with my parents and me at Vimy Ridge discovering my Great-grandfather's inscription, something that my Grandmother was never able to realize during her life, me with my 2 wonderful maternal cousins in Derby, England (previously long-lost relatives but lost no more!) and, finally, a "way-back" photo from 1972 with my little brother and my dad, taken when our family visited Disney World in Florida. That's it - the only other photos I have are found on my passport and driver's licence and I'm not showing you those ;)



​