Exploring how my European settler ancestors, from Ontario Loyalists to Jamaican slave traders, contributed to colonization through Indigenous displacement and land devastation for capitalist use.

In 1922, a man from eastern Ontario living in a care home made headlines for allegedly turning 110 years old. While this is possible, I know that verifying historical age claims in genealogy often proves the subject was younger than they claimed to be. The article stated that the superintendent of the care home had conducted an investigation that supported the man’s claim. I didn’t believe it, so I had to investigate. Was this man really 110 years old?

One of the most common questions I get as a genetic genealogist is “Did you find any long lost relatives when you tested your DNA?” The short answer is yes, a few actually. Most of them were unknown to me at first, but there was one long lost relative in particular who I started looking for well before taking my DNA test. 

Two of my earliest genealogy research goals were to trace both my direct maternal and paternal lines as far back as I possibly could. This led me to discover so much about several ancestors in the process, not just direct line relatives. But two stories from my direct lines stood out to me in particular. One led to a fun little aha-moment, while the other uncovered a life story of struggle and resilience. 

Growing up, I was told that my great-grandmother’s family came to Canada to find work, like many of us were told about our ancestors. But the truth was far more personal—and shocking.

Once I started to become more serious with my genealogy research in my teen years, I started to uncover missing puzzle pieces that solved family mysteries. But this time, I found an entirely new mystery that revealed the true reason as to why my great-grandmother, her parents, and her sisters all immigrated to Canada. And that reason…