Gaze on the old parish church, talk to a local historian - genealogy is more than merely finding facts.
Most of us who trace ancestors want to see the places they spent part or all their lives. There is something deeply moving about walking down the same road your great-great-grandfather once drove his herd. Here is the little stream with a bridge your grandmother described to you. Can you gaze upon the old church where her family worshipped and not feel a sense of connection?
Perhaps if you visit the scenes of your family's past you will meet a distant relative or discover a record that recalls your kinsman's name. Why is that a more emotional experience than reading a name and date from a computer screen? Is it perhaps because the genealogist's quest runs more deeply than a fact-finding jaunt? For many people it does.
Many Atlantic Canadians have families that have been here long enough to form an attachment to the place. That makes us more sensitive about the scenes of our ancestors' lives. Going to see the house where granddad was born or the lake he swam in as a boy is a personal and intimate experience.
People don't declare these sorts of reasons for driving to New Brunswick from Oregon or flying from Chicago to St. John's when tourist officials ask them the reason for their visit. People may state, "genealogy;" they might write "looking up relatives" or "research." No one asks follow-up questions if you say you are going to PEI to see Anne of Green Gables. That's self-evident. But say you want to look at a field on a hill above the Bras d'Or Lakes, half reclaimed by the forest, and you think you sound like a hopeless romantic, or even a little strange. It isn't and you're not.
However with oral communication and the passage of time the location of that field might be lost, or perhaps the church is no longer standing and the burial ground is down an unmarked footpath into the woods. The folks in the tourist office can be helpful, but they may have no personal knowledge or connection with specific areas. Here's where the local heritage society or museum may be your best hope of getting help.
I recall being in the Odenwald, an idyllic region in central Germany, with my wife as we stood waiting for the butcher to hang up his apron and wash his hands. He returned to the room, immaculate in white shirt, necktie and jacket. "Now," he informed us in German, "I am the town historian." He produced several huge ledgers and we could see more than three centuries of village life before our eyes. We could read everything from the tragic tale of the laundress who fell from a high window while trying to disentangle a sheet caught in a treetop, to the list of school children who serenaded the Grand Duke of Hesse during his visit to the region in 1875.
Closer to home, this past June we joined many others on Nova Scotia's South Shore to "Make Sail for Lunenburg: Climb Your Family Tree." There was a welcome by the mayor, a concert, presentations of awards, a race and the dedication of monuments at Blue Rocks. There were spinners demonstrating their craft, a lecture about records of the crewmen who sailed schooners like the Bluenose.
The South Shore Genealogical Society, the Lunenburg Heritage Society and Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic joined forces to provide help for the family researcher. I met a historian from Chester Basin and realized she could tell people more about that beautiful community than anyone whose mandate covered a whole province. Help is where the home was.
In Lunenburg we dined at an Italian restaurant, Trattoria Della Nonna, and enjoyed gastronomic delights while listening to "Come Back to Sorrento." Each of us has his or her own Sorrento.
Local societies do a good job to preserve our past. Visit them and support them.
Dr. Terrence M. Punch is the resident genealogist on CBC Radio and editor of Genealogist's Handbook for Atlantic Canada Research.