Ancestor Hide and Seek

                   I have an interesting connection to my Great-great Uncle Tom. Not only am I proud of his service and appreciative of his ultimate sacrifice, I had his hat.  Thomas Humphries Pratt Tickner was born 22 Feb, 1889 in Portsmouth, England. He was my Great-Grampa Charlie's kid brother, and eventually followed Charlie to Canada, arriving in 1909. I haven't been able to find out much about his life in Canada, but am certain he must've stopped in Ontario to visit his brother Charlie and family on his way west. He settled in Edmonton, Alberta and somewhere along the way became a clerk and got married. When he enlisted in Jan 1915, he listed his previous military service on his Attestation papers. I know that when he was a teenager in England, he was what we might today call a cadet with the 6th Hampshires for 3 years. He was also a part of the 19th Alberta Dragoons for 3 years, and then 2 years with the 103 Calgary Ri...

Robert Steele was my uncle, but I don't know if we ever crossed paths, as he died, tragically at age 44, the year I was born. He was my mom's eldest brother, a half brother in fact, which she didn't learn about until she was around 16. That's what happens when you are the youngest of 7 children - everyone just assumes you know things. Either way, I don't get the impression that being half siblings mattered at all. They were one big family. End of story. Bob was a veteran of  WWII. He was a Wireless Air Gunner. Being pretty non-military I had no idea what that means, so I found this interview with a Wireless Air Gunner  Click to see interview with a Wireless Air Gunner Veteran . If the link is broken or you don't have time, the W.A.G. learned morse code, and then learned to shoot from a plane's gun turret. I was surprised so much of the training for RCAF crew occurred in Southern Ontario, near Guelph, St. Catharines and Fingal. Who knew? Since privacy r...

     My grandfather, Walter J Steele served his country for the entirety of Canada’s participation in World War One. Born in the small town of Woodstock, Ontario, he volunteered in response to a recruiting drive, and enlisted in the first contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Forces at Valcartier, Quebec on Sep 20, 1914. He was a few months shy of his 20th birthday, although his attestation papers say he was almost 21. As we have his record of birth in 1894, it’s unknown whether he may have thought it sounded better to be a bit older, or if this was a simple administrative error. His occupation prior to joining is listed as Painter. Since our Grandma was the artist in the family, he must’ve been a house painter or something like. He is described as 5’ 3, with dark hair and complexion, and a chest measurement of 33 inches. His only distinguishing mark was a scar on his right hand. Wally was assigned to “A” Battery of the Royal Canadian Horse Artillery (RCHA), wh...

Everything but a witch. I thought of this idea for a title or theme to write about while lying in bed one morning. I was pretty much avoiding the day, so let the idea twirl around in my head, which in turn churned up some other good ideas. Since I was trying to be intentional about actually writing when I get an idea, as opposed to just writing it in my head and promptly losing track it in the general busy-ness of life, I got up and headed for the computer.   That was about 7:45 on a Sunday morning. Clearly there was something magical about the idea – prophetic even.   By 2:10 that afternoon, I had found a witch.   No kidding. Since I’ve discovered more branches of my family tree firmly planted in colonial America, I find I have a veritable checklist of American historical stereotypes. My tree has pilgrims and Puritans, farmers and founders, lawmakers and soldiers who fought to protect their homes and ways of life, first against the native Americans they too...

It seems appropriate (and a bit meta) to share a post I wrote last year about trying to choose a name for this blog.   In the end I decided to start with a Genealogy themed blog.  Hopefully I'll start another blog sometime soon to write about all the random thoughts that float around in my brain. Consider yourself warned. © Brenda Vouvalidis 2019 April 2, 2018    It was finally time to take the plunge and start an actual blog – I had the time, I had been intentionally writing, so no more excuses. (I know, I’m waaay behind the curve on this).   I started out by doing what I do best-research! I had to find out "how to" and there are loads of good online resources.   Next,  I figured out what platform I wanted to use, and any number of other important details.  With a bit of nervous exhilaration, I felt ready to take the plunge.  But wait! I needed a name to set up the url.   Full stop!  What the heck was I goi...

Welcome to my first post! You made it, and more importantly, so did I.  This blog has been a over a year in the making, which in hind-sight seems a bit silly, but I got mired down trying to find the perfect name. Read more about my blog naming tribulations  here. It really shouldn't have mattered so much what I called it, and perfection is clearly over-rated, but that's what happened. Then I proceeded to get sidetracked down 6852 rabbit holes (before I lost count), and here we are. So let's get you caught up. I spend a LOT of time playing hide & seek with my ancestors, and sometimes other peoples' ancestors too. Some have been quite easy to find, while other ancestors are particularly good at the game and are still in hiding. But I'm also pretty good at the game, and persistent too (did I hear someone say obsessed? shush!) With a combination of digging through records, solid detective work, collaboration, circumstantial evidence and/or plain dumb luck, one...