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At Home Histories

The posts explore “small, homely histories” that focus on the local, on family, on church lore, and other themes. More info is available here.

  • Dante and My Wife’s Family

    I’ve been slowly working through Dante’s Divine Comedy. This 14th-century Italian poem has been on my reading list for a long time. Little did I realize that, in its 725-year-old pages, I would encounter some of my wife’s ancestors…

    Written by

    Jeff

  • Sailor, Barber, Insurance Salesman

    One of the less bleak oral histories that has been told many times in my family is that of the truly unique New Brunswicker, Henry Havelock Bissett (1865-1941). His daughter, Rhea, was my great-grandmother, whom I met as a baby and toddler — one of the few people I have met who was born in…

    Written by

    Jeff

  • Specificity and Difference

    I’ve been “doing family history” for about fifteen years now. As I’ve written previously, I got into this hobby midway through my PhD studies, when I’d read about as much nineteenth-century British Romantic writing and French theory as I could handle and was desperate for a change of scenery.

    Written by

    Jeff

  • Groovy like a Drive-In Movie

    Recently, one of my friends informed our group chat that he had discovered something very cool: his house had been constructed on the site of one of Edmonton’s many, drive-in theatres. So cool! I needed to find out more…

    Written by

    Jeff

  • Murdered Under Trust

    I have a new research quest that I am pursuing. There is an old family story that my Papa Henderson, my mom’s dad, had Spanish roots. I have yet to find proof of this. Still, the pursuit of one objective, however difficult, can give rise to unexpected discoveries.

    Written by

    Jeff

  • Loyalists in the Family

    One of the aspects of my family history that is not as familiar for me is my New Brunswick heritage. We have a handful of stories in our family about it. My great-grandfather David Thomson was, of course, the man who made New Brunswick sing. My grandmother, David’s daughter Ruth, babysat that famous New Brunswicker, the…

    Written by

    Jeff

  • The Radio Towers Down the Street

    I have been interested in the history of the neighbourhood I live in for a long while. This subdivision, called “Meyonohk” (which means “an ideal spot” in Cree), is part of the much larger subdivision within Edmonton called Mill Woods. The history of Mill Woods is fascinating and certainly merits a post all to itself,…

    Written by

    Jeff

  • Uncle Colin and the Crofters’ War

    Family history is full of surprises, yielding new insights even in areas that have been gone over many times. I’ve looked at my Henderson ancestry before. My mother’s family, the Hendersons, came to Canada around the time of the First World War, settling in Toronto. The story of Alexander Henderson, her grandfather, is one that…

    Written by

    Jeff

  • We All Wanna Be Rob Roy’s

    One of the Scottish ancestors I have always been curious about is my great-grandmother, Maggie Roy. The rumour in our family was that she was related to the famous Scottish rebel, Rob Roy, whom Liam Neeson played in the 1995 film of the same name. This connection seemed unlikely to me after doing a bit of…

    Written by

    Jeff

  • The Dry Thomsons

    My great-grandfather David Thomson was quite the man, I’m told. He was born on the Isle of Skye in Scotland in 1895. Harold McCullagh wrote a book about him, which was published in 1978: The Man Who Made New Brunswick Sing. His legacy popped up in all sorts of ways over the course of my childhood. I…

    Written by

    Jeff