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.
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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…
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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,…
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Uncle Colin and the Crofters’ War
A Story of Land, Power, and Resistance 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…
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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…
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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…
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Edmonton’s Gold Bar Neighbourhood
My family has had roots in the Gold Bar neighbourhood of Edmonton going back over fifty years. My grandparents lived in the area, and my parents currently live there. I recently made a small booklet and poster for my parents describing the history of their house and the neighbourhood of which it is a part.…
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The Wave Rushes
The story of my great-great-grandmother, Sarah Jane Suddaby (nee McKague), born in 1868 in Guelph, and told from her perspective using real family stories and historical research. It’s fictional in the sense that I’m not sure whether Sarah Jane would have felt things in this way, but the facts reflect at least some of what…
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Mount Carmel Bible School
Mount Carmel Bible School is a one-year Christian training program located in Edmonton. I’ve wanted to write about the history of Mount Carmel (also called Mount Carmel Bible College) for a long time. In 2018, I co-edited a history about the school written by former faculty member, Ted McKellar, called 50 Years of God’s Faithfulness. What I’m interested…
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A “Bad Boy” Grows Up
A car accident occurred 95 years ago in 1929 in Edmonton. The car accident involved a young man named Angus William McCallum, who had been driving recklessly through downtown with a passenger, Alfred Joseph “Dave” Gaucher. The accident led to Gaucher being thrown from the car and seriously injured, William being knocked unconscious and injured himself,…
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One Too Many Wives
This post was originally going to be a tiny little section at the tail-end of the deep dive into William Wem’s experiences in World War 1. What was Frances Wem, his wife, up to during the years she lived in England with her children? In the course of researching this, though, I uncovered some truly…
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