Woefully Behind

I have fallen off the wagon, it's been weeks since I blogged and I guess I need to change the name of my list  to simply 30 Things About Me. I have to admit though that last week was a little busy for me and so I'm going to stray from that list for today.

November 11th is Remembrance Day for Canadians and being here in the heart of the WWI battlefields there was a lot going on. I participated in services at Beaumont-Hamel, France and Ypres, Belgium. Beaumont-Hamel was a significant battle for the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Newfoundland was not yet part of Canada and that battle more than any other is what the people from that province commemorate on November 11th. Ypres is where you will find the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing dedicated to Commonwealth soldiers of WWI who have no known grave.

The events last week had me ruminating on my grandpa who was a soldier in WWII. Not a bad looking guy and I always thought he was the oddball of the four brothers. Born out by this photo that I have shamelessly stolen from my dad's cousin:

Grandpa's the one doing the Rockette move, no idea why. He's been gone now for over 35 years. I was his fourth grandchild of a total of 18 and I'm the youngest one to remember him.

So while my thoughts were drifting I found myself on the website for Canada's Library and Archives. I had very little information to go on and I tell you so if you decide to try this you realize you don't need to know much. I knew my where my great grandfather was born and I knew he came to Canada before his wife and sons. I knew the year my grandfather was born and the year my great grandfather passed away so that narrowed my window. Somehow I found this page which led me to ocean arrival records for 1919-1924, that was within my window. The next part seems sort of fateful. I was able to figure out what reel I needed, there were 5024 records on that reel so I decided to see where record 2500 took me. It was close so I started clicking record by record, grandpa was record 2507. From there I also found his parents and one of his brothers and I now have those immigration records in my hands.

Family history is important to some people, me being one of them. It's interesting to discover where the family originates from and what they were about. My next goal is get my hands on my grandfather's war service record which is going to be a little more work but once I have it I can go and see the places that were very much a part of the man he was.