In the process of building your family tree, you may encounter family artifacts beyond the traditional birth certificates, marriage certificates and photos of cemetery headstones. These “other” artifacts often carry significant stories of their own. In our family collection, we have some interesting artifacts:
- A German bayonet that my grandfather brought home from the battle for Vimy Ridge in WWI
- A handmade bench constructed by the brother of my maternal grandfather. David Hogg was a carpenter from Northern England who traveled to Canada to help my grandfather build a homestead on the prairies.
A lock of blond hair that my mother cut from my head when I was only a year old.
- A collection of some 160 handwritten letters that my mother wrote to my father during WWII. Living in a small mining town, working and raising myself and my older brother while my father was at war, providing an amazing “picture” of my brother and myself growing up.
- A neatly embroidered Orange Order sash that once belonged to my paternal grandfather. Each of the symbols on the sash had been researched by my son and documented
- An army hat medal of the Royal Canadian Dragoons.A small piece of ore from the massive open pit mine that proved to be the early basis for the 100-year mining operation in Flin Flon, Manitoba
- A collection of some 60 letters written by my grandfather while he was serving in the trenches in northern France and Belgium in WWI.
- Some 60 cassette tapes that our family used for letters. These were shared and written over on occasion but have all now been digitized, capturing a decade of our family history.
- A pocket watch sold in Belfast to my paternal great-great grandfather who was a successful blacksmith. It still works!
A Karsh portrait photograph of Wendy’s great Uncle, Elmer Plunkett He was a doctor who delivered Queen Juliana’s baby in Ottawa during WWII. Karsh was a world-famous photographer who captured the classic photo of Winston Churchill after just plucking the omnipresent cigar from Churchill’s mouth.
And, there are more “pieces of the past”, all needing to be protected, documented and shared with family. Look around and capture these artifacts of generations past. They carry amazing stories.
Ron Gilmore
Email: rvg3@me.com
Website: https://rgenealogy.ca