Category Archives: Genealogy

Aunty Mary, who died over 30 years ago, is the primary source for much of my earliest Coulson family history. She was born in Wyoming but she must have spent a lot of time listening to her folks, because she … Continue reading →

When I was driving through Havre, Montana a while back I decided to stop at the public library to see if they had any books on local history. I wanted to investigate a story I had heard that my grandfather’s … Continue reading →

I never knew my grandmother. As far as I know she never knew me, or even knew I existed. I knew her name, but that was all. After she and my grandfather got divorced it’s as if she fell off … Continue reading →

In The Irish Connection, Part 1 we learned that my presumably Scottish family had its origins in Ireland. There’s more to the story, though. To help keep things straight, here’s the family tree so far. A is “young” John, the … Continue reading →

My grandfather John was a big fan of all things Scottish. He continued to speak with a brogue (or tried to) despite living in Canada for 64 years, played the bagpipes (until he chopped two fingers off, that’s another story), … Continue reading →

Today is the one-hundredth anniversary of the death of my great-uncle Frank (Francis Milligan) Elliott, 1/6 Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders, who died in a field hospital in France on May 21, 1917. In commemoration, here is a page I wrote … Continue reading →

I’ve decided to resurrect this old blog of mine with musings about what I’m learning from genealogy. My grandfather, who died over a quarter-century ago, got bit by the genealogy bug a few years before he died, and he left … Continue reading →