Researching Your Roots

The Lumsdens, Bruce and Audrey, from Kingston, Nova Scotia were recently in the town of Lumsden asking some questions, “Which Lumsden was this community named after?”, “Did the family ever live here?”, “Are there any other Lumsden’s in the region?” They visited the town office and the post office before being directed to yours truly.

A Google search of the word “genealogy” reveals that over 82 million individuals have used the word in their searches and 1.4 million have searched specifically for the term “genealogy Canada”. Genealogy, or researching your roots, is one of North America’s fastest growing past-times. For my uncle it was the perfect excuse for yet another vacation to Europe. There was no shopping for my aunt as theirs were trips that consisted of interviewing town elders and officials; searching libraries; perusing Church records; and wandering graveyards. What my aunt & uncle found was that in many cases fires or floods had destroyed the information they sought and in some cases accurate records were not kept of birth dates, marriages and deaths. The lack of historical records made some of their trips were more productive than others.

Small groups of super sleuths have popped up all over the province and supporting their efforts to track their family histories is the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society. The organization describes itself as, “the voice of genealogy in Saskatchewan. It is a non-profit provincial cultural organization whose purpose is to promote and develop the study, research, and preservation of genealogy and family history. The mandate of the society is to preserve Saskatchewan records; provide assistance to Saskatchewan residents researching their heritage anywhere and to people researching their Saskatchewan heritage”.

“But what of the Lumsdens”, you ask? It turns out that the couple was visiting the Regina area because their son had recently relocated to the city due to a job opportunity. Bruce’s great uncle, Calder Lumsden, had moved west over 60 years ago and they had lost contact with that side of the family entirely. They were hoping to discover that the town had been named after their long lost uncle. I would have expected them to be disappointed to learn that Lumsden was named after a surveyor from the East who had never seen the town. But my information simply gave them another lead to follow as they had yet to fit Hugh D. Lumsden into their family history. They left Lumsden happy to have visited and excited at the possibility of following the trail of Hugh D.

The Lumsdens shared that the Saskatchewan town of Lumsden is not the only town of Lumsden in Canada. They have also visited Lumsden, Newfoundland, formerly named Cat Harbour. The eastern community was renamed in 1917 after Rev. James Lumsden who was a United church minister known for his work in the community. Interestingly, Bruce and Audrey haven’t found the connection between their family and Rev. Lumsden either.