At a recent Scottish family reunion on her father’s side, Mary Lou MacMillan saw a chart that listed her ancestors along with their professions. “I learned that my great grandmother’s father and his father as well, were weavers in one of the three textile mills in the town of Dundee in Scotland.” MacMillan said she was “flabbergasted,” because she, too, is a weaver. “The connection felt good. Like there’s a reason I’ve been drawn to weaving—an echo inside, pulling me.”
As for her mother’s side of the family, “I’m not clear on where they came from,” she admitted, even though she’s always been fascinated by and drawn to her grandmother who died when MacMillan was just five years old.
MacMillan was the first to sign up for last week’s workshop, Genealogy 101, sponsored by Powell River Public Library. Her mother told her lots of family stories and MacMillan, a storyteller herself, has been an active member of the library’s Memoir Writing for Seniors program for the past three years. “I feel like the family stories I write are the flesh, but they need more structure—more of the bones of family history.” She wants to know more about genealogy—the study of a family line of descent from its ancestors.
MacMillan was joined by almost 40 people, who packed into the workshop—each with their own reasons, hopes and aspirations to find their roots. The workshop, led by local genealogist Pamela Voss, was the first in a series of free library-sponsored events to inspire people to connect with their roots.
The next event in the “Roads to your Roots” series is Researching your Roots, 6:30 to 8 pm Thursday, March 5, at the library—a presentation of online and print resources with guest experts Claudia Cote and Ray Sketchley of Powell River Genealogy Group. The third event is Memoir Writing 101, an introductory workshop to take place from 3 to 5 pm on Wednesday, March 25, at Powell River Recreation Complex. The big closing event will feature an international, professional Celtic storyteller in a one-woman show titled “A Road oft Travelled: The Route to my Roots,” which is free, open to the public, and will take place at 7 pm on Friday, April 10, at Evergreen Theatre. There is more information about the series online at www.powellriverlibrary.ca/content/roads-your-roots or readers can email [email protected].
MacMillan plans to attend the next workshop to learn about finding family using the Internet and is also excited about hearing professional storyteller Mary Gavan weave the tale of her Scottish ancestors and their occupations. MacMillan admits she feels the recent death of her husband, David Moore, has increased her sense of urgency to understand life. “We’re not a short piece of time,” she said. “Those who came before me are part of the weaving—the threads and tapestry of my life.” She also sees her efforts as a gift to her children and grandchildren, so they can know who they came from, and finally she sees the work as a way of honouring her ancestors—honouring that they were alive and that they are remembered.
Before MacMillan left her family reunion she jotted down a quote by Thich Nhat Hanh:
“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all the generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment, each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”
