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I began researching family history in 1990 and first focused on the Peat
family, my late wife Jane's ancestors who arrived from Scotland in
1843. We published a book spanning seven generations of this family in
1993.
I received a huge assist with my paternal ancestry when my cousin Monte
shared all the information he had assembled in his years of research.
Since the early 1990's he and I have shared information and expanded our
knowledge of this family since they arrived from Ireland in the late
1830's. In 2006 we established a link with a "new" cousin,
Fern, in Quebec and through her research we have added hundreds of new
relatives to our common family. Monte, Fern and I are currently
focused on finding that missing link which will help us pinpoint the town in
Ireland where those early Canadian pioneers originated. Irish research
is extremely difficult since so many records were lost in the 1921 fire in
the Four Courts, but we soldier on! I have also prepared
books covering my maternal ancestors (the Meade family) and my wife Carol's
paternal line, the Kelly family. Genealogy is a very tedious,
yet fascinating hobby. Over the years I have spent countless hours in
libraries, museums, registry offices, archives and LDS (Mormon) Church
Family History Centres. Often times many hours of work will produce
absolutely no meaningful results . . . and then you find that one little
piece of information which causes so many other facts to fall into
place. Those times are very rewarding. Last year we
used cutting edge DNA science to prove our connection to the line of Cruises
in Quebec and to another Cruise line in Western Canada. We
hope one day to publish a book to document our Cruise family heritage, but
that will wait until we can conclusively determine exactly where they
originated in Ireland.
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