Then you tackle the bigger picture. Slowly, but steadily, you make progress and an image starts to appear.
“You could also say it’s like putting on your own detective’s hat and solving the mystery of your heritage,” said Jean MacKay, an archivist and curatorial assistant with Culture Summerside.
Recently, I decided to find out about my own ancestry, using the P.E.I. ancestry website. According to the site, there are more than 316,500 entries on genealogy and history as well as 21,761 searchable obituaries, 91,967 searchable cemetery images and 2,030 searchable digital images.
“The best results are from the ones in the 1800s because that information has been available for a longer time. But there will be results all the way through the 1900s and some in the 2000s,” said MacKay.
But how much could I actually find, and how could I find it, using this resource?
Growing up in Ontario I was never familiar with a lot of the history surrounding my Island roots, so I decided what better time to find out about the Cousins side of my family, as it is the side with which I am most familiar.
Then you tackle the bigger picture. Slowly, but steadily, you make progress and an image starts to appear.
“You could also say it’s like putting on your own detective’s hat and solving the mystery of your heritage,” said Jean MacKay, an archivist and curatorial assistant with Culture Summerside.
Recently, I decided to find out about my own ancestry, using the P.E.I. ancestry website. According to the site, there are more than 316,500 entries on genealogy and history as well as 21,761 searchable obituaries, 91,967 searchable cemetery images and 2,030 searchable digital images.
“The best results are from the ones in the 1800s because that information has been available for a longer time. But there will be results all the way through the 1900s and some in the 2000s,” said MacKay.
But how much could I actually find, and how could I find it, using this resource?
Growing up in Ontario I was never familiar with a lot of the history surrounding my Island roots, so I decided what better time to find out about the Cousins side of my family, as it is the side with which I am most familiar.
First, to use P.E.I. ancestry you need to pay a yearly $39.95 fee. Once you pay the fee, you have full access to the site’s resources.
I was instructed by Fred Horne, the archivist and collections co-ordinator for Culture Summerside, to list the facts about my family that I already knew.
MacKay agreed, “you’d be surprised how much people actually know about their heritage even when they think they know nothing.
“I think the reason is because it’s a little discouraging when you don’t get the answers you’re looking for immediately after you begin your search.
“The best advice I can give is to keep trying. Try different variations of names and kinds of searches, eventually you’ll find the answer.”
From there I mapped out the family I knew.
I knew my nanny’s name maiden name was Edith Cousins; her parents were Robert and Louise Cousins. I also knew the names of my nanny’s siblings, and that the family grew up on “the homestead” in Lot 18 Baltic.
From there I did a general search on P.E.I. Ancestry, which returned with 1,217 results.
Next I looked in the Island cemetery collection, obituaries and death notices for the family members I knew to see if it listed any other family, like Robert’s parents.
So I continued with the Cousins search and scrolled down until I found the obituary listing Robert’s name.
As it turns out, Robert’s parents were William Sutherland Cousins and Elizabeth “Lizzie” Hall MacKay. I put two and two together and I realized that Elizabeth was the “Aunt Lizzie” my nanny had spoke of.
Because I knew the names of Robert’s parents, I continued with the death notices and cemetery collection since I knew it would turn up direct information. Using those two main collections, I was able to find gravesites of great-great-great grandparents, and ones even further back.
Ultimately I was able to find out that the first Cousins related to me was a John Cousins (originally spelt Couzens) and was married to a woman named Mary. The pair settled in Park Corner after the American Revolution and were originally French Hugenots from Normandy, France.
However, there are other categories you can search to find the answers to your questions. On P.E.I. Ancestry, there are business references, telephone directories, digital images and articles from Island newspapers as well as oral histories.
For example, if I knew that my family had prominent business ties to a community in Summerside or Prince County, I would be able to search through the business directory and references to find more information on it.
What’s more, a family tree feature will soon be available on the site so you map out you family in a visual display.
The idea of using such a widespread database to find a particular person can seem really daunting, but it’s really just one long trial and error process. Just because you don’t turn up the right result on the first try, doesn’t mean you won’t find the history you’re looking for, it just means that there are alternative answers to other people’s questions.