Parked by the Johnsons

Arriving in 1774 in Halifax, Matthew Johnson, along with his wife Anne Ash, settled on this land in Oxford Junction, Nova Scotia. They were from Northumberland, England and part of a movement of new settlers (following the expulsion of French settlers by the new colonial power – England). The Johnsons were 5th great-grandparents of mine.

Solo Scot

My grandmother said her ancestors came from Scotland, but the truth is, most came from England. On the 1870 Canadian Census forms, ones origin (meaning ancestry) was declared, and almost all of my many Nova Scotia families listed themselves as English. One exception was the Ralstons. They were described as Scotch. Perhaps my grandmother was from a matriarchal family, culturally.

Following Back

Long gravel roads wind through the hills around River Philip, Nova Scotia. My ancestors had plots of land up here that are easy to find on old maps, but hard to reach in reality. Rocks and black flies kept me from driving or walking to my destinations — turning me back around. While my great-grandparents

Home of the Colburns

Clinton Colburn left this home in Collingwood Corner, Nova Scotia, in 1894 with his neighbor Alberta Ripley and started a new life in America. They were both 21 and yet unmarried. My great-great grandparents Alex and Kitty (Wethered) Colburn raised Clinton and his nine siblings here — half of whom moved far away. Clinton emigrated

Ripleys, Believe It or Not

I was looking for Ripleys, believe it or not. A day earlier, on a tour of the neighborhood with a couple of kind locals — including 93-year-old Lloyd Weatherbee, a distant relative — I was shown all the houses along the rural road that were at one time associated with Ripleys. The next day, I

Beach Glass

Peter Etters, my 6x great-grandfather, was raised a Mennonite, knew Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, and lived here in Quincy, Massachusetts—until the trouble started. Like the other subjects of this onsite drawing series, Peter was an immigrant to America. He came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1735 from Bern, Switzerland, with his father, Johannes, and some