Stories

Introduction

These are short stories about ancestors of members of Lakeshore Genealogical Society. Reflecting our diverse origins, some are set locally, others overseas. Numerous presentations have been made about our ancestries at our meetings, some of which having been published or abstracted in our newsletter Links which has limited circulation. Story creation and distribution expanded dramatically with the inauguration of our Mystery Ancestor Night in January, 2009.

Mystery Ancestor Night

In this annual January meeting over many years, several members anonymously prepared a display describing (and even naming) an ancestor. The mystery was not the ancestor; rather, it was the anonymous presenter. Displays were set up out of view and then members were let loose on them to scrutinize for clues and make their best guesses about who made them. It was a great way to learn something about our fellow members and a fertile annual occasion for the generation of member stories. Our then Program chairperson made a point of capturing these presentations and making them available to the local newspaper and to the now-defunct community history website Hardscrabble (link to Wayback Machine's scan of Hardscrabble at the end of 2013 after which LGS stories were removed for preservation on this website). Now numbering almost 50, they are listed and linked below and presented with supplementary links for some.

Many of the stories were compiled and paraphrased by Cecilia Nasmith in feature articles in the local newspaper Northumberland Today. Many of those prior to 2014 could be found online at NorthumberlandToday.com and subsequently in the archive of NorthumberlandNews.com which took over the other paper.

All Stories (author:title)