Common Ground
This emerging work explores the question of whether one can feel a connection to a place they have never been.
The oral history of my mother’s family has always intrigued me. In particular, I wanted to learn more about my French-Canadian ancestors who travelled from Quebec to Ontario in the mid-1800s. Some came with a simple aspiration to live self-sufficiently off the land. Very little was captured about their existence in an English-speaking largely protestant province. Other than a census every 10 years, the roman catholic church was the keeper of their records of baptisms, marriages, and interments.
After building up a family tree, I sought out the places where they lived to document my online research. My searches have revealed dog parks and dead ends. I am embracing being drawn to unknown places by my mostly silent ancestors.
I have made a video that provides some additional insight into my ancestry journey so far.
