Margaret Frances Sadler | Editor-in-Chief , news & views , ARTA

I ’ m a genealogist of a certain age . My challenge now is to find the next family record keeper in the younger generations . What does it take to draw my nieces , nephews , and cousins ( once-removed ) into the quest to know their origins ?

I find that interest in family heritage comes after about forty years of life experience . Once one has attained that age , grandparents are usually diminishing in strength and / or numbers . Perhaps attending funerals heightens one ’ s attention to family lore .

Telling family stories is important at every age , but while young children enjoy the stories , they may forget them over time and need to have them refreshed . I wonder if my nephews can recall the story of the musket that hangs over my sister ’ s fireplace . Do my nieces remember the fruitcake their grandmother made — for many Christmases and her daughters ’ weddings ?

For me , there ’ s a thrill in finding family members in a census record , and then seeing changes in the family ten years later in the next census . Were more babies added ? Did the older children marry and leave home , possibly to settle nearby and appear on another page of the same census record ?

My husband and I used to scroll through reels of microfilm ( now available online ) of ships ’ passenger lists , hoping to find ancestors ; once found , then imagining the voyages they made . My great-grandparents sailed to Canada in April 1873 on the SS North American ; my great-grandmother was pregnant and had four little girls under the age of seven in tow . My grandmother was the youngest , at 14 months .

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