It's a Family Affair – Explore Your Roots in Nova Scotia
The world-renowned Nova Scotian hospitality welcomes everyone like a well-loved cousin from away, perhaps because so many people are just that. There are currently an estimated 25 million people in North America with a family connection to Nova Scotia.
It's pretty typical to find a listing for a family reunion of some kind in any Nova Scotia newspaper. Take this notice from The Amherst Citizen, for instance: "This year marks the 18th year members of the extensive Yorke family have gathered for a pot-luck lunch." Dig a little deeper and you discover that the Yorkes, almost all Yorkes with a Nova Scotia connection, are descended from Captain Edward Yorke of Rhode Island who relocated to Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley in 1760 with the first wave of New England Plantars immigration.
The family trees of the immigrants who shaped Nova Scotia are broad and far reaching. There are the descendants of Black Loyalists who founded the community of Birchtown 1783 in Southwest, Nova Scotia, and descendants of the New England farmers who picked up arms and came to fight with the British in the battle for Louisbourg. There are relatives of the Scottish immigrants of the 1700s whose original accents can still be identified in some Cape Breton communities, and proud Acadians scattered across the globe coming back to immerse themselves in the living culture of their forefathers. However that first seed of family took root in this province, there seems to be a particular penchant for connecting with family in Nova Scotia.
While internet resources for Nova Scotian genealogical research are extensive (you can start with the Nova Scotia Geneaology Association found at nsgna.ednet.ns.ca or go to novascotia.com – "research you roots" section for several other links) – there is nothing like a visit to the place where your personal family history lives. There are six thousand surnames with a direct connection to Lunenburg County, for example. Walking the streets of historic seaside towns, visiting the ancient cemetery tucked beneath a canopy of trees overlooking the action of the working waterfront, listening to the local accent still rich with German influence more than two hundred and fifty years after the first Zincks, Meisners, Zwickers, and Whynachts laid out the neat hillside streets of this UNESCO World Heritage town, and finding out that the teenager serving your coffee is probably a fifth cousin a couple of times removed – well, these are the connections that you just can't make on line.
Beyond the usual ways to unearth your family roots – searching archives, churchyards, and vital statistics registries – you can dig a little deeper in Nova Scotia. Descendants of the Black Loyalists and Acadian descendants can visit archaeological digs related to their heritage in Birchtown and Grand Pre respectively. Relatives of the 189 Scottish Highlander who founded the first Scottish settlement in Nova Scotia can step aboard a replica of the Ship Hector – the vessel that transported their ancestors to a new life. Relatives of the million immigrants who passed through Pier 21 on the Halifax waterfront en route to becoming Canadian can retrace those first footsteps into a new country in Canada's last surviving ocean immigration shed, now a National Historic Site with research centre and museum, interactive and multimedia exhibitions. The easiest way, of course, to experience your Nova Scotia roots, is simply to say to your cab driver, your bartender, you seat mate on a tour bus, "So where are you from?" Chances are good that you'll discover some common ground!