HALLIE EPHRON: Where do you come from, and how much of that place still beckons? Whose genes did you inherit?
These are fundamental questions that we mystery writers ask of our characters, and often of ourselves.
We travel to the places where our mysteries take place, all in an effort to get the details right. But traveling to the places that shaped our own ancestors or our characters' pasts is a special challenge.
Introducing Kathy Chung who makes that challenge a lot easier and so much more fun.
For two decades Kathy has been conference coordinator for the annual Surrey International Writers Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. It's a fabulous several-day event (regularly featuring luminaries Diana Gabaldon, (until recently) Anne Perry and Donald Maas, just for example.)
Each year I so look forward to being welcomed to the conference by Kathy. She's lovely, competent, able to put out twelve competing fires at the same time.
What I didn't know is that Kathy is also a qualified genealogist specializing in Scotland, North America, and the rest of the United Kingdom. Today she's branching out, applying her organization and genealogical talents to a new venture that has me wishing I had ancestors from Scotland...
KATHY CHUNG: All the work I love best is some combination of puzzles, stories, and connection: researching and writing novels, genealogy, and planning conference and events to bring people together to learn, explore, and connect.
My own roots are Scottish, and I've been lucky enough to make several research trips to Scotland and to study family and local history at the University of Dundee. I've combined my love of bringing people together in a supportive environment to learn - and my years of experience planning the Surrey International Writers' Conference - with my love of genealogy and research in what to me is a dream job: offering supportive small-group research trips to Edinburgh.
At the end of 2025, I launched my new business, https://scottishgenealogy.ca, to offer small groups of amateur family historians from North America who have Scottish roots week-long research trips in Edinburgh. The first one is coming up in June.
The first trip is coming up June 13-20, 2026.
Explore your roots in the country of your ancestors or research your Scottish novel setting while getting a feel for the sights, sounds, and culture of Scotland. Connect with other people who love disappearing down research rabbit holes. I hope you'll join me!
HALLIE: This sounds so great and has me wishing my genealogical past wasn't rooted in Russian shtetls.
And asking: Are you interested in chasing down your own genealogical past and visiting the place(s) that are implanted in your DNA? If you could travel to discover your ancestors, where would you go (time? place?) and what would you want to know?
This is so interesting . . . and what a fascinating opportunity, Kathy, for exploring Scottish roots.
ReplyDeleteI have only a smattering of information regarding the genealogical past of my family [from England] . . . although I really have no clue as to how to do it, learning more is certainly an intriguing idea . . . .
Hallie, I have several cousins who have chased down our roots to those Russian shtetls but I have not. In fact, my cousin Joel just returned from Bialostok where he brushed the snow off ancestral gravestones in an ancient cemetery and sent us all pictures. I won't be doing that, but kudos to those who do. It is a mitzvah, I am sure.
ReplyDeleteWhat fun! I adore research. I've actually spent more time researching the families of others, studying everyone who left records in my Connecticut hometown during the American Revolution and what happened to them during and after the war. My own family is entirely of British background, the Seldens arriving early from England to become enslavers in Virginia. UGH. However my mother was a McDonald from Scotland and according to family lore our ancestor fled after 1745 to North Carolina, and later joined Allan MacDonald, husband of Flora, on the loyalist side. I have been told that early records in Scotland and North Carolina are scarce. What fun it would be to join a group in Edinburgh and to turn over research to look! (Selden)
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome. Maxwells have deep roots in Scotland, way back to Black Mary, who barricaded herself in her castle and refused to negotiate with her brother who had brought the English! That said, I've never been to Scotland or to Ireland, where the other side of my family is from. Now thinking about June...
ReplyDelete(I have a copy of the three-inch-thick 1916 Maxwell History and Genealogy by Florence Wilson Houston, which includes my grandfather. I know Mary is in there somewhere, but I can't find her page at the moment.)
DeleteSo fun! I don't think I will ever spend the money or time to do genealogical research but it would be fascinating to look a few generations back-- find out how mom's ancestors got to the US, whether dad's paternal line had always been in Yorkshire, etc.etc.
ReplyDeleteMy ancestor David Hamilton was captured by Cromwell's forces in 1651 and deported as an indentured servant to Massachusetts. Family members have traced his children to New London, CT, and in 1755, Nova Scotia, where they stayed until my great-grandparents moved to the States. What is missing from the story is where David lived in Scotland before he was captured. Tempting to find out!
ReplyDeleteKathy, do you find more about your own genealogy when you research for others? Scotland isn't a very big place, after all, and I imagine there would be lots of interconnectivity in your research.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest daughter and I both have spit in tubes to find out more about our ancestors, and she has done extensive research into both sides of our family. Turns out that what I thought was my own Hungarian, German and French heritage actually includes so much more, including Scandinavian, Scottish, British, and Spanish (marauders in the mix, maybe?). And not a trace of the Native American my grandmother used to talk about. DD went to the tiny northern Hungarian village, pop. 300, where that same grandmother was conceived, although she was born in West Virginia, in the mining town the family emigrated to (can you imagine being pregnant on a long ocean voyage?). My grandfather's mother's line can be traced to the early 1600's in England, and mid-1600's in Massachusetts. The other side of the family, that we always thought was German, was actually Austrian. So many surprises!
I've been fortunate to visit Normandy, where my grandfather's family originated in the 1600's and parts of England; also Poland, to the town where my husband's origin family still resides. Since my daughter's husband is almost entirely Scottish, we want to visit with them someday, as well. Perhaps to a future event, Kathy.
Visiting a museum fourteen years ago, I discovered by chance that my paternal ancestor came from Dordogne in France. I planned and visited the little community where he lived before immigrating. I stayed in a B&B while visiting the surroundings and Larochelle’s port where he probably took the ship to come to Quebec. However I didn’t know how to look in the paperwork to learn more.
ReplyDeleteEven if I don’t have Scottish ancestors, I love Scotland and it is the first place I visited in Europe.