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 . . . .
My husband Jerry was fascinated by it, too, and did all kinds of research to trace his family's roots. With the Internet it's so much easier than it once was. You can even find old ships' manifests to see the names of your relatives...
DeleteYou'd be very welcome! :)
DeleteHallie, 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.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is a mitzvah but you have to be up for it.
DeleteWhat 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)
ReplyDeleteSelden, so interesting!
DeleteSounds like you gave fascinating Scottish roots!
DeleteThis 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.)
DeleteEdith, thank you for triggering another memory of why I have no interest family genealogy. (My comment is below.) The family bible dating back to 1700s that my grandmother updated through the 1960s. Always available to read, never treated as a precious object. Elisabeth
Delete... so interesting, and it would be tax deductible for you, Edith!
DeleteHow amazing to know about such deep roots! Would love to have you along on the trip, Edith!
DeleteThat last comment was me. Forgot to change myself from anonymous!
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.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Kathy will be able to chime in with a recommendation or two to get you started... I know she had commitments today.
DeleteOnce you get started, it can be hard to stop! SO many interesting stories. The best place to start is with documenting what you know - names and dates (even approximate ones) of parents, grandparents, etc., so you're building from a firm foundation.
DeleteMy 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!
ReplyDeleteVERY tempting!
DeleteHow fascinating! Making the leap across the pond can be the hardest thing, for sure if there aren't any family records tying him to a particular place in Scotland. You could get lucky with court records, maybe, if there was a court case that determined his transportation.
DeleteGoogle is a wondrous thing on a rainy afternoon. I perused the Scottish prisoners of war website for the 272 Scots transported on the John and Sara to New England in 1651. David Hamilton is listed, with links to a memorial plaque listing his birth place as Cambuslang Parish, born in 1620. He married the daughter of a fellow transported Scot and lived in the Mass/NH/Maine area.
DeleteKathy, 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.
I'm always fascinated by how much of what we accept about our past can turn out to be wrong or more complicated.
DeleteYes, and some surprising results when a family that was always proud of their "pure" or supposed superior heritage turns out to have sordid backgrounds, or slave heritage or other unsuspected backgound.
DeleteI am also fascinated about the many who never knew that their mothers or other ancestors had affairs that resulted in half-siblings. I have at least three male friends who have been contacted by children they had not known they had fathered. One guy has three such offspring! It's just fascinating to see how science is revealing so many connections that otherwise may have stayed hidden forever.
I haven't stumbled across any of my family records when researching for others, but I have uncovered record sets that are new to me or bits of social history relevant to my family that I hadn't encountered before. Karen, I cannot imagine doing an ocean crossing like that pregnant. You'd be very welcome at a future event. :)
DeleteVisiting 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.
I'll bet that was fascinating... imagining what it had been like when your ancestor passed through.
DeleteHow incredible to discover your paternal ancestor in a museum and to be able to visit the community. My 2x great grandfather was a crofter in Poolewe in the West Highlands. While I was there visiting the nearby Gairloch museum, I stumbled across a large, handwritten map on the wall from the 1840s identifying then then-new crofts in Londubh where he lived and the people the laird was assigning them to - including my Donald MacKenzie. I had no idea such a map existed. It's not and likely won't ever be digitized, but there it was, right on the wall in front of me. Museums are SUCH a treasure trove.
DeleteI am puzzled by the quest to chase down ancestors. This may be because I was born in the same town where all of my grandparents lived (one set of them in the house built by the family in 1812). The other set still had sisters living in their family home. I heard stories about their parents and their parents’ parents, saw portraits of earlier ancestors, could imagine them living in these rooms where I played. We regularly visited the family burial plots, so I knew connections. These were “real” people, not just some people in graveyards. This family history has always been enough for me. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteHow lucky to have all that surrounding you Elisabeth!
DeleteYes. And as Edith’s post just reminded me ready access to the family bible. Elisabeth
DeleteHumans have been interested in genealogy for centuries, Elisabeth. It really isn't new, just now lots more accessible. The Mormons, in particular, have collected data for a long time now, and they have one of the largest databases, pre-DNA, in the world.
DeleteKaren, just seems genealogy gets more publicity, like so much else, in this “internet age”. Elisabeth
DeleteElisabeth, you are so very lucky to have all that! I think for a lot of us, it's creating for ourselves what you already have - a connection to the very real people who came before us, and a hope to understand their stories and where we came from.
DeleteMy ancestors came from Newcastle Upon Tyne in England on my dad’s side and mom’s side of the family came from Denmark. My son did visit Newcastle when he had a semester abroad at Leeds University.
ReplyDeleteBrenda, I have actually been there! A friend invited me to visit in 2018, when my daughter was living in London. It's a beautiful area.
DeleteSounds like you already have the answers to any questions you might have about "who made me who I am)"
DeleteHow lovely your son got to visit Newcastle.
DeleteMy ancestry is about as plain Jane as it gets - Scots, English and German, all the way back. Hallie, when I was a teen, I wanted to have family that had dramatically escaped from a shtetl, because being a WASP was SO boring.
ReplyDeleteWe recently discovered the fascinating background of Ross's grandfather. He wasn't 100% Spanish, as he presented himself when he arrived in the US in the early 1920s. His mother was Spanish, yes, but his father was Filipino, and HIS parents were an indigenous Catholic woman and a Chinese merchant! We suspect he "passed" as a Spaniard from the Philippines because of American prejudices at the time.
Was Ross also related to the French author Victor Hugo?
DeleteWhoa! How fascinating, Julia. And complicated in interesting ways.
DeleteJulia, what a fascinating background Ross's grandfather had! I'm sure there are lots of intriguing stories in your family, too. People are endlessly interesting to me, and every once in awhile an intriguing question arises out of what otherwise seemed to be a straightforward life story. I love those moments.
DeleteWelcome, Kathy! My late uncle loved genealogy and traced our Scots ancestors back centuries. It is fascinating to think that because two people reproduced in the 1400’s, I’m here today. Love this post!
ReplyDeleteJenn, my great grandfather was involved with a Scottish club in the USA and organized Robert Burns night on Burns’ birthday in January.
DeleteThanks, Jenn. I'm very grateful to Hallie for having me here. Isn't it amazing all the moments that had to happen along the way for us to be here, like those two people having a baby in the 1400s?
DeleteI love the PBS show finding your roots. It is so fascinating. My ancestors are from England, Ireland, Scotland. On both sides of the family, my ancestors immigrated to America in the 1600s.
ReplyDeleteYou'd probably also like Who Do You Think You Are. You can find episodes from the UK, the US, and Australia on YouTube, at least last time I checked.
DeleteGenealogy is really fascinating! Dad refused to take the DNA test though my mom and I took the DNA tests. To my mom’s surprise, her results included Ireland from County Cork. I was not surprised because her great grandfather looked like George Bernard Shaw, the Irish writer. He is the same person who called my grandmother “shiska “ because he thought his grandson (my grandfather) was marrying an Irish Catholic. My grandmother overheard him say shiska, and she turned to him, speaking in Hebrew to his surprise. Her father trained to become a Rabbi in Ukraine. Her grandmother was born in Spain. My mom and I are trying to figure out how Irish ancestors could have descendants in Spain and the Ukraine. My theory is one ancestor was in Mary Tudor’s royal court and married a Spaniard after Mary married Philip of Spain. Another theory is when there was a war (peninsular ? War / Wellington ?), one of my Irish ancestors was a soldier who fought in Spain and decided to remain in Spain instead of going home to Ireland. My mom’s theory is an Irish ancestor was an emissary from Ireland who went to Spain and decided to stay in Spain.
ReplyDeleteSounds like your answer to "who am I" is extremely complicated!
DeleteTrue! I’ve been asked if I was Irish. I’m sure that both of my parents have Irish ancestors- hence the red hair and freckles. My great grandparents spoke Seven Languages and I discovered how much I love learning languages. So far I’ve learned 10 different languages for fun.
DeleteOoh, That's an intriguing story. So many possibilities.
DeleteOh, this is so fascinating! I have, somewhere, a letter my grandmother typed out on a typewriter, on onionskin paper, about where she grew up in Russia. I was so happy, I remember, to receive it, until I read it. It was as completely untrue as anything you could possibly imagine… She talked about her lovely little village in Russia which I think was called Zablodowska And how happy everyone was, and how thrilled they all were when the nice Russian soldiers came to town.
ReplyDeleteEither she was being sarcastic, which I doubt, or uninformed, or whether she had just been told a story over and over, there’s no way to ever know. I wish I could find that letter, I would love to see that now.
Were the “nice Russian soldiers “ the Cossacks?
DeleteFascinating Hank. It is possible that if your grandmother was young, i think kids can be optimistic about their lives if they have somewhat protective parents and community.
DeleteBut I should add Russian Jews for the most part faced horrific conditions.
DeleteThat is SO weird, Hank... and that she typed it out?!
DeleteWouldn't you love to know what she was thinking when she wrote it? And to know what stories she was told that informed what she said. If only we could go back and ask.
DeleteOh, gosh, Kathy, absolutely. SO true. Hallie, she typed it in the 1960's, if I remember. When I asked her to tell me about her childhood. And Anon, I don't know-- I assume it had something to do with the overthrow of the Tsar and the Russian revolution.
DeleteMy husband and I have been researching our ancestors since the early 90s. Many of our travels have revolved around visiting areas where they lived. We've been fortunate to walk the streets of Lowestoft and Barnstaple in England, Langenaubach and Breitscheid in Germany, and even had a 30-person family reunion in Thalwil, Switzerland. We've visited so many libraries and archives in Vermont, New York, Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc. for our research. It has been a great hobby for both of us. Annette
ReplyDeleteAnnette - it's a journey within a journey!
DeleteAnnette, there is something so special about standing in the places we know our ancestors stood. I'm so glad you've been able to do that.
DeleteHallie, this is very timely because Roots Tech is having a conference this week. It is also virtual so you can catch some of it online. I saw Marlee Matlin give a brilliant presentation about how genealogy research must be inclusive.
ReplyDeleteMy great grandfather was born in Scotland. He is related to the Scottish grandmother of Princess Diana. My other great grandfather’s ancestors included Huguenots who arrived in New Amsterdam and some of their descendants were involved in the Underground Railroad Movement helping slaves from the south flee to freedom in Canada.
How fascinating! Sounds like there are no letters or other documents left talking about what must have been a fascinating time.
DeleteDiana, I'm at RootsTech right now. I loved Marlee Matlin's point. One of the things that has most motivated me in my own family history is tracking down as much as I can of the stories of the women and all the other people who were often an overlooked part of the historical record. If anyone is interested, there are thousands of free genealogy lectures available online on the RootsTech website.
DeleteKathy Chung, welcome to Jungle Reds. Your genealogy tours sound wonderful. I would love to join. However, I have a delicate question.
ReplyDeleteAre the tours accessible? As a deaf person, it takes a lot of energy to lip read and to use my cochlear implants / auditory muscles. Will the tours have a lot of talking or will there also be written guidance like guide books or printed transcripts?
Thank you.
Diana, I would love to have you along. The three days of research at Scotland's People are essentially you and a computer at Scotland's People with help from me one-on-one throughout the day, with the other group members at nearby computers. If you were interested in using the historic search room there, there would be very little talking as you request documents ahead of time and they bring them to you in a mostly silent working space. While I am not a sign language speaker, I would be very happy to use technology to transcribe any conversation between us during those days. I've just reached out to the tour company doing our day tour out of the city to find out if they are accessible to deaf people. If you wouldn't mind popping me an email at kathy@scottishgenealogy.ca, I'll let you know when I hear back from them. The other scheduled event is a pub night dinner with local music. That would be verbally social with a small group. I'm not sure if it's appropriate for your needs, but I communicate at social events with my newly-deaf father-in-law using an instant voice transcription app so he can follow conversations easily and would be happy to do what with you if that works for you. Please do reach out to me by email so we can chat more about this if you're interested.
DeleteKathy, thank you. When I get a chance, I’ll send you an email. Do you know John Hay in Edinburgh? He’s deaf and is involved with Scottish deaf history. I think his entire family - wife and children are deaf.
DeleteHallie, how do you know your family came from Russian s??? Autocorrect will not let me spell “shentls”. The borders changed all the time. My great grandparents were born in the Ukraine though the town is now in Romania. The town was Berschad.
ReplyDeleteFamily "lore" is that the grands on both sides came from Grodno in the former Russian Empire, currently located in Belarus... but of course, who knows. I know they were happy to leave.
DeleteKathy, hello! And yes, I've explored my roots, and used much of my paternal grandfather's history in my first novel, The Bone Weaver. He and his younger brother left Nowy Dwor (near Warsaw) around 1909, both of them well established in the States long before thirty-seven family members died in Auschwitz and the Warsaw Ghetto. My paternal grandmother was from Berdichev/Ukraine and left Russia on false papers. On my mother's side, her father was born in Kiev and her mother in Grodno. He was always Poppy to me, a kind and loving man. I was a teenager when I learned that he co-founded the first kibbutz in Palestine, created a left-leaning yeshiva in NYC, spoke seven languages, and ran Camp Kinderland, the Yiddish-speaking camp in upstate NY. And me? A Jewish kid from Compton who didn't quite fit in!
ReplyDeleteWOW: co-founded the first kibbutz in Palestine, created a left-leaning yeshiva in NYC, spoke seven languages, and ran Camp Kinderland
DeleteI learned that my grandfather's great uncle emigrated to Israel, which was known as the British Palestine at that time.
DeleteHello Victoria! There are so many potential novels hiding in our family history, aren't there?
DeleteIn 2025 my youngest son and family invited my husband and me to accompany them to Denmark where our DIL’s paternal great grandfather came from. We spent a month there and our DIL made connections with a distant cousin and a church historian. It was a wonderful experience for all of us.
ReplyDeleteWhat an amazing experience to have. And how lovely to be invited by your son to go!
DeleteI've done lots of research and belong to several national genealogical societies. I have ancestors in Plymouth, Jamestown, and Williamsburg. The Scots background goes to Malcolm Canmore and his wife, Saint Margaret, also to the man who chased them into Scotland, William, the Conqueror. But you all know Malcolm. He's the one who killed Macbeth. It's a fascinating journey to investigate genealogy. Yes, Roots Tech is in town this weekend. I have been to past Roots Tech conventions and enjoyed them very much.
ReplyDeleteLiane, you're very lucky to be able to trace back that far. Most of my relatives were agricultural labourers who didn't leave a paper trail beyond birth and marrige, but came from parishes where records are scant before about 1700, so tracing them back any further than that I hit a big brick wall.
DeleteIt was Macduff, the Thane of Fife, who killed Macbeth
Deletefor revenge for Macbeth’s murder of his wife and children.
Macduff kills and beheads Macbeth, bringing the head to Malcolm to restore order to Scotland.
Malcolm had a hit man it seems!!
I have ancestors who came over from England to Jamestown in the 1600's. My sister was living in Va and had found the gravestone of several ancestors in a church (I think it was) cemetery. Some were in, obviously, pretty bad shape But we could make out some information.
ReplyDeleteEvery time I go cemetery hunting, I lament how badly certain types of stone age. Still, being able to get any information from them is exciting. If you're interested in finding out what was on stones you couldn't fully make out, it can be worth looking at the local historical or genealogical society to see if someone may have done cemetery transcriptions decades ago. Sometimes the difference between an old stone in 1960 versus 2026 is readable versus fully degraded.
DeleteThis is something (aged grave stones and unreadable markings) I wish was taken into consideration more. Graves stones can provide such valuable history.
DeleteThrough my father I am related to a revolutionary war heroine.
ReplyDelete"During the Battle of Cowpens, some stories even place Catherine Barry Moore on the field assisting her husband, who was fighting under General Andrew Pickens. Regardless of her exact role, after the battle, she was given the title of “Heroine of the Battle of Cowpens,” local notoriety, and medals for her work as a messenger and spy.
https://www.battlefields.org
Margaret Catherine Moore Barry | American Battlefield Trust"
Thanks, Hallie, for this very flattering post. I appreciate you! And thanks, too, to all of you for your warm welcome and interesting comments. I'm at RootsTech at the moment, so will be offline for a few hours while I go attend the last couple of classes, but I will be back later this evening to follow up on any comments or questions. Looking forward to talking to you! And if you'd rather reach out privately, you're welcome to email me at kathy@scottishgenealogy.ca
ReplyDeleteI've always thought red hair, blue eyes, and freckles were from Irish and or Scotish genes. But, so many people at our Jewish temple have children who have curly red hair and freckles and whose ancestors were originally from other Eastern European countries. Maybe Norse/Scotch invaders got as far as eastern and southern Europe thousands of years ago. Maybe that was during spring break!! Too much party and grog!!
ReplyDeleteYes. King Henry VIII had a grandmother or great grandmother who came from Poland and had red hair.
DeleteI love doing genealogical research. Ancestry is so much easier than when I used to go to the LDS Genealogical Library back in the 80s to look at microfilm records. I always thought I was 50% German on my mom’s side and, as my Dad used to say, “the Duke’s mixture” on his side, meaning English, Irish, probably Scottish. The DNA results first came in with my German heritage at about 28%. That’s gone down even further with subsequent updates. Lots of Scandinavian countries mixed in instead. — Pat S
ReplyDeleteHi Kathy! This is all fascinating. I have lived in Edinburgh and it is such a gorgeous city--at least in fine weather! Neither of my parents were the least bit interested in learning anything about their families, so I know very little. I'd assumed there was a good deal of French somewhere, as my mom's name was Dozier and her mother's Jordan, but when I had my DNA tested a few years ago, the results came back about 90% Scots/Irish with only a smidgen of Norman French. Oh, and on the supposed Native American ancestor? Zilch!
ReplyDeleteKathy, what an interesting business, helping people uncover their roots. My maiden name is Boone, and when I was growing up, my mother was tireless in her research of my father's Boone family roots. Early on we knew we were related to the famous Daniel Boone, my great-great-great-great uncle. Our direct lineage is through Daniel's brother Edward. Interestingly, they married sisters. My furthest point I go back is to the county of Devon in England in a small village outside of Exeter, with Stoke Canon Parish having the records of our first known ancestor, George I and his wife Sarah. The records show they had three sons baptized there, and we come from George II, baptized the 19th of March, 1666. The third generation, with George III, is where these Boones came to America in 1717, having sent a couple of their children to check it out first. Daniel (born 1734) and Edward (born 1740) come into the picture in the 5th generation as two of the children of Squire and Sarah Morgan Boone.
ReplyDeleteMy test I had done had me as most British, a little French, and some Native American. The Native American was from my father's family. I think it was his grandfather or great-grandfather. I'd have to check.