Almost five years ago, a dozen Montreal-area genealogists formed a writing group to encourage each other to write about their ancestors and become better storytellers.
Getting together monthly, they experimented with a variety of narrative techniques to preserve the ever-fading memories of their relatives, and to shed light on the times in which their ancestors lived.
A few left the group after the first couple of years, as I did, and others joined, forming a core group of nine women, who call themselves Genealogy Ensemble and publish family stories on their blog by the same name.
Last night in Pointe-Claire, just west of Montreal, surrounded by more than 100 enthusiastic and supportive family members and friends, the nine writers held a launch party for their first book, Beads in a Necklace: Family Stories from Genealogy Ensemble. As a founding member of the writing group, I had the honour and pleasure of acting as emcee and introducing each of the authors.
During the evening, we looked at the heirloom table with the objects that had served as the inspiration for the stories, sipped wine, munched on sweets and savories, had our books signed, and talked with old and new friends.
Characters, letters, photos, and footnotes
Beads in a Necklace is a collection of easy-to-read short stories that are filled with fascinating characters and bits of social history.
The almost 50 stories are inspired by family myths, heirlooms, letters, and vintage photographs. The stories describe the lives of merchants and military men, society ladies and filles du roi, reverends, medical men, cooks and farmers, rogues, and restless women.
Each of the stories is about an ancestor of one of the book’s authors. These ancestors lived between 1650 and 1970 and hailed from Montreal, rural Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, the United States, and other places around the world.
The stories come with enough footnotes to satisfy the most exacting genealogist or historian.
Lucy Anglin, Barb Angus, Marian Bulford, Claire Lindell, Sandra McHugh, Dorothy Nixon and Mary Sutherland developed their creative writing skills at the group’s meetings under the guidance of professional writers Janice Hamilton and Tracey Arial, who also co-authored and edited the collection.
The authors of ‘Beads in a Necklace,’ left to right: Sandra McHugh, Barb Angus, Lucy Anglin, Marian Bulford, Mary Sutherland, Dorothy Nixon, Claire Lindell, Tracey Arial, Janice Hamilton.
The authors hope that Beads in a Necklace will serve as a model for people from any country or culture to write their own family histories. They will be making presentations at Montreal-area libraries and quite possibly next February at the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa’s meeting to share what they have learned about writing and publishing family history.
Janice Hamilton said, “If you are a genealogist, a creative writer, or are the kind of person who loves reading about the lives of ordinary people whose real-life actions and relationships were discovered within piles of papers, historical photos and old newspaper clippings, Beads in a Necklace is for you.”
A self-published limited edition paperback is on sale for $20 in Montreal at Livres Presque 9/Nearly New Books while supplies last, and an Amazon Kindle edition is available for $2.99 US. Information is available on Genealogy Ensemble.
Am interested in purchasing that book. Please notify me how it can be done.
Click on the link at the bottom of this blog post. That will take you to the Genealogy Ensemble website where you will see their email address.
Please inform me where I can get a copy of the book listed above.
Take a look at the bottom of the blog post where you will see a link to the contact info.