One more thing to say about Sandy Wunder: she had never visited Canada but had a vision of what it must be like from all her research over so many years. I had been planning to go to eastern Ontario to visit my 1st cousin, Laurel Haynes and my 2nd cousin, Gord Mylks. I also wanted to photograph all the graves I could find of my ancestors. Sandy had also wanted to visit Leeds & Grenville Cty so we agreed to go together.

Sandy flew from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Buffalo, N.Y., rented a car and, in tandem, we drove to Brockville. Together, we wandered graveyards and found more than 90% of the graves we were seeking. Several of the cemetery photos I took are in the Photo Gallery of this site.

In the past month, I have begun to search for the ancestors of my maternal grandmother, Catherine Laurel Shaw. I found her, and some of her ancestors, using the search engine on the Family Search website. Then I located the person who had submitted those names. She is Marie Turvey of St. Thomas, Ontario, a descendant of my grandmother's older brother. We chatted on the telephone. Marie is a dedicated Mormon who has already researched the Shaw family. She has agreed to pass on to me what she has about my maternal grandmother's ancestry. For the fourth (or is it fifth?) time I have been so fortunate to find such willing and able cooperation and assistance.

So, in my case, I have been very successful finding my mother's ancestry with two notable exceptions identified in the Help!! section. I have made some exceptional contacts and received wonderful cooperation and help along the way. That, by itself, would be enough but, and this is important to me, I have learned how to do genealogical research.

Next: my father's ancestry. Does anybody have information about William Calvert McDonald, Robert Gunn, or Mary Jane Willis in Bridgeburg (Ft, Erie), Niagara Falls, and Kingston between 1850 and 1910? Three names and three cities in a 60-year time frame are not much to go on, but that's all I have to begin my search.

On the following page is a schematic diagram of my family names and the earliest date I've traced for each. It serves as a reminder of the tasks remaining.