When writing ancestral histories, advice I've read recommends that writers concentrate on events with the most dramatic potential, like immigration. That's the point I'm at now in the account of H.S. Chambers' story, his immigration to Canada from England. I have to weave the details from my research into the action of the narrative.
There's no question that his immigration to Canada was a momentous occasion that changed Harold's life. But immigration wasn't a once in a lifetime thing for him. After a few decades he went back to England and when he went back his wife and daughter, who were born in Canada, immigrated with him. But they didn't stay in England either. The family's immigration story is complicated.
Complications often translate into stories with drama and sometimes even punchlines. What it doesn't lead to is predictable data where a researcher can find families staying in one place for generations. I can remember being puzzled by the question, "When did your family come to Canada?" I sometimes answered, "Which time?"
I seems like I will have fodder for stories from many of my family lines as so many of them moved from one place to another, sometimes only a short distance but other times vast distances away. Come to think of it, that sums up some of the events of my own life as well. Maybe this migration thing is hereditary.
Image:
Postcard – Empress of Ireland - by
Unknown - Sjöhistoriska museet, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42989236
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