A few weeks before my mother passed away, I finally had the chance to do what I had wanted to do for years: Visit the sites where my French-Canadian ancestor had been.
The problem was, I could only figure out one specific location, and that was only due to guessing based on an old photograph: a “cabinet card.”
My mother had insisted for decades that she had French-Canadian ancestry. Her grandmother Carrie Lewis Connally was French, she claimed. But I always wondered.
Lewis doesn’t sound terribly French.
One thing I have struggled with while uncovering my family’s complicated past is the lack of consistency in naming conventions before the digital age.
While visiting Montreal and Upstate New York for summer vacation, my family were greeted by an unhappy surprise.
M Thomas Apple Author Page 