The Case of the Drunken Detective

In 1973, at the age of 15, I left Salt Spring Island and moved to Vancouver. Three years later I moved to Toronto, upsetting my mother who said I would find someone, get married there and never come back. She was right about the first part – I did do that – but I did come back; it just took about 30 years. In the meantime, my parents had resettled in a quaint township on the coast of Vancouver Island, called Ladysmith. I had moved from Toronto to Los Angeles, of all places, and when I came home I found an apartment in Victoria right on the water, a stone’s throw from the boardwalk leading to a café, and a long walk along the water into downtown. Victoria has to be one of the prettiest cities, anywhere. I fell in love again, this time with a city.

Shortly after arriving, my father, who was just turning 80, asked if I could help him use that internet-thing to find out what I could about his family. I said sure, why not. He handed me a few papers that he had managed to get together for me to start with.

I had no idea what I was in for. My agreement developed into interest, interest into fascination and fascination into obsession. Many nights 1:00 am would find me at my computer, sitting in the dark, so tired I would be listing to port, while my fingers, of their own accord, would type on, seeking one last date, name or place before I could go to bed. I was in full-blown addiction – like an old wino, so drunk on something cheap and red that it was burbling backwards from the mouth even while the hand raised the bottle yet again to sup.

Somebody should have told me that genealogy is actually addictive but nobody did. It’s a good thing too because I found out so much about my family that nobody had known before. Some of it was quite a revelation, some of it even tragic. But I could see with clarity how my family had gotten to where it is – the path laid down by each generation and I, who had spent so many years away from home and family, finally found roots. The feeling was odd – something quiet and sure slipping into place that had not been there before.

At some point, that empty well of missing information began to fill up and the addiction abated, but the fascination continues and like thousands of others, I’m passionate about the past, seeing clearly how it forms the present and informs the future.