Ian McGregor

Ancestors

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Biography

i feel like I have been interested in genealogy all of my life. My fascination with family history probably began when I was 10 years old and my mother took me on a one-month trip to England. We travelled throughout southern England and apart from one or two nights at a hotel in London we stayed with family. I met many aunts, uncles and cousins on my mother's side and it was difficult for me to keep track of everyone. My mother was already a keen genealogist and as an excellent letter writer she kept in contact with everyone in England. She knew a lot about her mother's family (CONANT) but her father's family (DAVIS) was extensive but more confused.

When I was 19, I joined the Ontario Genealogical Society and next year will mark 50 years of genealogical activity. While my mother's family seem well in hand, although not formally organized by profiles or family trees I was interested in my father's family (MCGREGOR). However, within two years my maternal grandparents had passed away and my father as well. I subsequently visited my Dad's only sister in Ottawa and discovered she knew a lot about the family. Her home was filled with pictures and she knew the family stories. She told me when she died all of this material would come to me. Sadly, less than a year later she passed away, her death going unnoticed for several weeks, and her landlord tossed out everything in her home. A few months later I received a shoebox of unidentified photos and an address book from the funeral home. Maybe 99% of the family records had been tossed out!

My father's death was a trigger for investigating his family but sadly I was too young and naive and had not asked my father many questions. I also had little information to go on. Gradually over the next 20 years I started to build up a family structure. There must be MCGREGOR relatives and I started investigating all Canadian McGregors. Today I have a database with over 10,000 names. However, only a handful were related to me and these were all dead. For more than 20 years I served as the genealogist for my clan society in Canada - the Clan Gregor Society of Canada and helped many McGregors with their family genealogy.

In the early 1990's I discovered the concept of Home Children. My grandfather had come to Canada as an 11-year old unaccompanied by family. He was a HOME CHILD. I already knew my father was a Benjamin, and his father was Benjamin and his father was Benjamin. Because of this connection my son's second name is Benjamin.

I was now researching all principal lines of my family (DAVIS, CONANT, MCGREGOR and BAKER) and spent about eight months of Wednesdays at the Mormon library in Etobicoke, Toronto doing research during the 1990's. The arrival of computers and the Internet has made my research much more extensive and time effective.

I have been a member of ancestry.ca for many years and joined Wikitree in September 2018. Unfortunately my many personal and professional committments have also limited my time for doing research. I have frequently been called a polymath by people who know me as I have interest in many different things - science, mathematics, astronomy, military history, history of early Christianity, science and technology in the ancient world, the natural world. I am a teacher, public speaker, tutor and mentor. I enjoy a dark country sky filled with stars and "know" the night sky. I am a "people person" and a "rainy day person" (from Gordon Lightfoot), and get much satisfaction from helping others. I have several friends I have known for more than sixty years and another group I have known for more than fifty years. I have been married for thirty years and maintain contact with my best man and ushers and most of my wedding guests. My family and friends are very important to me.

In the years marking the 100th anniversaries of the events of the First WorldWar I have been especially looking at my father's story. He served in the 38th Battalion 4th Canadian Division CEF, fought on the Somme and Vimy Ridge, was shot four times, and most importantly returned home to Canada in good mind to be a good husband and father.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Ian McGregor at registration.