Introduction

Stories of Our Ancestors

Welcome to our website! Over the years, our family has been increasingly interested in learning more about our ancestors. As we developed our genealogy skills and were able to build our family tree, we wanted to share our discoveries with our immediate family as well as others who may be more distant cousins. In telling the stories of our ancestors, we noticed that we often would begin with some particular interesting couple who lived several generations back. By starting there and describing the chronological story to the present generation seemed a more natural form of storytelling. This allowed us to imagine the individual paths taken by our forbearers and to embellish their stories with historical context and descriptions of local geography. We also included our own conjectures in an attempt to fill in gaps along the way but always highlight these events as plausible based on our perceptions rather than proven by actual primary or secondary sources.

At present, we have completed three stories for three branches of our family tree. The first story describes a Hessian soldier name John Eichel who settled in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and married a young lady, Maria Elizabeth Boutilier, whose parents had immigrated to Lunenburg a generation earlier. They raised a large family whose subsequent generations used surnames like Eichel, Oickle, and Oicle. Their descendants are interwoven into the history of Nova Scotia and beyond.

The second story concerns Captain Frederick La Cloche Nicolle and Margaret Elizabeth Strudwicke on the Isle of Jersey off the coast of France. Three of their sons embarked on interesting journeys to begin new lives on separate continents. Not surprisingly, their descendants are now found around the world.

The third story describes the journey of Alexander and Jane (Forrest) Shand who left their farm in Scotland with their children in search of new horizons in Canada. Settling in Nova Scotia they raised twelve children and lived long and productive lives. Their children contributed to the burgeoning industries of the evolving Canadian frontier.

Our research continues and we will add new stories on the future. Stay tuned.