Welcome to our family's bloodline. I defied the law of secret-families-through-adoption (not to be confused with family secrets) and ~gasp!~ discovered my mother's ancestry.

This site lists the family names: Slauenwhite, Dillman, Andrews, Henley and Logan. These folk are the maternal ancestors of my mother, Elsie Florence White (b February 14,1934-d December 20,1996).

My siblings and I were all separated from our mother, fathers, and each other, through the systems of adoption and foster care. Most of us were reunited in 1995. Being legally separated from immediate family also means separation from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It means no knowledge of one's ethnic identity, genetic traits and nuances, cultural background and of course, ancestry, which also means no access to the people who hold information about one's ancestral past.

In April 2008, I began a serious search for information about my ancestors from Nova Scotia, Canada (not that the last 20 years of searching wasn't serious; but this time I didn't give up after a few empty clicks!). As I was bouncing around various ancestry sites, I kept running into the same person's name inquiring about the same ancestors I was researching. Was this person a relative? Of course she was! Thanks to the years of incredible hard work and persistence of this person, I was able to piece together quite a lot of family history in less than one month. Thank you to my newly-discovered relative -- the lovely Cousin Carol! Carol's mother, Alma was the sister of my grandmother, Della.

In 1784 (or thereabout) my fifth-generation grandfather, James Logan, a Scottish soldier who had fought on the side of the British in the American Revolution hopped off a ship and on to a small piece of land called Sheet Harbour in Nova Scotia. James and about 60 other soldiers had been given land grants in Nova Scotia by the British Government. Seems these 20 soldiers had been wounded in the war, sent to Bermuda to recpuerate, then sailed to Nova Scotia to begin a new life.

James Logan's arrival at Sheet Harbour brought him in face-to-face with a Micmac tribe of Indians - the only civilians living in the area. James met and married a Micmac woman named Dorothy. Her first name is the only name my cousin Carol and I have been able to find. James and Dorothy had about ten children. James and Dorothy are my fifth-generation grandparents. ETA: recent comment from a another fifth-generation descendant of James Logan, has informed that Dorothy might not have been a Native woman after all. Thanks, Frank. Good to see my relatives visiting the blog.