This book is a history of my family. It encompasses 13 generations. When chronic health
problems ended my nursing career in 1990, Nora Efford, a long-time friend and one-time co-worker,
urged me to join the Calgary Indian Friendship Centre and take part in Native Awareness Week. That
activity launched me on a quest to discover my family.
For over 40 years, I have researched the history of our family in Canada. From its earliest
history, tracing a direct decent from early French Adventurers to the present day, I have relied on
published sources. The more recent history, which contains much additional detail regarding the
wider family, is based on genealogic records, supplemented with stories contained in old letters,
newspaper articles and oral history contributed by my family members. These are the stories as I
understand them, as the person telling them understands them. This is my legacy to my family, a
collection of information about our family. It is not always the case that some family members agree
with what others have written, because we all have our own memories and story sources. That is
okay. This is not an academic treatise. I am responsible for choosing the content pertaining to my
family that is included in this book. You will find no source is listed, nor many foot notes; permission
to include content written by other authors was not sought. The book is not intended for sale to the
general public. I hope you find the tale as absorbing and amazing as I do. I hope you share my sense
of discovery in our forefathers.
Donna Sweet - White Rock BC, 2022