Eleanore Dempster received the B.C. Genealogical Society Family History Book Award for 2014 for her history of her husband's family. (Richard McGuire photo)

Eleanore Dempster made her husband’s family history come alive in a self-published book. (Richard McGuire photo)

For many people doing genealogical research into their family’s history, the starting point is vital statistics records – births, marriages, deaths, census records, dates and places.

But such information is only the skeleton of the family. The really interesting research puts flesh on the bones by investigating the lives of our ancestors – where they lived, what they wore and ate and how they conducted their daily lives in the context of their times.

That’s the message that Osoyoos genealogist Eleanore Dempster brought to a recent meeting of the Rotary Club of Osoyoos where she talked about her 35-year journey into the history of her husband’s family.

Dempster won the B.C. Genealogical Society’s 2014 family history book award for her self-published book A Dempster History: From England to Canada Through India, 1796 – 2014.

Her story puts the flesh on the bones of his family history with photographs, hand-written documents and descriptions of life in India where the family lived during British rule.

She had information about the ships the family travelled on and even accounts of a family member’s suicide based on a coroner’s report published in an 1834 newspaper.

In another case, she found two letters her husband’s great grandfather had written by hand to the parish clerk about some young boys who worked on a farm.

She took the letters to a handwriting analyst who gave her insights into his personality, which along with the context of the letters brought the ancestor to life.

“He was a very benevolent person, but he had a bad temper,” she said. “He had a lot of integrity and compassion.”

There’s no question these personal touches helped Dempster to win her award for the book.

“It brings them to life,” she said. “I know for me and my husband, it really strengthened the connection to his ancestors. It is a very strong connection. You suddenly realize that your immediate family aren’t the only ones.”

Dempster told the Rotarians that her genealogical quest began with a question at a family gathering in 1979 about a crest on the ring belonging to her husband’s oldest brother.

Her skeptical husband questioned how his brother knew this was the Dempster family crest.

“I’ll find out,” she responded spontaneously, loving the challenge, but never imagining that thousands of hours of research lay ahead over the next 35 years.

She never did manage definitively to link her husband’s family with the 17th century Scotsman first awarded the crest. And she later learned that a crest never actually belongs to a family.

But the search and the stories it uncovered drew her in.

Her only lead was the name of her husband’s paternal grandfather, William Arnold Dempster, who reportedly separated from his wife when their children were very young and apparently died a few years later in Seattle.

His grandmother forbade any discussion of her ex-husband.

“No one in the Dempster or extended families admitted to knowing anything more than that,” she said. “The Dempster grandmother had a strong influence in the family. Her influence endured long after her lifetime and perpetuated family stories born of a woman who tended to evade the truth.”

Dempster, however, grasped this one lead and contacted the State of Washington in an effort to track down her husband’s grandfather’s death record. Finally, it arrived in the mail.

“What a life-defining moment that was,” she told the Rotarians. “There was enough information in the document to paint a tiny vignette of William – including his birthplace, India. I was hooked.”

Over the next years, she contacted professional genealogists to help her with the research, costing her several thousand dollars, but less than a fact-finding trip to England.

And she got to know the branch librarian at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons, for whom genealogical research is part of their faith.

Her research led her to her husband’s great, great grandfather, who was a surgeon with the East India Company at first and later with the Indian Army.

A 19th century publication called Allen’s Indian Mail fleshed out details of life in colonial India, even recording the travels of some Dempster ancestors. This led her to find information about the ship they travelled on.

At one point she located old family photos, apparently of a father and daughter, both stamped on the back with “Adelaide, Australia.”

She located an old Adelaide phone directory at the Maple Ridge public library and sent off 17 letters to every Dempster in the book.

One of those letters happened to reach a Charles Dempster, who wasn’t related, but just happened to sing in a choir with a woman whose maiden name was Dempster. She turned out to be the granddaughter of the little girl in the photograph that was taken in 1892.

From this connection, she learned the story of how William Dempster and his brother left their family in England in 1883, the brother going off to Australia, and the two brothers never saw each other again.

A century later, in 1984, the letter she received reunited the families.

The simple question about a family crest was never fully answered, but in the process of trying, Dempster uncovered a large family she and her husband never knew they had.

“It brought these people to life,” she said. “You certainly feel you know them.”

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times