I want to thank the Syilx people of the Okanagan Nation for welcoming us to live, learn, work and play on their beautiful, ancestral, traditional and unceded lands. I was born and raised in Southwestern New Brunswick on the traditional ancestral lands of the Passamaquoddy people, and my parents were both raised in Montreal on the traditional ancestral lands of the
Haudenosaunee, Huron-Wendat, Mohawk, and St. Lawrence Iroquoian peoples.
My paternal family emigrated to Montreal from a small mountain village near Sparta, Greece about 55 years ago and my maternal ancestors emigrated to different parts of Eastern Canada from England and the United States (by way of maybe Ireland and Africa) several generations ago. Some of my family is near me in the Okanagan Valley, but most of my relations remain in Eastern Canada.
I don’t know that I would always include the longer story of my ancestors and relations, especially because I am fuzzy on some of the details surrounding the origins on my maternal side. I will probably use the first paragraph most often.