The photo you see above was taken in front of A. N. Whitman and Sons' store in Canso, Nova Scotia in 1895. It is possible the young boy in the scene is my grandfather, Aubrey S. Whitman. In 1895 he would have been 7 years old.

Searching for information about my Nova Scotian grandfather became an obsession almost immediately when I discovered the internet about six years ago.
However, it was many years before that when my curiosity was sparked about the grandfather I never met. He was an artist; I am an artist. We held our writing tools the same odd way. He left behind a rich historical treasure in a trunk full of photographs, and I spent many childhood hours sneaking into that musty trunk and poring over the photos of a bygone time. Who were these people? How did they spend their lives? My imagination went wild.

More recently, if I spent time on the computer, most likely I was exploring some facet of Nova Scotian life, geography, history or genealogy. I love the stories of the ancestral families who carved their lives out of the cold, harsh terrain of the rocky Nova Scotian shores and somehow grew from that barren landscape into a richly connected, hospitable people. I've pored over various sites and documents sent to me, looking for their histories and families. I've explored and debated with other researchers all the intricacies of who married who and what happened next. Who were the children? Where did the family live? How did they make a living?

Presented here are the beginnings of a compilation of much of the information I have gathered regarding the genealogy of the Whitmans from whom I am descended. With your help, too, there will probably be more. The lines are there, and sometimes it is a matter of "connecting the dots", but the details which make the history live and breathe are painted in by the many bits and pieces of information when we all share together in one larger project. Along the way, I've met many cousins and distantly related folks who were happy to help me compile this document. Naturally, it would be foolish to imagine that every bit of data is completely perfect, so if you find an error, please alert me and I will try to change the information and include you along with this list of sources and resources:

"The Descendants of John Whitman of Weymouth", published in 1889 by Charles Henry Farnam is most often quoted as if it were the "bible" of Whitman genealogy, though it is said many of the entries are not entirely correct, and there are omissions in some of the lines, yet for his time and with the resources available, we must consider it an incredible achievement in genealogical research. Farnam's study was done through Yale University.

"Sketches and Other Essays" by A. C. Jost

WWW.Chignecto.net, now offline, which was a wonderful storehouse of all things Nova Scotian

"The Canso News", Vol IV, No. 12, May 1912 published by A. N. Whitman & Son, Ltd. celebrating 100th Anniversary

ATCHA: Resources of the Argyle Courthouse, Argyle, NS

Trev's World: Resources of Yarmouth County, NS

I would like to mostly express my gratitude to the fantastic people at Nova-Scotia-L@rootsweb.com who were inspirational messengers of spontaneous acts of kindness in their help in offering lookups, resource materials and their own research files in helping me to compile this family tree. Without their help, this page would have been impossible. Please click on the "Thank You Page" to see their names.