When I arrived home from work on Friday February 7th I was ecstatic to discover an email from Library and Archives Canada telling me that my Great-Grandfather William Porter’s military records are ready.

69 pages

Wow.

When I initially sent in the forms I worried it would be over 150. I had no idea how many pages would be in the file of someone from the first world war. 69 sounded like a lot. I did ask Jenn Annis (mentioned in my last blog post here) and she told me 69 sounded about right. Before computers came around, everything needed to be written by hand, or if you are lucky typed.

I sent my payment information, received confirmation and have been waiting anxiously ever since. The confirmation stated 2 business days and I should get a link to the records. That was 5 business days ago and 10 days ago and nothing.
No records.

No links.

Nothing.

And so now I sit with baited breath. I’m impatient yet know it’ll all be worth it. If however, I have no answers by Friday, I’ll be calling or sending a very stern email. They have my money, I want my records galldangit! Anyone else left waiting on some genealogy records to come through? How long have you had to wait? Please tell me I’m not the only one who has had to wait over a month for records out there.

To help pass the time waiting, I took the Family Day weekend here in Ontario to walk the land of my ancestors. The Dryden Tract on Alps Road between Galt and Ayr was first purchased by my Dryden ancestors in the 1830’s. The tract is unworkable as far as farmland goes, with large hills and valleys and filled with a forest. It’s great for a hike, even in the deep snow we had to trounce through. With one child, 3 dogs and 6 adults, we had a good size crew traversing the hills and valleys and back up the hills again for our 3km hike.