No 15

Acknowledgements

Mgr Ernest Lang launched a long-lasting genealogical research on his own in 1923, hoping to find information about of our ancestor, Philip Long. He did his best with whatever means he had available. His resources were very limited, but he had a determination that would compensate for the lack of other resources. I still don’t know how he could maintain his motivation over a 50-year period. He still amazes me today! 

He managed to publish a book that changed the lives of many of us, certainly mine in the last few weeks. You will certainly believe me if I tell you that his book stayed on the corner of my desk through all this last period of intensive research to find the missing pieces of Philip’s puzzling life.

Mgr Ernest left us more than a book, which is, in some way, a hypothesis about the origins of our ancestor. Because I had different beliefs about Philip’s birth place, I was compelled to roll up my sleeves and try to discover where Philip was really born, so that we could, afterwards, get on with our lives. Over the years, many of us did just that: formulating hypotheses and, then, try to find any supporting document. It turned out that many documents were found about his life once in Canada, but very few about his life prior to his arrival in 1783.

Conclusion: even after his death, Mgr Lang, managed to make us appreciate our family to its full extent. In itself, this is a noble result, a result that no one of us will ever match. Thanks Ernest.

All those interested in finding the birthplace of Philip remember my brother Ghislain Long. He got me into this adventure: he gave me the spark that would start a fire that I simply couldn’t put out. It would light up again and again, at times when I was involved in something more interesting than going over old hand-written censuses. Ghislain still amazes me for the immense documentation that he managed to collect over many years, if not decades.

It seems that this « family craze » is not restricted to the two of us. Not at all. If you ever get your hands on the 450 pages document of my other brother Benoît Long, you will realize the kind of expertise he has acquired through this experience. My feeling about his work: ADMIRATION!

No one can put en end to this research and start a whole new one by himself. It takes the sustained contribution of many researchers. One of them is my uncle Gilles Long. Some years ago, he came up with a brilliant new concept: DNA testing.  If we are getting, now, better results, it is the direct consequence of his intervention a few years back.

There are many more other collaborators. I know only a few of them, personally. I wish to refer you to a list presented by Benoît in his document (electronic files) a few years back.

For my actual research, I met online many collaborators, especially Leslie Bucher from North Carolina USA. Because we were verifying an hypothesis put forward by Gilles Long, she came aboard at a time when her help was badly needed. She was extremely resourceful. Leslie is also well known and highly respected at the Davidson Genealogy Society in Davidson, North Carolina. 

I want to express my gratitude to the team at the Davidson Genealogy Society in Davidson North Carolina, USA, and especially to Becky N. Lassiter whose devotion arrived at a critical moment of the research.

Paula Williamson from South Carolina USA helped me in many ways from the start to the very end of my research. Thank you Paula.

My girlfriend, Phyllis Leblanc, deserves my admiration for her patience during the intense two-months period of my research.