This website started out with the intention of sharing family history and to invite others to add to this information. Along the way I decided to add more pages to share photos, mainly from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, that might be of interest to others.
My name is Gary Pollock. You’ll find me as Gary M Pollock on Facebook because my grandson got the name Gary Pollock first! I turned 83 in August 2019. That’s when I started to develop this website. With my wife Vivian Dole we have two children, one of whom was taken by cancer, four grandchildren and one great granddaughter. We both grew up on farms, not that far apart, in the Eastern Townships of Quebec.
About 20 years ago I became interested in my family history. By then both my parents were gone and I was starting virtually from scratch. Vivian’s situation was much the same. Twenty years later I have pretty well achieved my original goal of getting to know their history. The story of Vivian’s and my family history is told on my FAMILY HISTORY pages.
Along the way I found some side roads that keep me digging deeper. One of the more interesting ones was the discovery that in the 1840-50’s there were 13 separate Pollock families living in the county of Argenteuil which is in the Laurentians north of Montreal. These families had established themselves in Canada in the 1830’s and 1840’s. Why so many so close together? Were they related? Their story is told on the THIRTEEN FAMILIES pages.
I served for 30 years in the Royal Canadian Navy. During that time I took quite a few photographs mostly in my first few years as a young sailor experiencing an entirely new world. You will find some of my favorites on the NAVY PHOTOS pages.
As a teenager I developed an interest in railroads and again took quite a number of photographs, particularly in the 1950’s and 60’s. That was the period when railroads transitioned from steam to first generation diesels. I was fortunate enough to be able to photograph trains in the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia. You will find some of my favorites in the RAILROAD pages.
For those who are actively pursuing genealogy, I recently came across a set of rules which genealogists should follow. I wish I had known these when I started. You can find them on the RULES page.
