Irene Melanson was my great grandmother. I never had the opportunity to meet her before her passing in 1986 but stories of her are ever present during family functions. From what I understand Irene led an interesting life. There have been stories that include a haunted family home in Nova Scotia and work that involved the mob. These stories have always interested me so when I joined Ancestry.com I made it a goal to find out as much as I could about the life she led.

My first goal was to find this home in Wedgeport, Nova Scotia. My father and uncles used to talk about this house. It was supposedly haunted because the oddest things would happen within the home. The house had a large cross on its property that had some historical significance. This was what I had to work with when I started my search.  First I found the cross, La Butte De La Croix.


Image: http://img.geocaching.com/cache/large/d4e1b8b8-cbaf-46aa-80b9-432217246e5a.jpg


This cross represents the spot of the first Catholic Mass celebrated in 1769 after the re-establishment of the Acadians after the Grand Derangement. The significance of this is that our ancestors were the pioneers that held this mass and maintained the property until the early 1970's.  The Grand Derangement was a time period where the English, who held the territory, did not trust the French that lived in the area known as Acadians . The British would remove the french from the area. They attempted to send these French to the colonies. Some American colonies would accept these french settlers but a lot would not. At the end of the Grand Derangement some Acadians would go back to resettle but many traveled south to the New Orleans area and that is where the Cajuns came from.