After nearly a lifetime of research, Garth Staples of Suffolk has published an 800-page history of
 his ancestors which covers more than 270 years. Starting in Ireland in 1730, Staples traced his
 ancestors as they emigrated to Halifax, N.S., in 1749 and to the Truro area in 1761. He also lists
 the names of more than 11,000 descendants from all over North America.

Garth Staples of Suffolk is recognized for his massive 800-page volume of family history, dating to 1730 before his ancestors emigrated from Ireland to Nova Scotia

   By Mary MacKay
   The Charlottetown Guardian
   Garth Staples' new book chronicling his family's ancestral history back to 1730 is no light read.
   Weighing in at more than a hefty, old-fashioned family bible, his 800-page publication is chock
full of names of more than 11,000 descendants of his great-great-great-great-grandmother who
emigrated from Ireland in 1761. It is also considered to be a social history of the Belmont and
Staples Brook area, near Truro, N.S., where Staples' ancestors settled more than 250 years ago.
   "This is the result of long years of work. It's the story of Sidney Holmes and descendants of her
three husbands," the Suffolk researcher says of his book, entitled Some Descendants of Sidney
Holmes, David Marshall, William Cook and Matthew Staples of Nova Scotia.
   Staples travelled to Truro, N.S., recently to accept an award for heritage achievement from the
Colchester Historical Society. The society annually presents achievement certificates to people and
organizations who have made significant contributions in recording and promoting events which
commemorate the history of Colchester County.
   "When people come in to research, they could certainly take his book and start from there," Nan
Harvey, archivist with the Colchester Historical Society, says of Staples' award-winning family
history volume.
   "Some want to do research themselves and this would certainly lead them into various directions
he had taken. Others would be quite happy with the information there. It depends on what the
researcher is looking for."
   The tip of the Staples family iceberg was Sidney Holmes. Born in Ireland in 1730, she eventually
first wed David Marshall who passed away at a young age. Her second husband, William Cook,
drowned shortly after he, Sidney and children from both marriages emigrated to Nova Scotia in
1761.
   She then married military blacksmith Matthew Staples, who had arrived in Nova Scotia with the
founder of Halifax, Colonel Edward Cornwallis. Staples soon set up his home on 1,000 acres of
land in Belmont, outside Truro, where a monument was eventually erected by the family to
commemorate the site.
   The couple's son, John, later established a community close by called Staples Brook, which was
author Garth Staples' childhood home.
   While many genealogists take up the research task much later in life, Staples was bitten by the
ancestral lineage bug long before most.
   "Quite often we begin too late, but I began very early to take an interest in my heritage. For some
reason, I became inquisitive. I guess because I like history. Even as a kid, I wanted to know 'Who
was that, where did they come from, why did this happen?' "
   After exhausting his parents with his peppering of questions, his mother suggested he contact his
uncle, Lloyd Staples, an educator in Alberta, who was originally from the area.
   "He wrote me this 10-page letter which I still have to this day, which is 51 years old, and he gave
me a pretty broad outline of the family history and he knew it well. That's how I really got started."
   Of course, 10 pages of information is a far cry from the 800 that is the bulk of Staples' new
book. Fortunately, he tapped into a genealogical gold mine of sources such as provincial and state
public archives, the Internet, headstones and more.
   In 1981 he produced his first book on the family — The Staples Family of Staples Brook —
partially in an attempt to draw other like-minded researchers into the fray.
   "I knew I had to get more information of the family out there to get other people interested. Then
people became somewhat interested and started sending me a lot of corrections and new
information," he says.
   Sporadically over the next 20 years Staples compiled this information in an orderly fashion. Then
last year he sat at his computer and began to pull together the project and the names of 11,000
descendants which through the centuries had spread throughout North America. This count is
estimated to be only half the true number out there.
   Considerable space in Staples' book was also devoted to community members who served their
country in war and peace and to the role played in the early development of churches in the
Belmont/Staples Brook area.
   Over the years, the family was not untouched by scandal, a few of which are highlighted in the
book. One was a breech of promise court case in Amherst, N.S., in 1891, involving a young
Staples lad who was an assistant minister of a church and a lovely university student who became
parents to a child out of wedlock.
   "He was exonerated in court but a child was born and the fascination to me is where is that
child," Staples says.
   "According to the 1891 newspaper, the grandfather Staples of that family told the court that his
family would look after the child. I think I know who it was but I don't know what happened to
her. The dates just don't add up."
   Sometimes genealogy researchers hit a dreaded dead zone of information. In this case, Staples'
brick wall is the controversial 1911 census.
   "That particular story highlights current concerns by a lot of us across the country and that is
Statistics Canada trying to stop the release of the 1911 census. The last census I had on this young
lady was in 1901, when she was 10 years old," Staples says.
   "The 1911 census would tell me if she was still in the community or if she was not, then I would
start looking elsewhere. The refusal of Stats Canada to release the census is a serious thing. If it's
not released it's going to deprive a lot of Canadians of their heritage, there's no question about it."
   There is no questioning the fact that an 800-page chronicle of his family's history goes beyond the
usual tracing of family tree. But as researchers like Staples can attest, it truly is a never-ending
story.
   "I found a lot of information but there's still much more. Every time you find something new, it
creates another question."