Conversations with the Dead

How a 1671 census entry hijacked my writing life.

There's something deeply satisfying about falling down historical research rabbit holes. This is my life now—an aging writer who spends more time conversing with dead people than living ones. At least the dead don't judge my coffee consumption.

It started innocently enough. One DNA test, the kind that promises to reveal your ethnic heritage and maybe connect you with long-lost cousins. What I got instead was an obsession with a man named Olivier Daigre, who appeared in the 1671 Acadian census with his wife Marie, three young sons, six cattle, and six sheep.

That's it. That's all history gave me—a grocery list of people and livestock.

But here's the thing about family trees: they're less like trees and more like breadcrumb trails leading into dark forests. Olivier wasn't just some random 17th-century farmer. He was my direct ancestor, eight generations back, and suddenly I needed to know everything about him.

How did a young Frenchman end up in what we now call Nova Scotia? What did he think about when he counted those six sheep each morning? Did he ever wonder if anyone would remember him 350 years later?

The research became addictive. Google and AI make historical detective work almost too easy—I can access 17th-century Jesuit reports from the comfort of my kitchen table. These priests lived among indigenous communities, ostensibly spreading Christianity but inadvertently becoming my historical consultants. They documented everything: what people ate, how they built homes, how they survived Maritime winters that could kill you six ways before breakfast.

But it's the gaps that fascinate me most. That census told me where Olivier was at twenty-eight, but how did he get there? Between the scattered facts lies an entire universe of speculation, and that's where historical fiction lives—in those gray spaces between documented truth.

I love this part. It's like being handed a connect-the-dots picture with only three dots. The rest is pure imagination, guided by research but liberated by possibility. Did Olivier leave France willingly, or was he running from something? Did he love Marie before they married, or did affection grow slowly like everything else in that harsh, beautiful place?

The sparseness of historical records isn't a limitation—it's permission to dream.

Last week, I realized I've spent three years researching one man's life so thoroughly that I probably know more about his daily routine than I do about my neighbors'. I can tell you how Acadians preserved fish and what tools they used to clear forests, but I couldn't tell you what the guy next door does for work.

It might seem like an elaborate form of procrastination, but there's something profound about connecting with the past this way. Every detail I uncover feels like a small victory against time's relentless erasure. When I write about Olivier building his first shelter or teaching his sons to hunt, I'm not just telling a story—I'm keeping him alive.

History belongs to all of us, not just the kings and generals who dominated the textbooks. Olivier mattered because he lived, loved, raised children, and carved a life from wilderness. He matters because his choices led, eventually, to me sitting here in sweatpants, writing his story.

The dead, it turns out, make excellent conversation partners. They're patient listeners, never interrupting, and always available for consultation. Plus, they've got the best stories.

Even if they do make me miss breakfast sometimes.