It is grey, old, dotted with moss and stands askew, but I can clearly make out the name on it: Nancy Clark.

"Hey," I call out to my brother. "Look, Ron, it's me!" We have stopped on our way to Pictou at the Durham County Cemetery looking for relatives. "Take my picture beside my gravestone."

He refuses, and I roll my eyes at him. "She lived to 80 — that's pretty good for the 1850s." I touch the carved letters on the stone, and notice the thinning of the skin on the back of my hand, the veins starting to emerge.