Gord Deagle and his digital camera have become a familiar sight in the Holy Name Parish Cemetery as he does his part to preserve history through a genealogy project. Sean Kelly - The News

WESTVILLE – Gord Deagle has returned to the roots of his family tree and has walked back through time, aiming to preserve history for future generations.
Deagle, a native of Westville, has lived in Ottawa since 1953 and while visiting his home town this summer  spent several hours strolling past rows of graves at Holy Name Parish Cemetery in Westville photographing hundreds of headstones and transcribing each inscription.
“That’s where all my family and relatives are buried,” said Deagle. “My grandfather was once the caretaker there, Rueben Deagle.”
The 72-year-old historian has a passion for genealogy and has traced his family lines back  more than 366 years to one of the first Acadian settlers here, Oliver Daigre, born in 1643.
He has also recorded the names of about 15,000 family members including the extended families of his wife and mother.
Now he has turned his attention to participating in an Internet-based project to build a data base of  Canadian cemetery headstones.
The project’s mission is to capture digital images of  headstones for public record because as decades pass, it  will become harder, if not impossible, to read the original inscriptions of many stones.
The Canadian Headstone Photo Project is a privately sponsored, non-profit, educational website dependent completely upon volunteers who contribute photographs to the archive.
“Once I get my teeth sunk into something it’s hard to let it go,” said Deagle. “It’s a big project. It’s going to take some time to get all the info on it.”
He said browsing the headstones in the local burial ground was very interesting, seeing some with birthdays dating back to the mid-1800s, and many marking the final resting place of people he once knew, as well as several miners and service men and women.
The historian feels it is extremely important for people to know their family history and the electronic database will  be an important tool for anyone researching their roots.
“It’s something that I enjoy doing,” he said.
Deagle is also working on compiling data for the archive from St. Michael’s Cemetery in East Margaree, Cape Breton, as well as the Pioneers of Margaree Cemetery.
The historian  is aiming to finish his contribution to project by the end of the year but encourages others to pick up the torch and record headstone information from other local cemeteries.
“There are a lot of cemeteries here,” he said. “I’ve picked our own cemetery here, Holy Name, and I hope other people see it and get the bug and carry on with other cemeteries.”
To view the headstone archive website visit www.canadianheadstones.com