Talk about getting to know the family better.
A service run by Kensington Tours and the genealogy website Ancestry offers people a fascinating opportunity to connect with their heritage on a much deeper level than a typical tourist trip: by going to the places where their ancestors lived.
One traveler who has taken a “personal heritage tour” with Kensington Tours is Elizabeth Dobson of London, Ontario. She became interested in genealogy after she retired in 2015, she told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.
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“My father told me before he died that we had an artist in the family [who] was at the royal court,” she said. Dobson made it her mission to find out as much as she could about her great-grandfather, William Charles Thomas Dobson.
She said she was a member of Ancestry and had even had her DNA analyzed by the company.
Elizabeth Dobson, right, and her cousin Laura Dobson enjoy a pint at the Spyglass Inn on the Isle of Wight. Elizabeth Dobson's great-grandfather died in one of the inn's rented apartments, she said. She signed up for a “personal heritage tour” to better understand her family history. (Elizabeth Dobson)
“I signed up for a heritage tour where genealogists did professional research on my great-great-grandfather and sent it to me. They sent it to the travel agents at Kensington Tours who then put together a tailor-made tour for me to learn more about my great-great-grandfather,” she said.
In May 2024, she left with her niece for a 12-day trip to England, following in her relative's footsteps.
Each 'personal heritage journey' is completely unique.
She even visited the Spyglass Inn on the Isle of Wight, where he died in one of the rented apartments in the late 19th century.
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Dobson was also able to view some of his paintings that were in the museum's storage facility.
One of the most moving moments of her trip, she told Fox News Digital, was visiting her great-great-grandfather's grave.
Elizabeth Dobson, right, and her cousin Laura Dobson brought flowers to lay at the final resting places of their English ancestors. “That was very important,” Elizabeth Dobson said. (Elizabeth Dobson)
“We found his grave and my great-great-grandmother's grave and one of my great-uncle's sons … was buried there. We brought flowers from London and put them on the graves of three different people,” Dobson said.
“That was quite important.”
Finding family members through genealogy
Kensington Tours first partnered with Ancestry in 2020, Jason Susinski, product director for Italy and France at Kensington Tours, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
The travel company specializes in individual travel and tours, according to the website.
Popular destinations for this type of tour include Ireland, France, Japan and New York City.
“We have worked very closely with [Ancestry] to develop a series of routes that reflect some of the most popular destinations,” he said, where travelers showed interest “for cultural reasons.”
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The relationship between the two companies is “the perfect marriage,” he said.
Each “personal heritage tour” is completely unique, said Susinski, who lives in Ottawa. Rather than taking people to big tourist destinations, the personal heritage tour allows travelers to visit the small towns where their relatives came from via private tours, he said.
Jason Susinski, director of product at Kensington Tours in Ottawa, said some clients have found long-lost relatives or family friends during their “personal heritage tours.” (Fox News Digital)
Anyone interested in the trips is “connected with Ancestry genealogists, and they work together to discover their family's story,” Susinski said.
“Once the family story is revealed, they share that information with our destination experts. Our destination experts then put the trip together.”
“We tailor the itineraries to the hotel preference and length of stay,” he says.
“And often these trips turn out to be a combination of exploring the heritage and a more general visit to the country.”
People who choose to take a personalized heritage tour through Kensington Tours will have access to genealogical services that are not available to the average person, Susinski said.
Ancestry genealogists connect travelers like Ontario's Elizabeth Dobson with their family's past. (iStock)
“They work with genealogists who are locally based in most of the European countries where we operate,” he said.
These genealogists, who are fluent in the local languages of the area, “have access to local archives, which are typically not translated – and often those records are not digitized,” Susinski said.
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He added: “It means you have to go to a city archive or even go to cemeteries and look at gravestones. Those are things you just can't do if you live across the ocean.”
Popular destinations for this type of travel include Ireland, France, Japan and New York City, Susinski said.
Clients planning a personal heritage tour are put in touch with a genealogist in their hometown. He or she can search cemeteries and non-digitized records for information about a family’s past, for example. (iStock)
And because the areas they visit are often not major tourist attractions, travelers sometimes encounter long-lost relatives.
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“We take our clients to very small towns and remote villages,” he said.
“These are small places with maybe one church, one or two cemeteries – a very slow, small-scale, rustic life.”
People who embark on a personal heritage journey often encounter long-lost relatives in small towns and remote villages where life is “very slow, small-scale and rustic,” Susinski said. (iStock)
Visitors, such as tour participants, often 'stand out' and 'attract the attention of locals'.
“We've heard stories of a guide walking down the street with his clients and a local would stop them and ask why they were in this town,” he said.
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Popular destinations for this type of travel include Ireland, France, Japan and New York City, Susinski said.
“And that leads to a back-and-forth conversation, and they find out that the person they spoke to is connected to the family through multiple generations,” Susinski said.
Elizabeth Dobson and her niece recently traveled to England in hopes of learning more about her family. Rather than taking people to big tourist destinations, the personal heritage tour allows travelers to visit the small towns where their relatives came from via private tours. (Courtesy of Elizabeth Dobson/Getty Images)
“It's a really interesting way to close the circle of these stories.”
He added: “It's very meaningful to see the walls or walk on the ground where their family members also walked.”
