I am a trained historian with a PhD focused on Canadian history with minor fields in British and United States history who is interested in reclaiming the lives of so-called "ordinary people". These are individuals who shaped and in turn were shaped by the world around them. However obscure and unknown they may have been, surviving evidence suggests that many led extraordinary lives that are worthy of being reconstructed and remembered. However long or short, all lives impacted those of others and their very existence changed the course of the lives of contemporary and future generations.