A young, French-Canadian nurse met an American doctor in her native Quebec, they fell in love, started a family in a home they made themselves south in the U.S., and the rest, as they say, is sweet history.

In their budding life together, they raised six Franco- American kiddos, and tucked among the middle was my mother.

My grandmother died years before I was born, but she left to us a most beautiful company of relatives rich in love, numbers, traditions, stories and songs that keep her spirit alive in lieu of her physical presence.

I feel her embrace in the hum of French folk tunes, her laughter in that of my mother’s.

My grandfather could have easily kept his first wife’s family as an international scrapbook memory, but he worked diligently in the years between her passing and his to keep tightly woven the fabric, the bonds of our heritage, and what makes the French culture unique.

Throughout my childhood, we’d trek annually with him to my grandmother’s home country. There’d be wine poured, heaping helpings of meals shared, songs sung, stories recounted. Some were bittersweet, some hilarious.

There was always laughter and fun among the Francophones. Each year, my late grandmother’s entire kin – her siblings, their children and grandkiddos – would also likewise migrate south for a few Maine weeks, taking over my grandfather’s humble summer cottage, increasing the square footage by hoisting tents throughout the yard.

Strewn Adirondack chairs would be gathered, riotous telling of tales would ensue.

It overwhelmed me as a young child to listen idly by as 30, sometimes 40 people who spoke so little English shared 30, sometimes 40 dozen stories connected to a woman whose direct lineage we shared – a woman I’d never met.

Through the years, I made greater efforts to include myself in the fireside chats, the songs, the laughter which reverberated across the coast. I grew more confident in my far-less-than-perfect-French vernacular and tried to keep up with the Franco Joneses.

I developed an appreciation for this vibrant history, for my ancestral ties.

It was imperfect, but it was mine.

I finally got it.

But as time passed, so grew the challenges. My grandfather, who’d made painstaking efforts to keep our family tapestry tightly woven with our Franco folk, passed away.

His generation of family was aging, making travels south less frequent, less realistic.

I married a fellow Franco- American, but when our kiddos came, we didn’t find it practical to travel so far with babies so young.

The years, they flew.

This summer, we eliminated the usual excuses and decided to resume the long overdue bon voyage and venture north.

My husband and I tested the travel waters with our kiddos, my mother, two sisters, brother-in-law, and young nephew in tow as we headed northbound.

We were bringing it back, baby. Oui, oui.

We spent this past long weekend in an old farmhouse on an island that is the French Canadians’ Ellis Island of sorts, an island to which the European French traveled and kick-started an entire agricultural industry.

L’ile-D’Orleans has maintained this farming landscape, and remains lush with strawberry farms, scenic cow pastures, vineyards.

It’s a land dotted with sugar houses, a land that makes one feel he’s returned to another era.

Maple syrup is always on tap, spoons are played to old folk tunes, and history remains so much alive.

During our stay, we invited my grandmother’s Canadian relatives for a reunion dinner.

They brought the yard games, and funny stories, we made the food.

Strewn chairs were gathered, riotous telling of tales ensued. It brought me back to childhood all over again.

Once again, wine was poured, meals shared, generations old songs sung heartily.

Our 5-year-old was initially hesitant to join in as I had once been.

But he quickly found himself in his element, dancing in the middle of the farmer’s porch with arms raised as the crowd sang and the sun set.

He was a pint-sized American hype man in a very French village, improvising as we all were.

The sounds of French lyrics streaked across the St. Lawrence River, in the southern direction from where we’d come.

It’s a beautiful thing, one’s heritage.

It makes us feel closer to home.

I don’t dye my hair, but my roots were showing that summer night for sure.

And everyone has them.

During the height of that boisterous family reunion on L’ile-D’Orleans, we had to improvise and serve drinks in variously sized paper cups, because there were far more relatives than there were wine glasses. I couldn’t help but find in this a tiny metaphor.

I realized all these different cups of varying colors and textures were all filled with the wine from one original vessel.

It’s a fascinating thing, ancestry.

Whether English, Irish, Italian, German or mixed descent, everyone comes from somewhere, from some blend of branches from the forefathers – and foremothers – that shaped your family tree.

You too have a song, a history.

There are probably strewn chairs to be gathered and stories to be shared with one another – and with your own children.

Learning about one’s heritage is a gift, in any language.

Just look inside those paper cups.

— Michelle Cote is the creative director of the Journal Tribune and a nationally-syndicated columnist. She enjoys cooking, baking, and living room dance-offs with her husband, two boys and a dog. She can be contacted at mcote@journaltribune.com.