As an accredited genealogist, I love connecting families through Find-a-Grave.

I'm also a retired librarian, the author of the Devereux Cousins Trilogy ("From the Chrysalis, "Feeling for the Air" and "Take to the Sky") the mother of five children and the grandmother of eight grandchildren ranging in age from one to ten.

Several close family members including myself have had our DNA analysed by FTDNA and 23andMe so I now have more cousins than I know what to do with.

Though there are many mysteries in my family tree, my most important project right now has been tracking down the origin of the cystic fibrosis gene which showed up in my sister's family in May 2013.

CF is a genetic disease that occurs when a child inherits two defective copies of the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis, one from each parent. Approximately one in 25 Canadians carry one defective copy of the CF gene. Carriers do not have CF nor do they exhibit any of the related symptoms.

23andMe helped narrow the search to the Canadian pioneering side of my father's family. When I found out that three of my third cousins had died from cystic fibrosis in the 1970s, I realized we were all descendants of my great-grandparents John “Jack” Henry Black (1858-1935) and Margaret “Maggie” Jane Mulligan (1861-1942). My great-grandparents had seventeen children, all of whom reached adulthood. At least three sons have turned out to be carriers.

The gene is now believed to have originated in my great-grandmother’s side of the family. Margaret “Maggie” Jane Mulligan Black’s sister Elizabeth Lavinia Mulligan White has also produced descendants who carry the cystic fibrosis gene. Maggie and Elizabeth were the daughters of Stewart Mulligan and Mary Heaslip who moved from Manvers Township, Durham County, Ontario to pioneer in the Parry Sound District.

If you are a Mulligan/Heaslip descendant and know of any incidence of cystic fibrosis in your family, I would love to hear from you.

As an accredited genealogist, I love connecting families through Find-a-Grave.

I'm also a retired librarian, the author of the Devereux Cousins Trilogy ("From the Chrysalis, "Feeling for the Air" and "Take to the Sky") the mother of five children and the grandmother of eight grandchildren ranging in age from one to ten.

Several close family members including myself have had our DNA analysed by FTDNA and 23andMe so I now have more cousins than I know what to do with.

Though there are many mysteries in my family tree, my most important project right now has been tracking down the origin of the cystic fibrosis gene which showed up in my sister's family in May 2013.

CF is a genetic disease that occurs when a child inherits two defective copies of the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis, one from each parent. Approximately one in 25 Canadians carry one defective copy of the CF gene. Carriers do not have CF nor do they exhibit any of the related symptoms.

23andMe helped narrow the search to the Canadian pioneering side of my father's family. When I found out that three of my third cousins had died from cystic fibrosis in the 1970s, I realized we were all descendants of my great-grandparents John “Jack” Henry Black (1858-1935) and Margaret “Maggie” Jane Mulligan (1861-1942). My great-grandparents had seventeen children, all of whom reached adulthood. At least three sons have turned out to be carriers.

The gene is now believed to have originated in my great-grandmother’s side of the family. Margaret “Maggie” Jane Mulligan Black’s sister Elizabeth Lavinia Mulligan White has also produced descendants who carry the cystic fibrosis gene. Maggie and Elizabeth were the daughters of Stewart Mulligan and Mary Heaslip who moved from Manvers Township, Durham County, Ontario to pioneer in the Parry Sound District.

If you are a Mulligan/Heaslip descendant and know of any incidence of cystic fibrosis in your family, I would love to hear from you.