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Jean Isabel (Burgess) Kirstine was born in 1917 to Nelsie Winnifred McLeod (1880-1975) and David W. Burgess (1873-1945) in Hanover, Ontario, Canada. She married Gordon McPhail “Mac” Kirstine (1915-2012) in 1940, worked as a school teacher, and raised 5 children in Walkerton, ON. In the 1970s Jean started researching her family history, compiled a genealogy on her mother’s McLeod ancestors from Nova Scotia. She traced her mother’s paternal line from father Jason McLeod (1845-1933) to James Bent McLeod (b.1799) to James McLeod (b.1772) to John McLeod Jr. (1744-1825) of Liverpool, NS who came to Nova Scotia from Scotland in 1762. Jean died in 2007 in Hanover, ON, age 89.

Janet Kitz came originally from Camwath, Lanarkshire, Scotland. She moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia and married Leonard Kitz in 1971. Since 1980 she has conducted research on the Halifax Explosion. In 1987 she helped to mount an exhibit on the disaster, A Moment in Time, at Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, where she was working as a research associate. She is the author of a number of books on the Halifax Explosion.

The Knights of Columbus were originally founded by Father Michael J. McGivney in New Haven, Connecticut on 29 March 1882. The organization was established as a fraternal benefit society with the founding principles of charity, unity and fraternity in order to render financial aid to members and their families. The society is divided into 'states councils' at the provincial level and 'councils' at the local level. Initially, the Supreme Office in Connecticut established the Maritime Provinces jurisdiction in 1904. The first local council was formed in Sydney in 1905. In 1919 the Supreme Office began work to separate the Maritime Provinces into their own State Councils. The Nova Scotia State Council was formally established on 10 May 1921. The following local councils with their dates of establishment were the original Charter Councils: Sydney (1905), Halifax (1906), Antigonish (1906), New Glasgow (1912), and Sydney Mines (1919). The State Council supports a permanent and systematic scholarship program which began with seven scholarships in 1921. The Knights of Columbus have also taken a very prominent part in helping students from the developing world attend the Coady Institute at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish.

The Knowles family originated with Henry Knowles, who was born in 1609 in England and came to Boston, and then to Rhode Island, with Roger Williams in 1635. In 1767 the Knowles family moved to Newport, Nova Scotia. In 1865, Thomas Benjamin Knowles (1840-1936) left Nova Scotia to study for the ministry at Bethany College in West Virginia. He remained in the United States and raised a family of nine sons with Cordelia Mary (Baldwin) Knowles. They were subsequently joined by other members of the Knowles family who left Nova Scotia for Ohio.

Kathy Moggridge Kuusisto was born in Windsor, Ontario, in 1948. She completed her undergraduate degree at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, in 1970 and received her MA from the University of Essex, England, in 1980. She moved to Nova Scotia in 1971. From 1972 to 1975 she was employed by the Nova Scotia Museum as editor of The Occasional and coordinator of the national inventory of Historic Buildings. She also taught courses at St. Mary's University, 1978-1984, and at Dalhousie Library School, 1984-1985. From the late 1970s to 1985 she was an historical researcher for several different projects, and is currently employed by the Secretary of State in Halifax.

Kathy Moggridge Kuusisto was born in Windsor, Ontario, in 1948. She completed her undergraduate degree at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, in 1970 and received her MA from the University of Essex, England, in 1980. She moved to Nova Scotia in 1971. From 1972 to 1975 she was employed by the Nova Scotia Museum as editor of The Occasional and coordinator of the national inventory of Historic Buildings. She also taught courses at St. Mary's University, 1978-1984, and at Dalhousie Library School, 1984-1985. From the late 1970s to 1985 she was an historical researcher for several different projects, and is currently employed by the Secretary of State in Halifax.

James Bolton Laidlaw is believed to be the son of Thomas and Elizabeth Laidlaw, merchant and one of the founders of the Universalist Church in Halifax. James married Sarah Sophia Howell, the daughter of Jacob Howell, on 7 October 1862 in Halifax. James worked as a grocer in his father's store and was an active member of the Universalist Church.

Murray Clayton Langille was born on 10 March 1914 in Martins River, Nova Scotia the son of James and Emma (Ernst) Langille. He attended the Maritime Business College where he took accounting, graduating in 1938. He met his wife, Muriel Edna Hiltz, in Halifax and was married 24 October 1942 in Martin's Point, Nova Scotia. He worked at Irving Oil, and later Boutiliers Limited for 33 years until it closed. He retired from the Nova Scotia Liquor Commission in 1982. He died on 14 January 2007 in Halifax.

John Alphonsus Lanigan was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on 12 November 1854 the son of John L. and Johanna (Magrath) Lanigan who were married on 14 November 1839. He attended Sulpician College in Montreal and St. Mary’s College in Halifax where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree. He graduated with his medical degree from New York University in 1877 and practiced medicine in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Buffalo, New York; Toledo, Ohio; Boston, Massachusetts; and finally Niagara Falls, New York where he was head post-mortem examiner for Erie County. He married Theresa Beazley in Halifax, Nova Scotia on 26 March 1893. John was an author who had articles published in newspapers and magazines. He was also the author of Leisure Hours poems in 1869; the play The Siege of Armagh in 1871; Woodland Rambles poems in 1894 and The Theorem of the Geometric Scale in 1910. In addition he attempted to create a universal language which he referred to as “Tolien”. It was said by H. Herald that he “possesses much literary ability”. John Lanigan would also write under the pseudonym Kinel Araga for the Niagara Falls Journal. Dr. Lanigan was also known to write music and lyrics sometimes in conjunction with his brothers, James Aloysius Lanigan and Remigius William Lanigan. He died in his home in Niagara Falls, New York on 21 May 1919 and he was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Halifax on 29 May 1919.

Journalist Brenda Large of Charlottetown, P.E.I. worked for the Ottawa bureau of the Canadian Press for five years. In April 1970 she married Nick Fillmore, editor of the alternative bi-weekly newspaper The 4th Estate, which was owned and published in Halifax by the Fillmore family company, N.I.F. Publishing Ltd. (incorporated 1969). Large joined the paper in 1970 as associate editor and became co-owner and co-publisher with her husband in January 1973. Under their guidance, The 4th Estate became a weekly paper featuring local and national current affairs, politics, business, art and entertainment. Large became sole owner and publisher of The 4th Estate and president of N.I.F. Publishing in November 1976. The paper went bankrupt and ceased publication in 1977, after which Large joined CBC television in Toronto. She later returned to Charlottetown, P.E.I. where she was residing as of 1998.

Aubrey Earle Lavers was born at Hantsport on 8 January 1889, the son of George Edward and Odessa Alberta (Earle) Lavers. He attended school in Halifax, finishing at Grade 8. Thereafter, he went to work as a pattern maker and joined the army on 12 October 1917, serving until 1919. He served with the 11th Siege Battery in France where he was slightly gassed and had a shrapnel wound. Upon his return to Canada he worked for a year as a pattern maker in Halifax and then went west to settle in Winnipeg, where he worked for the CNR in Transcona as a coach carpenter for 33 years. He died on 9 July 1964 in Winnipeg.

Charles Anthony "Tony" Law was born in London, England, on 15 October 1916, the son of Major Adrian Aloysius Sherwood and Maud (Andette) Law. Law was inspired and encouraged to study art by his grandfather Law, himself an artist, and family friend and noted anthropologist, Dr. Marius Barbeau. Law studied painting and drawing with Franklin Brownell, Fred Varley, Frank Hennessey and Percyval Tudor Hart. He married Jane Brumm in 1942. During the Second World War, Law served as an officer in the Canadian Navy. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. During 1943-1944, while his flotilla of Motor Torpedo Boats was being prepared, he was commissioned as an official war artist, an assignment which was confirmed by his appointment as an official naval war artist in 1945. Transferring to the permanent forces after the war, he traveled to the Arctic, and to the east and west coasts of Canada. He was known as "the painting Commander." Upon retirement, he became active in the art community of Nova Scotia, was artist-in-residence for Saint Mary's University between 1967 and 1980, and was the first curator of Saint Mary's University Art Gallery. In 1981 Law was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by Saint Mary's University. He died on 15 October 1996 at Williams Lake, Nova Scotia.

Sophia Lawson was born on 27 April 1864 in South Rawdon, Nova Scotia, the daughter of George and Elisabeth (Dimock) Creed. Sophia remained in South Rawdon her entire life, marrying William H. Lawson on 1 December 1893. Sophia died on 5 February 1945.

Guy Joseph LeBlanc was born on 2 May 1950 in Saulnierville, N.S. He received a BA at Universite Sainte-Anne and a B.Ed. from Acadia University. He was employed as a teacher and then recreation co-ordinator for the Municipality of Clare prior to his first election win in 1984 for the Progressive Conservative Party. He served as minister of the environment (1985-1987), transportation and communications (1987 -1989), community services (1989 -1991), fisheries (1991-1992) and education (1992-1993). He was defeated in the general election of 1993.

Albert Oy Lee (1952- ), amateur historian and professional photo-journalist, was born in 1952 in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Shew Chuck Lee (1907-1990) and Sui Fa (Kung) Lee. He graduated from New York Institute of Photography and the Germain School of Photography in New York, United States in 1970 and from Ryerson University in Toronto, Ontario in 1973. He worked as a freelance photographer in Toronto, New York, Southeast Asia and the Atlantic provinces of Canada. Albert Lee researched his family’s immigration to Canada from Hoi Ping, Guangdong Province, China and became interested in the history of Chinese immigration to the Maritimes. In 1997 he organized an historical exhibit for the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History in Halifax, NS then joined Saint Mary’s University Gorsebrook Research Institute (GRI) as a research associate. He has published articles and given public talks in Halifax and in Vancouver, BC, recorded interviews with community members, and worked with the University of British Columbia Library on a digital exhibit for the internet in 2011-2012.

John Gordon Leefe was born in Saint John, N.B., on 21 March 1942, the son of James G. Leefe and Helen G. (Sancton). He was educated at University of King's College (BA, 1966), University of New Brunswick (B.Ed., 1968) and Dalhousie University (MA, 1970). He married Nancy Morrison in 1964 and they had two children. He taught in Saint John schools, 1965-1968, and in Halifax schools, 1968-1970. He was head of the social studies department, Liverpool Regional High School, 1970-1979; and assistant to the curriculum supervisor, Queens District School Board, 1981-1983. He was elected to the legislature as Conservative MLA for Queens in 1978, and was re-elected in 1981, 1984, 1988, 1993, and 1997. He was deputy speaker of the legislature, 1981-1983; and minister of fisheries, 1983-1989; the environment, 1988-1992; and natural resources, 1992-1993. He was appointed house leader in 1991, and was chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in 1993. He was president of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, 1990-1991, and a member of the National Round Table on Environment and the Economy, 1991-1992. In 1993 he became opposition critic for the environment, and was also appointed by Health Minister Ron Stewart to the Blueprint Committee on Health Care Reform. In the provincial election in July 1999 he chose not to run and retired from the legislature. Leefe was also the author of several articles and books, including The Atlantic Privateers (1978), A History of Early Nova Scotia (1983), which he co-authored, and Kejimkujik National Park (1981).

Alexander Hamilton Leighton was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 17 July 1908 the son of Archibald Ogilvie Leighton (b. 1880 in Ballycarry, Northern Ireland) and Gertrude Ann (Hamilton) Leighton (b. 1888 in Sligo, Ireland). At the age of 8, he was brought to Nova Scotia by his parents and was a frequent summer visitor from then until 1975 when he joined the faculty of Dalhousie University as a landed immigrant of Canada. In 1989, he achieved dual citizenship. As a young man, he became interested in photography as a medium for recording history and enhancing appreciation of the natural environment. Using the motion picture camera, he recorded a trip he made across Nova Scotia by canoe in 1927, and in 1936 he made a movie of a group of Mikmaw First Nation People hunting porpoise in a birch bark canoe and then of making oil to sell. He also used motion picture film to record his study of beaver in their natural Nova Scotia habitat. This study became his honors thesis at Princeton University where he received a BA degree in biology in 1932. He received an MS from Cambridge University in England in 1934 and an MD from Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1936 and became a resident in psychiatry but was also given leave for further study and field work in anthropology. He was called into service as a Naval Reserve Officer after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. During the Second World War he conducted a study of a Japanese Relocation Center and directed the Foreign Morale Division for the Pacific of the Department of War Information. After the war, he became a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry of the Cornell Medical School and in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Cornell University where he began the Stirling County Study, a longitudinal investigation of mental illnesses in the population at large with emphasis on relationships of prevalence of mental illnesses to social environmental factors. In 1966, he formed the Department of Behavioral Sciences of the Harvard School of Public Health and in 1975 joined the Dalhousie Faculty as a National Health Scientist of Canada and as Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and in the Department of Community Health and Epidemiology. At this time, his wife, Jane M. Murphy, who had been part of the longitudinal study since 1952 became its director. Alexander Leighton received numerous awards and honors including honorary doctorates from Acadia University and Laval University. He died at his home at the age of 99 on 11 August 2007.

Marian Constance (Bishop) Leonard was born in 1922 in Paradise, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia to Edgar and Lydia (Roberts) Bishop. In 1941 she married Mark Allison Leonard and had 4 children: Allan Ivan (b.1942), Barbara Evelyn (b.1944), Lawrence Charles (b.1945) and Janice Elaine (b.1952). She researched her village’s local history in the 1970s, compiling stories and photographs of the families and places in and around the village on the Annapolis River. She was a member of the Paradise Women’s Institute, served as President for 2 years in 1978 and 1979, and on the History Committee in circa 1990. The History Committee published a book based on Marian Leonard’s research, Paradis Terrestre: A History of the Village of Paradise, Nova Scotia, for the Tweedsmuir Competition of Village Histories 1991, sponsored by their national organization, the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada. Marian Leonard died June 25, 2007 in Paradise, NS.

In 2003 Diann Graham and Brenda Richard spearheaded a movement to record the history of the lesbian community in Nova Scotia during the 1970s and 1980s. They had attended a reception held on 14 July at the Halifax Club as part of 2003 Gay Pride celebrations. The reception was to recognize those who had made an historical contribution to the movement. Diann and Brenda noted how few women had been invited despite the rich history of the lesbian community as a force for social change. They also discussed the recently published 30 years of Halifax Pride: a souvenir history magazine, which did not offer a formal history of the lesbian community. Diann and Brenda's concerns were that a hundred years from now lesbians would look back and see no record of the accomplishments, activism, hopes and dreams of the lesbian community. They formed a group of women who shared their concerns and began to plan ways to record the history of the community. This group was called the Lesbian History Project and included Janice Acton, Shelley Finson, Diann Graham, Bethan Lloyd, Ann Manicom, Debbie Mathers, and Brenda Richard. They applied to the Dalhousie Women's Centre for funding in order to assist with the gathering of material critical to the project, and to hold a workshop to bring together the women who would provide vital information. This Memory Keepers Workshop was held at the Universalist Unitarian Church on Inglis Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 13 November 2004.

Kenneth Leslie was born 1 November 1892 in Pictou, N.S., and educated at Dalhousie University (BA, 1912), University of Nebraska (MA, 1914) and Harvard University. He was a poet, singer and musician, editor, religious leader, and political activist. He published six books of poetry and won the Governor General's Award in 1938 for his collection of poems entitled, By Stubborn Stars and Other Poems. In New York in 1938, Leslie began to edit and publish The Protestant Digest, a monthly publication devoted to religion and politics. In 1949, he was accused of "un-American" activities and was listed in Life magazine as one of fifty notable communist sympathisers. He returned to Nova Scotia where he continued to publish a smaller version of The Protestant, and later other periodicals including One, New Christian, Man, and New Man. Kenneth Leslie died in Halifax on 6 October 1974.

Ella Marguerite Letson, the daughter of Edgar and Lucretia (McLeod) Letson, was born 30 March 1887 at Port Medway, N.S. She was a schoolteacher, genealogist, and local historian. She retired in 1960 and lived in Port Medway until her death on 14 February 1985. Her history of Port Medway was published in 1985 under the title Port: A Short History of Port Medway, N.S.

Lewis Hart and Company was a trading, mercantile and shipbuilding business in Guysborough, Nova Scotia. It was owned and operated by Lewis E. Hart, who was born on 4 March 1853 to William and Letitia (Whitman) Hart. He was the great-grandson of Josiah Hart, a Loyalist immigrant from Connecticut, who had settled in Manchester in the late 18th century. Josiah's descendants had developed lumbering and shipping business interests, and many of them became prominent and wealthy merchants in Guysborough and Halifax, for example, Lewis's three uncles, Jairus, Reuben and Levi Hart. Lewis's father, William Hart (1803-1884), commenced a general trade business and, later, began shipbuilding. After William's death, Lewis took over the business and continued the work his father had done. Lewis worked as a merchant for 54 years, before retiring in 1927. He died on 4 February 1936.

David Earle Lewis (1919-1975), short story author and teacher, was born November 15, 1919 in Melvern Square, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia to Earl Gordon Lewis (1893-1964) and Isabel Jean (Laing) Lewis (b.1891). David E. Lewis earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1940 from Acadia University in Wolfville, NS. He worked in the Treasury Branch of the Department of National Defence (Navy) in St. John’s, Newfoundland (1943-1946) before returning to Acadia University to earn his Bachelor of Education in 1950. He received a teaching license for high school in 1951 and was hired by the newly constructed Bridgetown Regional High School in 1954. By 1957 he was living in Montreal, Quebec running his own bookstore, “David Lewis Books”. He returned to Bridgetown, NS and resumed teaching high school Latin and English in 1963, until retirement in 1972. He wrote regular columns for the Bridgetown Monitor newspaper, under titles “Here and There” (1967-1974) and “Bridgetown Scene,” had some short stories published in Maclean’s Magazine (1972), and published a book of humorous short stories titled “A Lover Needs a Guitar” (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973). David E. Lewis died at home in Bridgetown on October 13, 1975 at age 56.

Martha Henderson Campbell (ca. 1834-1865) was the eldest daughter of James Campbell, MLA (1801-1855) and Elizabeth (Baxter). She married Rev. Robert Liard of Princetown, P.E.I on 20 November 1862 in Tatamagouche, N.S., and they had two children: Bessie Poole Liard (1864-1925) and Alexander Liard (1865-1917). Alexander married Clara C. Hobrecker. Their daughter, Hilda Charlotta Campbell Liard (ca. 1895-1986) was a faculty member of Queens University, Kingston, Ont. and retired as head of the German department.