Dehradun: Traversing a distance of almost 11,500 kilometres from Canada to India, Patricia Robertson, a Canadian academic travelled to the Doon valley along with her sons in the early part of the year with a mission -- to find traces of her in-laws’ family that lived in the 19th and 20th centuries in the Doon valley. During research on her family tree, Patricia found that her sons’ great great grandmother, Emma Hobson Cones, lived in India. She was married to James Alfred Cones, an assistant engineer in the department of irrigation working on the Ganga canal in the late 19th century and the couple had made their home in Dehradun.Armed with this information and a burning desire to locate some evidence of their relatives, although not exactly sure where to look for, the Robertson family approached Doon-based heritage walking group, Been There Doon That (BTDT) whose volunteers scoured Doon’s cemeteries in search of clues. Eventually, they were rewarded when the gravestone of Emma was located at the Dehradun Cemetery. The family was also able to locate the resting place of James Alfred Cones in Mussoorie.Speaking to TOI, a visibly moved Patricia Robertson said, “I never expected to find the grave but was determined to try. All my efforts to come here have now found meaning. I must thank this country for preserving our memories.”The search for their relatives’ graves though was a painstaking affair. After assiduously poring through records in the British Library at London, the National Archives and other graveyard records, Patricia recalls reaching a dead end on accessing records that mentioned Chandernagore, Bengal, as the location of Emma’sgrave even though the family were certain that Emma died in Dehradun in 1938. Family records indicated, too, that Emma and James were married in Mussoorie and subsequently moved to the Dalanwala area of the Doon Valley. On reachingDehradun when they shared this information with BTDT volunteers, they were told that Chandernagar, tucked away in an obscure corner of Dehradun, had a cemetery and could possibly be the Chandernagore mentioned in the records.Armed with brooms and documents, the group arrived at the cemetery looking forEmma’s grave. Recounting the details, Lokesh Ohri, founder, BTDT, toldTOI, “Looking for something in a cemetery as old as the one at Dehradun, the oldest grave here dating 1810 much before the British forces are first believed to have entered the hills, is a painstaking process requiring much patience but the mission was eventually successful.” He added that “these trips have been erroneously referred to as graveyard tourism.” “They are, essentially, journeys of memory, and good heritage interpretation can make all the difference to visitor experience.Patricia had all the records and had done her homework well but certain locations were misleading which is why there was confusion but putting things together and doing some research ourselves we managed to eventually help the family.”

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