research

Seeding a New Country

I recently investigated the whereabouts of my ancestors in 1867 – the year that Canada officially became a country. But the seeds for my country’s formation were actually sown over a hundred years prior to that, when the “Seven Years War” between England and France and their allies came to an end. Key battles in that war were fought in North America, including at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, in Montreal and at Quebec City. These brought about a major turning point for North America and set up the circumstances that would lead to the creation of Canada. They also led to dramatic changes in some of my ancestors’ lives.

Here’s what North America looked like in 1763, at the end of the Seven Years War:

Here’s why that war was a turning point for North America:

1. Control switched from France to Britain. After 150 years, France surrendered all its territories to Britain and North America became English. Explains why I don’t speak French!
2. French was protected in Quebec. “New France” was gone, and with it the French (Catholic) religion, the French language and French common law – except in Quebec, where Britain made allowances for the French settlers who decided to stay. Canada still struggles with this today.
3. First Nations land rights were recognized. The red line shown on the map is where Britain declared the western boundary of its settlements to extend; land to the west of that was acknowledged as “Indian Territory.” This was the first recognition of First Nations’ rights to land and titles. The proclamation did not last; some historians say that what happened to the natives once the Europeans arrived was in fact genocide. And the fallout from ignored and/or disrespected native land treaties established in 1763 is still in the news in Canada today.

And here’s why the Seven Years War is important to my family history:

1. I had ancestors living in North America at the time. The “British Colonies” noted on the map were the first settlements of what would become the United States. Thirteen colonies stretching from Georgia to Maine, they had first been established in 1607 and were already British from that time. I had many ancestors, all from my father’s line, living in the 13 Colonies in 1763.
2. I had at least one ancestor who fought in the Seven Years War.

My Soldier in the Seven Years War

I know of only one ancestor who was directly involved in fighting in the Seven Years War: my 5-times-great-grandfather Daniel McIntyre. Daniel signed up with the 78^th Regiment Frasers Highlanders in Inverness Scotland in 1757, at the age of 21; he was likely a farmer before that. He fought for Britain – in his kilt – at Louisbourg, at Montreal, and at the decisive battle on Quebec’s Plains of Abraham. When the war ended, his regiment consisted of 887 men. Of these, almost half chose to be deployed to other regiments in North America, while others boarded ships back to Scotland. Some settled in Quebec (as many of them spoke French) and some, Daniel included, decided to set up homes in upstate New York or Vermont. Daniel received a land grant of 200 acres in Vermont for his service to Britain.

My Family’s Presence in the 13 Colonies

When Daniel McIntyre settled in Vermont after the war, he unknowingly joined other family members from my father’s line who were already living in the 13 Colonies. Although there were battles fought during the Seven Years War in what would become New York State and Pennsylvania, I have no information that indicates any of these family members from the Colonies were involved:

• By 1763, the Wilcox family had been in North America for 130 years! My 10-times-great-grandfather Edward was the first immigrant, from South Elkington, England. He settled in Rhode Island in 1638. At the end of The Seven Years War, his descendant, Benjamin Wilcox, my 5-times-great-grandfather, plus his wife Elsie and daughter Hannah, were living either in Massachusetts where Benjamin was born, or New Jersey, where they moved to at some point.

• “Weaver John” Fretz – so called because he was a weaver as well as a farmer – was head of a large Mennonite family living in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They farmed together on 230 acres. “Weaver John” had emigrated from Manheim, Germany as a child, somewhere between 1710 and 1720. By 1763 the family consisted of John, his second wife Maria, their eight children and many grandchildren. “Weaver John” was my 7-times-great-grandfather.

• The Boughner family were newcomers to the  13 Colonies, originally from Unnau, Germany. Johann Martin Buchner and Elsa Zehrung had arrived in September 1753, just three years before the war began. They settled with their seven children in New Jersey. Martin was a school master; he and Elsa were my 5-times great-grandparents.

The peace negotiated in 1763 would not last long. Within 12 years a new war would erupt, caused in part by the terms of that 1763 treaty. As a result of the new war, the map of North America would be redrawn again. Daniel McIntyre’s fighting days were not over yet. And many more of my ancestors’ lives would change dramatically.

I’ll continue this story in another post. Meanwhile: what world events have had a direct impact on your family? I’d love to know!

There are few enough documents that can allow us a glimpse into the personality of an ancestor. A will is certainly one, and even without reading too much into the data, I feel that I know my great-great grandfather much better for having read his.

Frederick Eckhardt died on November 11, 1901, aged 82, at his farm property near Campden in the Niagara District. He had prepared his will seven years earlier. In it, he laid out twelve clear and specific directives. The first four give instructions to:

1. Pay all outstanding funeral and testamentary expenses.
2. “Erect a suitable monument or tombstone at my grave.”
3. “Bequeath my family Bible containing verities of births, marriages and deaths in my family” to his son Byron, with “my wish that he carefully preserve it.”
4. “Bequeath my Bell organ to my daughter Sarah during her life and at her death it is to go to and become the property of my grand-daughters Edna and Edith, the daughters of my son Byron.”

Here I start to get a measure of the man. I can see someone for whom it is important to be remembered in a tangible way (the “suitable” monument or tombstone.) He is someone who values – even treasures – family and family records. (Note the importance for Frederick is not the Bible per se, but the “verities” contained in it.)

The Bell organ is the only piece of household goods that he highlighted for inheritance. Possibly a status item for him, the organ was clearly important to his unmarried daughter Sarah, who lived with him until her death in 1896. It is also probably safe to assume he had a close relationship to his granddaughters Edna and Edith, and that they valued the organ and/or playing music as much as he seemed to.

The Pragmatic Provider         

The remaining directives in the will are all about providing for his children. Frederick and his wife Magdalena (who had died back in 1869) had eleven children in total, only seven of whom survived him. First, he expressly excluded two of his sons, William and Christian, and the heirs of his late son Jacob, from receiving any portion of his estate, “as they are already in comfortable circumstances.”

So: a pragmatist and realist. Clear eyed, or at least firm in his judgements of those close to him and willing to act on what he decided was fair.

Frederick also specified a caveat in providing for his son Solomon (my great-grandfather). Frederick had provided $280 (about $10,000 today) as security for promissory notes taken out by Solomon. Frederick did this “in order to assist him.” He instructed that if the notes had not been repaid by Solomon at the time of Frederick’s death, the sum was to be deducted from the monies payable to Solomon from the estate.

So: a willingness to help out, tempered with tight control on his money, and a strong respect for money owed.

Beneath the Directives: Clues

The probate papers assess Frederick’s estate as $5,083.17, which is about $184,000 today. About half of that was the value of his 51 acres of farmland, atop the Niagara escarpment near Vineland. Frederick willed to his son Byron “and his heirs and assigns forever, all my real estate.” But he also directed that Byron had to pay a total of $2,500 for the property (about $90,000 in today’s dollars) to the executors in yearly payments. The executors would then divide that money into equal shares and pay each of the inheriting children, including Frederick’s late daughter Elizabeth’s children and Byron himself.

A bit of a complicated way to allow Byron to stay on the farm without handing over half of the estate to this one son, plus a way for Frederick to provide financial support using the whole of his estate, to his children who needed it.

So clearly, Frederick considered himself a provider for his family, and acted accordingly in life and in death.

While I think it can be dangerous to assume too much from data, I also think it’s possible to get a glimpse into the nature of a person from the records they leave behind. For this reason, wills and probate records are fabulous sources for genealogists. Beneath the legal language beats the heart of a person who, in addition to directives, leaves clues about their personality and their values.

Old photos of ancestors sometimes show fascinating physical resemblances: your deep-set eyes show up in a grandmother; your son’s school picture looks just like his grandfather’s at the same age. But what about skills, talents, interests? Is it possible to find similarities at that level? I love to hunt through a lineage for these deeper connections. Sometimes jobs repeat in the family tree. Is this nature exerting itself? A parental interest nurtured into the next generation? Or do opportunities present themselves in successive lifetimes, making it look like a trait or occupation “runs in the family”?

Take my husband’s line. In his case, I’m struck by a particular consistency in the men: an aptitude for building and fixing things that is strongly evident in Geoff, and was maybe even more so with his father, Don, who was a millwright at the General Motors foundry in St. Catharines. Don’s father Fred worked as a pipe-fitter and helped build the Sir Adam Beck-1 hydroelectric plant in Niagara Falls. Going back another generation, Fred’s father Alex was also a millwright. He worked for many years at a lumber mill in Parry Sound.

Alex’s father, John Duff, is the earliest ancestor I’ve found so far in the line. All I know of his working life in Scotland is that for a time, he was a spirits distributor in Glasgow. (Hmm. An echo to his five-times great-grandson the sommelier?) In Canada, John Duff first worked as a porter in Toronto, then a labourer in Simcoe, and then, for almost 30 years, John worked a farm in Muskoka.

This fact is fascinating for three reasons:

1. I know about farming in Muskoka, where soil is thin and rock dominates in a back-breaking, heart-breaking way. John Duff, meet the Canadian Shield.
2. John’s 200 acre plot of land sits less than a half-hour drive from where our cottage is today.
3. Farming, or at least, growing things, might be another thread that can be followed through the Smith men’s lineage. John’s son Alex also farmed in Muskoka for over a decade before switching to engineering. Don loved to grow flowers and consistently promoted to me the benefits of “well-rotted manure.”

And how’s this for another connection – this one across six generations: Muskoka itself, which Don loved and where he built the cottage. Where unbeknownst to Don, his grandfather and great-grandfather were landowners too. And a place that Don’s son and his two grandsons cherish as much as he did.

Nature, nurture, opportunity? The next time you’re wondering where your skills and interests came from, consider taking the long view through your family tree!