Silken

Greetings everyone! I hope it won't be a problem that I signed on here. I actually got the link showing up in a search I was doing today and couldn't help but read some posts and thought I'd like to add to a few threads so I signed up.

I'm not an ex-pat but my family lineage is from England on every side! My great-grandparents were the most recent British ex-pats in the family so hope I count! lol They left Yorkshire in 1912, bringing with them their parents and worked as servants on Chaplin's Farm in Virgil, Ontario, eventually making their own life on a farm in Niagara Falls. They came across on the Empress of Ireland (which later sunk) and my grandfather always told me that they nearly had sailed on the Titanic but who know's if that's true. I still have one of their wooden suitcases from the ship and my great or great-great-grandfather's walking cane from England, plus many pics and postcards with English names of places left behind. I understand my great-grandparents were from Morton-on-Swale and Croft-on-Spa and listened to my grandfather's stories of how his father would walk to his mother's village to court her. Unfortunately, I am unaware of any family member ever returning although my mother and myself have often said we wish we could see England.

On my grandmother's side of the family, they first left England on a ship to the American colonies in the early 1600's. Some went through the witch trials in Salem, many settled around Rye, Westchester County in New York (near New York City area) and became very prominent families only to lose everything when they stood for Great Britain in the American Revolution. They underwent some very hard times over their refusal to take up arms against England, serving instead with Loyalist regiments. Eventually they had all their lands, homes and belongings confiscated and taken from them and had to pull up roots (they had been Americans after all for nearly two centuries at that point) and come north to Canada and start all over again in land that was undeveloped. My branch settled here in St. Catharines, Ontario which was largely settled by American Loyalist families.

I'm not even going to touch on my father's side of the family but ya, they were from England originally too. lol

So all that being said, I hope I might make some contact with a few of you here. Sounds like you are interested in Canada and I am interested in the UK since it is a page in a very old book for me.

britishvixen21

Welcome to the forum, how luck you are to have such a great knowledge of your family history.

Enjoy some of the discussions.

Silken

Thank you, I research as I can.

big ron

Hi Silken
I have just read your letter and very interesting it is to,I don't know the exact location of the villages you named but Swaledale is not to far from where i live. We to are doing what your family did all those years ago,we to are moving to Ontario and we have set our hearts on living in Niagara region.My son lives in Burlington with our two g/children so we can't wait to sell our house and move over.We live on the border with Yorkshire but it is the countries biggest county,Iwill have a look on the map to try and locate the places you mention.Will be back with more info. later Regards Ron

Oink

Welcome to the forum. You might have to develop a thick skin and to try and not succumb to knee-jerk defensiveness as there are some on here who like nothing better than to critique all aspects of their adopted homeland any chance they get.

CANADIAN CARPERS

[QUOTE=Silken; my mother and myself have often said we wish we could see England. [/QUOTE]

With current exchange rates, now is a good time

Silken

Hi Ron, thanks! Ya, I would like to learn more about Yorkshire. I have a lot of old postcards and pictures from the 1800's of family there but I don't know as much about the place as I'd like to. I even have a stack of very old memoriam cards that I guess used to be the tradition to send out... my oldest is something like 150 years old.

Well I hope you will love Ontario. If you are moving to Niagara Region, maybe I can meet you all for a coffee one day. There is a British Boutique on St. Paul Street in St. Catharines where you can get some British foods. There's also a British bakery here and down in Niagara Falls there's a new restaurant that's opened that's supposed to be British if I remember correctly. We also have Niagara-on-the-Lake which has a quaint main street and where you can have "afternoon tea" in one of the eateries there. There's lots to see in the Region. You can also take the tour of Fort George and see how British soldiers lived there in the early 1800's. It's quite haunted, I know, I used to work for the government office that administered those sites and we had staff that were afraid to be in the area after dark as well as many strange happenings. We also have the bicentennial of the War of 1812 coming up with lots of activities planned and probably people coming from near and far for that.

I am going to Burlington in the next few days. It's a pretty nice place. My sister lives not far from there in Dundas and her mother-in-law who is British (and I think she came here in the 1960's with her parents) also lives there.

As for Morton-on-Swale and Croft-on-Spa, I've looked before at the map and I think those two villages are maybe no more but I've committed their names to memory from my grandfather's tales. lol He used to also show me how his father or grandfather would use the walking cane and tip their hats to the ladies in England. Mind you he used to complain how "the gentry" rode all over their lands and he had a terrible opinion of the upper classes because of it. lol I find that funny since although he was conceived in England he was born in Ontario on the farm where his parents were servants but I guess he must've picked it up from listening to the family tales...

I have lots of pics reading names like Northallerton, Bedale, etc.

Silken

Hello Oink. Yes I suppose that's true. I don't think I've reacted too badly to anything yet but I've only been here a couple days so give it time. lol

Reading the comments does make me think about my ancestors (some only a few generations back) and what their feelings were once they moved here. The family has never passed on any negative impressions, just talked about some of our history in England and then what we did when we got here and such. I do have though one of the wooden suitcases from the ship and my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother (both generations came together) obviously corresponded a great deal with relatives in England and sent pics and memorial cards, etc. back and forth. I've read them all but I've never seen anything that looked negative so I'm not aware of them being unhappy. Looks like many family members followed them so they must have had good things to say about life here!

Novocastrian

It (Morton) is just to the west of Northallerton.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=sa...N&hl=en&tab=wl

Silken

I would love to go but unfortunately I just cannot afford it. The job market in my area of the country is very bad right now unless you have a job in demand so it's very hard to find steady work.

GC44

Hi Silken,

Hello from Yorkshire.

Morton on Swale and Croft Spa are still around. Both about 25 miles north of were I live. Just Google both for further info.

Cheers

Silken

Wow!! It still exists! I couldn't find it when I looked before but that was probably in the pre-Internet days for me. Pretty awesome to see it!

Silken

Hi! Wow that's really something to hear! I'm going to have to search up some pics of them on the net today so I can have a gander! I hear it was quite a walk in the old days.

Novocastrian

It's a 16 mile walk along the A167, which likely wasn't there then.

http://maps.google.ca/maps?client=sa...N&hl=en&tab=wl

Oink

It makes you wonder of all the tens of thousands of people who emigrated to Canada not many cheese makers among that lot.