Links Family History Blog

Family Line Founder Series. This ancestor profile continues a series of posts about my family's first Canadians. I feel that remembering my family's founding members recognizes and honours their courage in leaving behind all that was familiar - family, friends, homeland - for the dream of a new and better life in a wild and sometimes harsh New World. William Hornsby Hutchinson (1824-1907) Today, I wish to remember William Hornsby Hutchinson, my 3rd great-grandfather and Hutchinson family founder in Canada. William was born on 15 June 1824 in the North East of England, in the tiny village of Heighington in Durham County (see  Figure 1  below).  Figure 1: County Durham in England's North East Region. Located in the rich farmland of southeastern Durham County, Heighington village was - and still is - a farming community. In ancient times, what is now Durham County formed part of the northern border between Scotland and Roman Britain. During William's time, the county wa...

Who Remembers Fairview Farm? On discovering that one of my Hutchinson relatives was married at her father's (Cuthbert Hutchinson, 1864-1951) farm in Grey Township, Huron County, Ontario, and that the farm had been known to some as "Fairview Farm," I was intrigued.  I put out the call to elder family members and asked what they might know about the Cuthbert Hutchinson farm (located at Lot 18, Concession 5), or if they had any knowledge of a location called Fairview Farm.  My cousin Steve - a lifelong resident of Ontario, with close family connections to Hutchinson uncles, aunts and cousins in Grey Township - had these fond childhood memories to share. Memories Of The Cuthbert Hutchinson Farm What follows is a summary of my cousin Steve's thoughts and memories, communicated to me on 19 February 2024, when I asked him if he knew of a Fairview Farm in Grey Township, or anything about the wedding of  Grace Jane Hutchinson (1890-1968) -  our great-granduncle Cuthbert Hutch...

Welcome to Links Family History's first post!  With this blog, it is my aim not only to share the results of the past 15 years of researching my family's history, but to collaborate with others with similar research interests in the hopes of breaking through some pretty challenging brick walls.  Future posts will be broadly organized into the following branches of the family: Brant, Browett, Cole, Despins, Elder, Hutchinson and LeComte.  This is not intended to re-duplicate my family tree (which is publicly available on Ancestry.ca  and contains (at present) over 4200 individuals). Instead, it is my intent to focus on individuals' stories and to research family themes such as Scottish settlers in Québec, my recently-discovered Acadian connection, Irish Palatines' journey from Germany to Canada, or Ontario and Western Canadian pioneers, for example. I am not formally trained in genealogy research, so I am not an expert. But through practising this addictive hobby over...