Migration patterns have been
well studied and documented in the United States but not as much work has been
done on them in Canada. I have a large pool of ancestors living in Ontario in
the early 1800’s.
I have estimated that I may be related to 50% of the people enumerated in the
1851 census in Mountain Township never mind the large contingent of Barkleys
living in Williamsburg. I have found that there is relatively little movement
out of Dundas and Grenville Counties in the early years. Some families moved
farther west in Ontario toward Toronto and Lake Michigan or north to Ottawa and,
of course, some moved across the St. Lawrence River in New York. There was
considerable movement of people back and forth across the river from earliest
settlement times. In my families, I don’t see much large scale movement until
at least the 1850’s. The 1850’s was the beginning of the railroad push in the
west which made it much easier for families to move long distances.
I
see movement to the prairie states starting in the 1850’s.
The first groups went to Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. The settlement of the
Dakotas didn’t begin until the 1880’s. In the 1890’s through the early 20th
century, Canadians moved to the westward provinces - Manitoba and Saskatchewan
and eventually British Columbia. Some in the lumber industry crossed over to
Washington and Oregon.
I
thought it might be fun to see how many of my ancestors settled in Iowa and
when they first arrived there. So I ran a report in my Legacy software and
started looking at families. The first couple I chose was Samuel McFarland and
Amy Emma Winegard. I found that 2 of her siblings also settled in Iowa. This
distracted me and I wondered what happened to the rest of them.
John
Winegard, b. Oct 1801 in Coxsackie, Greene, New York to Nicholas Winegard
(1775-1838) and Mary (or Maritje) Fraser (d. Bef 1820), married Anna Maria
Barclay (Barkley, Berkley) in 1824 in New York. They both were born in New York
and lived there until sometime between 1841 and 1845. Then they moved to
Mountain Township, Dundas County, Canada West. By this time both of John’s
parents and his brother Abraham had died. His in-laws were still alive and
living in Canada as well as his brother Peter. There was nothing holding him in
New York.
Their
children were:
There
is a big gap between Margaret and her next sibling. John Winegard was
enumerated in Westerly, Albany, New York in the 1830 census. His household
contained 1 male under 5 and 1 female under 5. The female was Margaret; the
male apparently died young. If I can find church records for this family, I
might be able to identify him and possibly other children.
2. My second great
grandmother, Charity Winegard (1833-1909), married Reuben Elijah Van Camp about
1854. This was Reuben’s
second marriage so Charity had 4 step children to raise as well as her own 7
children. Reuben and Charity moved from Dundas County first to Leeds and
Grenville County in 1871 and to Lanark County by 1881. They then joined several
of their neighbors and relatives in the move to St. Thomas, Pembina, North
Dakota in 1882. Most of their children went with them. Reuben died in 1888 in
St. Thomas but Charity lived there until 1909.
6. Mary Jane Winegard
(1841-1912) is also found in New York (Canton) in 1860 as a domestic. She went
back to Canada and married Isaac Andrew Jackson in Kemptville in 1862. They
didn’t
stay in Canada for very long. They were living in Iowa by 1869 where their
daughter Louanna was born. They settled in Harrison County, Iowa which is in the
extreme western part of the state.
