My Canadian Branches ~ My Smiths...Not To Be Confused With Your Smiths

I imagine most family historians dread the research into their lines with common surnames, like Smith and Jones. So it was when I began my research into my Smith line. I really lucked out, though, because my Smiths descend from one of the most famous Canadian settler families.

My Smith research really began fifteen years ago, during my last visit to Canada. The year 2000 marked the 225th anniversary of the Yorkshire Migration, when, between 1772 and 1775, over 1000 settlers immigrated from Yorkshire, England to the Chignecto Region of Nova Scotia.

My fifth great grandparents, Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Duck) Smith, with their family, sailed out of Hull, England, aboard The Albion in March of 1774. The ship arrived at Fort Cumberland at the head of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia during the third week of May after first making port in Halifax. Their oldest son, Benjamin, had emigrated a year earlier and purchased a 1500 acre farm with a house and livestock in Cumberland County on his family's behalf. Nathaniel was 54 years old when he and his family left the village of Upsall, Yorkshire, to join Benjamin in the New World.

The first instance of the Smith surname in my family tree is my grandmother, Harriet Cheney Smith.

There are many great source materials on the Yorkshire Migration. In 2000, I was able to purchase a thick, spiral-bound paperback, entitled "The Descendants of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Smith," compiled by Philip and Joan (Smith) Brides. I refer to it often in my Smith research.

For specific background on Nathaniel Smith, I recommend "Nathaniel Smith : Stranger in a Strange Land," published by the Tantramar Heritage Trust, in conjunction with the anniversary.

There is an excellent bibliography at the website Yorkshire Immigration To Nova Scotia, 1772-1775.

The Nathaniel Smiths aboard the Brigantine "Albion" in 1774 - Maritime Monday

Nathaniel Smith (1720-1791), my Fifth Great Grandfather, was one of about a thousand Yorkshire emigrants who arrived in Nova Scotia, Canada between 1772 and 1775 as part of the British resettlement. Along with his wife Elizabeth, daughter Nancy, and sons Robert, John, and Nathaniel with his wife Rachel, left Hull, England in March 1774 on board the brigantine "Albion."

I was able to obtain a a booklet recently from the Tantramar HeritageTrust entitled "Nathaniel Smith : A Stranger in a Strange Land." It contains excerpts from his letters home to family, even written during the crossing.  On May 29, 1774, he wrote to his brother Benjamin:

"...we had three weaks of excessive stormes and dreadful horicanes but in no great dainger of suffering, save upon Sable Island which sertainly would have been the case of our Capton had not been before the ship in his rekoning two hundred miles, as the Isle is that distance from the Cape called Sable, he begun to sound expecting to we were nigh the shores and about the Dead of Night could find not bottom, again about two they sounded on the starbord Side and found only aleven fathom, All was in an uprore expecting we were just upon the rocks."

Photo credit: http://www.windewardbound.com

Nathaniel Smith : A Stranger in a Strange Land,, Pat Finney, ed., a publication of Tantramar Heritage Trust Inc., Sackville, NB, Canada, August, 2000.


The Descendants of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Smith, Philip and Joan Smith Brides, Halifax, MA, 2000.