Given the long history of Scottish migration, it is not surprising that the Aberdeenshire branch of my tree includes several of the estimated two million Scots who sought a new life elsewhere in the 19th century.
The harrowing narrative of forced moves following the Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries is well known, but my ancestors were from the lowlands of north-east Scotland where it seems that, even though they were far from wealthy, the decision to migrate was more likely to have been driven by opportunity than by extreme poverty and the threat of starvation.
In the early part of the 19th century, landowners in Aberdeenshire began to amalgamate smaller landholdings to create larger farms, which meant fewer tenancies were available and rents inevitably rose beyond the means of most. Discontentment grew amongst the young rural labourers who had aspirations to take on their own piece of land someday and, stripped of their hopes for independence, it is perhaps not surprising that so many were tempted by the promise of a better life elsewhere.
Migration to the colonies was actively encouraged by the British government in the first half of the 19th century, and many Scots were drawn to Canada by the prospect of freehold land and the self-sufficiency that came with it. Aberdeenshire newspapers from the time are full of notices offering passage by ship, advertisements for migrants’ handbooks and reports extolling the virtues of the new country. There are also regular “letters to the editor” which appear to suspicious modern eyes to be “click bait” from those with a vested interest in persuading more workers to support the growth of their Canadian business interests, or perhaps from the agents they employed to supply the new blood they desperately needed.
In my own tree, one of the first to join this exodus was Elizabeth McDonald, the sister of my great grandmother, who was born at Bogbrae, Cruden on 30 March 1834. She married William Hardy in Peterhead in 1855 and their first son, also named William, was born in Scotland later that year according to census records. The family must have moved to Ontario shortly afterwards as their second child, John, was born there in 1858.
Although it is impossible to know exactly what prompted this move, William and Elizabeth certainly fit the common profile for emigrants from north-east Scotland at the time. They had both grown up with a father who started life as an agricultural labourer before progressing to become a farmer in their own right but, at the time of his marriage, William Hardy was still an agricultural labourer and Canada would have offered him a solution to his dwindling chances of acquiring a tenancy in his homeland.
The Hardys settled in the township of North Dumfries, which is in the part of south western Canada that is bordered by Lakes Ontario, Huron and Erie. They had four further children there – Eliza Jane (1859), Christina (1861), James Alexander (1865) and Robert (1867) but sadly their story was not to have a happy ending as when the 1871 census is taken, Elizabeth is a 37 year old widow with six children ranging in age from four to fifteen.
I have not been able to find a record for the death of her husband but, as the Canadian statutory system began in 1869, it seems that he probably died before this date, around the time their youngest son was born. William Hardy would then have been about 40 years old.
How Elizabeth managed to raise her children alone is a mystery as she has no occupation listed in either the 1871 or 1881 census, but she clearly found a way keep the family together somehow as four of her children are still living with her in North Dumfries in 1881, when things must have been a little easier as William is now a labourer and Christina, a school teacher.
After that, the trail runs cold as far as Elizabeth and her sons, William, James and Robert, are concerned as so far I cannot trace them in the 1891 census, or in Canadian birth, marriage and death records. Hopefully I will be able to tie up the loose ends one day, but in the meantime: John Hardy moved to Massachusetts in 1879 and became the manager of a fire hose company; his sister, Eliza Jane, remained in Ontario after she married a farmer in 1880; and Christina’s story must await a later chapter as she has an important role to play in the life of one of my grandmother’s siblings.
Sleuthing Notes 