As a long-standing member of the Ontario Genealogical Society, I lapsed a few years while I was serving overseas, but have kept re-newing since my return home, and later, re-location to Alberta.
My immigrant ancestors came to Upper Canada in 1833, and witnessed two name changes before Ontario was set in stone – and that was reason enough to keep updated on material access and availability for me.
It was yesterday, the Saturday before Easter 2018, when I looked over the Facebook Group of the York Region Branch, OGS. Their new banner listed all ten of the townships that occupied the former county, also named York.
Staring at that image, I realized, I had relatives and ancestors that settled, married, fathered, mothered, farmed, and died in almost all but one of those townships!
There were also two other well-researched families that settled in the York area at the same time as mine … and they also had a patriarch named, John ATKINSON!
I decided to take a chance and placed a post before 131 sets of eyes:
These three families, namely their patriarchs, are the same three I wrote about before in 2014 with no luck.
But, this time, five helpful individuals, four of them descendants of ATKINSON (WATSON) in Stouffville, answered quickly!
I responded three times again, and then realized, the children and grandchildren migrated out of the region and went north to Simcoe (Barrie and surroundings), south-west to Halton (Burlington) and Wentworth (Hamilton), as well as way out West to Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Perhaps, I thought, it would be better to blog about it and bring all the OGS Facebook groups here instead.
And here we are.
The information I will be sharing is not from my line of the ATKINSON tree, nor is it from a collateral line (that I am currently aware of).
to be continued …/