Our genealogy project is centered on one of the Wright Families that originally settled in Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada in the late 1700's. We are also researching the following family names . . . Snider, Taylor, Johns, King, Carson, Blondheim, Halat, Pearen, Modeland, and Bell.
The earliest Wright ancestor that we have identified is Paul Wright. He married Mary Taylor. We do not know the port-of-entry into Canada, of either Paul, or Mary. One of Paul's sons was Robert William Wright (1808-1898)and it is this name that we are concentrating our search for descendants and ancestors. Robert William married Mary Ann Snider (1819-1860). Robert & Mary Ann had 6 children that we are aware of, William Ross, Mary, Jerusha, Ida Evaline, Jacob and James Taylor.
James Taylor Wright was my Grandfather. James was born in Cherry Valley, Prince Edward County, and after attempting to farm on the North shore of Lake Superior, between Thessalon and Bruce Mines, eventually homesteaded in south western Manitoba, just outside of Boissevain. James was born in 1850 and died in 1901. He had two wives, #1, Cynthia Catherine King bore two children, Mary Emily and William Franklin - #2, Ninah Etta Johns bore four children, Frederick James (1891-1963),Robert(1892-1892),Clarence Delbert (1895-1918),and Melvin Charles (1901-1987).
Melvin was my Father - he died at the age of 85. He married Edith Hughes(1903-1987)at All Saints Church, Edmonton, in the 1920's. He was working for the Gillespie Grain Co. at that time and moved to their Winnipeg office shortly after being married.
Many residents in the Boissevain area of Manitoba had emigrated from Prince Edward County, Ontario, in the late 1800's. Three of Robert William & Mary Ann Snider's children married children of Michael Sutherland King. One of Christianna Wright's children, (she was a sister of Robert, she had married Jonathon Dulmage, and settled in Fordwych, Huron County, Ontario) Harriet Dulmage, married Robert Johnstone and also moved to Manitoba. Harriet was known as "Dolly" and was a temperance writer whose articles appeared in the Winnipeg Free Press.
When looking through the cemeteries in Cherry Valley and Picton, Ontario, and then comparing the names in the Boissevain Cemetery, it is quite uncanny to see how many similar family names there are. This was definitely a case of families and friends moving west together.
Before my Father died I had many discussions about family, however, being the youngest son of the youngest son and also the last child of the second wife, who came from western Ontario, not eastern Ontario, he only seemed to know about his immediate siblings. He did not know about Jerusha Wright King, his Aunt, who is buried just a few rows away from his father in the Boissevain Cemetery. He certainly talked about the Kings but believed they were only friends, not family. He did not know where his father had been born and was unaware of the many other Wright family members who had either stayed in Ontario or, moved West.
In the 1970's I visited Stanley Wright in Jasper, Alberta. He was William Franklin's son - who was James Taylor & Cynthia Catherine King's son. To my delight Stanley had a family bible and I discovered that James Taylor had been born in Cherry Valley, Prince Edward County.
This was the first real clue to identifying other siblings of James Taylor's. At one point I took my Father to visit "The County" and before we had made contact with family members we actually walked through the Cherry Valley Cemetery where both his Grandparents were buried. Unfortunately he died prior to us identifying any living relatives.
We now have added a number of living relatives to our genealogy data base, progeny of William Ross Wright,(and Amelia Kinney)who was Robert William Wright's eldest son. They include Susan Hughes, Waupoos, Prince Edward County; Don Wright, Brampton, Ontario, and Helen Wright Whidden of Nova Scotia.
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