Dear Family and Friends,
The 250th anniversary of the
founding of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia included a Grand Reunion of the
descendants of the founding families. This reunion was held from
July 13 to July 16 and included 1423 descendants which was the same
number of settlers who sailed from Halifax to Lunenburg July, 1753.
A monument was dedicated to the
founding families. These photos include the tablets that contain
the family names of Ueltschi and Wust. On the first of the four
tablets (not shown) is the family name of Claasen.
For us those ancestors were the
Ueltschi (Hilchey) family, farmers from Oberwil-im-Simmental,
Switzerland (this is a link to the Oberwil web
page); the Claasen (Glawson) family from Groenigen, Holland. Hendrick
Claasen was a joiner (carpenter); and the Wust (West) family from
Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany. Johann Wendel Wust was a blacksmith
and acquired a great deal of land in Lunenburg.
Jacob Ueltschi, the son
of the farmer, became an innkeeper in Lunenburg. During a raid
by Americans during the American Revolution he
was robbed of a great deal of money which was sewn in his britches.
David, the youngest son, was in
partnership with Francis Claasen, the son of Hendrick, and operated
the coastal schooner the Three Sisters along the eastern
seaboard. David married Sophia Wust, a daughter of Johann Wendel
Wust. Francis Claasen married another of Johann Wendel Wust's
daughter's, Anna Catherina Elizabeth Wust. David and
Francis took their families along the northeast coast of Nova Scotia
and were among the founders of Pope's Harbour just opposite Gerard
Island. Mary Eva Glawson (Claasen),a daughter of Francis,
married another of our ancestors, John Gerrard, on 21 November 1802,
at St. Paul's church in Halifax. The day after, John and Henry
Ger(h)ard received a license to occupy Gerard Island.
It was from these unions that our present family evolved. When
Stephen Hilchey of Pope's Harbour sailed his coastal schooner, the
Kavala, to Cape Breton he returned with Anna Maria Harris from Gabarus.
This union incorporated the Scots (Harris, MacGillvray and Frasers)
and English (Bagnell who married the German girl, Anna Maria Keydler)
and others such as the Canns, Balcoms, Haines, Bushels Criers and
others of mostly English lineage into our family.
Genealogical research has shown
that our ancestors came from England, Germany, Holland, Scotland and
Switzerland primarily. There is some evidence that our
background includes some Irish.
As you can tell most of our
ancestry is from Northern Europe but also includes Switzerland.
For those of my immediate family our heritage also includes ancestors
from Belarus, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.
If you had to fill this out on
a form asking for lineage it would certainly take more than one line.
This may be of interest
to some of you and of little or no interest to others. Because I
have this information I felt compelled to share it. Please accept it in the manner it is provided.
Sincerely,
Roger L. Gerard
