Char

Posted Monday, June 20, 2022

1y

INFP

Aquarius

5

6

Weird Family History

I’m a 7th generation Newfie (Newfoundland is an island on the eastern coast of Canada) and decided to research my family a few years ago. That’s how I found out the strange story of how my family got here. My ancestor was 16 when he arrested in Cork, Ireland for “creating a disturbance” and put aboard a convict ship. Ordinarily this ship would have set sail for a prison colony in Maryland but, having won the War of Independence, the U.S. was refusing to allow British prisoners to disembark on their territory any longer. The ship set sail without a destination, and the captain decided to head towards Nova Scotia, Canada. During the Atlantic crossing a feverish flu-like illness spread throughout the ship, and the captain was frightened for his own safety. He pulled into a harbour on the eastern coast of Newfoundland and sent ashore the majority of prisoners with a few provisions. These men quickly ran out of food and began terrorizing the village locals before heading into town, where they were re-arrested and put on a ship back to Europe. The rest of the prisoners were dumped overboard in a small cove farther north. They were rescued by the locals and assimilated into the population. My ancestor was one of these people. He eventually married a woman who inherited a plot of land in a quiet cove. He settled there and started both a family and a village. My family still resides in the town of Bellevue to this day. Funny how life works - from boarding a prison ship, to being tossed overboard to die, to living a whole new life in a place you never knew existed. I thought it was a cool story.