I started to trace my dad’s family tree using Ancestry.com, and discovered far flung dynasties, originating from one Irish descendent and his wife leaving Cork in 1801 for the industrial clangour of Leeds, in England’s county of Yorkshire. Joshua Mayne flourished in that city, but his sons were restless. One emigrated with his wife to the United States in 1822, and another in 1849 taking his young family to South Africa. Both of these emigrees sparked vast, and I mean vast, dynasties of Maynes in two different continents. Other family members moved away from Leeds to Canada and Australia to establish other branches of the family.

Looking at my mum’s family, it seemed very much like they were firmly rooted in England’s county of Devon, concentrated around a couple of villages close to Okehampton, and in Kingskerswell in the south of the county. But I discovered the Canadian connection. In the latter half of the nineteenth century there was a steady flow of my mum’s relatives heading to Guelph in Ontario, then fanning out across that Province. None started a big dynasty like the Maynes did in the USA and South Africa, but their descendants live on in Ontario. Then I found John Cater, a Great-Great-Great Uncle, who moved to Newfoundland at around 1855-56, and married a local girl in St. John’s. He sparked another dynasty, one that centred itself in Grand Falls/Windsor, but had connections around the island. I’m certain that I have many, many living relatives who are “Newfies”, and that makes me immensely pleased.

I’m very happy that I have followed the footsteps of all those descendants of mine who crossed the ocean to start new lives. For me it was immeasurably simpler to leave England, but for those nineteenth century Britons branching out around the world, it must have been daunting and exciting in equal measure. Ironically, when I set out for Canada I had absolutely no idea that I was following others in my family, nor that I was joining many, living, members of my family in the New World.

Family, who knew how vast they could be?