Berczy Bunch

Back on the 14th of August, I talked about the Markham Berczy Settlers Association web page and the search Rollyo I had created, but I didn't explain the purpose of this group.

It is an association comprised primarily of descendants & spouses of the original settlers to Markham Township, Ontario who came from Germany to Markham in 1794 via the USA. The group promotes research about the group as a whole and the individual families. In 1993, I made the discovery that I was a descendant of one of these early settlers. Johan Stoeber (changed to Stiver)- his daughter Anna married Josiah Hemingway. Then his daughter Hannah married David Johnston and goes on from there.

http://www.bmts.com/~jiles

I knew from a handwritten chart (my mother's handwriting with information from her mother) that Hannah Hemingway and David Johnston were my ancestors and they lived in the Markham Township area. It was through reading the history of Markham that I had purchased at an Ontario Genealogical Society seminar in Toronto that I made the discovery. See my LibraryThing holdings to see books about Markham Township. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/researchergal

In 1994, the newly formed Markham Berczy Settlers Association had a large reunion of descendants of the early families. What a day! Since then, I have been an active member of the organization serving on the Board of Directors. I act as webmaster of the web site and this week updated the newsletter index. It is now on 10 pages. The annoucement of the upcoming meeting is also posted. Robert M. MacIntosh, author of Earliest Toronto will speak.

It is always fun to get together with other members of the group, especially the 5th cousins! This group is a combination genealogy and historical association. It is through this orgnization, I became really interested in combining the study of history and genealogy.
http://www.markhamberczysettlers.ca/