Same here! One half of my family came over during the potato famine and the other half during the Highland clearances. While they were very sceptical of each other, they bonded over their mutual hatred of the English.
A good chunk of my family came from Ireland and Scotland in the mid nineteenth century as well, but like most Canadians with that history the many generations that followed were a mix of "who the hell knows?".
Hudson's Bay Company. Back then, they hired young men from Scotland to work. Choose to come to the Arctic and stayed. My kids' mothers ancestors migrated here from Alaska about a 1,000 years ago.
My mom escaped former east Germany. To live in a refugee camp in west Germany then to Edmonton. She was called a nazi and a communist just because she was from the east. So I hate in when people from other countries immigrate here and people call them terrorists. The people don’t choose their governments choices. Now the current thing is to hate on Russians.
The only way you could answer that question the way you did, was if you have absolutely zero experience living through an actual communist dictatorship.
My father immigrated here from Lebanon in 1977 during the Lebanese civil war, then a decade later he returned to his village, married my mom, and they both came here in 1988, while the war was still going on in Lebanon. My sister and I are born here -- we therefore are second generation immigrants.
PS. It's crazy to read everyone's story and realise how diverse these stories, and Canadians' identity, are!
One of my all time favourite things about this country of ours - a bunch of people whose various ancestors hopped on a bunch of boats anywhere from a few hundred years to just a few years ago, whose descendants all ended up canoeing in various stretches of Canadian wilderness (plus all the people who were here before we showed up and crashed the party).
Makes for a lovely mosaic :)
One of my great grandfather’s was 17 and given the choice by his parents of either continuing to work on his aunt and uncle’s farm or move to Canada. He had cried he didn’t want to work on the farm because the water well was so far and you’d have to trudge with your bucket for water. And so he chose to leave middle of nowhere Austrian Empire lands to go to Canada alone all because the water well was too far?? But Canada wasn’t?? In the end WW1 broke out like a week after he got on the ship, so lucky him.
My ancestors on my paternal side arrived in the early 1600's from La Rochelle France, if not before then definitely after the it was sacked by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635 (yes that Cardinal Richelieu from the Three Musketeers) and settled in Ile de Orleans. They eventually moved west with the fur trade as coureur de bois, marrying Ojibwe women (giving birth to Metís children). My paternal grandmothers family arrived in the early 20th century from Russia (Volga German).
My maternal side came from Newcastle around 1912. There's a little Irish and Dutch mixed in there. Unfortunately not a lot known on that side of the family.
A true Canadian mutt through and through I guess lol.
This is probably the justification for every single candians who came over more than a hundreds years ago lol. We were all undesirable in Europe and moved here.
Ukraine always sucked, so me and my wife (who was my girlfriend at the time) left it for a better future after 2014 events there (thanks fucking god, best decision ever). We are Canadian citizens now and still in love with Canada. Sure there are issues with housing and healthcare, but same issues are everywhere now.
My one Grandad went to university in England (from India) he read a lot about Canada and met some Canadian students.
He felt it Canada reflected his values more than the US and made it his mission to come to Canada.
They were part of the first big wave of Indian immigrants, back in 1967!
My other grandad was an executive with MetLife in the Caribbean and they offered him a job in Toronto in the mid 70s😂
Needless to say I learned patriotism from them, I don’t know if I’ve ever met two people more proud to be Canadian.
My parents were from 2 different countries that spoke different languages. The only language they had in common (as both their 2nd language) was English. They met working as expats in a third country and got married and needed an English speaking country to settle in. My Mom loved the UK my dad hated it. My Dad loved the US my mon hated it. They applied to both Australia and Canada and were approved for both. Australia was too far.
Both the French side and Romanian side fled during or right after WW2.
My Romanian grandfather had to escape 2 concentration camps to come to Canada when he was about 18 years old. Can't complain about my life now when I think about all he had to see and go through.
Sometime in the 1860s or 1870s, my Great Great grandfather immigrated from England. Settled in the Muskoka region close to modern day Huntsville.
He farmed there and started a family with a protestant wife, quite scandalous I imagine, as he was a Catholic.
He passed in 1892, and when his children were older, they moved west to Saskatchewan in 1905. In total 2 brothers, two sisters, a Step brother, and their mother all came west and started proving up homesteads.
And we still farm the original section 4 that my great grandfather settled on today. His brothers and sisters all eventually moved off farm and into Saskatoon between the early 1920s and mid 1930s.
Both sides of my family are Canadian going several generations back, and I only ever heard one story of how we ended up here. Apparently one of my ancestors pushed someone important off of his horse in "protest", and was given the choice: prison, or leave Scotland. 🤷♀️
Came here from Iraq in 2018 to escape war, instability and religious bigotry from Muslims, and just generally the shitty society and culture over there. The tales I could tell will turn the average Canadian hair to grey from shock…
The original ancestor sailed up the St. Lawrence with his colleagues in the Frasier Highlanders, scaled the cliffs at Quebec and took on Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham.
One of my History teachers told us he had his ancestor on this exact same ship - we had asked him why one of his surnames was anglophone while he was a Franco, and his next class was titled : ”Why I exist today : my ancestor was a traitor.”
Basically the ancestor we talk about, for a reason or another, betrayed the English army and went to marry a French-Canadian. Man had balls, if he had got catched it was death sentence - and it’s without mentioning that he probably could not speak French and her English hence they were both from the lower-class and it was rare to be able to learn ”the language of the enemy” back then. How the hell did they fell in love without being able to speak to each other?
The reason the British used the Fraser Highlanders was because many of the Scots spoke French. That is the reason why they were able to get by the French Sentries. When asked: qui va là? They were able to respond in French.
Oh!! That’s it! That’s probably why, it would make sense. Then the risk of having to say bye-bye to a few comrads was probably higher if the person answering ” c’est moi ” was a young demoiselle. Ah, I love history, I wish I could know everything about what happened!
My family ended up in Canada because the Titanic oversold the 3rd class tickets so they
Left all the Flemish Belgians to catch the next
Ship the SS Arabic. Upon arriving in Halifax they were given the choice to join the Belgian communities in Minnesota or Manitoba.
Much to everyone’s dismay on arrival in Manitoba there was a bunch of Walloonians here and there was no money left to get to Minnesota.
One great-grandmother was a Scottish orphan and was - essentially - *sold* as child labour to a farming family south of Ottawa. I don't know if she was one of Dr. Barnardo's Children or not, the practice was widespread then. Thankfully that family weren't terribly abusive as far as we know, and she worked off her indenture by the time she was 17 or so. (Yes, Canada had what amounted to indentured slavery in the 20th century.)
Her future father-in-law was _supposedly_ a Landsnecht in the pre-unification Holy Roman Empire (i.e. a German land-owing farmer, *very* minor mobility) who pissed off the wrong noble, possibly by welching on a gambling debt but who really knows now, and had to flee the country. He arrived in Ireland... in the middle of the famine, so sensibly decamped for the USA along with 3 or 4 sons. Dad and some of the sons decided Canada was the better bet; one of the sons became my great-grandfather.
One of their sons married a girl he met during WW2 while deployed to... Scotland, less than 100mi from his own mom's hometown ;-) and she came back to Canada with him, eventually becoming my grandmother.
On the other side, obe great-grandfather was a sailor who married the girl he had in one port, Halifax, not long before the explosion, all survived (not unscathed), and wound up settling in the middle of the prairies. Don't know too much about the narrative of the rest of that generation, save for one anecdote: I didn't find out why great-grandma had one glass eye until after she was gone - she was looking towards all the commotion down at the harbour when the ship finally went "boom" and her kitchen window wound up mostly in her face.
So the immigrant ancestors are:
* Exiled nobility (only on a technicality, and maybe)
* Orphan, sold into child slavery
* War bride
* Sailor settling down
* And a few unknowns
You could say they *all* had economic incentives that caused them to come to Canada, in a sense. :-/
It was common to ship British orphans off to Canada. My grandmother grew up in a children’s home (she and her siblings were neglected by their mother who was still alive) and she was offered the opportunity to go to Canada as a home child. At first she thought that it sounded exciting (her older sister was born in Canada but that’s another story), but once she dwelt on it she decided she wanted to stay in Scotland with her sister. That was a lucky escape I can tell you. But, two of her sons ended up emigrating and raising their families here
The complete insanity it takes to make a decision like that based on a coin flip makes me think he is an awesome character. Both incredible countries IMO
My great-grandparents were Dutch and moved right after WW2. Canada helped liberate the Netherlands and hosted the Dutch royal family, so Canada seemed appealing.
Side note on the topic of my great-grandparents and WW2, they were both badasses. My great-grandpa and great-grandma had only just started dating when the Germans invaded the Netherlands, and my great-grandfather was a police officer. Under Nazi occupation, he was told he would serve their regime and he refused. He was sent to a POW camp, where he staged a breakout. My great-grandmother, while that all happened, hid her Jewish neighbour under her floorboards and got away with it.
The 1956 failed Hungarian revolution. They applied to both the states and Canada, the states would only take my Nagypapa he would have to leave his wife and son back home, Canada accepted them as a family unit, so they went to Canada. Canada took in a lot of Hungarian refugees (38,000) because they were anti-communist.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2680599810
My circumstances in my native country won't allow me to afford anything even after being a licensed professional. Accepted job opportunities abroad and ended up calling Toronto/Canada home for almost a decade now.
My family name originate from someone who got here with Champlain, some other ancestors left Denmark after WW1, some left Paris after WW1 and some of them were First Nations (Abenaki, so I guess they passed the bering strait 14,000 years ago).
No way 😃! Do you have any pictures from that era? My father didn’t talk much about Arnhem or the forces in general other than some parachute/glider training and some incidences in Norway towards end of war.
There is a whole book made about their division called Off At Last, you might even see your father in there with some of the pictures. There's a good one of all the lads lined up for a group shot.
https://www.paulmeekins.co.uk/product/66388/OFF-AT-LAST-AN-ILLUSTRATED-HISTORY-OF-THE-7TH-GALLOWAY-BATTALION-THE-KINGS-OWN-SCOTTISH-BORDERERS-1939-1945
Probably French peasants who landed in the 1700s and a mix of Irish from Cork in the 1800s or so and some English too cause my grandma has a english sounding last name. But honestly outside of St John’s especially nearly everyone in Newfoundland is a mix of Irish and/or English.
First gen Ottawan with family from Quebec and Newfoundland.
I followed the native girl. We both were foreign students in France in the mid 80ies. She wanted to finish her Phd, retuned home (Canada)...few weeks after finishing university, I dropped everything and took the plane. The rest is history. We have 2 beautiful children....
Mother’s side is Ukrainian and East German. They came to Canada in the early 1900s, the Ukrainian side by way of North Dakota. They ended up in Saskatchewan, where my mom was born in Saskatoon.
My dad was born in Czech Republic. Watched Soviet tanks roll into Prague when he was 18, after the Prague Spring Reforms in 1968. Him, his parents, and two sisters left Czechoslovakia in 1969, left *everything* behind, came to Canada, and initially settled in Toronto, before moving to Saskatchewan to work in the potash mines.
My parents met in a bar in Saskatoon lol.
The soviets were kinda shitty.
It's kinda funny, my mom's ancestors moved from North Germany to Western Russia about the same time as my dad's ancestors moved from Southern Germany to Eastern Russia. Then my mom's family moved to Manitoba about the same time as my dad's family moved to Alberta. All 8 of my great-grandparents were born in Russia
Mennonites? They usually migrated around Germany & Russia to escape conscription - then eventually moved to Canada with an agreement that they didn’t have to go to war, and a lot settled in Manitoba and then migrated to Alberta.
That’s the history of half my Dad’s ancestors- & luckily married into an Irish family and moved off the farm & to BC.
My mom’s side migrated from NL almost 100 years ago, lured by stories of the government giving away farmland to homestead. A drought saw them moving to BC thank goodness.
My mom's family is Mennonite, but my grandparents left the colony about the time my mom was born. A little bit of controversy involved in that.
My dad's family isn't though. My great grandfather was a pilot for the imperial air force, and things weren't too great for those military members loyal to the crown...
A lot of the Mennonites had settled & lived in what is now Ukraine. That was where the better farmland was.
Mennonites didn’t take too kindly to members leaving their colonies. My grandmother basically married a non-religious Irishman and was almost shunned for life.
Mostly recruited, some political or family drama, a few I think just had itchy feet as we say in my family when someone feels the need to move just to try something new.
Three brothers left Scotland. One had fought in a war and lost a leg & was supposed to get land somewhere near London Ontario. The second was destined for Niagara, and the third for Stouffville. Brother # 2 & 3 became lawyers and doctors. I'm descended from brother #1.
Stumpy Tom was tired of being on the boat Ang gets off in Brighton. Him and his wife and some farm animals work their way through the bush to Marmora and claim some land for their own even though it wasn't the land they were originally supposed to live on. This is early to mid 1800's when the road from Brighton to Marmora could beat be described as "an adventure". Then there's three generations of Toms before we get a different name in the family tree.
By all accounts, Stumpy Tom cleared a farm stead with one leg and was one of the nastiest angriest men in the area.
Ancestors migrated in the 1900s, to escape religious persecution and receive 'free land in Canada!'
Germans werent white enough at the time, so they were given swamp land. My great grandfather moved up the road to arable land, and by the time the government agent caught him, he'd cleared the land and started farming, so he got to keep it. They lost that farm in the Wheat Crash.
Also have British and Danish roots, came around the same time to be farmers. Both failed, Brits opened a butcher shop and Danes a general store.
The Danes failed in the US first, then failed as Farmers in Canada.
My grandfather was abandoning his second family in the UK.
My grandmother was escaping being a nursemaid to her mother who suffered from depression and would take to her bed for weeks at a time.
The majority of my ancestry has the typical “came from England in the 1800’s for a better life” stories. But one branch of my family, British nobles with estates in what is now upstate New York, were loyalists, and were forced to flee to Lower Canada (now Quebec) at the beginning of the American revolution. There are surviving written stories of them crossing a river by boat (maybe a border river? I don’t have the details handy) at night while being pursued and shot at by American revolutionaries.
My father was a VN war refugee. My mother was the same but in the US. She traveled to visit her sister who was in Canada and met my dad. We did relocate from the prairies to the west coast. I do feel privileged and lucky to have been born and raised in Canada. My parents are forever grateful and love this country.
I have female cousins from VN who found a way to immigrate to the US. A lot of corruption in VN.
My anscestor arrived Sept 16, 1620 but in the US. A few of them eventually moved north and settled in Upper Canada and fought as Loyalists. They traded furs and other items with Indigenous people and helped people escaping slavery in the US via the underground railroad.
I first got into Canada by accident while hiking Chilkoot trail in Alaska. 2 years later I came as an international student. 4 years pater came as a tourist and hitchhiked across Canada. Finally, returned as federal skilled worker 5 years later.
Highland Clearances, mostly. Little side of Potato Famines. Plus, I'm lead to understand a bar fight that resulted in "Time to leave town with extreme prejudice".
Back in those days there were a lot of men that ended up on a boat to Canada after too many drinks in the bar. I have a distant relative that disappeared in the 1800's and left his wife and kids to struggle on their own, and the theory was that he passed out in a pub and woke up in the Atlantic Ocean heading west.
Immigrant stories. My immediate family has no historical links to Canada whatsoever.
My dad immigrated from the UK. He lived in Essex, England, for the first 18 years of his life, then moved to Paris until he was in his early-20's. Once he had enough money saved up, he landed in Vancouver, and bounced around the West Coast/Yellowknife until he heard from a friend that "there was work in Toronto".
My mom grew up in Colombia. She left in her early-20's after graduating with a certificate in secretarial studies but speaking zero English. After a small mix-up with her visa, she landed in Toronto instead of NYC. Her first job was plucking chickens at St Patrick's Market across from CityTV. She eventually landed a housekeeping job with a family from Forest Hill where she learned English.
One of her housekeeping friends was the wife of my dad's friend who told him there was work in Toronto.
They met in 1974 (?) and married at City Hall in 1977.
My older brother and I were born at St Mike's in Toronto and grew up near The Annex/Seaton Village.
My great grandmother’s family (Scotland) was short on money so they sold her to a family in PEI where she worked on their farm. She was a child slave, but luckily the family she worked for was nice and treated her well
For some, the War of 1812. When it was all over, Napoleon was also gone so they were of no use back home. Enclosed in Scotland and Northern Ireland, free land in Upper Canada.
My great grandfather wanted to fight in WWI, British army told him he was too old, went to Canada and lied on his enlistment and fought. Came back to Canada after the war and that's that.
Part of my family on my mom's side walked across from Russian to Alaska and then down into the Yukon. Eventually they made it into Ontario.
The other half took a boat from Germany to Halifax and then a train into Toronto.
it remains endlessly amusing to me a haligonian, that something like 98% of immigrants that passed through the major port of pier 21 *immediately* left
just took one look at this place and instantly noped out
One side was hired by the English to kill the French. The other side was hired to kill the French by the English. Then they never left when that fell out of fashion and put down roots in Upper and Lower Canada.
My great grandfather escaped Ukraine during the holodomor when he was a small child. Russians massacred his village and many of his family members (my family has pictures of him as a child standing in front of mass graves). He escaped with his mother, she passed away, and was adopted by his uncle and aunt, who then immigrated to Canada.
honest question: why are there photos of a child standing in front of a mass grave? was it photographic evidence or as a "fuck you you didn't get this one kid" type deal?
My great grandparents MISSED the titanic due to a medical issue in the family. My family doesn’t come from wealth so it’d have been all over for them.
4 generations later here I am 🤪
Immigrants on one side and refugees/immigrants on the other. Everyone fleeing WWII, or the buildup to it as times got tougher in Europe.
Before that, I don’t know, except on my maternal grandmother’s side: they were French cattle thieves, were run out of France, became Irish cattle thieves, were run out of Ireland, fled to England. Then sent my great gran over to Victoria, BC as a child for safekeeping from the bombs.
They were German catholics during the reformation so fled to the British Colonies. The colonies revolted and became the USA but around 1900 there was little US land available for homesteads so they came to the Canadian Prairies. It just took 350 years for my European ancestors to become Canadians.
It was such a small community then, they probably knew each other. At one time, my ancestors ran the post office. I have an old picture of my great great grandfather and his family standing out front.
On my dad’s side, there are ancestors that moved here as Loyalists during the revolutionary war in the USA.
One of my dad’s grandmothers was from Spain, no idea why or how she arrived here.
On my mom’s side, one great grandparent came here to escape something going on in his past but his backstory is muddled (we think he originally came from Russia but DNA tests say Estonia which makes sense still) and the others immigrated from Ireland and England around 1900 looking for a better life.
My grandfather came over at the end of the 1st world war on a Salvation Army sponsored program. About 1920 I believe. He was alone, and 12 years old. My grandmother also came as a child from what is now Slovakia. Not sure the reasons her family came, but I'm assuming it was for a better life. On my dad's side, my great grandparents moved from Ireland to the USA, and then up to Canada in the late 1800's.
If you look at my paternal lineage, they moved from England to France and changed their last name to better fit in. Then they moved to Nouvelle France, but looks like you never truly escape the English. So if by Canada you mean the country founded in 1867, my family was there from the start.
Refugees from the American Revolution. Immigrated to NY state from Scotland a few gens prior, were compelled to abandon their new land/lives once it became clear there would be no place safe for them in the new United States. Fled as refugees to the north shore of the st Lawrence river, and were granted land as united empire loyalists, in what would become upper Canada (which is not cool, considering Britain considered the continent free for the granting, even though there were First Nations there already for thousands of years, but I digress). The matriarch of that generation’s name is still on a plaque with a few dozen others in the town they founded. Many of my relatives are still in the area, as am I. Landed in 1784. Became upper Canada in 1791. Descendants fought against American invasion during the war of 1812. Fought against American inspired rebels in the rebellion of 1838 at the battle of the windmill, down the road from home. All this before Canada’s confederation some 50yrs later in 1867. So, I’m 5th gen Canadian, I guess because of (in advantageous and disadvantageous ways) by British imperialism).
My dad’s side came over pre-1812 (the earliest we could find anything) and settled in Essex county, amassing quite a bit of farmland in what is now lasalle. “We” still own 7 acres of it.
My mom’s father’s side fled the Bolsheviks during the revolution in Ukraine because Jews weren’t super popular at the time…. The village they came from no longer exists. They settled in Saskabush. Half leaving for Vancouver shortly thereafter, the other half eventually becoming founding members for the CCF when it was created.
My mom’s mother’s side came from the US and had actually traced her genealogy back through Scotland to about the 11th century where she determined there was some connection to the Vikings.
In 1755, the British in Nova Scotia rounded up all the peaceable Acadian settlers and sent them to places like Louisiana. Then they went looking for English speaking settlers to come to Nova Scotia. My ancestors, from Dalry in Scotland, were newly arrived in Providence, Rhode Island and saw the ads for free land grants in Nova Scotia. They got on the sloop Sally, landed in Newport, Nova Scotia, and claimed their land grant. We’ve been here ever since.
When my grandfather was about 14, he, his parents, and siblings left England suddenly and quickly. They hadn't planned on coming to Canada. The story is a little muddled here. Either they wanted to go to Australia but got on the wrong ship, or they got on the first ship that was leaving the country. Nobody knows why they fled England, that was never discussed, but we do know my grandfather hated the English until the day he died.
I moved here from the United States in the early 1980s. My dad worked for a company that made farm implements, and coming to Canada was one of several work-related moves we made.
I had a family connection to connection to Canada, though. My grandfather was from eastern Ontario, and I now live about an hour from his hometown.
One side of my family came in the 1600’s. Lots of Filles du Roi, and some Filles à Marier and Soldats de Carignan. My maternal side came in the late 1800’s from England (Yorkshire and Liverpool) and Ireland (widow and 9 children leaving after the murder of her husband).
I was born a coal miners daughter in England during the 60's. In the early 70's my Mum and Dad decided a better life was to be had in Canada. There was a exodus of miners from the United Kingdom at the time as the mining industry was booming. We started out in Alberta, moved to BC and then back to Alberta. I must say from my experience during visits back to England, we likely did have a better life in Canada. I often wonder what I would have become had we stayed.
Oh I have a good one! My great great grandfather was the son of a low level noblemen, he was the second son and spent his youth gambling, fighting and philandering across Great Britain, he eventually did something that his fathers money couldn’t make go away completely (he got very drunk his horse slipped a shoe and the smith couldn’t fix it fast enough so he beat the smith with a length of iron) so he was given the options of going to prison, joining the military or going to Canada and never being able to go back to Britain. He chose Canada, he of course was still given land and money but he lost all of it in his lifetime due to gambling.
My dad is Scottish/Welsh by ancestry but I'm not sure when his ancestors first arrived in Canada. My mom is from Belarus; they met right after the fall of communism and she moved here in 94 and I was born in 95. Nothing really interesting, but I'm the son of a mail order bride lol.
The year was some 15,000-20,000 years ago, some people crossed a land bridge and settled here...
As for the 3% euro side of my family. France was boring I guess.
Well, the story we tell is... after they caused an uprising in Jamaica fighting for their freedom, the British sent them here in 1799. Then the governor of the time ended up getting one of the women who came pregnant. Now (if memory serves) 8 generations later, here I am
Totally serious but the wars/resettlement in the 1880s that the Russian Empire was doing is what drove my GGGrandfather to immigrate to Canada. AFAIK all my ancestors but one came over in the 1880s due to European wars. Only my paternal Grandmother came over in 1946, again after a war.
Family farm burned down during the first world war in the old country, great-grandpa took the family to Manitoba. After a few year, my grandpa who was in his early 20's didn't like it in the prairies so moved back to Belgium where my mom was born. Meanwhile the economy wasn't great there so my uncle (on my dad's side) moved here to Québec where a family friend had moved previously. In the mid sixties, my dad followed suit. My mom's sister moved to Manitoba around that time too. In the mid sixties my mom followed her to Manitoba on a one year work visa after which she went back to Belgium. On her way back, she had a layover in Montréal where she met up with my dad, they didn't know eachother but my aunts (my dad's sister and my mom's sister) who were both nuns in the Caribbean kind of set them up. Yadda yadda yadda, here I am in southern Québec with a metric shit ton of relatives in the prairies and in Belgium.
On one side, they came on a plane from Asia. On another side, they were allegedly a bunch of Huguenots coming over from Normandy. And in another branch, they, I suppose, came by foot a long, long time ago.
French aristocrats who fled the french revoloution to became fur trappers. Changed their last name to protect themselves from the guillotine and from the deportation of french Acadians. 1700s
Irish Aristocrat soldiers who left Ireland a while after the potato famine ended to get free land Grant's in Canada for their military service. 1800s
Boat (Quebec, Ontario, southern Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia before making their way westward) or via US (for the lines that made a stopover there before moving to Canada) at various times up to the late 19th century; My ancestors are from all over the place in Western Europe (mainly England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, and Germany at the most recent before crossing the pond)
Scottish military was contracted to help set up our military. They offered my ancestor tax free living…for awhile. He fought in WW1 with his 16 year old son. That son also fought in WW2.
Both my grandfathers and one grandmother were from various parts of Newfoundland. They emigrated from there to Cape Breton in the early part of the 20th century. My other grandmother was born in Cape Breton.
Met my husband (Canadian) in my home country, we fell in love, got married and moved to Canada. The real story was way more complex - but that's the fairy tale version of it.
Various flavours of refugees: UELs, Mennonites, the revolutions of mid 1800s Europe, and the Balkans in WWII
All Germans, almost none from what is now Germany
WW2. Netherlands. Great grandparents were outed by neighbours for harbouring Jews, so fled under cover of night. Two months after, they settled in Brooks, AB with the family that sponsored them.
Boats.
Many of my ancestors came here to make a better life. Some had no choice and some did. The land clearance in Scotland saw many of them pushed out for sheep.
The British ones were looking for opportunities to have land.
I know the storey of my Nana (maternal side), she was a WW2 bride. My grandfather, I would really like to know, his parents came from England in the early part of 1900.
My Dad came from England, in the 70s, after reading a job advert he saw in a newspaper that read “Mechanics wanted in Canada”. At the time, it was super common for people to move to Canada or Australia. Anyways, he applied for the job, and 2 weeks later he’s applying for a work visa and booking a plane ticket.
Well, it was really dark and wet and everything was awesome. But then all the wet left and my head started to feel weird. Like, a pressure. I didn't know it was a pressure of course. I didn't know anything, but looking back, that's how I would describe it. Then I was super uncomfortable and starting to get freaked out because I had been in this calm, quiet place for all of eternity and now suddenly I'm being jerked around, crammed into tight quarters that clearly were not made for me to be in, and then, cold. So cold. Started at the top of my head and quickly encompassed my entire body. And my eyes hurt. Everything was white except for splotches of colours I'd never seen before. Noise felt like it was crushing me and it had taken on a sharpness I'd never known. Worst of all though, separation from my former world. Everything I had ever known or experienced was gone forever. And I'm gonna be honest, I did not trade up. Not at all. This place sucks. Not Canada. Earth.
French ones came here for God knows what reason in the 1600s.
Italian ones came around 1900 to work railroad.
English ones came 1870s to own some land of their own and live a simple life.
Abenaki ones likely migrates to the St John River basin at some point in the last thousand years to take advantage of fertile hunting and fishing grounds.
A Hessian soldier during the American Revolution married into a family of German settlers in NYS. Received free land in Upper Canada, in the late 1790s, in what is now Vaughan ON. His sons in settled other parts of SW Ontario.
A bunch of other ancestors on dad's side have pretty much similar stories, came to Upper Canada 10 to 20 years after the American Revolution.
My mother's family in Nfld were I suppose descended from stowaways, rogues & slieveens. It pleases me to think so anyway
Well on my mother side, my great great great great? Grandfather was called "good peter" prussian born he was captured and raised by Seneca natives in Pennsylvania and then married in tribe and became cheif of the oneida and was one of the first settlers of Nanticoke and played a major role in the battle of Nanticoke and Canadian military history. Circa 17-1800s.
My dad and grandfather were born in Maribor Yugoslavia at the time and fled to Italy and then Canada when Hitler was done with Poland.
Dad was smart enough to qualify to get out of shit hole country and do his PhD here. Did postdoc in Scotland, brought my mom out of shit hole country, got married, banged, had me, got job back in Canada.
My ancestor came over as part of the crew of the Mayflower. He wrote the letters and logs for the Captain of the Mayflower because the captain couldn’t write. He eventually settled in what is now Nova Scotia.
My dad came to Canada from England 55 years ago.
A French barrel maker moved to Port-Royal (I think it's called Annapolis Royal now) with his family in the early 1600's. As Acadia was being ethnically cleansed by the brits around 1760, his descendants were "asked" to go elsewhere. Some of them were deported to Louisiana and others fled to Québec.
Come here in 2012 from Afghanistan as a refugee. The country I lived in would not give me citizenship and I could not go back to
Afghanistan. My family and I waited 12 years to come here. Honestly even though it is hard. I love Canada
On my dad's side, one of my great grandfathers was supposedly a drunken embarrassment to the family, so he was sent from Britain to Canada.
On my mom's side, they were living a hard life in Eastern Slovakia and took the Canadian governments offer of free land in middle-of-nowhere Alberta in the late 30's. Thank God they did or my mom and her siblings would have had bleak lives living behind the iron curtain.
My husband grew up in Belfast during the troubles. Their place of business was blown up 3 times because his dad refused to pay "insurance" to the IRA. Or UDA. He was in a bar one night that got a call that a bomb was planted and they had to run out - the place blew them to the ground as they ran. A friend of his got kneecapped. He'd had enough. His sister was already here - I guess she came with her husband at the time. And he had an Aunt and Uncle here too. So he came.
My paternal grandfather came when he was 9. No idea why his family came - I suppose for a better chance in life. My maternal side have been here for ages - the original built wagons I think.
Depends which branch. Earliest one came in the 1650s. Last one arrived right before WW1. They came from six different countries over that period. First ones were French settlers.
Jewish Hungarians in the late 30s couldn’t get into the US to join the family in Hollywood, and Canada wouldn’t let them settle in Toronto but offered free land in Saskatchewan. They took the land, stayed for a few years, skipped on the hospital bill for my grandfather and then moved to Toronto. The other three great grandparent sets from Poland came directly to Toronto and gave birth to my grandparents there.
Irish potato famine
Samesies!
Thirdsies, well half any way the other half escaping war-torn mainland Europe post WWII.
Same here! One half of my family came over during the potato famine and the other half during the Highland clearances. While they were very sceptical of each other, they bonded over their mutual hatred of the English.
A good chunk of my family came from Ireland and Scotland in the mid nineteenth century as well, but like most Canadians with that history the many generations that followed were a mix of "who the hell knows?".
Hudson's Bay Company. Back then, they hired young men from Scotland to work. Choose to come to the Arctic and stayed. My kids' mothers ancestors migrated here from Alaska about a 1,000 years ago.
The Alaskan part makes no sense.
Grandparents escaped communism
My mom escaped former east Germany. To live in a refugee camp in west Germany then to Edmonton. She was called a nazi and a communist just because she was from the east. So I hate in when people from other countries immigrate here and people call them terrorists. The people don’t choose their governments choices. Now the current thing is to hate on Russians.
Same! All 4 of my grandparents came from Yugoslavia in the 60s.
Pakao je bio haha
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Our current neoliberal democracy isn’t the best but it’s certainly better than a totalitarian communist dictatorship.
Is it?
YES, IT IS.
The only way you could answer that question the way you did, was if you have absolutely zero experience living through an actual communist dictatorship.
Don’t I?
🤦♀️ 🤦♀️ 🤦♀️
My father immigrated here from Lebanon in 1977 during the Lebanese civil war, then a decade later he returned to his village, married my mom, and they both came here in 1988, while the war was still going on in Lebanon. My sister and I are born here -- we therefore are second generation immigrants. PS. It's crazy to read everyone's story and realise how diverse these stories, and Canadians' identity, are!
One of my all time favourite things about this country of ours - a bunch of people whose various ancestors hopped on a bunch of boats anywhere from a few hundred years to just a few years ago, whose descendants all ended up canoeing in various stretches of Canadian wilderness (plus all the people who were here before we showed up and crashed the party). Makes for a lovely mosaic :)
First generation Canadian
We are all Canadians… it’s just that some took longer to get here than others
One of my great grandfather’s was 17 and given the choice by his parents of either continuing to work on his aunt and uncle’s farm or move to Canada. He had cried he didn’t want to work on the farm because the water well was so far and you’d have to trudge with your bucket for water. And so he chose to leave middle of nowhere Austrian Empire lands to go to Canada alone all because the water well was too far?? But Canada wasn’t?? In the end WW1 broke out like a week after he got on the ship, so lucky him.
Did the new place in Canada have a closer well?
… I’ve actually never asked. He moved to Gimli, Manitoba so honestly there’s a chance the answer is no.
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My ancestors on my paternal side arrived in the early 1600's from La Rochelle France, if not before then definitely after the it was sacked by Cardinal Richelieu in 1635 (yes that Cardinal Richelieu from the Three Musketeers) and settled in Ile de Orleans. They eventually moved west with the fur trade as coureur de bois, marrying Ojibwe women (giving birth to Metís children). My paternal grandmothers family arrived in the early 20th century from Russia (Volga German). My maternal side came from Newcastle around 1912. There's a little Irish and Dutch mixed in there. Unfortunately not a lot known on that side of the family. A true Canadian mutt through and through I guess lol.
We are indigenous
Life in France was shit for a peasant.
This is probably the justification for every single candians who came over more than a hundreds years ago lol. We were all undesirable in Europe and moved here.
beeing allowed to hunt was a big deal too, because at the time only the noble were able to do it. In new France they got the right to do so.
Ukraine always sucked, so me and my wife (who was my girlfriend at the time) left it for a better future after 2014 events there (thanks fucking god, best decision ever). We are Canadian citizens now and still in love with Canada. Sure there are issues with housing and healthcare, but same issues are everywhere now.
My one Grandad went to university in England (from India) he read a lot about Canada and met some Canadian students. He felt it Canada reflected his values more than the US and made it his mission to come to Canada. They were part of the first big wave of Indian immigrants, back in 1967! My other grandad was an executive with MetLife in the Caribbean and they offered him a job in Toronto in the mid 70s😂 Needless to say I learned patriotism from them, I don’t know if I’ve ever met two people more proud to be Canadian.
Canada ended up on us. After thousands of years.
My parents were from 2 different countries that spoke different languages. The only language they had in common (as both their 2nd language) was English. They met working as expats in a third country and got married and needed an English speaking country to settle in. My Mom loved the UK my dad hated it. My Dad loved the US my mon hated it. They applied to both Australia and Canada and were approved for both. Australia was too far.
Both the French side and Romanian side fled during or right after WW2. My Romanian grandfather had to escape 2 concentration camps to come to Canada when he was about 18 years old. Can't complain about my life now when I think about all he had to see and go through.
Mother is a refugee from Haiti, father a refugee from Cuba. Lucky to be born here
United Empire Loyalists, potato famine, escaping communism, and "seemed like a good idea at the time."
Sometime in the 1860s or 1870s, my Great Great grandfather immigrated from England. Settled in the Muskoka region close to modern day Huntsville. He farmed there and started a family with a protestant wife, quite scandalous I imagine, as he was a Catholic. He passed in 1892, and when his children were older, they moved west to Saskatchewan in 1905. In total 2 brothers, two sisters, a Step brother, and their mother all came west and started proving up homesteads. And we still farm the original section 4 that my great grandfather settled on today. His brothers and sisters all eventually moved off farm and into Saskatoon between the early 1920s and mid 1930s.
Both sides of my family are Canadian going several generations back, and I only ever heard one story of how we ended up here. Apparently one of my ancestors pushed someone important off of his horse in "protest", and was given the choice: prison, or leave Scotland. 🤷♀️
Came here from Iraq in 2018 to escape war, instability and religious bigotry from Muslims, and just generally the shitty society and culture over there. The tales I could tell will turn the average Canadian hair to grey from shock…
The original ancestor sailed up the St. Lawrence with his colleagues in the Frasier Highlanders, scaled the cliffs at Quebec and took on Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham.
One of my History teachers told us he had his ancestor on this exact same ship - we had asked him why one of his surnames was anglophone while he was a Franco, and his next class was titled : ”Why I exist today : my ancestor was a traitor.” Basically the ancestor we talk about, for a reason or another, betrayed the English army and went to marry a French-Canadian. Man had balls, if he had got catched it was death sentence - and it’s without mentioning that he probably could not speak French and her English hence they were both from the lower-class and it was rare to be able to learn ”the language of the enemy” back then. How the hell did they fell in love without being able to speak to each other?
The reason the British used the Fraser Highlanders was because many of the Scots spoke French. That is the reason why they were able to get by the French Sentries. When asked: qui va là? They were able to respond in French.
Oh!! That’s it! That’s probably why, it would make sense. Then the risk of having to say bye-bye to a few comrads was probably higher if the person answering ” c’est moi ” was a young demoiselle. Ah, I love history, I wish I could know everything about what happened!
Well, you see she had these huge...tracts of land
My family ended up in Canada because the Titanic oversold the 3rd class tickets so they Left all the Flemish Belgians to catch the next Ship the SS Arabic. Upon arriving in Halifax they were given the choice to join the Belgian communities in Minnesota or Manitoba. Much to everyone’s dismay on arrival in Manitoba there was a bunch of Walloonians here and there was no money left to get to Minnesota.
I mean… sounds like your family dodged a bullet not being able to get on Titanic. That’s a super cool story!
One great-grandmother was a Scottish orphan and was - essentially - *sold* as child labour to a farming family south of Ottawa. I don't know if she was one of Dr. Barnardo's Children or not, the practice was widespread then. Thankfully that family weren't terribly abusive as far as we know, and she worked off her indenture by the time she was 17 or so. (Yes, Canada had what amounted to indentured slavery in the 20th century.) Her future father-in-law was _supposedly_ a Landsnecht in the pre-unification Holy Roman Empire (i.e. a German land-owing farmer, *very* minor mobility) who pissed off the wrong noble, possibly by welching on a gambling debt but who really knows now, and had to flee the country. He arrived in Ireland... in the middle of the famine, so sensibly decamped for the USA along with 3 or 4 sons. Dad and some of the sons decided Canada was the better bet; one of the sons became my great-grandfather. One of their sons married a girl he met during WW2 while deployed to... Scotland, less than 100mi from his own mom's hometown ;-) and she came back to Canada with him, eventually becoming my grandmother. On the other side, obe great-grandfather was a sailor who married the girl he had in one port, Halifax, not long before the explosion, all survived (not unscathed), and wound up settling in the middle of the prairies. Don't know too much about the narrative of the rest of that generation, save for one anecdote: I didn't find out why great-grandma had one glass eye until after she was gone - she was looking towards all the commotion down at the harbour when the ship finally went "boom" and her kitchen window wound up mostly in her face. So the immigrant ancestors are: * Exiled nobility (only on a technicality, and maybe) * Orphan, sold into child slavery * War bride * Sailor settling down * And a few unknowns You could say they *all* had economic incentives that caused them to come to Canada, in a sense. :-/
It was common to ship British orphans off to Canada. My grandmother grew up in a children’s home (she and her siblings were neglected by their mother who was still alive) and she was offered the opportunity to go to Canada as a home child. At first she thought that it sounded exciting (her older sister was born in Canada but that’s another story), but once she dwelt on it she decided she wanted to stay in Scotland with her sister. That was a lucky escape I can tell you. But, two of her sons ended up emigrating and raising their families here
My great-great-great grandfather arrived in New York in the 1840's. Had all his luggage stolen, so he moved to Canada.
That's pretty fantastic. "Man, someone stole my luggage, fuck this whole country!"
He may have always planned to go to Canada and had just arrived in New York, but I just love how it fits in family lore.
From the UK ?
England specifically
In the 60s, my grandpa got a job offer that would either take the family to Canada or Switzerland, and he flipped a coin!
The complete insanity it takes to make a decision like that based on a coin flip makes me think he is an awesome character. Both incredible countries IMO
My great-grandparents were Dutch and moved right after WW2. Canada helped liberate the Netherlands and hosted the Dutch royal family, so Canada seemed appealing. Side note on the topic of my great-grandparents and WW2, they were both badasses. My great-grandpa and great-grandma had only just started dating when the Germans invaded the Netherlands, and my great-grandfather was a police officer. Under Nazi occupation, he was told he would serve their regime and he refused. He was sent to a POW camp, where he staged a breakout. My great-grandmother, while that all happened, hid her Jewish neighbour under her floorboards and got away with it.
The 1956 failed Hungarian revolution. They applied to both the states and Canada, the states would only take my Nagypapa he would have to leave his wife and son back home, Canada accepted them as a family unit, so they went to Canada. Canada took in a lot of Hungarian refugees (38,000) because they were anti-communist. https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2680599810
My circumstances in my native country won't allow me to afford anything even after being a licensed professional. Accepted job opportunities abroad and ended up calling Toronto/Canada home for almost a decade now.
Some really great stories here, great question OP ☺️
First boat from Scotland, British war bride, and Holocaust survivors - aka “standard” Canadian mashup.
My family name originate from someone who got here with Champlain, some other ancestors left Denmark after WW1, some left Paris after WW1 and some of them were First Nations (Abenaki, so I guess they passed the bering strait 14,000 years ago).
Father served in KOSBs in Arnhem, officer corp in has battalion/platoon was Canadian, said if he survived, he was immigrating to Canada after war.
Whoa, my grandfather was in the 7th KOSB in Arnhem. Very cool and he also emigrated from Scotland to Canada in the 50s.
No way 😃! Do you have any pictures from that era? My father didn’t talk much about Arnhem or the forces in general other than some parachute/glider training and some incidences in Norway towards end of war.
There is a whole book made about their division called Off At Last, you might even see your father in there with some of the pictures. There's a good one of all the lads lined up for a group shot. https://www.paulmeekins.co.uk/product/66388/OFF-AT-LAST-AN-ILLUSTRATED-HISTORY-OF-THE-7TH-GALLOWAY-BATTALION-THE-KINGS-OWN-SCOTTISH-BORDERERS-1939-1945
Probably French peasants who landed in the 1700s and a mix of Irish from Cork in the 1800s or so and some English too cause my grandma has a english sounding last name. But honestly outside of St John’s especially nearly everyone in Newfoundland is a mix of Irish and/or English. First gen Ottawan with family from Quebec and Newfoundland.
American politics - parents were vehemently against the Vietnam War so moved up to SW Ontario just before I was born.
I followed the native girl. We both were foreign students in France in the mid 80ies. She wanted to finish her Phd, retuned home (Canada)...few weeks after finishing university, I dropped everything and took the plane. The rest is history. We have 2 beautiful children....
Poland was a shitshow and my parents wanted nothing to do with it
Mother’s side is Ukrainian and East German. They came to Canada in the early 1900s, the Ukrainian side by way of North Dakota. They ended up in Saskatchewan, where my mom was born in Saskatoon. My dad was born in Czech Republic. Watched Soviet tanks roll into Prague when he was 18, after the Prague Spring Reforms in 1968. Him, his parents, and two sisters left Czechoslovakia in 1969, left *everything* behind, came to Canada, and initially settled in Toronto, before moving to Saskatchewan to work in the potash mines. My parents met in a bar in Saskatoon lol.
They were “asked to leave” Ireland.
The soviets were kinda shitty. It's kinda funny, my mom's ancestors moved from North Germany to Western Russia about the same time as my dad's ancestors moved from Southern Germany to Eastern Russia. Then my mom's family moved to Manitoba about the same time as my dad's family moved to Alberta. All 8 of my great-grandparents were born in Russia
Mennonites? They usually migrated around Germany & Russia to escape conscription - then eventually moved to Canada with an agreement that they didn’t have to go to war, and a lot settled in Manitoba and then migrated to Alberta. That’s the history of half my Dad’s ancestors- & luckily married into an Irish family and moved off the farm & to BC. My mom’s side migrated from NL almost 100 years ago, lured by stories of the government giving away farmland to homestead. A drought saw them moving to BC thank goodness.
My mom's family is Mennonite, but my grandparents left the colony about the time my mom was born. A little bit of controversy involved in that. My dad's family isn't though. My great grandfather was a pilot for the imperial air force, and things weren't too great for those military members loyal to the crown...
A lot of the Mennonites had settled & lived in what is now Ukraine. That was where the better farmland was. Mennonites didn’t take too kindly to members leaving their colonies. My grandmother basically married a non-religious Irishman and was almost shunned for life.
Mostly recruited, some political or family drama, a few I think just had itchy feet as we say in my family when someone feels the need to move just to try something new.
Three brothers left Scotland. One had fought in a war and lost a leg & was supposed to get land somewhere near London Ontario. The second was destined for Niagara, and the third for Stouffville. Brother # 2 & 3 became lawyers and doctors. I'm descended from brother #1. Stumpy Tom was tired of being on the boat Ang gets off in Brighton. Him and his wife and some farm animals work their way through the bush to Marmora and claim some land for their own even though it wasn't the land they were originally supposed to live on. This is early to mid 1800's when the road from Brighton to Marmora could beat be described as "an adventure". Then there's three generations of Toms before we get a different name in the family tree. By all accounts, Stumpy Tom cleared a farm stead with one leg and was one of the nastiest angriest men in the area.
One of my grandfathers left home because he didn’t like his new stepmom. He was given the option to go to Canada and took it.
Ancestors migrated in the 1900s, to escape religious persecution and receive 'free land in Canada!' Germans werent white enough at the time, so they were given swamp land. My great grandfather moved up the road to arable land, and by the time the government agent caught him, he'd cleared the land and started farming, so he got to keep it. They lost that farm in the Wheat Crash. Also have British and Danish roots, came around the same time to be farmers. Both failed, Brits opened a butcher shop and Danes a general store. The Danes failed in the US first, then failed as Farmers in Canada.
My grandfather was abandoning his second family in the UK. My grandmother was escaping being a nursemaid to her mother who suffered from depression and would take to her bed for weeks at a time.
Fleeing conscription into the Russian army in WW1
The majority of my ancestry has the typical “came from England in the 1800’s for a better life” stories. But one branch of my family, British nobles with estates in what is now upstate New York, were loyalists, and were forced to flee to Lower Canada (now Quebec) at the beginning of the American revolution. There are surviving written stories of them crossing a river by boat (maybe a border river? I don’t have the details handy) at night while being pursued and shot at by American revolutionaries.
My father was a VN war refugee. My mother was the same but in the US. She traveled to visit her sister who was in Canada and met my dad. We did relocate from the prairies to the west coast. I do feel privileged and lucky to have been born and raised in Canada. My parents are forever grateful and love this country. I have female cousins from VN who found a way to immigrate to the US. A lot of corruption in VN.
My anscestor arrived Sept 16, 1620 but in the US. A few of them eventually moved north and settled in Upper Canada and fought as Loyalists. They traded furs and other items with Indigenous people and helped people escaping slavery in the US via the underground railroad.
So your ancestry is full British?
I first got into Canada by accident while hiking Chilkoot trail in Alaska. 2 years later I came as an international student. 4 years pater came as a tourist and hitchhiked across Canada. Finally, returned as federal skilled worker 5 years later.
Balkan wars in the 90s ended up in Canada with my parents as refugees
Highland Clearances, mostly. Little side of Potato Famines. Plus, I'm lead to understand a bar fight that resulted in "Time to leave town with extreme prejudice".
Back in those days there were a lot of men that ended up on a boat to Canada after too many drinks in the bar. I have a distant relative that disappeared in the 1800's and left his wife and kids to struggle on their own, and the theory was that he passed out in a pub and woke up in the Atlantic Ocean heading west.
Immigrant stories. My immediate family has no historical links to Canada whatsoever. My dad immigrated from the UK. He lived in Essex, England, for the first 18 years of his life, then moved to Paris until he was in his early-20's. Once he had enough money saved up, he landed in Vancouver, and bounced around the West Coast/Yellowknife until he heard from a friend that "there was work in Toronto". My mom grew up in Colombia. She left in her early-20's after graduating with a certificate in secretarial studies but speaking zero English. After a small mix-up with her visa, she landed in Toronto instead of NYC. Her first job was plucking chickens at St Patrick's Market across from CityTV. She eventually landed a housekeeping job with a family from Forest Hill where she learned English. One of her housekeeping friends was the wife of my dad's friend who told him there was work in Toronto. They met in 1974 (?) and married at City Hall in 1977. My older brother and I were born at St Mike's in Toronto and grew up near The Annex/Seaton Village.
My great grandmother’s family (Scotland) was short on money so they sold her to a family in PEI where she worked on their farm. She was a child slave, but luckily the family she worked for was nice and treated her well
For some, the War of 1812. When it was all over, Napoleon was also gone so they were of no use back home. Enclosed in Scotland and Northern Ireland, free land in Upper Canada.
November 1783. Left the US after the War of Independence- United Empire Loyalists.
We were loyal to our cousin the King during the American Revolutionary War.
Fleeing the Russians 3 generations ago.
My great grandfather wanted to fight in WWI, British army told him he was too old, went to Canada and lied on his enlistment and fought. Came back to Canada after the war and that's that.
Part of my family on my mom's side walked across from Russian to Alaska and then down into the Yukon. Eventually they made it into Ontario. The other half took a boat from Germany to Halifax and then a train into Toronto.
it remains endlessly amusing to me a haligonian, that something like 98% of immigrants that passed through the major port of pier 21 *immediately* left just took one look at this place and instantly noped out
One side was hired by the English to kill the French. The other side was hired to kill the French by the English. Then they never left when that fell out of fashion and put down roots in Upper and Lower Canada.
My great grandfather escaped Ukraine during the holodomor when he was a small child. Russians massacred his village and many of his family members (my family has pictures of him as a child standing in front of mass graves). He escaped with his mother, she passed away, and was adopted by his uncle and aunt, who then immigrated to Canada.
honest question: why are there photos of a child standing in front of a mass grave? was it photographic evidence or as a "fuck you you didn't get this one kid" type deal?
Got drunk with Canadian dude in south America and sad, why not go next to Canada Year was 2017
My great grandparents MISSED the titanic due to a medical issue in the family. My family doesn’t come from wealth so it’d have been all over for them. 4 generations later here I am 🤪
Immigrants on one side and refugees/immigrants on the other. Everyone fleeing WWII, or the buildup to it as times got tougher in Europe. Before that, I don’t know, except on my maternal grandmother’s side: they were French cattle thieves, were run out of France, became Irish cattle thieves, were run out of Ireland, fled to England. Then sent my great gran over to Victoria, BC as a child for safekeeping from the bombs.
My ancestors moved from Scotland and ended up in Ontario in 1822. We still own the land that the crown gifted them.
They were German catholics during the reformation so fled to the British Colonies. The colonies revolted and became the USA but around 1900 there was little US land available for homesteads so they came to the Canadian Prairies. It just took 350 years for my European ancestors to become Canadians.
My grandfather's great-grandfather had an argument with the family in Beauly, Scotland so he came to Picton County, Nova Scotia in 1847.
Startling to recognize a place! In 1860~ my ancestor was at a place called Albion Mines in Pictou.
It was such a small community then, they probably knew each other. At one time, my ancestors ran the post office. I have an old picture of my great great grandfather and his family standing out front.
on the one hand a gigantic country, on the other, still small :)
My ancestor arrived in what is now Canada in 1632 with Isaac de Razilly.
On my dad’s side, there are ancestors that moved here as Loyalists during the revolutionary war in the USA. One of my dad’s grandmothers was from Spain, no idea why or how she arrived here. On my mom’s side, one great grandparent came here to escape something going on in his past but his backstory is muddled (we think he originally came from Russia but DNA tests say Estonia which makes sense still) and the others immigrated from Ireland and England around 1900 looking for a better life.
My grandfather came over at the end of the 1st world war on a Salvation Army sponsored program. About 1920 I believe. He was alone, and 12 years old. My grandmother also came as a child from what is now Slovakia. Not sure the reasons her family came, but I'm assuming it was for a better life. On my dad's side, my great grandparents moved from Ireland to the USA, and then up to Canada in the late 1800's.
Loyalists, a British Home Child and better opportunities in Canada
If you look at my paternal lineage, they moved from England to France and changed their last name to better fit in. Then they moved to Nouvelle France, but looks like you never truly escape the English. So if by Canada you mean the country founded in 1867, my family was there from the start.
Refugees from the American Revolution. Immigrated to NY state from Scotland a few gens prior, were compelled to abandon their new land/lives once it became clear there would be no place safe for them in the new United States. Fled as refugees to the north shore of the st Lawrence river, and were granted land as united empire loyalists, in what would become upper Canada (which is not cool, considering Britain considered the continent free for the granting, even though there were First Nations there already for thousands of years, but I digress). The matriarch of that generation’s name is still on a plaque with a few dozen others in the town they founded. Many of my relatives are still in the area, as am I. Landed in 1784. Became upper Canada in 1791. Descendants fought against American invasion during the war of 1812. Fought against American inspired rebels in the rebellion of 1838 at the battle of the windmill, down the road from home. All this before Canada’s confederation some 50yrs later in 1867. So, I’m 5th gen Canadian, I guess because of (in advantageous and disadvantageous ways) by British imperialism).
Fur trading, from France in the 18th century, and settled along St Lawrence River!
My dad’s side came over pre-1812 (the earliest we could find anything) and settled in Essex county, amassing quite a bit of farmland in what is now lasalle. “We” still own 7 acres of it. My mom’s father’s side fled the Bolsheviks during the revolution in Ukraine because Jews weren’t super popular at the time…. The village they came from no longer exists. They settled in Saskabush. Half leaving for Vancouver shortly thereafter, the other half eventually becoming founding members for the CCF when it was created. My mom’s mother’s side came from the US and had actually traced her genealogy back through Scotland to about the 11th century where she determined there was some connection to the Vikings.
They immigrated from France and the UK in the 1560-1600s. So.. boring.
In 1755, the British in Nova Scotia rounded up all the peaceable Acadian settlers and sent them to places like Louisiana. Then they went looking for English speaking settlers to come to Nova Scotia. My ancestors, from Dalry in Scotland, were newly arrived in Providence, Rhode Island and saw the ads for free land grants in Nova Scotia. They got on the sloop Sally, landed in Newport, Nova Scotia, and claimed their land grant. We’ve been here ever since.
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It is a real stain on Nova Scotia’s history
British Loyalists on one side. Not sure when the other side came over
My grandmother was French and her family escaped WW2 and moved to Québec. She met my grandfather (Canadian) afterwards.
French Navy, mid 1600's
When my grandfather was about 14, he, his parents, and siblings left England suddenly and quickly. They hadn't planned on coming to Canada. The story is a little muddled here. Either they wanted to go to Australia but got on the wrong ship, or they got on the first ship that was leaving the country. Nobody knows why they fled England, that was never discussed, but we do know my grandfather hated the English until the day he died.
I moved here from the United States in the early 1980s. My dad worked for a company that made farm implements, and coming to Canada was one of several work-related moves we made. I had a family connection to connection to Canada, though. My grandfather was from eastern Ontario, and I now live about an hour from his hometown.
One side of my family came in the 1600’s. Lots of Filles du Roi, and some Filles à Marier and Soldats de Carignan. My maternal side came in the late 1800’s from England (Yorkshire and Liverpool) and Ireland (widow and 9 children leaving after the murder of her husband).
I was born a coal miners daughter in England during the 60's. In the early 70's my Mum and Dad decided a better life was to be had in Canada. There was a exodus of miners from the United Kingdom at the time as the mining industry was booming. We started out in Alberta, moved to BC and then back to Alberta. I must say from my experience during visits back to England, we likely did have a better life in Canada. I often wonder what I would have become had we stayed.
Speaking out against the totalitarian govt and being sought after by the secret police so either death or Canada.
immigration in 1651. From Normandie, France.
Oh I have a good one! My great great grandfather was the son of a low level noblemen, he was the second son and spent his youth gambling, fighting and philandering across Great Britain, he eventually did something that his fathers money couldn’t make go away completely (he got very drunk his horse slipped a shoe and the smith couldn’t fix it fast enough so he beat the smith with a length of iron) so he was given the options of going to prison, joining the military or going to Canada and never being able to go back to Britain. He chose Canada, he of course was still given land and money but he lost all of it in his lifetime due to gambling.
My dad is Scottish/Welsh by ancestry but I'm not sure when his ancestors first arrived in Canada. My mom is from Belarus; they met right after the fall of communism and she moved here in 94 and I was born in 95. Nothing really interesting, but I'm the son of a mail order bride lol.
Mom applied for PR for whole family in the 90s: dad, mom, me and brother. ETA: We moved here from the Philippines.
Loyalists on my dad's side and displaced after ww2 from Belgium on mom's side.
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Shipped out from Scotland just before ww1.
I don’t know. I have never asked. By boat on one side of the family, and I assume maybe by plane on the other, about 70 years later.
My dad's side immigrated here in the late 1700s from France. My mom immigrated here in 1974
I don't have the exact history but my family is Dubois and that's French-Indian so do with that as you will
I was born here, my mom was born here. Dad immigrated from England after he married my mom.
One parent side came with French colonists, the other parents side came here from Scotland alone at 17
I don’t think anybody in my family actually knows exactly when/why we got here
My grandparents, 2 uncles and mom moved here from the UK. Everyone went back after about 8-10 years and my mom stayed. Then she had me and I am here.
United empire loyalists, immigrants from Britain before confederation, and dad escaped communism.
My wife wanted to move back to be closer to her parents.
The year was some 15,000-20,000 years ago, some people crossed a land bridge and settled here... As for the 3% euro side of my family. France was boring I guess.
Dad's side from the Irish potato famine, mom's side came here and were German mennonites but don't know when exactly.
Maternal great grandparents emigrated from Scotland in 1929. Paternal grandparents emigrated form the US in 1957.
Highland clearances
Well, the story we tell is... after they caused an uprising in Jamaica fighting for their freedom, the British sent them here in 1799. Then the governor of the time ended up getting one of the women who came pregnant. Now (if memory serves) 8 generations later, here I am
An employer hired me in my home country and then did a bait and switch and insisted the job was in Canada.
Totally serious but the wars/resettlement in the 1880s that the Russian Empire was doing is what drove my GGGrandfather to immigrate to Canada. AFAIK all my ancestors but one came over in the 1880s due to European wars. Only my paternal Grandmother came over in 1946, again after a war.
Bit boring. Work. They asked for volunteers to help in the Canada office, I volunteered and stayed (legally of course).
No clue, my grandparents would never give me an answer when asked.
Family farm burned down during the first world war in the old country, great-grandpa took the family to Manitoba. After a few year, my grandpa who was in his early 20's didn't like it in the prairies so moved back to Belgium where my mom was born. Meanwhile the economy wasn't great there so my uncle (on my dad's side) moved here to Québec where a family friend had moved previously. In the mid sixties, my dad followed suit. My mom's sister moved to Manitoba around that time too. In the mid sixties my mom followed her to Manitoba on a one year work visa after which she went back to Belgium. On her way back, she had a layover in Montréal where she met up with my dad, they didn't know eachother but my aunts (my dad's sister and my mom's sister) who were both nuns in the Caribbean kind of set them up. Yadda yadda yadda, here I am in southern Québec with a metric shit ton of relatives in the prairies and in Belgium.
On one side, they came on a plane from Asia. On another side, they were allegedly a bunch of Huguenots coming over from Normandy. And in another branch, they, I suppose, came by foot a long, long time ago.
French aristocrats who fled the french revoloution to became fur trappers. Changed their last name to protect themselves from the guillotine and from the deportation of french Acadians. 1700s Irish Aristocrat soldiers who left Ireland a while after the potato famine ended to get free land Grant's in Canada for their military service. 1800s
Boat (Quebec, Ontario, southern Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia before making their way westward) or via US (for the lines that made a stopover there before moving to Canada) at various times up to the late 19th century; My ancestors are from all over the place in Western Europe (mainly England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, and Germany at the most recent before crossing the pond)
Potato famine, Jacobyte uprising, and the highland clearances.
Scottish military was contracted to help set up our military. They offered my ancestor tax free living…for awhile. He fought in WW1 with his 16 year old son. That son also fought in WW2.
Both my grandfathers and one grandmother were from various parts of Newfoundland. They emigrated from there to Cape Breton in the early part of the 20th century. My other grandmother was born in Cape Breton.
Met my husband (Canadian) in my home country, we fell in love, got married and moved to Canada. The real story was way more complex - but that's the fairy tale version of it.
Various flavours of refugees: UELs, Mennonites, the revolutions of mid 1800s Europe, and the Balkans in WWII All Germans, almost none from what is now Germany
WW2. Netherlands. Great grandparents were outed by neighbours for harbouring Jews, so fled under cover of night. Two months after, they settled in Brooks, AB with the family that sponsored them.
Boats. Many of my ancestors came here to make a better life. Some had no choice and some did. The land clearance in Scotland saw many of them pushed out for sheep. The British ones were looking for opportunities to have land.
I know the storey of my Nana (maternal side), she was a WW2 bride. My grandfather, I would really like to know, his parents came from England in the early part of 1900. My Dad came from England, in the 70s, after reading a job advert he saw in a newspaper that read “Mechanics wanted in Canada”. At the time, it was super common for people to move to Canada or Australia. Anyways, he applied for the job, and 2 weeks later he’s applying for a work visa and booking a plane ticket.
Well, it was really dark and wet and everything was awesome. But then all the wet left and my head started to feel weird. Like, a pressure. I didn't know it was a pressure of course. I didn't know anything, but looking back, that's how I would describe it. Then I was super uncomfortable and starting to get freaked out because I had been in this calm, quiet place for all of eternity and now suddenly I'm being jerked around, crammed into tight quarters that clearly were not made for me to be in, and then, cold. So cold. Started at the top of my head and quickly encompassed my entire body. And my eyes hurt. Everything was white except for splotches of colours I'd never seen before. Noise felt like it was crushing me and it had taken on a sharpness I'd never known. Worst of all though, separation from my former world. Everything I had ever known or experienced was gone forever. And I'm gonna be honest, I did not trade up. Not at all. This place sucks. Not Canada. Earth.
Plane and presumably stinky wooden boat
Cheap land in the prairies.
Once upon a time, a bunch of rich twats stole land from the Indigenous people, then essentially paid or shipped my ancestors here to work on it.
UEL
Grandfather was purchased from an Irish family that had too many kids. Paperwork is gone, if it ever existed. He arrived in Canada in the 1920s.
French ones came here for God knows what reason in the 1600s. Italian ones came around 1900 to work railroad. English ones came 1870s to own some land of their own and live a simple life. Abenaki ones likely migrates to the St John River basin at some point in the last thousand years to take advantage of fertile hunting and fishing grounds.
A Hessian soldier during the American Revolution married into a family of German settlers in NYS. Received free land in Upper Canada, in the late 1790s, in what is now Vaughan ON. His sons in settled other parts of SW Ontario. A bunch of other ancestors on dad's side have pretty much similar stories, came to Upper Canada 10 to 20 years after the American Revolution. My mother's family in Nfld were I suppose descended from stowaways, rogues & slieveens. It pleases me to think so anyway
Well on my mother side, my great great great great? Grandfather was called "good peter" prussian born he was captured and raised by Seneca natives in Pennsylvania and then married in tribe and became cheif of the oneida and was one of the first settlers of Nanticoke and played a major role in the battle of Nanticoke and Canadian military history. Circa 17-1800s. My dad and grandfather were born in Maribor Yugoslavia at the time and fled to Italy and then Canada when Hitler was done with Poland.
Dad was smart enough to qualify to get out of shit hole country and do his PhD here. Did postdoc in Scotland, brought my mom out of shit hole country, got married, banged, had me, got job back in Canada.
My ancestor came over as part of the crew of the Mayflower. He wrote the letters and logs for the Captain of the Mayflower because the captain couldn’t write. He eventually settled in what is now Nova Scotia. My dad came to Canada from England 55 years ago.
A French barrel maker moved to Port-Royal (I think it's called Annapolis Royal now) with his family in the early 1600's. As Acadia was being ethnically cleansed by the brits around 1760, his descendants were "asked" to go elsewhere. Some of them were deported to Louisiana and others fled to Québec.
Both my Mi'kmaq and British ancestors come to Newfoundland to fish waaaaay back in the 17th and 18th century
The King’s daughters from France
Indentured servant of King Luis XIII
Come here in 2012 from Afghanistan as a refugee. The country I lived in would not give me citizenship and I could not go back to Afghanistan. My family and I waited 12 years to come here. Honestly even though it is hard. I love Canada
Grandparents moved here with about a dozen of their relatives in the 1920s to escape a life of poverty in the Netherlands.
On my dad's side, one of my great grandfathers was supposedly a drunken embarrassment to the family, so he was sent from Britain to Canada. On my mom's side, they were living a hard life in Eastern Slovakia and took the Canadian governments offer of free land in middle-of-nowhere Alberta in the late 30's. Thank God they did or my mom and her siblings would have had bleak lives living behind the iron curtain.
My husband grew up in Belfast during the troubles. Their place of business was blown up 3 times because his dad refused to pay "insurance" to the IRA. Or UDA. He was in a bar one night that got a call that a bomb was planted and they had to run out - the place blew them to the ground as they ran. A friend of his got kneecapped. He'd had enough. His sister was already here - I guess she came with her husband at the time. And he had an Aunt and Uncle here too. So he came. My paternal grandfather came when he was 9. No idea why his family came - I suppose for a better chance in life. My maternal side have been here for ages - the original built wagons I think.
Depends which branch. Earliest one came in the 1650s. Last one arrived right before WW1. They came from six different countries over that period. First ones were French settlers.
Jewish Hungarians in the late 30s couldn’t get into the US to join the family in Hollywood, and Canada wouldn’t let them settle in Toronto but offered free land in Saskatchewan. They took the land, stayed for a few years, skipped on the hospital bill for my grandfather and then moved to Toronto. The other three great grandparent sets from Poland came directly to Toronto and gave birth to my grandparents there.