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thebravestcanadian 
Oct 02, 2017 @ 14:56:14
Dear Mr. McBride, Our fathers were in a German POW camp together. At Annaburg. I would love to know if you have more details about the place. Thanks. -Brennen Jensen, USA
Jan 28, 2021 @ 20:30:35
Im looking for more information on the artist Maud Adams, mother of Nancy Cunard (according to the notes)
Sep 19, 2023 @ 14:38:10
Sam,
Do you know if Captain Robert Gray (1747 Scotland-1828 PEI) is related to Captain William Gray (1728NY?-1824 New Brunswick)?
If you do know if they are related I have another lineage for Captain Robert Gray family tree. My Y-DNA is a match with Captain William Gray’s line and my greatest grandfather was born on Long Island in the mid 1770’s and it is written (without collaboration) that his father was named Captain Robert Gray.
Both Captain William Gray and Captain Robert Gray were stationed on Long Island in the mic 1770s.
Sanford Gray
Sep 19, 2023 @ 22:54:02
Good to hear from you. I have never heard of Robert having a sibling. The fact that both of his parents were Gray in an area where that name was dominant makes it quite a challenge to learn more about the family. I will check around my sources.
Sam
Jan 21, 2024 @ 07:27:35
I read with interest your piece on the Dewdneys. I am conducting a tour at Ross Bay Cemetery in Victoria in March and also preparing an exhibit at the Museum at Government House focused on the Chatelaines. Your information on Jane Dewdney was very helpful. I did not see any source citations for the photographs you used- as we are looking for photos of Jane for our tour and exhibit would it be possible to let me know where photos of her would be available (other than the Provincial Archives). Thank you! Nancy Kostyrka
Jan 21, 2024 @ 22:05:25
Nancy, I am so pleased to hear from you. I am the historian and genealogist of my family, and have a lot of photos and other memorabilia on the Dewdney family, as my mother Dee Dee (1924-2012) was a daughter of Edgar Edwin Lawrence “Ted” Dewdney (1880-1952), youngest son of Walter Dewdney (1836?-1892), brother of the famous trail-builder and lieutenant-governor Edgar Dewdney (1835-1916). Edgar had a close relationship with his nephew named after him (within the family, he was known as “Ned”, which distinguished him from his nephew Ted). Upon his death, he left a number of letters and other historical memorabilia to Ted, and then his second wife Blanche Kemeys-Tynte from Devon sent additional material to Ted as she was dealing with Edgar’s effects. In the 1960s, our family in Nelson and Trail donated a large number of Edgar’s historical letters to the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, but kept some paintings, photos, top hats, antlers, sketches and other stuff with Dee Dee or her brother Peter Dewdney in Trail, which have ended up with me. Ted died when I was a baby, but his wife, my grandmother Helen Peters Dewdney (1887-1976) lived in our house as a widow and I got to know her really well, and she often talked of “Uncle Edgar” who was such an important part of Ted’s life. I have a photo of Edgar with her and Ted at their wedding in Esquimalt in 1912.
I started the blog http://www.thebravestcanadian.com in 2010 mainly as a means for publicizing the book I wrote on Helen’s brother Capt. Frederic Thornton Peters (1889-1942) who won the Victoria Cross and several other medals for valour with the Royal Navy in the two world wars. Subsequently, I have found it to be useful for sharing family history stories of others on both sides of my family tree, as well as stories in line with my interest in West Kootenay local history, which often relates to my family history. Over the years, I have found the changes implemented by WordPress to make things more difficult for me, not less. I noticed in looking at the posting you saw under the title “150th anniversary of Dewdney Trail” that the photo captions are not visible. I will see if I can do an edit of that post that has the captions.
You are likely to be familiar with Margaret Ormsby’s book “An English Gentlewoman…” based on diaries of Jane Dewdney’s sister Susan Allison, which has some information on Edgar and Jane. A fascinating source I found after doing the Dewdney posting is “Hobnobbing with a Countess — the Diaries of Allice Barrett Parke”, which has a good amount of information on the Dewdney family because Walter’s second wife Clara was a good friend of Alice’s. She writes personally about Walter’s suicide, and the orphaned children going to live at Carey Castle when Edgar was lieutenant-governor. I know that Edgar became legal guardian of 11-year-old Ted, who went to school in Victoria and learned to play tennis at the Carey Castle tennis court, which led him to being a champion tennis player in the Kootenays when he worked there for his employer, the Bank of Montreal. The diaries say that Ted’s sister Rose did not get along with Jane, who was quite a disciplinarian. Rose rebelled in response, which apparently led to a hasty marriage in Seattle to Charles Keating and birth of a daughter Harriet, who I remember well in years before her death in 1975, including a long visit with her and husband Charlie Worseley at their home at 2470 Central Avenue in Oak Bay.
Edgar was unique in history as the only man to serve as lieutenant governor in two jurisdications: the Northwest Territories in the 1880s and B.C. in the 1890s, thanks to appointments by his long-time ally Sir John A. Macdonald, who appointed Edgar as one of his executors after his death. Something Mrs. Macdonald particularly appreciated as a widow was being able to stay with her disabled daughter as guests at Carey Castle for many months when the Dewdneys were there. Another ongoing guest of Edgar and Jane was Jane’s mother, who would die in 1906 just three days before Jane. Other guests at Carey Castle included several of Susan’s children from Princeton, who spent time in Victoria going to school. They became good friends of Ted, particularly Louise Allison, who was his age.
I have visited Ross Bay Cemetery several times in recent years. Sad to see several memorial stones of ancestors have disappeared, either stolen or sunken into the soft ground over time, including Ted’s mother Matilda Caroline Leigh Dewdney (1853-1885) and her father William Leigh (1815-1884), who was Victoria’s city clerk from 1864 until his death 20 years later. The stone for Helen’s father the Hon. Frederick Peters (1850-1919, who was premier of PEI in the 1890s) is intact but faded, and plaques in memory of his two sons who died in WW1 are almost entirely erased. Also, the ground cross in memory of Helen’s six-year-old sister Violet Peters who died in a fireplace accident in 1905 has disappeared.
I was wondering how I could share photos etc. with you, and I notice you are apparently on Facebook. That may work out okay, or we could do email. I find a lot of people prefer messaging to emails lately.
Oct 06, 2024 @ 20:51:40
Sam McBride: I enjoyed your article on Edgar Dewdney 2015.
I’m researching my Great Grandmother Elizabeth Lapsley that was a maid for Jane and Edgar in 1895 timeframe. There is a reference to them in the Montreal, Quebec area and I’m suspecting she traveled to Victoria with them. Would you have any documentation of that travel or lists of the domestic staff? Elizabeth went on to work for the Dunsmuirs.
Thanks, Shirley Briggs
Oct 10, 2024 @ 23:15:22
Shirley, I work in the Archives at Government House in Victoria. I’ll have a look to see if I can find any reference to your ancestor while the Dewdneys were here (1892-1897). will also check the Dunsmuirs who were at Government House 1906-1909. You might want to contact the archives at Craigdarroch Castle or Royal Roads University for information as well.
Oct 12, 2024 @ 21:05:02
Thank you for any information!Shirley Briggs