Historical Record of the Posterity of William Black by
Cyrus Black (1811 1900 )
*Chignecto Project Electronic Edition, March 1999.*
Edition used: Historical Record of the Posterity of William Black,
Amherst, N.S.: Amherst Gazette Steam Printing House, 1885.
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PREFACE
The object in compiling these pages is that the present and future
generations may have a knowledge of their ancestors. An effort has been
made to procure the name of every descendant of William Black, Esq.,
who, with his family, came from Yorkshire, England, to this country in
the year 1775.
The difficulties encountered in the prosecution of this work,
entailing research over more than a century, are such that we feel
obliged to appeal for sympathy, which few, except those engaged in a
similar work, have the power to bestow. Documentary information was not
to be found, and many of the descendants are widely separated. In order
to procure a correct knowledge of facts, many families have been visited
in various parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, many have been
solicited by letter, and very many others interrogated on the street and
at their homes. Yet with all the effort put forth it is impossible to
get the whole of the names required, though the success has been
excellent. Wherein there are failures the writer claims forbearance.
The names given in the Black connection are so numerous that it
appeared requisite to define the relationship held to the first William
Black. The reader, therefore, will find that in the introduction of his
grand-children the names are in small capitals.
It was at first intended that this History should be limited to
William Black's descendants; but the work is enlarged by notice of many
of the first emigrants from Yorkshire and their families, and also of
Loyalists from the United States, and others from the British Colonies,
as then existing, to whom were granted large tracts of land.
The work lays no claim to literary merit, the object being to give
concise statements of facts.
The record is brought down to 1883.
The persons to whom the writer is indebted for assistance in the work
are too numerous to mention; but he desires to express special
obligations to R. B. C. Weldon, Esq., of Boundary Creek, Westmorland
County, Rufus S. Purdy, Esq., of Wentworth, and S. Hiram Trueman, of
P.E. Island.
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