The Kings
Stan + Eileen King
The King-Wem Clan
6 children
15 grandchildren
37 great-grandchildren
Kings-Wems + Hendersons-Thomsons + Gurnetts-Hewitts + Lyons + Letts (and more!)
This website contains thousands of names, hundreds of lifetimes, and a whole swackload of places, dates, events, and question marks composing the epic and intriguingly entwined histories of the King and Gurnett families. Trace our lineage backwards through time and around the world, including in Canada, the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, and beyond.
In these pages, you'll find some of the wildest stories ever -- I'm looking at you, Charles Randle! -- and wildest monikers -- I'm looking at you, Bathsheba Rogers! Although I've put this together mainly for my kids and our extended family, all are of course welcome! Anyways, we're probably related somehow!
In case you are wondering where to start... If you don't have a specific person you want to look up in the Search box, you can always just start from one of the four grandparents, whose respective clans are listed below:
I’ve done a lot of research into different branches of my kids' family trees over the years, and I’m glad to finally have a place that I can put stuff to share with our extended family and anyone else who might be interested.
Peace,
Jeff
We'll be updating this space from time to time with stories of folks from the King-Gurnett family tree. This is a post originally published on Jeff's history blog.
My great-grandfather David Thomson was quite the man, I’m told. He was born on the Isle of Skye in Scotland in 1895. Harold McCullagh wrote a book about him, which was published in 1978: The Man Who Made New Brunswick Sing. His legacy popped up in all sorts of ways over the course of my childhood. I remember that we had a music teacher in elementary school who told us to pronounce "r" like "ah" in order to make the music sound more melodious. My mom countered that her grandfather — the man who had made New Brunswick sing — had always said, "You should just sing like you talk." I prefer his way of doing it.
This post is only partially about David Thomson. I expect a future post will dig into his life story in more detail. There’s a lot there. In the meantime, his biography is available online. Rather, I’d like to focus on his interesting extended family and, especially, two of his uncles: the Scottish composer, Sir Hugh Roberton, and the Scottish poet, William Thomson, who died at the tender age of 22, but not before being recognized as a potential and exciting new voice in Scottish poetry.
6 children
15 grandchildren
37 great-grandchildren
5 children
18 grandchildren
20 great-grandchildren
1 great-great-grandchild
14 children
55 grandchildren
99 great-grandchildren
5 children
16 grandchildren
43 great-grandchildren
Captain Joshua Barnes, Jeff's 6th-great-grandpa, was a United Empire Loyalist who appears to have fought alongside that famous turncoat, Benedict Arnold.
Barnes himself was morally murky. During the battle of Fort Montgomery, Barnes apparently told his men not to charge with the other groups, saving their lives but also endangering the lives of many others. He was eventually charged with cowardice. There’s a transcript of the trial. He was acquitted of both cowardice and stealing leather breeches from the rebel army. Reading the transcripts, it’s hard to understand how he could have been acquitted, though.
Colin Henderson, Jeff's great-grandfather's uncle, was one of 6 men charged following an occupation on the Isle of Tiree in August 1886. This contemporary article describes him:
"Colin Henderson, the man who was apprehended, expressed a desire which he pressed with some persistency, to be allowed to go home to change his clothes; but he was informed the clothes would be sent in the evening by his friends to the place of his confinement."
If you notice any errors, let me know! There are probably quite a few, but I'd love to get this as accurate as possible.