Descendants of Hudson Bay Company
employees pioneer settlers, lighthouse
keepers and their 'country wives',
on Vancouver & Gulf Islands of British Columbia dominant surnames connected to this line of research are:
Brûlé, Poirier, McFadden, Stephens, Michelsen, French, Brooks, Brown, Goudie,
which make for a fairly good representation of various nations
throughout the world.
for their unselfish sharing of their own research and their
To protect privacy
information about living individuals, except
for their name and family links, has been excluded.
One of the problems of searching the native families
is that they didn't always use the same name and the clergy didn't always record the name the same way each time. Hence Barra is
sometimes Barry, Berra, Burra etc.
Fur trade society developed its own marriage rite, marriage à la façon du pays
(after the custom of the country), which combined both First Nations and European marriage customs.
During the 1800s and into well into the 1900s,
there was social stigma attached to anyone with Native ancestry. A prime
example of the sentiment of the time is contained in a letter found at the BC
Archives (MS 0182 - Yale or Reel # A01658). It's referenced as 'no
11,' a letter to James Murray Yale from a friend, Mary Julia Mechtler. On
page 2, she writes:
"Continue to keep your
good resolutions of not taking an Indian wife, on account of yourself as well
as of the dreadful fate that generally awaits the Bois Brule offspring of such
a connection. Reflect what every man owes himself. What apology
can a white man make to his children for mixing and polluting his pure blood
with that of a savage. How dare such a person pretend to principle and
feeling! Fie upon him for a selfish monster! I hope, my dear
James, you will never have such a reproach to make to your conscience."