You really, REALLY never know where you're going to make a connection!

Question

So I'm still working outward from William Wilberforce. I mentioned earlier that I had managed to connect William to his great great grandson Richard Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce. It turns out that Richard's autobiography is available through Google Books, which has helped a lot in building out his tree. (Feel free to join in, by the way. I really need to get back to my own family.)

So I followed Richard's biography up to John Sheepshanks, Bishop of Norwich. He's also listed in Wikipedia, albeit with little more than a stub. It turns out that when John was 25, he was sent out to the wilds of British Columbia as a missionary. He founded what is now Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Westminster, and spent a good bit of time in my old stomping grounds. According to one source, he dined aboard the HMS Plumper, which was the ship which did a hydrographic survey of Howe Sound. The Plumper's captain, George Henry Richards, named Keats Island, where I spent my summers as a child. (Although, at the time of the mention of Sheepshanks and the Plumper, the Captain was Anthony Hoskins.) And, to bring things even closer to home, John Sheepshanks visited Niagara Falls after leaving New Westminster.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at finding these odd little links with the people I'm researching, but I still am.

Greg

Comments

Really enjoyed reading your narrative and further. Now I know more about the Pig War and the sea monster sighting by the Plumper too.

Answer 1

I've managed to visit all 50 US states but only four Canadian Provinces, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.  Also 6 countries out the US for a day or more..  But since the US seems unlikely to add a new state soon, I probably won't have a 51st state to visit in my lifetime. BTW, speaking about Niagara Falls, I had a great grandfather who suttled back and forth from central Ohio to Niagara Falls.  He worked in paper mills and even owned one for a while until he started hitting the bottle.  His father also worked in papermills in Scotland, Ireland and the US.