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The Barry sisters trace their family history

Sharon Seward of Kimberley, and her sisters, Linda Trask and Brenda Borden, daughters of Donna and Don Barry, embarked on a search for their ancestors recently, and it took them all the way back ten generations, to one of the founding families of Nova Scotia.
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The Barry sisters at the monument in Lunenburg.

Sharon Seward of Kimberley, and her sisters, Linda Trask and Brenda Borden, daughters of Donna and Don Barry, embarked on a search for their ancestors recently, and it took them all the way back ten generations, to one of the founding families of Nova Scotia.

“I was just interested in our family history,” Seward said. “And we found so much more.”

This past summer, Seward and her sisters travelled to Nova Scotia and found the name of their ancestor Jean Urban Jeanperrin engraved on a monument on Blockhouse Hill in Lunenburg. The monument honours the people of Montbeliard, France who left that town n 1752 to begin a new life in Canada.

Jean Urban Jeanperrin and his wife Jeanne travelled from Montbeliard in the French Alps to Rotterdam to board the ship Speedwell. Referred to as Foreign Protestants, they were fleeing religious persecution and serfdom.

The arduous crossing to Nova Scotia took 72 days, and one in ten died on the trip.

The Speedwell was a British ship. The British were trying to attract reliable settlers to their North American lands.

The Jeanperrins arrived in Halifax to find that there was nothing at all prepared for them, and no one had any idea where to send them. Crude, temporary barracks were built on George’s Island in Halifax Harbour to house them. The first winter was harsh and the lodgings offered little protection. One in six died over the winter.

By the spring of 1753, a plan had been decided upon. The British decided to create a new settlement, and Jean Jeanperrin was on the first ship that sailed down the coast to start the town of Lunenburg. This followed the expulsion of a small settlement of Acadians and Mi’kmaq from the area.

Jeanperrin was granted a 40 by 60 foot plot of land and enough supplies to build small house in what was intended to be the town centre. Settlers were supposed to receive 700 board feet of lumber, 500 bricks and an appropriate number of nails. They only received 500 board feet of lumber and 250 nails. It’s not clear if the bricks were received.

At this point, the English, French and Mi’kmaq were all fighting for the land. The English plan to have the settlers self-sufficient within a year was difficult to achieve. However, if they succeeded and cleared their land, they were granted a larger plot. Records show that Jean Jeanperrin was granted 300 acres and an additional 330 acres as time went on.

As time went on the name Perrin (pronounced PaRRay) was changed to Barry because of a misunderstanding by military officials and by 1827, the name Perrin was completely deleted.

“Our journey took us though Halifax, Mahone Bay to Lunenburg,” Seward said. “Our known family history was enhanced by information from the Mahone Bay Museum and the Lunenburg Geneological Society. We were then able to locate all four properties: the town plot on Cumberland Street in Old Lunenburg, the 30 acre plot on First Peninsula, Lunenburg, the 300 acre homestead, north of Blockhouse, and the 330 acres on Barry’s Corner in Maitland.

“We found that because Jeanperrin arrived in 1752 to Halifax, we are considered “a founding family of Nova Scotia”. The journey and the search were both humbling and rewarding.”



Carolyn Grant

About the Author: Carolyn Grant

I have been with the Kimberley Bulletin since 2001 and have enjoyed every moment of it.
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