Robert Wilkinson: A Loyalist or Not?

In my past post, "When is a Wilkerson a Wilkinson?" I was dealing with the Wilkerson/Wilkinson family that settled in the Township of Thorold in Niagara District, Upper Canada. My interest in this family is due my aunt's husband asking me to see if the family story of being a descendant of Loyalist that served in Colonel John Butler's Rangers is true. The good thing is yes, it is true and my aunt's husband is a descendant of the Loyalist Lt. Jacob Ball (the Elder). Before anyone asks, the paperwork for the certificate application is in progress with a draft that needs to be reviewed by my aunt's husband before my final check.

Yet I didn't stop there. I was curious as to if any other of my aunt's husband's lines were also descended from Loyalists. One interesting possibility popped up and that is Robert Wilkerson, the son of Robert Wilkinson, who married the granddaughter of the United Empire Loyalist Lt. Jacob Ball (the Elder).

The starting point anytime I look for a Loyalist connection is the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada web site. On that site there is a Directory of Loyalists and, if known, that lists indicates whether the person is "proven" or "expunged". A search of that directory results in finding a Robert Wilkerson listed:

Wilkerson	Robert			Proven		Detail
Wilkie	James				Muster Table HMS "Clinton", Document # ADM 36/9966 Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England. Copied by Frank Davis, transcribed by Mette Griffin	Detail
Wilkins	Andrew		Charlotte Co., NB		NYGBS; V40 N2 Apr 1909	Detail
Wilkins	Isaac		Home District		UEL List	Detail
Wilkins	Martin		Home District		UEL List	Detail
Wilkins	Robert	Serj't	Midland District	Expunged	UEL List	Detail
Wilkins	Robert			Proven		Detail
Wilkinsen	Will'm				Muster Table HMS "Clinton", Document # ADM 36/9966 Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England. Copied by Frank Davis, transcribed by Mette Griffin	Detail
Wilkinson	John				Muster Table HMS "Clinton", Document # ADM 36/9966 Public Record Office, Kew, Surrey, England. Copied by Frank Davis, transcribed by Mette Griffin	Detail
Wilkinson	Rich'd	Capt.	Eastern District		UEL List	Detail

United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada, Directory of Loyalists, database (http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info/loyalist_list.php: 8 Sep 2014), Robert Wilkerson entry.

Since I know there are several spelling variations of the name I also make note of other potential Loyalists such as the Robert Wilkins that is listed as "Proven".

Clicking on the Detail link for Robert Wilkerson brings up the recorded details:

Surname :	Wilkerson
Given name :	Robert
Rank :
Where Resettled :
Status as Loyalist :	Proven
Source :
Notes (Expunged, Suspended, Reinstated) :
Regiment :
Enlistment Date :
Date & Place of Birth :
Settled before war :
Date & Place of Death :
Place of Burial :
Wife Name :
Children :
Biography :
Proven Descendants :	Col. John Butler 2010-03-29; Col. John Butler 2010-04-12;
Military Info :
Loyalist Genealogy :
Family History :
Family Genealogy :
Other Info :
Reserved :

United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada, Directory of Loyalists, database (http://www.uelac.org/Loyalist-Info/loyalist_list.php: 8 Sep 2014), Robert Wilkerson details.

There really isn't much there. However, for the Proven Descendants there are two references:

• Col. John Butler 2010-03-29
• Col. John Butler 2010-04-12

These refer to the UELAC branch and the date of approval of the certificate application. This is a great thing to find. Since I belong to UELAC and I am also doing this as part of a certificate application I sent an e-mail to my local branch genealogist asking to retrieve either one of those certificate application. He forwarded me the e-mail of the Col. John Butler branch genealogist and after a few e-mail exchanges I had a copy of the application sent to me by mail (postal mail, not e-mail).

One thing I did when asking for a copy of the application and supporting documentation was to ask that all except the first four generations from the Loyalist be redacted. That way I preserve the privacy of any living people listed yet I still have enough information that I can bridge from my records to the generation(s) that I am missing.

In the packet I received paper copies of the wills for Robert Wilkerson and his father Robert Wilkinson plus the Certificate of Family Lands and Additional Bounty with Robert Wilkinson's name on it.

Township Papers for Thorold, microfilm MS658 (Toronto, Ontario: Archives of Ontario), reel 471, no. 000144, Certificate of Family Lands and Additional Bounty for Robert Wilkinson, issued 9 Feb 1791.

Here you can read that the board has "...examined into his character and pretensions, and find that he as received two hundred Acres of land in the Township of N^o 9 in the District of Nassau as a Loyalist..."

This, interestingly enough, is the only documentation that I can find, with the exception of an entry¹ for his grandson, David Wilkerson, son of John Wilkerson, where it says "...grandson of Robert Wilkerson, a native of Pennsylvania, of German descent, who came to Canada as a U. E. Loyalist during the American revolutionary war".

Since I'm not a trusting sort when it comes to genealogy research I like to have some corroboration to statements made. To that end I've looked in the following references for any mention of Robert Wilkinson or Robert Wilkerson:

• "The Loyalists In Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of The American Loyalists Of Upper Canada" by William D. Reid
• "American Loyalist Claims (AO12)", Library and Archives Canada, Robert Wilkinson file, microfilm B-1177, volume 99, image 352. A claim reviewed in October 1783 was made but was found to be "perfectly groundless" by the examining board.
• "American Loyalist Claims (AO13)", Library and Archives Canada, Robert Wilkinson file, microfilm B-2432, volume 67, images 601-602. This is the petition made that was reviewed in October 1783.
• "British Military Records", Library and Archives Canada, RG 8, C Series.
• "Loyalist Lineages of Canada" compiled by Toronto Branch, United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada (c) 1991. Published by Toronto Branch, United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada, Toronto, Ontario.
• "Biographical sketches of loyalists of the American Revolution" by Lorenzo Sabine
• "Loyalists in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War" by Murtie June Clark

I still have several tasks to do:

• Locate the first grant mentioned in the above Certificate of Family Lands and Additional Bounty.
• Review the notes of W. G. Reive that have been placed within the collections of Library and Archives Canada. 
• Scan the shelves of the library of the Sir Guy Carleton Branch of UELAC that are held at the City of Ottawa Archives.
• Look through the Heir and Devisee digitized microfilms.

But as of yet, nothing has been found to corroborate the statement that Robert Wilkinson/Wilkerson is a Loyalist.

If you have any suggestions as to where to also look for additional evidence that Robert Wilkinson was a United Empire Loyalist I would be happy to hear from you.

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1. Historical Publishing Company, editor, The History of the County of Welland, Ontario, Its Past and Present, Containing a Condensed History of Canada; A Complete History of Welland County: Its Townships, Towns, Villages, Schools, Churches, Societies, Industries, Statistics, Etc; Portraits of Some of Its Prominent Men; Description of Its Various Historic and Interesting Localities; Miscellaneous Matter; Biographies and Histories of Pioneer Families, Etc. (Welland, Ontario: Welland Tribune Printing House, 1887), p. 488, entry for David Wilkerson.

When is a Wilkerson a Wilkinson?

One of the many challenges we can face when exploring our various family lines is coming across a surname change in one of the branches. In my case I was researching the Wilkerson line that, around the mid to late 1780s, came to what later became known as Canada. Much like most of my research I was working from the present to the past. Everything was going just fine until I came to the Robert Wilkerson that was born about 1785 and died July 21, 1843. That is when the problem began. OK, actually he wasn't the problem. It was his father or more correctly how his father spelled the family name.

On handwritten notes found in the collections of the Niagara Peninsula branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society that at the time were housed at the Thorold Public Library but are now at the St. Catharines Public Library there was comment on the Wilkerson page of "Robert Wilkinson or Wilkerson" with one of the children listed as "Robert". It just happened that on the same day I was looking at the collection another couple was also researching the same family name. Except they were coming at it from the John Wilkerson (husband of Anne Hoover) branch.

Since I am a doubting sort when it comes to documents that I have no idea as to their source or providence I could only use that note as a possible clue or guidepost. I knew I had to dig further to verify this change of surname and make sure the Wilkerson and Wilkinson families were one in the same. Since the events took place in the early history of Upper Canada and civil birth, marriage, and death registrations are non-existent I decided to use will and land records. Yes, church records are a possibility but many have been lost in this early time of Ontario and even then many don't record the names of parents when it comes to marriage records or funerals.

My first stop was the Niagara Settlers web site. This is an amazing resource for those with ancestors that settled in the Niagara Peninsula region after the American Revolution. There you will find transcriptions of land transactions and petitions along with some old township maps. There I found transcriptions under the name of Robert Wilkerson Sr. for a number of land transactions to his sons made via wills. But it this the right person since the transcription says Wilkerson and not Wilkinson? The only way to be sure is to get a copy of the wills.

From the will of Robert Wilkinson, written 12 May 1813¹

Step 1: Finding the Wills

The first thing I had to do was to find the wills in question. For that I headed over to the Archives of Ontario web site and their online "Ontario Court of Probate and Surrogate Court Records: Wills and Estate Files - A Pathfinder" document. From the clues I'd already been able to gather I know (or presumed) the following:

• Robert Wilkerson died 21 Jul 1843 [from his grave marker]
• John Wilkerson died in 1827 [from hand written notes in the Thorold library]
• Robert Wilkinson died in 1813 [from hand written notes in the Thorold library]

So it seemed that all the deaths happened before 1859 so that is a good thing for me since there are actually online indexes on the Archives of Ontario web site:

Inventory 22, Appendix A1 (Court of Probate)

• Surnames: A to G
• Surnames: H to N 
• Surnames: O to Z

Inventory 22, Appendix A25 (Surrogate Courts)

I didn't find any Wilkerson or Wilkinson names from the townships and counties in the Niagara area in the Inventory 22, Appendix A1 (Court of Probate) index but a check of Inventory 22, Appendix A25 (Surrogate Courts) had quite a number with those surnames from Lincoln county.

The next step to locate the microfilm that has the information from the Surrogate Court was to locate the records for Lincoln county. I went to the Estate files section and found that all the possible name variants for this family in Lincoln county could be found on microfilm MS 8421. That was almost too easy. Through the Ottawa Public Library I knew I could order that microfilm via the Interlibrary Loan program. The hardest part was the waiting for the microfilm to arrive ... almost 3 weeks but it finally did come in.

Step 2: Saving the Microfilm Pages

The reading of the old handwriting can be a chore and, depending on the scribbles, sometimes near impossible. Instead of attempting to do the work at the library I made use of the one and only microfilm reader with USB saving capabilities at the main branch of the library to save the pages as images. Since the pages on the microfilm reader were larger than what could be scanned in in one shot I scanned them in piecemeal (top, bottom, left, right, etc.) with the expectation of being able to stitch them together at home into a readable document.

[As an aside, whenever you scan a microfilm page make sure you scan it at the highest resolution possible and save it in TIF format. Although it makes for a huge file it will be a good thing later on when you need to zoom in or do any editing to the pages.]

Once I got home I was able to use Microsoft's free (yes, FREE!) Image Composite Editor to just drag and drop the various parts of the pages onto the edit screen and it automagically created perfectly stitched together single pages for me.

Step 3: Reading and Transcribing

This for me is always the most painful part of genealogy research. But I have found that if I don't do this, especially for long handwritten documents, I can easily lose track of what I've read and that leads to confusion. Always a bad thing when doing research. A few days later (I had to take breaks so I wouldn't go too crazy) I had the wills transcribed. By the way, the more practice you have in reading and transcribing these documents the easier it becomes.

Step 4: Analysis and Conclusion

This was the interesting part. I now had the transcriptions of the wills of the Robert Wilkinson and that of two of his sons to work from plus digital images of the wills to verify what I had transcribed (yes, sometimes I even doubt my own transcriptions).

In the will of Robert Wilkinson of the Township of Thorold, Lincoln County, Niagara District, Upper Canada dated May 12, 1813¹ he leaves the following property to his sons:

• Lot 46: to son Robert
• Lot 47: to son John
• Lot 70: one third (south end) to son Jacob, two thirds (north end) to son Robert
• Lot 93: one third (south end) to son Jacob, two thirds (north end) to son John

Previously Robert had given by deed the following lots

• Lot 92: to son Jacob

In the will of John Wilkerson² of the Township of Thorold, Lincoln County, Niagara District, Upper Canada dated August 21, 1827 he authorizes his executors to “…sell my real or landed estates and to make legal titles for the same…”. The lands in the Township of Thorold, Lincoln County, Niagara District are:

• Lot 47
• Lot 70

The will of Robert Wilkerson³ of the Township of Thorold, Lincoln County, Niagara District, Province of Canada dated July 18, 1843 has the following lands listed in the Township of Thorold, Lincoln County, Niagara District:

• Lot 46: to son Robert Morgan
• Lot 69: two thirds to son Robert Morgan

So from these documents we see that the land that Robert Wilkinson bequeathed to his sons John and Robert appear in the wills of John Wilkerson and Robert Wilkerson. In addition to the aforementioned wills, extracts⁴ from the Abstracts of Deeds taken from the Register of Thorold Township provide details concerning the early land transactions of that township. These extracts confirm that the lands stated within the various families. By following these wills we can see the surname change from Wilkinson to Wilkerson.

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1. Ontario, Estate Files (1794-1930), microfilm MS 8421, Will for Robert Wilkinson, dated 12 May 1813; Archives of Ontario, Toronto.
2. Ontario, Estate Files (1794-1930), microfilm MS 8421, Will for John Wilkinson, dated 21 Aug 1827; Archives of Ontario, Toronto.
3. Ontario, Estate Files (1794-1930), microfilm MS 8421, Will for Robert Wilkerson, dated 18 Jul 1843; Archives of Ontario, Toronto.
4. Niagara Settlers, Settler Records “W”, Thorold Township, Welland County, Extracted from the Abstracts of Deeds, Register of Thorold Township, https://sites.google.com/site/niagarasettlers2/thorold-6: 2 Sep 2014.