by Gary McWilliams
aka "The Festival Nomad"
My mother was a first generation Canadian. She came to Canada, with her mother, when she was only four. They were from Liverpool, England (you know, where the Beatles were from) and traveled here on a ship, fortunately not the Titanic, and eventually landed in Toronto. This is where her father had arrived two years before. He had come to start a new life for himself and his family. This was not the case for my father. His family was of pioneer stock! His father’s family was from the Peterborough area, the Village of Lakefield, in fact, while his mother's family was from the Cobourg area, the little Hamlet of Baltimore. I knew these facts only because father's sister had done a fair amount of research about the McWilliams family. My father, being the youngest child of a large family, eventually inherited these findings. I never did read the family “scrapbook” thoroughly, but I did remember the facts mentioned above. Years after first reading the family history, Judi and I ended up moving to Lakefield. This was an interesting coincidence, but I never really thought much about it. This is, until I met another “McWilliams”! His name was Dan McWilliams and he and his brothers owned a large Peterborough moving company. After we had talked, we determined that we were not related, but he told me that he had been researching his own ancestry and had found my family's ancestral home in Lakefield! This got me to thinking more about the Lakefield “McWilliams”. Apparently we had been carriage makers in the mid 1800’s and had done quite well. I believe that my grandfather, at one time, taught at the Peterborough High School. He eventually moved his family to Toronto and started an insurance agency. This was the start of a long line of “McWilliams” insurance agents (now brokers). My daughter, Ainsley, is still in the business and is now fifth generation insurance! Fifth, because my mother's grandfather and grandmother had both been insurance agents in England. That, however, is another story. Life moved on, and Judi and I eventually moved from Lakefield and then, a few years later we ended up in Cobourg, talk about co-incidences!
(To Be Continued)
