The New Brunswick Damerys

So who is Greg, whose treasure trove filled the last two posts, and where does his branch fit?

His people are the Canadian Damerys. By family account they were around Boston early, part of an American colony of the name going back, it is said, to the seventeenth century, and came north to New Brunswick as Loyalists around 1783, when Saint John was settled. There they did very well in the lumber trade on the St. John River, well enough for a timber baron's house on an old strip farm, until, as Greg puts it, the money went with the coming of the metal ships after 1865. His father's aunt lived past a hundred.

One detail I love: a great-uncle of Greg's fought in the First World War in the Champagne country of France, in or near one of the villages that carry the name Damery. A Canadian Damery, whose people had left Europe generations before, sent back to fight within sight of the name on a signpost.

And a detail for the researchers among us: there is also a tiny Damery in England, a hamlet in Gloucestershire, by an old castle mound above the Little Avon. That corner of Gloucestershire is exactly where our own research keeps pointing when we ask where the Bandon Damerys came from before Ireland. No proof yet, the brick wall stands, but the map, at least, is on our side.

Greg's line now has its own section on The branches worldwide, and when his generations arrive it will join the One Tree as a branch of its own. If you are a Damery (any spelling) with photographs, papers, or family stories, from Canada, Boston, or anywhere else, I would love to hear from you. This is how the tree grows.