The former Collins' Inn in East Alburg, run by the Bremmer family in 1896. Now a quiet residential area on Lake Champlain that shows little sign of its resort status at the turn
of the last century!
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12 SEP 2008
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During the summer months I enjoy travelling around Eastern Ontario, the Eastern Townships of Quebec and the bordering northern US states looking for those elusive Bremner families
that came to the New World in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
This year I found a Bremmer (sic) family in Alburg, Vermont, just south of the Canadian border and Eastern Townships of Quebec.
There is no doubt that the family originated in Scotland, and was probably "Bremner" before their arrival in North America.
This is very much a work in progress, and I thank David Bell, the Alburg, Vermont historian for his help and expertise in supplying local information on the family.
As many of you already know, those Scots that left their homeland between 1745 and 1770 are very difficult to trace. Many were caught up in the American Revolutionary
War in the years beginning in 1776. Some Loyalists were fortunate to have been awarded land grants in Lower Canada after that conflict.
See details on this Bremner branch that settled first in Vermont and then moved westward
to Wisconsin, Minnesota, Idaho and Oregon. There was a large contingent of this family in Portage County, Wisconsin from the 1860s onward
through to at least as late as the 1950s.
At this writing, I'm still looking for a definite connection with this group to what I believe to be Morayshire antecedents.
So far I have had no contact from anyone who claims this family as their own, but I have great confidence that the internet and Google will eventually turn up
a descendant with the fabled family bible that tells all!
Tracing the Bremmer/Brimmer spellings in the United States turns up a huge number of German and Dutch families, and sifting
through those genealogies to find the Scots emigrants is a time-consuming process! Having said that, there is a Brimmer family genealogy
in that same area of Quebec that is NOT part of the Scottish Bremner family... they are Dutch Lutherans that came from Rensselaer, New York.
View that non-Scottish Brimmer genealogy...
So often research is more a matter of elimination than of inclusion!
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11 SEP 2008
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Many of my loyal readers check the brebner.com pages regularly to see what new information I have turned up. During the summer months I spend as much
time outside as possible with a number of activities both competing with and related to my real job in photography and video production,
and it may appear that the web-site lies dormant during that time. Not so! While I admit to falling behind in adding gravestone and personal photographs
during the all-too short Canadian summer, I update the databases and family genealogies on a monthly basis.
Your submissions will eventually be added, and I appreciate all information that is sent. Unfortunately, until I retire (perhaps in 2040!)
that information usually has to wait until the winter months to be added to the site.
While I have no intention (or time!) of adding a regular "blog" to the site, I will be making periodic comments that will appear in this "What's New" section
of the site to keep all my fellow Brebner/Bremner genealogists up to date with any new discoveries.
It seems that every day there are new web sites on-line that have a wealth of index information.
I update the BMD data and census information regularly on my pages from any new information that comes on-line.
If you find a new web source that has Brebner/Bremner data, please drop me an e-mail and let me know!
Please keep this "What's New" page bookmarked to read my most recent comments about the progress of ongoing research.
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New Register House, Edinburgh (May 2008)