Loyalist Migrations aims to visualize the migrations of thousands of individuals, free and enslaved, wealthy and poor, who left the United States during and after the American Revolution. This is a multi-year project that will bring together students, historians, public researchers, and genealogists to plot the journeys of thousands of Loyalist families.
This project began through conversations with the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada (UELAC). The UELAC provided funding for Huron University College’s Community Research Fellowship Program and shared their directory of thousands of loyalist settlers compiled by family researchers over the decades. The directory is an amazing resource and testament to the abilities of citizen historians and loyalist descendants to preserve their history. Loyalist Migrations could not exist without the UELAC’s generous support.
The Loyalist Directory entries will be cross referenced and expanded with more information gleaned from archival sources as we develop the project. We are also working on plotting the names and information from the Book of Negroes, the Loyalist Claims Commission records, and scores of other archival sources.
Only a small fraction of the journeys have been plotted so far, so check back regularly to follow our progress.
Our hope is that Loyalist Migrations will become a resource for genealogists, historians, and other academics. By plotting these individual journeys, we hope to demonstrate the scope and diversity of the migrations for public audiences and, in the years to come, provide new research and analysis based on this collection of data.