The Wrights of Bedeque, Prince Edward Island–A Genealogy Written by Doris Muncey Haslam

With the recent reopening of the Library of Congress comes the opportunity to catch up on my backlogged list of genealogical and historical texts that are out of print but have not been digitized. One such book is the two volume The Wrights of Bedeque, Prince Edward Island, a Loyalist Family is the definitive source on our Wright ancestry back to our 5th great grandfather William Wright.

We have previously cited the work of Doris Muncey Haslam, a distant cousin also descended from William Wright. William’s full story, provided below, does not contain any new revelations. In particular, Haslam did not determine the origins of the Wright family in America prior to being expelled to Prince Edward Island at the end of the Revolution. (There are other sources which may shed light on this, which we will describe in future posts.)

Haslam’s description of 4th great grandfather Nathaniel Wright also does not significantly differ from previously discovered writings.

3rd great grandfather Lewis Wright is the first of our ancestors to be born on the island. We now have a picture of him (and his second wife, who was not our ancestor), as well as a reference to the shipwreck of our 3rd great grandmother, Nancy Sloane, en route to North America (another in the long list of incidents that nearly precluded our future existence).

The description of 2nd great grandparents John Nelson and Eliza Marshall Wright provides new information on the family’s decision to return to the United States in the 1880s, although the family’s residence in Groton, Connecticut prior to coming to Brooklyn is not mentioned.

The genealogy continues with descriptions of our great grandmother, Laura Wright, her sister Winifred, and our grandmother Ruth.

Haslam’s book was published relatively recently, in 1978. As such, it is the first of the many genealogies I have reviewed that continues all the way down to our generation.

The preface to Haslam’s book includes a description of the process she used to compile the information. Typical of the processes used for these books, she had inherited and accumulated information on the family roots, refining it over many years. She then distributed questionnaires to widely-scattered descendants, asking them to fill out the branches of the family tree. It surely was our grandfather and/or grandmother who provided information for us–our grandfather, being the genealogy enthusiast, probably did much of the work. (Further evidence of their involvement comes from the description of their visit to Yorkshire, given in the section of Eliza Wright, shown above.) Mom does not remember any references to this being done during the 1970s.

Completing the cycle are the descriptions of our uncles and cousins. (Details on our distant cousins in the Norfolk region are also published, at a similar level of detail.)