The Friends of the Loyalist Collection at Brock University is a Registered Charitable Organization whose mandate is to establish a collection of original United Empire Loyalist Documents on microfilm.

The United Empire Loyalists did not have their history written as it occurred. The only written records that exist are the documents that were created as they administered the Government of the Day such as, Government Correspondence, Military Orders, Regimental Muster Rolls, and Land Grant Records. The majority of these original documents are held in the Public Record Office in the United Kingdom, with some in the National Archives in Ottawa.

We estimate that the total collection will be approximately 1500 rolls of microfilm, and it will be an ongoing project to raise the funds to acquire these films through donations from interested individuals and groups (Click here for more), and through fund raising projects undertaken by the Friends of the Loyalist Collection at Brock.

A very successful fund raiser has been the sale of “An Annotated Nominal Roll of Butlers Rangers.”

Brock University, in the heart of Niagara where so many Loyalists settled, is a natural repository for such a collection. The collection is housed in the James A. Gibson Library’s Special Collections.

 

Purpose of the Collection

We are confident that this collection will encourage academic interest, and lead to papers, books, thesis, magazine articles and such on the United Empire Loyalist period in Canadian history. It is readily available to students, scholars, historians, genealogists, authors and the public if they are interested. This is a huge undertaking, but the benefits will contribute to a better understanding of our Loyalist Forefathers, and what they endured to establish this great land of Canada. Most North Americans have little or no knowledge of their origins, or the hardships that their forefathers suffered so that we can live with the British system of democratic Government that we enjoy. This collection will ultimately benefit every Canadian, they will have a better understanding of the origins of our country, and that is important, not only for those of us who were born here, but also for the many multi-cultural immigrants who make up our population today. A complete inventory of the Loyalist Collection is available in a printable format: click here.

 

 

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