Events & Dates

Special Dates of Note
 

Up-Coming Meetings & Events for Kawartha Branch:


Kawartha Branch Meeting: Sunday, Feb. 18, 2024 (via Zoom)

Jane Simpson, author of Soldier, Settler, Sinner: The Remarkable Life of Charles MacDonald, will present her latest book, Shades of Allegiance: Hidden Loyalties of the Giraud/Gerow Family in the American Revolution.

Five years of research have uncovered her relatives' exciting story, as well as their roles in the American Revolution. Jane's book is an amalgam of real people, real events, and real locations told in a literary fashion. Attendees whose ancestors lived through these perilous times may appreciate exploring the day-to-day exigencies that affected the Gerow family, and possibly affected their own. This family saga opens as Daniel Giraud, a Huguenot, escapes the French king's clutches in the 1690's, in the southwest of France. Fleeing to New York City; he, his wife, and small child seek safety and religious freedom. The family joins other Huguenots on Long Island Sound. Now grown, his son persuades him to move north in Westchester County to become a tenant-farmer of the land-owning Van Cortlandt family. Hard work is rewarded by prosperity. Years later, the grandson and inheritor, Daniel Gerow, serves in the Westchester militia in both the French and Indian War, and in the American Revolution.

Life for Daniel and his family becomes one of chance and fate as Cortlandt Manor becomes a nucleus for both Revolutionaries and the British Army. Gerow family members perish or are exiled in the conflict. The author weaves fact and fiction as she traces her family's history as tensions rise through the intricacies of deceit, loyalty, and dangers of the American Revolution.

Books may be ordered from www.turtlepointbooks.com.

Our Kawartha Branch President – Ken Spry, UE – and his sister – Patricia (Trish) Staples, UE – are direct descendants of Captain Isaac Gerow, UE. You can find a little more information about him, such as his proven descendants, in the Loyalist Directory on the UELAC.ca Dominion website.

Contact Bob McBride by email to request the Zoom registration link.