Prince Edward Island Cultural Groups

Library and Archives Canada
First of all, realize that members of different ethnicities, nationalities, and cultures are recorded in all the major record groups used for genealogy in Prince Edward Island. For some groups additional specific records were created by the government and churches. For many groups, information has been published by interested authors detailing their histories and identities. For each group below, in addition to a brief history, there is a link to an article prepared by the Library and Archives Canada detailing available records and publications.
 * Ethno-Cultural Groups

According to the 2016 Canadian Census of the 139,690 people who self-identified with an ethnic origin, 98,615 were of European origins and 85,145 chose British Isles Origins. The largest ethnic group consists of people of Scottish descent (36%), followed by English (29%), Irish (28%), French (21%), German (5%), and Dutch (3%) descent. Prince Edward Island's population is largely white; there are few visible minorities.

Acadians

 * Acadian Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Généalogie Acadienne Database--Search Engine The biggest Acadian genealogy database. More than 800,000 individuals are available.
 * 1757-1946 - Acadia, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1757-1946], index and images, ($). List of Acadian parish registers in the Drouin collection
 * GenealogyQuebec.com, the Drouin Instiute’s genealogical research website, offers two research tools dedicated to Acadian genealogy. ($)
 * The Drouin Collection Database, a collection of parish registers (baptisms, marriages and burials) from Quebec, Acadia, as well as parts of Ontario, New Brunswick and the United States. The collection also contains Acadian censuses from 1673 to 1784. ($)
 * The Acadia Families Tool This tool contains family files based on the Acadian parish records mentioned above. In total, the tool contains 96,000 family files from 1621 to 1849 and is equipped with a search engine which allows searches by last name, first name, date and parish. In addition, the original records are attached to the family files, allowing the information contained in them to be viewed and verified.($)

The term "Acadians" refers to immigrants from France in the early 1600s who settled in the colony of Acadia, in what are now the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

The colonization of Acadia by the French started in 1604 at Port-Royal. In the 1630s, about 20 families came from the Loudunais area. Steadily, the population grew and the territory expanded to include Nova Scotia, Cape-Breton Island, New-Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. With the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Acadia was given away to Great Britain.

Due to the threat of a new war in America, about 10,000 Acadians were made prisoners and were deported to the American colonies, Great Britain and France. By 1764, the Acadians were allowed to return on condition of dispersing themselves over the territory and swearing their loyalty to the British Crown. Some returned to the province of Quebec, particularly in the area of Yamachiche and L'Acadie.

Black Canadians
There has been a steady stream of migration of Black people into Canada via Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States since the 17th century. The first recorded Black person to arrive in Canada was an African named Mathieu de Coste who arrived in 1608 to serve as interpreter of the Mi'kmaq language to the governor of Acadia. A few thousand Africans arrived in Canada in the 17th and 18th centuries as slaves. After the American Revolution, the British gave passage to over 3000 slaves and free Blacks who had remained loyal to the Crown. These Black Loyalists joined the many other United Empire Loyalists in settlements across the Maritime Provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Other Black slaves joined their Loyalist slave owners when they migrated to Canada.
 * Black History in Canada Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Wikipedia: Black Canadians
 * Immigrants to Canada, Porters and Domestics, 1899-1949 Database
 * Slave Life and Slave Law in Colonial Prince Edward Island, 1769-1825

First Nations

 * First Nations Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.

Irish Immigrants

 * Irish Genealogy and Family History Library and Archives Canada.
 * Exiles and Islanders : the Irish settlers of Prince Edward Island WorldCat
 * Prince Edward Island, at Irish to Canada
 * ATLANTIC CANADA'S IRISH IMMIGRANTS : a fish and timber story--WorldCat Family History Library

With its semi-feudal land system Prince Edward Island was less appealing than the other provinces. While settlers could acquire leaseholds from landlords, they could not easily purchase land, causing many Irish to bypass it all together or to eventually leave. As a result, the island became a well-trodden staging post for people seeking onward settlement in other parts of the Maritimes. Situated opposite New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and within easy reach of Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island occupies a strategic location in the Gulf of St Lawrence. Shipping routes, used to transport goods, also served Irish fishery workers in Newfoundland who moved to Prince Edward Island from the late eighteenth century to take up farming or better-paid jobs. They were Catholics who had mainly originated from counties Wexford, Waterford, Carlow, Kilkenny and Tipperary in the south east of Ireland. Later on, many of the Irish, who had settled in Prince Edward Island, were driven by similar motives of self-betterment. They hopped on vessels that regularly crossed to the Miramichi region of New Brunswick. Thus, the island effectively became a crossroads for Irish people who, either arrived from Newfoundland, or went on to New Brunswick to benefit from its timber trade. The situation changed in the 1830s when a Catholic priest organized the departures of over 2,000 Irish people, originating mainly from County Monaghan, who were then residing in Glasgow.

Taking pity on the many poor Irish people who were living in Glasgow, Father MacDonald organized their departures to the island. They mainly settled in central Queens County and along the boundaries between Queens and Prince Counties and Queens and Kings Counties, these being the areas where they could most easily find sufficient land to form their communities.

Jewish Immmigrations

 * Index of Jews Resident in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island according to the 1861 to 1901 Censuses of Canada, WorldCat
 * Jews of Atlantic Canada WorldCat
 * Jewish Immigrants Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.
 * Canadian Jewish Heritage Network
 * JewishGen Canada Database

Like many an Atlantic Maritime Jewish community, the first recorded Jewish settlers on Prince Edward Island arrived at the turn of the 20th century. There were approximately a dozen other Jewish families who operated businesses for various, briefer periods before World War II and the number of Jews increased temporarily during the war when the Air Training Station was active. The significant majority of the members of the Prince Edward Island Jewish community of today arrived in the 1970s or later.

Loyalists

 * The Abegweit Branch, U.E.L. Assn. and PEI Muster Rolls - 1784
 * The Abegweit Branch is the local branch of the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada on Prince Edward Island. The Abegweit Branch, has existed for many years, meeting 4 times annually, and is looking for new members to carry on the traditions of the association, and to help us remember our UEL ancestors.

Loyalists were American colonists who stayed loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolutionary War, often referred to as Tories, Royalists, or King's Men at the time. When their cause was defeated, about 15 percent of the Loyalists (65,000–70,000 people) fled to other parts of the British Empire, to Britain itself, or to British North America (now Canada). The southern Loyalists moved mostly to Florida, which had remained loyal to the Crown, and to British Caribbean possessions. Northern Loyalists largely migrated to Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. They called themselves United Empire Loyalists. Most were compensated with Canadian land or British cash distributed through formal claims procedures. Historian Maya Jasanoff calculates about 2,000 went to Prince Edward Island.

During and after the American Revolutionary War, from 1776 to 1783, the colony's efforts to attract exiled Loyalist refugees from the rebellious American colonies met with some success. Walter Patterson's brother, John Patterson, one of the original grantees of land on the island, was a temporarily exiled Loyalist and led efforts to persuade others to come. Governor Patterson dismissal in 1787, and his recall to London in 1789 dampened his brother's efforts, leading John to focus on his interests in the United States. Edmund Fanning, also a Loyalist exiled by the Revolution, took over as the second governor, serving until 1804. His tenure was more successful than Patterson's.

Scottish Immigrants

 * Scottish Immigrants Genealogy Resources Library and Archives Canada.

Scots began arriving to Canada as early as the early seventeenth century. Sir William Alexander obtained permission from King James I to establish a Scottish settlement in 1622 named New Scotland or Nova Scotia. (Prince Edward Island was initially part of Nova Scotia.) The colony failed to flourish, however, and few families settled in Canada before the British conquest in 1759. The majority of these early Scottish settlers were Roman Catholics seeking political and religious refuge, fur traders with the Hudson's Bay Company, merchants and disbanded soldiers.

After this early period there were also a number of Highland farmers who emigrated from Scotland after being ejected from their land to make way for sheep grazing. The primary destinations for these early settlers were agricultural communities in Upper Lord Selkirk also settled over 800 Scottish migrants in Prince Edward Island in 1803.

A large influx of Scottish Highlanders in the late 1700s also resulted in St. John's Island having the highest proportion of Scottish immigrants in Canada. This led to a higher proportion of Scottish Gaelic speakers and thriving culture surviving on the island than in Scotland itself, as the settlers could more easily avoid English influence overseas.