New Loyalist Migrations map

A new initiative called Loyalist Migrations is plotting the journeys of thousands of migrants, exiles, and refugees, who were displaced by the American Revolution.

The web-based project is a collaborative venture between Huron University College History professor Timothy J. Compeau, Western Libraries GIS Specialist Liz Sutherland, Huron Centre for Community History students, and the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada (UELAC).

The multi-year project will bring together students, historians, public researchers, and genealogists.

The UELAC’s directory of more than 9,000 families who left the United States at the end of the American Revolution, compiled by family researchers over the decades, provides the foundation for the interactive map. The Loyalist directory entries will be cross referenced and expanded with more information gleaned from archival sources as the project is developed.

The project team is also working on plotting the names and information from the Book of Negroes, the Loyalist Claims Commission records, and other archival sources.

In an article for Borealia, Professor Compeau writes, “Each line on the map represents an individual or a family, and a mouse click will reveal a small snippet of lives turned upside-down by the conflict.”

Loyalist Migrations is in the very early stage. So far, only a small fraction of the journeys have been plotted, but more will be added on a regular basis.

The best way to explore the project is probably to look at the databases on the home page.

Requests accepted
Anyone who has a specific loyalist family they’d like mapped can submit a request that the family be added to the map by offering details about the lives of the family members. 

Professor Compeau’s doctoral thesis, Dishonoured Americans: Loyalist Manhood and Political Death in Revolutionary America, is available to read on Western University’s website. Once on the page, click on the thesis title to open the document.