The IP-SIG ran a very successful bus tour in September 2018 with participants from Canada, the United States, England and Ireland. Below is the call for interest describing the itinerary.
Tour participants will find tour materials (photos, handouts and text of talks given on the bus) on a password-protected page.
The Irish Palatine Special Interest Group of the Ontario Genealogical Society is pleased to announce a new tour, to take place September 13 – 23, 2018. We are again travelling with the Great Canadian tour bus company who did such a fabulous job for us in 2013. We will travel in a comfortable highway coach (toilet included), and we will once again have the assistance of an on-board tour coordinator with concierge service at each hotel for our baggage.
The “In the Footsteps of our Irish Palatine Ancestors Tour” attempts to bridge the gap between the Irish Palatine Association’s 2009 Tercentennary Tour in Ireland and our 2013 “Irish Palatines in Ontario Tour.” We will be following the footsteps of the Irish Palatines who left Ireland in 1760 to go to the New World, settling in New York City and then the Camden Valley, only to have their lives turned upside down once more when the American Revolution broke out in 1776. We will follow the men who fought for the British and who then had to flee to Quebec when Burgoyne was defeated, followed later by their families. We’ll also briefly explore some later Irish Palatine settlements in Quebec.
This circle tour will start and end Montreal, Quebec, Canada. We will travel and stay in the following locations: Montreal (one night stay), New York City (two nights), Saratoga Springs, NY (three nights), St-Ignace-de-Stanbridge, Quebec (two nights), Quebec City (one night), ending up back in Montreal (one night).
All breakfasts and dinners are included in the cost of the tour, as are six of the lunches.
The itinerary includes the following (subject to modification):
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- Historic Odelltown church near Montreal, site of an 1838 American invasion
- Step-on Guided Tour of New York City
- 9/11 Museum and other sites in Lower Manhattan
- Broadway or off-Broadway show
- John Street United Methodist Church (the first Methodist Church in America), with a chance to view its museum
- Dinner with the Palatines to America New York Chapter (comprised of descendants of the Germans who left the Palatinate with our ancestors in 1709, but who went directly to the New World, without the benefit of a generational stop in Ireland!)
- Camden Valley, including the Embury and Heck properties, the Moravian Burying Ground (Philip Embury’s first resting place), Ashgrove (his second), Woodlands Cemetery (his third and final!), and the Embury Church in Cambridge, New York
- Bennington, Vermont, including the museum with its famous Grandma Moses collection
- Revolutionary Bennington and Saratoga battlefields, with the help of an historical interpreter
- Schuylerville and “The Surrender Tree,” where Burgoyne surrendered to the rebels
- Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point (where the IP men joined the British forces)
- Philipsburg and St. Armand cemeteries and churches in Quebec
- Domaine du Ridge Wine Tour
- Mississquoi Museum
- Old Quebec City
- Grosse Isle, Canada’s quarantine station, where many new immigrants died
- St. James United Church and the historic old town in Montreal
The Irish Palatine Special Interest Group is working hard to include as much Irish Palatine content as possible as we follow in the footsteps of our ancestors.