Descendants of Samuel Hitchman

Dear Arthur Hitchman

Thank you for your letter of Aug. 1 regarding the Hitchman genealogy. Our knowledge of the subject is very sparse.

My Father, Thomas William, was born in 1891. The birth was registered in the District of Islington subdistrict Upper Hoolway in the county of London. Birthdate was April 14, 1891 at 54 Hanley Rd. His Father was Thomas Hitchman & mother Rosina Mary. Little is known of my grandfather other than he was a Draper, was possibly born just north of London and his father's name was Sam Hitchman (possibly Samuel). He (my grandfather) had a sister & an aunt named Dorothy. They were both engaged in the drapery business, neither married & ran a dry goods store in Hastings, Sussex. My aunt died at Hastings in 1973 & her aunt sometime in the early sixties.

My Father Thomas William came to Canada in 1912 & returned with the C.E.F. 1st Canadian Mounted Rifles 1915-1919. He married Cecily Botting of Bromely Kent in 1920. They lived in Biggar & Melville, Sask & retired to Victoria B. C. He died at age 85 in 1986. They had two sons David Miles of Regina & myself.

I have three children David Gordon b 1958 of Edmonton, Alt. Anne Patricia b 1960 Vancouver & Lisa Kim b 1963 Vancouver.

We are not related to Ross Hitchman that we are aware of nor to the Hitchmans in Victoria whom we have spoken to.

Hope this information will help put the jigsaw puzzle together. Best of Luck.

Sincerely,
Dick Hitchman

Dear Arthur

Sorry we've taken so long to reply. My sister-in-law Vivian, Edward's wife is preparing my Father Willie's family tree as far as his family in Canada goes.

Enclosed is a copy of birth certificates of my Father Willie and his brother Frank both born at Shipston on Stour, England.

Their only contact in England was Children's Emigration Homes. St. Lukes Road, Birmingham, England.

Willie Hitchman married Cecilia O'Neil and had Edward, Jack, Robert and Bernard (twins), James, William Guy, Gertrude and Harold.

Bernard died in his early 30s. We all live in New Brunswick except for Jack who lives in Ontario.

Jack and James have no children. The rest are married with children and grandchildren. I am the youngest of Willie's sons. We live in a small rural area (edited for privacy). I am married to Mary with four children Sean, Bradley William, Cara, Beth Anne.

As you can see we tried to keep the family names to our children's second names.

I will continue to search for further information on my Grandmother Annie. I have written for a birth certificate, marriage certificate and death certificate to the General Register Office in London but I have not received any word back as of yet.

Hope to hear from you again and thank you for your help.

Sincerely
Harold Hitchman

Dear Mr. Hitchman,

We were very pleased to get your letter. My name is Maxine Hitchman Kennedy. You sent your letter to my sister-in-law and she has asked me to answer it.

My Father was Frank Hitchman. He was born Sept 2nd 1905 in Shipston on Stour, England. He came to Canada in 1907 from Children's Emigration Home, St Luke's Road, England. He was raised by Mr & Mrs Charles Burpee in Fredericton, N.B. His brother Willie came with him but was raised by a Mr & Mrs Philip Lloyd at Escuminac N.B. they never met again until 1950. Willie was killed in an accident in 1962. My Dad passed away in 1979. Willie was born in 1908. Their Mother's name was Annie. We never found out their father's name. They were both married and had families. My father married Margaret Appleby "she is still alive and is almost 91 years old" they married in 1927, they had a daughter Frances in 1927, Maxine in 1928, daughter Pauline in 1932, son Frank in 1935, son Donald in 1944.

Pauline passed away in 1934. Willie married and had 7 sons and 1 daughter. I don't know their birth dates. Their names are Edwarde, Jack, James, Bernard, Robert, William Guy, Gertrude & Harold.

Willie's wife's name is Cecilia Hitchman (edited for privacy)

Bernard Hitchman passed away in 1968 at age 27 in a house fire.

We had wrote(sic) letters to England in 1962 to try to contact family but we never found any. I hope this helps you with your family tree.

It would be nice to have relatives on Dad's side of the family.

In 1973 there was a picture of a Mr. George C Hitchman in a Saint John paper. I have just finished a letter to Saint John to see if I can get in touch with him or his family. I'll let you know if I hear anything.

Please keep in contact with us and let us know what you find out. Dad was always interested in his birth family.

Sincerely
Maxine

Dear Arthur,

I rec'd your letter last week and your date for Uncle Willie's birth is correct. I was going by the death in the paper which was wrong.

We have Dad's birth certificate. We got it in 1965 and Harold has Uncle Willie's.

You asked who G.A. Hitchman is. Mum & Dad has a chosen son, Donald, he married in 1965 to Gloria Anne Ready. She is a school teacher in (edited for privacy). Donald left the marriage in 1980 and in 1986 he divorced Anne. She is a real nice person and we still consider her our family. "There was no children."

Now about Uncle Willie's boys Esward, Robert & Harold live at (edited for privacy), Jack lives in (edited for privacy), James and William Guy live at (edited for privacy).

Edward, Robert, Harold & William Guy are married and have children and some have grandchildren so maybe you have heard from some of them.

We did not suspect that Annie was not married at the time of Dad's birth but maybe she married later.

I am still hoping to hear from someone who knows G.C. Hitchman. If I do I'll let you know. I am sending a copy of the picture that was in the paper in 1973.

Harold has some information about the family. I'm sure he would share it with you.

Do keep in touch and I'll do the same. We hope you are enjoying your retirement.

Yours Sincerely,
Maxine

Dear Arthur,

I rec'd your letter last week and it was nice to hear from you again. I wrote to Harold and asked him to send Uncle Willie's birth certificate to you it takes nearly a week for a letter to go from here to Harold so you should soon hear from him.

I told you earlier that I had a letter in one of the daily newspapers asking for help in finding Dad's family. As yet no one has answered my letter. I did think of writing to G.C. Hitchman but if you have done his family tree then he can't be related to us or that would have shown in his tree. There must be someone who knows who Annie was. Maybe some of the records was destroyed in the war.

My sister Frances is in hospital. She fell and dislocated her right shoulder. She has to stay in hospital until she gets someone to stay with her. She lives about 30 miles from me in a senior manor at (edited for privacy). My Mother has an apartment in the same manor.

My husband and I live in a small country place. We had a son and a daughter and we adopted an other daughter. We also have 5 grandchildren. Our children live in (edited for privacy) about 35 miles from us.

I am the only one in Dad's family that had children. Frances was almost 50 when she married and her husband passed away in 1990 so she is alone now.

We hope that when you get Uncle Willie's birth certificate that will help in finding out more about this side of the family.

If I ever find out anything more I'll be sure to let you know

Hope you have a nice summer. The weather here has not been very good.

Best Wishes
Sincerely
Maxine

Dear Arthur,

It was so nice to hear from you & I am excited about the genealogy of the Hitchman family. Although I am divorced 10 years ago from James Hitchman I am still interested.

One of Jim's sisters Roxana McAuley might be able to give you a lot of information & a brother-in-law Virgil Hess loves to go back in history. They can probably help you.

(Edited for privacy)

Please let me hear from you & tell me how you found my name.

Sincerely,
Maxine Hitchman

Dear Arthur,

Thanks ever so much for your help. Just knowing where Annie was born and when and when she passed away is nice to know. Not likely that she had any more children but she has a lot of grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren and now one great-great-great-grandson in Canada. I don't know if Harold intends to look more or not as I ahven't been able to contact him but I will before very long. There is no point in us both trying to find out about Annie.

We hope you are keeping well and enjoying your retirement. My husband "Lowell" is now retired but this past winter has had some health problems.

My Mother is fairly well. She was born in December 1902.

Annie passed away at a young age. I wonder if she might have had a heart problem like my Father had.

If we find out any more I'll let you know.

Thanks again for your help.

Sincerely,
Maxine

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