It is said that love has its challenges but some face greater challenges than most.
Many of our ancestors travelled overseas in search of a better life for themselves whether that is somewhere such as America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand. For most of my relatives that appears to be the case but there is a tale of someone being sent overseas because of the person they loved.
My great-great grandfather William James Millar, one of nine children born to John Millar and Mary Jane Laird on 9th March 1868, seems to have come from a wealthy farming background in Londonderry. His uncle James Millar was particularly wealthy with the number of buildings being listed on the 1911 out houses and farm steadings return totalling 11 (an increase of 4 from 1901). This consisted of a stable, 2 cow houses, a dairy, piggery, fowl house, boiling house, barn, turf house, potato house and shed. It was enough for him to have three servants. When looking at an Irish census record there is a link called Out Offices and Farm Steadings Return, check the house number on the record before clicking, which can show you any buildings the occupants might have had. James' wealth was inherited by his son Robert which was then passed on to Robert's wife Elizabeth. It is believed that the money was then inherited by a minister who immigrated to Canada.
It is easy to imagine that with a family like this and the mindset of the time how William might have felt challenged in courting a girl that he loved. At some point about 1908/1909 William had fallen in love with a servant girl called Annie Kelly. She is listed on the 1901 census as being a house keeper. The exact details are not known but his family did not approve and sent him to Canada for three months to work on a farm in the hope he would forget about her. You would think that such a plan would work. How frustrated he must have felt. Their plan seemed to fail because on 26th April 1909 William and Annie were married. They went on to have seven children -five daughters and two sons.
