I began my search in 1999, the year my father
Allan Clifford Wayne Hancock fell ill and died. Growing up,
he professed to know nothing of his family and kept in touch with none of
them. His father had died just shy of my father's 1st birthday; the fact
that my father never knew his dad profoundly impacted his life. He was born
in Stonewall but raised in Winnipeg from an early age.
I began my search for my father's ancestors and relatives in 1999 to give
him roots, make him feel grounded and a part of something larger. As a
novice, I began by doing a search on the net and when I discovered Rootsweb
and genealogical mailing lists, I thought I had hit the jackpot! I met some
wonderful and generous fellow researchers - many of whom I still try to keep
in touch with today - who guided and helped me. I will be eternally grateful
to Nancy and Dave Cooper, and Margaret Gordon (Canada and the US), Jon and
Rob Frayne, Richard, David Ryall and Denzil Hancock (England), Lora in
Wisconsin, and Pam Struan from Australia and many, many other wonderful
folks who set me on the right path, sending me photos, doing lookups and
helping me in too many ways to list. It was heartening to realize how truly
generous and supportive people are, even to strangers, particularly when
they share a common passion - for them, and for me, that's what genealogy is
all about.
My first few emails to the mailing lists yielded many replies but the one
that caught my eye was in reference to a website honouring the casualties of
armed conflicts - the site is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website
and this provided me with my first real clue to my ancestry. Below is
a the commemorative certificate issued in honour of my grandfather:
In Memory of Private ALLAN C. HANCOCK
H/20647, Queen's Own Cameron
Highlanders of Canada, R.C.I.C.
who died age 37 on 19 August 1942 Private HANCOCK, Son of Charles and Ellen
Hancock, of Stonewall, Manitoba; husband of Betty Florence
Hancock, of Stonewall.
Remembered with honour DIEPPE CANADIAN WAR CEMETERY, HAUTOT-SUR-MER
Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
This certificate was a wonderful find! It provided me with the
information I needed to continue my quest. My father also had a copy
of the certificate issue by the Canadian Permanent Committee on Geographical
Names, which endeavours to name lakes after fallen soldiers. Hancock
Lake is named after my grandfather and is located in northern Manitoba...the
name was adopted on August 31, 1972. I don't know that I will ever be
able to visit the lake myself - it is in quite a remote area, accessible by
plane only, I suspect - but it would be a dream come true and you never
know!
I learned that
my grandfather, Allan Charles Hancock, was the son of Charles and Ellen
Hancock of Stonewall and the wife of Betty. Armed with this small piece of
information, I went to the Manitoba Genealogical Society and began searching
in books chronicling the history of the Rockwood municipality in Manitoba.
As I scanned the biographies of the pioneer families, a heading caught my
eye - it was the history of the Clifford family in Rockwood. It caught my
attention because my father's name was Allan Clifford Wayne Hancock - he had
never explained the origin of his names, although I'm sure he must have
known. The Cliffords were one of the first families to the Rockwood area;
they lived in Ingersoll, Ontario and emigrated to Manitoba in order to take
advantage of the land grants being offered in the latter part of the 1800's.
John Clifford - my great-great-grandfather, his wife Elizabeth Kernick
Clifford and their children came to this province in about 1875 and settled
in Balmoral, Manitoba. John and Elizabeth's daughter Ellen Sophia was born
in Ontario in 1869, prior to the family's emigration to Manitoba. The
Clifford family biography mentioned that Ellen and Charles Hancock were the
first couple married in the new Methodist Church in Balmoral in 1889 (now
known as the United Church). The couple settled on the Shoal Lake area and
later moved to Stonewall. They had two sons, William John born in 1891 and
my grandfather Allan Charles, born in 1904. Charles died in April of 1904
and his youngest son, Allan, was born in December of that year, after his
father's death. It is a sad irony that both my grandfather and my father
never knew their dads...
I have learned little about the elder Hancock son; I know that William John
(or Jack, as he was known) was born November 25, 1891 and married Alice
Quickfall (born 16 Sep 1894) in Rockwood municipality. Although Jack's
mother's obituary in 1965 mentioned that Jack and Alice had six children, I
have only been able to find two daughters - Thelma and Merle (photos
available on this site). I discovered a newspaper that indicated Jack served
in WWII with the Provost "A" Engineers; according to the the Stonewall Argus
(Gunton) July 31, 1940, he was with the No. 3 Provost Co. Military Police.
The family lived in Gunton, Manitoba in the 1940's; another article in the
Argus mentioned that Merle Hancock and friend Joyce Gillespie spent the
Easter holiday in Winnipeg with the Leitchs. I have since learned that Alice
Quickfall Hancock's sister Ethel Evelyn married James Reuben Leitch
September 4, 1912 and had at least three children, Leslie, Connie and Bill.
Despite all this information, I have yet to locate a single living Hancock
descendant from this branch of the family...after several years of
searching, I did manage to locate relatives descended from the Cliffords,
still living in the Balmoral area. I made the trip out to Balmoral last year
to meet my third cousin, Keith, and this meeting took on special
significance when Keith advised that he knew of the whereabouts of my
grandfather Allan Charles' war medal. Words cannot express the joy I felt at
this revelation! After Allan's death, medals were distributed to his wife,
Betty, and to his mother, Ellen. Betty passed away in the early '70's and
there whereabouts of her medal is unknown to this day. When Ellen passed
away in 1965, her belongings came into the possession of her niece, Olive
Clifford Coulter. Keith manage to obtain not only the war medal - which he
graciously presented to me - but also had photos of both my grandfather and
my grandmother, Betty. I will never forget the feeling that came over me
when I held that medal in my hand and saw a photo of my grandfather for the
first time...I will be forever grateful to Keith for his thoughtfulness and
generosity.
This is an introduction to my journey in search of my ancestors...I will be
updating this page on an ongoing basis and I invite you to come back
anytime!
