A Summer in Canada

On the 'findmypast' website there are three McIlhago references to visits to Canada, first by Sarah aged 54 of 119 Brassey Street, Glasgow, to Halifax, NS, departing 30 June 1950 on the ship Georgia. The other two are on the ship Saxonia departing 11 April 1956 to Montreal, of both Harry and Sarah, from the same Glasgow address. From the 'ancestry.co.uk' Incoming Passenger lists, 1878-1960, I know that Harry and Sarah returned home, leaving Montreal on 6 September 1956. Harry gave his occupation as Clerk, and we may imagine they had been saving up for quite some time in order to be away from home for six months. Who were they and why did they go?

I believe this couple to be Henry McIlhago and Sarah nee Lyon who married in Kelvin, Glasgow in 1916. On the 1911 Census Henry is entered as Harry and was employed as a Railway Bookings Clerk. In the 1920s they had two daughters, Elizabeth Isabella McIntyre in 1924 and Sarah Alexander Lyon in 1927. I have GRO records of both these daughters marrying in Possilpark, Glasgow. Sarah married William John Lyons on 28 February 1945. He was 26 and she was 18. Elizabeth married Knut Allan Lundmark on 26 November 1945. He was 29 and she was 21. Perhaps they both waited until they could see that the war was ending before marrying. Although at present I have no evidence from migration records, perhaps one or both daughters emigrated to Canada. Their mother's first visit was only five years later, perhaps for the birth of a child. Then six years after that both Harry and Sarah paid their long visit. I wonder whether a 'return' visit was able to be made when Harry died in 1969 aged seventy five?

Henry (1893-1969) was the second child and eldest son of George Gardner McIlhago (b. 1862/3 in Ireland) and Isabella Scott Boak (b. 1869 in Chryston, Lanark, Scotland). George was the second child and eldest son of Henry McIlhaggo (1821-1889) and Agnes Gardiner (1836-1889). Both had been born in Ireland but died in New Monkland, Scotland. Henry had started as a 'small farmer' in Maxwell's Walls, Connor, County Antrim, which is where his father Henry was also a farmer. There is a Family Tree for Maxwell's Walls going back to William McIllhago born about 1750. He was reported in the Belfast Newsletter in November 1781 as having a stray beef cow in Connor on 8th November that year!