h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As 'Newvonian' may have indicated, there are strong links between Devon, and the Canadian province of Newfoundland.

Newfoundland was the first part of North America to be settled by the British (unsure what the locals thought of that) in the early sixteenth century - and many of them were Devonians.

It seems that in the early days the province was divided, with the French taking control of one part, the British another, and with Spanish and Portuguese (and later Irish) also fishing where they could.

In fact I understand that the British settlements themselves were somewhat delineated by place of origin, with the Devonians the predominant settlers between Trepassey and Torbay, whilst the fishermen from Dorset (and to a lesser extent Somerset and Hampshire) settled in Bonavista and Trinity bays.

I regularly get involved with genealogy research in Devon and Cornwall. There are many folk in Newfoundland tracing their Devon roots.

There is a book published on the England to Newfoundland migration which apparently covers the Devon connections. It has an intriguing title…

“So Longe As There Comes Noe Women: Origins of English Settlement in Newfoundland” by Gordon W Handcock. Publisher details and ISBN can be found on the Genuki Devon page: http://genuki.cs.ncl.ac.uk/DEV/

It looks interesting but I have yet to read it.

One of the best books written on seventeenth-century Newfoundland to date is Peter Pope's "Fish into Wine:The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth Century" (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) ISBN 0-8078-2910-2 (alk.paper)or ISBN 0-8078-5576-6 (pbk:alk. paper).

Pope teaches at the Archaeology Unit at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. The book is extremely well researched and well written.