James Edward Jensen
James Edward Jensen
University of Guelph
Everyday Networks: A New Look at Place, Church Communities and Household Dispersion Amongst Scottish Immigrants to Upper Canada, Nichol Township, 1832-1901, is the working title of my doctoral dissertation. The most important strategy for both family survival and individual prosperity in Upper Canada was the creation, maintenance and replacement of kin-and-community networks; much more important than ethnicity, which often overshadows an immigrant settlement’s identity. This study will focus on the Scottish immigrant population settling within the Elora-Fergus corridor, during the 1830s and 1840s, and follows their descendants through to the 1890s. By focussing on an ethnically Scottish sub-group within an ethnically diverse population, this study will demonstrate the complex, extra-ethnic networks that develop within the region’s settler communities and how these kin-and-community networks were both spatially and functionally defined. Beginning with an introduction and overview of relevant literature, this study will proceed to prove the existence and singular importance of kin-and-community networks to household survival within chapters addressing place, church communities and household dispersion.
The shared Scots origin of the majority of settlers in the Elora-Fergus corridor is circumstantial, reflects the processes that initially populated the region with families of European descent and is, in itself, non-deterministic. It is hoped that within this multi-generational study a relationship will be discovered linking household survival to networks of kin-and-community and, further, that this relationship will highlight the singular importance of the said networks and the insignificance of ethnicity to household survival. Simply put, this study aims to show that household success was not due to a common Scots origin, but rather the creation, maintenance and replacement of kin-and-community networks. This study will build upon the work of S. Murdoch entitled, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Associations in Northern Europe, 1603-1746, which, in part, analyzes family structure, the meaning of place and religious affiliation, while questioning their function in the networks established for Scots in the early modern era.1 While S. Murdoch focuses upon Scottish emigrants in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this project will examine household networks, through an analysis of the importance of family, place and religious communities amongst Scottish immigrants and their descendants in nineteenth century Upper Canada.2
The originality of this proposed project rests in the multi-generational approach of examining the causal links between three sets of kin-and-community networks and household success. The three sets of kin-and-community networks are: networks of family and place, church community networks and broader social networks. The data collected for each set will be discussed later. With the creation of a geographic information system (GIS), linked to a Microsoft Access database, the data collected will be used to map out the existence of different networks associated with place, religion and those that continued to be maintained despite the subsequent migration and dispersion of households within Canada, North America and beyond. Linking households to networks of kin-and-community based on their location and proximity to other households both in the sending and receiving countries, or linking households to religious networks based on religious affiliation and membership, is not as difficult as the protracted process through which networks are uncovered amongst a dispersed population. Although, once the previously mentioned networks associated with place and religion are more fully uncovered, discovering the latter will prove to be far less daunting a task. As networks either assist in fulfilling familial and communal needs, or are discarded and most often replaced, their existence reflects the adaptability of each household’s strategy for survival and the correlating decrease in the importance of ethnicity to household success.1. Steven Murdoch, Network North: Scottish Kin, Commercial and Covert Association in Northern Europe, 1603-1746 (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 4.
2. There is significant literature on the subject of networks. See Alan MacFarlane, Reconstructing Historical Communities (London: Cambridge University Press, 1977); John Scott, Social Network Analysis: A Handbook (London: Sage, 2000); Peter R. Monge and Noshir S. Contractor eds., Theories of Communication Networks (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
List of Publications
Review Essay:
Jensen, James E. “Evidence for Trans-Atlantic Networking Among Scottish Immigrants in Nineteenth-Century Canada.” International Review of Scottish Studies 34 (2009): 191-196.
Review:
Sir James Fergusson. The Personal Observations of a Man of Intelligence: Notes of a tour in North America in 1861, edited by Ben Wynne, History Scotland, vol. 10 no. 4 (July/August 2010): 58.
Polly Aird. Mormon Convert, Mormon Defector: A Scottish Immigrant in the American West, 1848-1861, History Scotland, vol. 10 no. 6 (November/December 2010): forthcoming.
Monographs:
Jensen, James E. "From Monopoly to Royal Colony: Changing Tides on Virginia's Eastern Shore." Master's Thesis, Salisbury University, 2007.
Jensen, James E. Pittsville: A Pictorial History. Salisbury: Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, 2006.
Jensen, James E. Commissions & Affidavits, 1767-1783. Salisbury: Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, 2006.
Jensen, James E. Glossary of Unusual and Little-Used Terms in Colonial British America: Maryland Court Records 1600s. Salisbury: Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, 2004.
Jensen, James E. Views and Estimates: Orphan Documents from SomersetCounty Court Records, Maryland, 1722-1759. Salisbury: Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, 2004.
Online Publications:
Jensen, James E. Ambrose Dixon: The Man and the Legacy, available from http://nabbhistory.salisbury.edu/settlers/profiles/dixon.html
Jensen, James E. Jane Berriman Jackson: The Life of an Eastern Shore Woman, available from http://nabbhistory.salisbury.edu/settlers/profiles/jackson.html
Jensen, James E. John Holloway: an Eastern Shore Physician, available from http://nabbhistory.salisbury.edu/settlers/profiles/holloway.html
Other Publications:
Jensen, James E. Editor and contributing author. Shoreline. Biannual Journal, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, March 2004 – September 2006.
Jensen, James E. Editor and contributing author. Shoreline. Monthly Newsletter, Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, November 2004 – June 2006.