Last Updated on January 27, 2022 by Michelle McIver
This website is about the original McIver “First Family” of Canada. Hugh McKeever (later McIvor then McIver) and his wife, Mary Quinn immigrated to Canada from Ireland in 1839.
In 1964, one of their descendants, Sister Mary Charles McIver, put together the first family tree. Below is the text from Sister Mary Charles’ introduction that describes how Hugh and Mary ended up settling in Prince Edward Island, Canada, via a twelve-year sojourn in the United States:
“A family of McKeevers emigrated from Scotland to Ireland two or three centuries ago. Their departure did not deplete the clan, as Scotland is still filled with McKeevers and McIvers. Over the years the McKeevers have been populating Ireland and are now to be found in the counties of Louth, Cavan and Monaghan. The greatest concentration of the family is in Clones, Carrick Mocrass and Monaghan Town in County Monaghan. Hugh McIver (Grandfather) emigrated to America about the year 1826 and located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was married to Mary Quinn. My father, the eldest of the family was born in Philadelphia in 1827. Hugh Jr., Owen, Anne and Michael were also born in Philadelphia. The family returned to Ireland in 1838 and emigrated to Prince Edward Island, Canada in 1839. During my father’s time through some land grant or other transaction in the Court House the name was changed from McKeever to McIver.”
Sister Mary Charles McIver(1964)
About the Website McIverPEIAncestry.ca
In 2009, one of Hugh and Mary’s descendants, Betty McIver of Kingston, Ontario, established the website McIverPEI.ca. The website was established while she was working on the 3rd edition of the McIver family tree. The site was also used to promote a family reunion that takes place in Kinkora, PEI every five years (the last reunion having taken place in 2019).
The site remained online for many years thereafter. Unfortunately, the website at McIverPEI.ca was hacked and malicious web code embedded into it, thus rending the site unreadable and harmful. As a result, the website became inaccessible by many people.
Fortunately, all was not lost.
At the 2019 Family Reunion in Kinkora, Betty reached out to a few tech savvy relatives in attendance (both close and distant) to look into getting the family website back online.
That’s where we come in.
We (Patrick and Michelle McIver) have taken on the responsibility of re-establishing the family website that Betty started many years ago. As part of that process, it was decided to establish a new domain name that is free from any of the lingering technical issues regarding the hacking of the old website. The new website name, McIverPEIAncestry.ca, we hope, better clarifies what the site is about: the ancestry of the McIver family from Prince Edward Island.
We are very thankful to Ron McIver of Brantford, Ontario for covering the cost of the domain name, which will remain ours until at least 2030.
Over the course of the next while and together with other members of the McIver family, we hope to begin filling the site with content regarding the McIver’s family history. This includes:
- Biographical information on Hugh McKeever and Mary Quinn, and the early generations of their descendants
- An online genealogical database of the “McIver Family Tree” (already established at tree.mciverpeiancestry.ca; note: a password is required to access the full genealogical database, but no password is needed to access information on deceased members of the family)
- Genealogical writings about the McIver family and their Irish history before emigrating to Prince Edward Island.
- Information and details concerning any upcoming McIver family reunions
- Short stories about the McIvers and their connection to the Kinkora, Prince Edward Island area and St. Malachy’s Parish therein
- Discussion forums for descendants of Hugh and Mary to communicate with each other, exchange family stories, and provide biographical details and other information on deceased members of the extended members of the McIver family
- Information on the next McIver Family Reunion, tentatively scheduled for 2024
- How to order the upcoming 4th edition of the McIver Family Tree
These are just some of the items we have planned for this website. We welcome other ideas and suggestions, so if you have them, don’t hesitate to contact us and we’ll be in touch with you.
About Patrick and Michelle McIver
Hi there!
My name is Pat McIver, and I am the webmaster/IT Guru for McIverPEIAncestry.ca. Thank you for visiting this website, one that I, together with my wife Michelle (nee McCrae) are the process of establishing as the successor to Betty McIver’s McIverPEI.ca (which, by now, is no longer around).
I am the great, great, great grandson of Hugh McKeever and Mary Quinn and currently reside in Ottawa, Ontario. I am part of the “Ontario McIvers”, the colloquial term used to describe (I am told) those McIvers that left the Island in the first half of the twentieth century to look for work. My grandfather Emmett McIver left Kinkora in the 1930s, moving to Montreal and then to Parry Sound (Ontario), before marrying my grandmother Caroline Kelly (also an Islander from nearby Shamrock, PEI) and settling in Sarnia (Ontario) towards the end of World War II.
I never knew my grandfather Emmett, as he passed away a few years before I was born. I didn’t know much about him or the family history until recently, when, thanks to Michelle, I developed an interest in genealogy and wanted to learn more about where the McIver and Kelly families came from. As I am a computer techie at heart, developing this website has turned out to be a great way to scratch the IT nerd itch while combining it with a meaningful opportunity to learn more about my family’s history.
Anyway, as with any genealogical project, it is ever-evolving and is never “complete.” It just keeps improving. My expertise and interest is in managing the website and getting content online and available; it is not in doing the research and the writing.
Fortunately, there are family members who do have an interest in that, and so I am thankful for them coming forward to supply me with the content and genealogical information that will (soon) populate this site. Much of the content for this website is due to the tireless efforts of my wife, Michelle. Thanks to her efforts and the countless number of hours she’s devoted to doing McIver family genealogical research (much to the detriment of her doing research for her own family!), the electronic family tree is filled with updated, and in many cases, previously unknown information.
If you have any family or biographical information you wish to share, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us (via the Contact page) and we’ll be in touch.
In the meantime, thank you for visiting McIverPEIAncestry.ca, and take care!
Patrick and Michelle McIver (January 2021)