Hi,

I don't know if the Minnie Bissell in your family is the same as the one in mine, but I would appreciate any information you could give me on Minnie: Place of birth, emmigration date, marriages....

My grandfather was Walter Benjamin Bissell, and he came to Canada at age 13 in 1912 on the SS Empress of Ireland as a "Home Child" with Fegan's Homes of London.

My grandmother was Minnie Bissell and she was said to have come from Buckinghamshire.
Whether Bissell was her birth name, or a name from a marriage I don't know.

Minnie had four children:
Walter (the oldest - my grand father) born in England - the name of his father is unknown

Doug born in England(the middle brother whose last name was Anderson because he was adopted by a family named Anderson, (but whether his birth name was Bissell or something else is unknown).

William born in England (he got his last name (Eck) from the man his mother married in England about 1914? Eck was not William's his birth name. On the passenger list for the April 1912 sailing of the Empress of Ireland is a boy listed as William Bissell, age 8. who was also travelling with Fegan's party - I'm not sure if William Bissell is William Eck, family stories have it that Walter came on his own and that William came with his mother and step-father - but the coincidence seems to indicate that William and Walter were brothers.

Erna - born in Canada around 1915 who was fathered by Eck (Minnie's new husband)

I would love to solve the family mystery: Who was the father(s) of these boys and who was Minnie Bissell? Also, I'd love to know who her ancestors were and who Walter's father's ancestors were.
Walter died six weeks after I was born, and my father said that he didn't like to talk much about his youth, because I guess the conditions at Fegan's were pretty awful.

The other thing I wonder about is how Minnie kept in touch with her sons. All of them wound up in Canada and my father knew both his uncles.

Any help you can give would be appreciated.