Welcome to a website dedicated to the genealogy of some of the major families who founded the Hudson Bay Company, which is essentially the history of Newfoundland, Canada.

This site deals specifically with the Hunt family and their related trading partners, such as the Holdsworth, Newman, Roope, Teage, Olive, Brooking, Alcock, Boyse and Carew families. Myself, I am descended from the Teage family of Kenton, Devon and am in contact with modern day Teages of Stoke Fleming who are my ninth cousins, as can be seen on my other, rather larger family tree, here on Tribalpages.

The story seems to start in and around Dartmouth, Devon, and other West Country river estuaries in England, where wealthy landowners used their maritime links to become merchant stockholders.

They spread their trading and family links afar afield as Newfoundland, Canada; Wexford, Ireland; Oporto, Portugal; Hawaii, USA; Hamburg, Germany; Thorn, West Prussia (Germany); Archangel, Russia; Wyoming, USA; Siam, Thailand and beyond.

As with all early British Empire companies the general rule was to keep it in the family, as much  as anything to spread financial risk. During the Napoleonic era you could be rich one day and destitute the next, dependent on the outcome of your ships' progress. For an idea of what times were like, please read Philippa Gregory's excellent book "A Respectable Trade".

Most of the research has been performed at the Devon Records Office in Exeter, Devon, but I have also visited the three churches in Dartmouth, St. Petrox, St. Clement Townstal and St. Saviour's which is without a resident incumbent, and the castle at Dartmouth, where I have taken numerous notes, photos et al which are too many to display here.