TOPIC:

I oversee the site of Stephan Stephansson, Iceland's greatest farmer-poet, who was an ardent pacifist (and wrote a number of anti-war poems) during the Boer War and WWI. In a biography of Stephansson, there is a reference that a number of Icelandic-Canadians who had participated in those wars, but I am unable to find any real source for Icelanders participating in the Boer War (I've think I've found most, if not all, of the WWI Icelandic-Canadian participants).

I found the "Service files and grant applications of veterans of the South African War" collection at heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t13440/2438 but I'm not sure how to correlate those with any useful information or other resources. Even if i manually go through every name, I'm not sure I will recognize any Icelandic-Canadians by only their names.

Can anyone help me in my quest to identify Icelandic-Canadian participants in the Boer War and point me to useful sources?

Takk!

Etechne,

Welcome to the Forum. You have certainly started with a very difficult question!

I tried searching this Canadian site for surnames including 'sson'. There are some names listed but none look very Icelandic.

www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-...t.aspx?Surname=sson&

It is a shame that site does not allow the searching of a notes field.

I will keep looking

Best wishes
David

Etechne,

The Queen's medal roll for Canadian units is WO100/287 (Canada and Canadian Scouts, West India Regiment).

This can be downloaded from the National Archives for free: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3764051

It would be a slow process but you could go through the roll looking for Icelandic-Canadians, presuming they possessed a clearly Icelandic surname.

Best wishes
David

PS There is a Wilhelm Johansson in the Canadian Scouts but he appears to be Swedish

I have gone through the Canadian Scouts roll and also the list of where each member came from and I am afraid that I was unable to find any members who listed their place of birth or heritage as being Icelandic......

There being a very large Icelandic community in Manitoba that would be a province to look at especial any communities that you can name......

Mike