The Search for Heinrich Stief: A Genealogist on the Loose

Barbara B. Aitken is a public services librarian in the Douglas Library
at Queen’s University, a board certified genealogical record specialist, and a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists.

Historian, genealogist, and master storyteller Les Bowser has recounted
the remarkable family history of the Stief/Steeves family, tracing their
migration from Wurttemberg, southern Germany, to Pennsylvania and their
eventual settlement in the Petitcodiac River region of New Brunswick.
Bowser was born and brought up in southeastern New Brunswick, the locale
where his maternal grandmother introduced him to the study of his
Steeves and Jones ancestors. He is a direct descendant of five of the
first eight settlers who came to the Petitcodiac Rover from Philadelphia
in 1766, including the founder of the Steeves dynasty, Heinrich Stief.

Heinrich and Regina Stief left their Wurttemberg home in southern
Germany in 1749 and settled in Philadelphia. Sponsored (and later
abandoned) by a group of Philadelphia land speculators, they and a few
friends set out in 1766 in search of fertile lands around the Bay of
Fundy. An appendix lists the 22 Philadelphia proprietors named in
Alexander McNutt’s land grants at Frankfort and Monckton (later named
Moncton). This Philadelphia land syndicate included Benjamin Franklin.
The source notes and the bibliography provide much guidance for further
research.

Bowser has transformed the scattered bits and pieces of family history
into an excellent narrative that greatly enlivens the facts. The
illustrations accompanying the story illuminate the text and provide
haunting images of the land and the fine documents that the author
researched. Recommended for Canadiana collections and genealogy
collections in public libraries.