Five of Alexander's half-brothers and -sisters also immigrated to Canada, most of them settling in the Fergus area. Helen Checker Poole, the wife of a descendant of one of them, wrote a very interesting book in 1987, The Stewart Family in Fergus, which tells about these settlers and their descendants. Shirley Wilson Caldwell, wife of another descendant, has also written about them.

George Stewart emigrated from Scotland at the age of 31 and became one of the Fergus pioneers in 1835. He worked as a carpenter and builder. In 1842 he applied for a grant of Crown land and received two lots. He married in 1851 but had no children. Helen Poole wrote that "the Stewart name can still be seen on the two houses bought by George Stewart so many years earlier..."

His younger brother William soon followed George to Fergus, established a farm on land bought by his brother George, and married a Fergus girl in 1842. They had eight children, one of them an ancestor of Stewart Poole whose wife Helen has provided invaluable information for this book.

Their sister Annie arrived in Fergus in 1843 with her husband James Rennie (as it seems usually to have been spelled in Canada) and their six children. They also established a farm. One reason for leaving Scotland was suggested by JWAS's notes, quoted by HSS: "James Rennie received five pounds [in Scotland] for six months' work and had a wife and family to support on it." The family became importers of the Shorthorn and Aberdeen Angus cattle that were so prized by Scottish settlers.

Douglas Dadson, one of Alexander's descendants, says that James Rennie had the family nickname of "Do ye ken me noo?" (Do you know me now?). Douglas reports that the expression was used after someone was not recognized as he felt he should be, and took action to remedy that lack. For instance, a Scots soldier coming home to his house was not recognized by his wife, who cried out, "Who are ye, breakin' in here?" He embraced her, saying, "Do ye ken me noo?" Douglas doesn't know how James Rennie got his nickname but writes: "Being a Stewart relation, it must have been something respectable." No doubt!

Annie's and James' descendants, James Stuart Rennie and Alvin Caldwell, live in Ontario -- the Caldwell family still on the original Rennie land -- and their wives have kindly sent me their lines of descent and much other information.

Margaret Stewart had married William Gibbons in Scotland and they and their children also immigrated to Canada where their family increased. They, too, settled on a farm in the Fergus area.

Peter, the half-brother who had come to Canada with Alexander, did not long enjoy his new country. His death was recorded on the tombstone of George Stewart:

Also Peter Stewart who died at the Township of Barton, June 8, 1849.

Family feeling among the siblings seems to have been strong. One may wonder why Alexander did not also settle in Fergus when he finally bought land and built a house. By then, in the early 1850s, the older siblings were well established in the Fergus area and could have helped him and his young family get settled.

That he did not certainly was not due to a lack of family affection. AMS has written: "Often he walked in one day from Durham forty miles, to visit his relatives in Fergus." His nephews and nieces recalled him fondly as "Uncle Sandy".