Black Pioneers
British Legion
Buck’s County Light Dragoons
Callbeck’s Company
Carolina King’s Rangers
De Diemar’s Hussars
De Lancey’s Brigade
Emmerick’s Chasseurs
Ferguson’s Corps
Georgia Light Dragoons
Gov’r Wentworth’s Volunteers
Hierlihy’s Corps
Independent Troop of Cavalry
King’s American Dragoons
King’s American Regiment
King’s Orange Rangers
King’s Royal Reg’t of New York
Loyal American Rangers
Loyal American Regiment
Loyal Foresters
Loyal New Englanders
Loyal Nova Scotia Volunteers
Maryland Loyalists
Nassau Blues
New Jersey Volunteers
New York Volunteers
North Carolina Dragoons
North Carolina Highlanders
North Carolina Volunteers
Pennsylvania Loyalists
Philadelphia Light Dragoons
Prince of Wales American Regiment
Provincial Light Infantry
Queen’s Rangers
Roger’s King’s Rangers
Roman Catholic Volunteers
Royal American Reformers
Royal Fencible Americans
Royal Garrison Battalion
Royal Guides and Pioneers
Royal North Carolina Regiment
South Carolina Dragoons
South Carolina Rangers
South Carolina Royalists
Volunteers of New England
Volunteers of Ireland
West Florida Foresters
West Jersey Volunteers
Royal Highland Emigrants[2]
When the revolution started, many of the men who volunteered for service were used as a local police force but, by 1776, the army in New York had received 5,000 green uniforms to be distributed to Loyalist regiments. The early uniforms were “faced” in white, green, or blue. This means that your ancestor’s coat would have been green with white, green, or blue lapels. Later thousands of yards of red cloth were provided by the British authorities and some of the Provincial Corps began to look like regular establishment regiments. As the war progressed almost all Loyalist units began to take on the structure of regular British line regiments with a strict command structure, light and grenadier companies, their own regimental “colours,” regimental bands, and cavalry units.
In 1779 the British authorities, in recognition of the importance of the Provincial Corps, created an “American Establishment”; renamed the Queen’s Rangers to the 1st American Regiment; the Volunteers of Ireland became the 2nd American Regiment; and the New York Volunteers, the 3rd American Regiment. In 1781, the King’s American Regiment became the 4th American Regiment and the British Legion, the 5th American Regiment. These designations were in recognition of each unit’s proficiency. Your Loyalist ancestor may have also chosen to join a colonial militia unit used for scouting or other related activities.
There are a number of military resources available to consult. Your ancestor could have been part of a British regiment, referred to as Regulars; a member of a Loyalist/Provincial Corps, often referred to as Colonials; a member of the Loyalist Militia, who seem to have been predominantly established in the New York command; or a member of one of the corps that formed the American Establishment and thus more closely related to a British Line regiment or even a member of the Native Establishment based out of Fort Niagara. If your family has a German background then they could have seen service with one of the German/Hanoverian Regiments that operated in North America, often referred to as Hessians.
Some men served in more than one corps and, following the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781 and the beginning of peace negotiations in 1782, the muster rolls of the various provincial corps began to dwindle. Many of your ancestors who had served with a Loyalist corps either elected to try to return to their homes or chose to accept the British offer to relocate. Sometimes you may see the word “deserter” beside your ancestor’s name but this may only mean that he elected to take a chance on either travelling north on his own or trying to re-establish himself in the new United States. Little effort seems to have been made by the British authorities to apprehend these men. You really have to appreciate what these men must have felt when they realized that they had lost everything they had struggled to build in the former Thirteen Colonies before the rebellion.[3]
If your ancestor chose to disband in New York, he could have gone to the West Indies, Quebec (then the name for what is now Quebec and Ontario), Nova Scotia, or Saint John, New Brunswick. It appears that the greatest number of disbanded Loyalists settling in one place were those who arrived in Saint John in 1783 under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Hewlett of De Lancey’s Brigade. It is estimated that well over 3,000 men, women, and children settled there. This huge influx of settlers resulted in the creation in 1784 of the new colony of New Brunswick with Saint John as its administrative centre. By 1791, the colony of Upper Canada was created from the former colony of Quebec because of the volume of Loyalist settlers.
You can imagine the amount of record keeping that was done by the British authorities as they attempted to settle the displaced Loyalists and their families. You will discover muster rolls and pay lists, lists of individuals receiving rations, land grant records, claims for losses or requests for food rations and tools, petitions for increased acreage, inclusion of names on district records, petitions for title/deed for land, and, later, petitions from family members based on their Loyalist status. You will also discover gratuities granted by early colonial legislatures/Parliaments to ease the financial burden of Loyalist refugees. Many of these acts of Parliament were initiated years after the formation of the colony.
If you want to fully utilize the land-grant records, an excellent resource guide is United Empire Loyalists: A Guide to Tracing Loyalist Ancestors in Upper Canada by Brenda Dougall Merriman.
If you do discover an ancestor on a Loyalist muster
