The Hubbell Family 
Historical Society

The Nehemiah Hubble Family Heritage Association

Nehemiah Hubble was a fifth generation descendant of our common ancestor Richard Hubball and founded a prominent branch of the family in Canada.

The association was founded in 1950 to honour the memory of a British patriot or loyalist who traveled to Rawdon Township, Hastings County, Ontario to establish a new home for his family as a result of the Revolutionary War.

In the beginning, the association was nothing other than an annual reunion and picnic usually held somewhere in Hastings County near the City of Belleville. In 1974, the group published a reunion booklet which chronicled the history and genealogy of the Hubble family, and in 1986, the association was chartered as a non-profit organization. This is when the group began to raise funds and undertake projects. Specifically, the prime focus of the NHFHA is to maintain the Hubble Hill Pioneer Cemetery and to track the genealogy of the family Nehemiah Hubble and Lucretia Welton. More recently, another Hubble cemetery called the Hubble-Hay cemetery has been added to the responsibility of the group.

The cemetery maintenance is probably the largest single task and involves more than just the landscaping. Over the past three years, new signs have replaced weathered ones, stones have been restored and re-set in new foundations and a cedar rail fence was installed. Some of this was accomplished through a grant from the Campbell Craft Fund, but a significant amount of money was raised from family members, and the labour was contributed by Byron and Alvin Hubble who still live on farms in Rawdon Township.

In 1997, the association published a 1,024 page genealogy of Nehemiah's descendants which amounted to almost 17,000 individuals. The actual publication of the book took five years to complete and passed through several members until a team of five, Jim Hubel, Barbara Dawes, Ann Rowe, Morgan Hubbel and Nicholas Post, split the family up and inputted individual lines into Roots IV, an early genealogy computer program. Bob Dawes looked after the combination of the computer files and the final conversion to a word processor for the printer. To date, about 230 books have been sold and an update to correct errors in the publication is currently in the works.

The genealogy of the family has been tracked by several dedicated individuals over the years beginning with Bruce McAusland and followed by Celeste Kauhanen and her late husband Bill. Without their dedicated record keeping, the genealogy and history of the family wouldn't have been possible. Celeste is still in touch with family members far and wide who send her their family updates.

The association has 55 annual paid members and 47 Life Members. Life Members pay C$150 and this money is held in trust with only the interest used by the association. Many older members see this as a way of continuing to help the organization after they no longer can and some Life Members are now giving gift life memberships to their children and grand-children which ensures that the younger generation will continue to be involved with the association. Ordinary membership is C$10 per year and members receive Nehemiah Hubble's Family News, a five-page newsletter, three times a year. The association holds an Annual General meeting in the fall and a reunion picnic on the 3rd Sunday in July.