Town of Georgina
Four Surnames
Only four of the original families adhere to their original surnames, translated of course into English. These are the Blackbirds, Snakes, Ashquabes, and Big Canoes.
My own surname is a translation of the words keche, which means big, and chemon which means canoe. Individuals long ago were named from some characteristic in their nature or for some event. It would be logical to assume that one of my ancestors had a big canoe and from this derived his name.
It is only about five generations since our people started using surnames. We did have a sign or totem pole system by which the children of a family took the totem of the father, In my own family our totem is the Otter and all my children belong to the Otter Clan. This system was intertribal as there were Indians from reserves north of here with the Otter totem who are definitely blood relatives.
Those whose surnames are not Indian in nature either were given names when they were baptised into the Christian faith by missionaries or instead took names which appealed to them. I had occasion to open a council meeting of Ontario chiefs held on one of the larger reserves and as I looked down the list of delegates I noted names like McGregor, McLeod, Smith, Jones and Riley.
Source: Georgina Advocate - Our History December 1992. Reproduced with permission