Peter Fillmore

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Descendants

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Biography

Peter was born in 1936 in Moncton NB and attended schools in Digby NS and Moncton and Saint John NB. He did Grades X and XI at Saint John High School, where his interest was sparked in many activities which he pursues to the present day. He studied Engineering and Mathematics at Dalhousie University (Class of '57), then moved to the University of Minnesota, where he completed a PhD in Mathematics in 1962. He had married Anne Ellen, a Nova Scotian, in 1960 and their first child, Jennifer, was born there.

Peter held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago, a very exciting place, and their second child, Julia, was born there. The young family then moved on to Bloomington, Indiana, a pleasant college town, where Peter progressed through the ranks in the Mathematics Department at Indiana University and their son Andy was born.

In 1972 Peter finally succumbed to the blandishments of Arnold Tingley, Head of Mathematics at Dalhousie, and the family moved back to Halifax. He was appointed a Killam Professor and taught there for the next 25 years. That same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, in recognition of his research. The family enjoyed many trips to foreign parts, mostly to mathematics conferences, but also including sabbatical leaves in Toronto, Edinburgh, Waterloo and Copenhagen. Peter served the university and the profession in many capacities, including terms as Chair of his department and President of the Canadian Mathematical Society.

Retirement came in 1998 and since then Peter has devoted his time to such hobbies as jogging, cycling, cross-country skiing, hiking, long-distance walking , gardening, reading and singing in choirs.

And oh yes, genealogy! His project has been to trace each of his and Anne Ellen's lines back to the immigrant (to Canada) ancestor. At say seven generations, that would be 125 lines each! Most of Peter's immigrant ancestors have turned out to be New England Planters (1760s, several of which go back to the Mayflower), with a few United Empire Loyalists (1788) for good measure. Anne Ellen's ancestry is English, Scottish and Irish.

Sources

• First-hand information. Entered by Peter Fillmore at registration and later.

For Research

Among the many gaps and missing primary sources, the following three concern me most at present:

--proof that Thomas Fillmore is the son of Benjamin Day Fillmore;

--proof that Elizbeth, the wife of Henry Stultz, is Elizabeth Lewis, the daughter of Alanson Lewis and Mary Merritt;

--proof that Sabra Ann Lyon is the daughter of William Henry Lyon and Amelia Armstrong.

There is circumstantial evidence for each of these.

Andd then a blank wall: who was Thomas Fillmore's mother?