, who highlighted the importance of the Port of Londonderry to emigration to Canada..
Given his skill with Census statistics and the fact that the Professor has four decades of academic research under his belt - 25 of which have been spent solely dealing with migration to New Brunswick from the principal ports of Londonderry and Cork - Professor Toner is frequently asked for advice from those researching their family trees.
Recalling one such occasion 10 to 15 years ago, the Professor recounted how he was approached by a gentleman from Charlotte County, New Brunswick, seeking details about his 'Irish' ancestors whose family name was Watson, and naming the estate where they came from in Co Londonderry. It transpires the Professor, himself of Irish descent, is also a great storyteller.
"It was an estate on the road to Dungiven and anyway I recognised the name of the estate and I thought, yeah, I had no problem finding out, so I went and found the 1831 Census and found the sister and family - it seemed to be them and he said 'Well what do I do?' so I told him to write a letter to the Sentinel and ask was anybody descended from this family.
"About a month later he calls me again and I ask him 'How'd ya make out?' He said 'I had 31 responses'. I said 'When are you going over?' and he says 'I can't', so I asked him what did he mean and then he said 'Because I only have three weeks' vacation'. So I said 'Yeah? That's long enough' and he said 'It isn't 'cos all 31 responses insisted that I stay with them for at least one day!' That's exactly what happened and he did go."
Dealing some of the breadth of his research and his own roots, the conversation invariably rolled round to relevance of the Port of Londonderry to the migration story.
"Derry was The Port of exit for most emigrants who ended up in New Brunswick. The Maiden City and St John were twin cities and it's too bad that it's been lost - I find it too bad. Do you know the emigration statues that are in the centre of Derry near the Guildhall? Those are people heading for St John. The Minnehaha was built in St John," he revealed.
For those who don't know the Minnehaha was built in New Brunswick for the McCorkell Line of Derry in 1860, she was the finest clipper they ever possessed. For 12 years she carried passengers to New York, where she was know as 'The Green Yacht from Derry'. Over the next 14 years she was a Baltimore grain carrier, and then a timber drogher until she was sold in 1895.
"The maiden voyage of the Envoy, from Derry to St John carried part of my family - that would have been in 41. My father's family came from Co Derry. May mother's family came from Co Londonderry. My father's family called me one name and my mother's called me by another and I didn't even know that Londonderry and Derry were the same place until I was 16, and I was twice that age before I discovered they were two different worlds when they should be one - the only difference is politics. It's not a cultural difference," he said.
Interestingly, Professor Toner's lecture was entitled 'Confusing Identities: The Gaeltachta in New Brunswick, 1901' and charted the use of the Irish language by Protestant and Catholic migrant families in settled pockets of New Brunswick.
"They shared the language. They also shared a lot of cultural things. The people of Londonderry and Derry have more in common than they have dividing them."