Immigrant to Manitoba in about 1870, he was a "Remittance Man", paid an annual sum for many years NOT to return to Ireland. Family stories indicate he impregnated a Catholic Girl, which would have been horrible to his Orange Order family. He was a very active member of the Orange Order in Manitoba, and may have been in British Columbia.

However, there is some evidence that he MAY not have been from Ireland at all, but may have been a Native or "Half-Breed", who "adopted" the Irish birth, in order to "pass" as a "white man". In the only known picture of him, he looks to be much more "Indian" than his wife, who was half native in her ancestry.

According to a book, outlining the First 100 Years of the Rural Municipality of Franklin, he "squatted" on some land for several years, before filing a homestead on it. The land records of Manitoba indicate that he homesteaded and owned 3 farms of over 200 acres each at one time.

He married a Métis woman in Manitoba, and had eleven children. He moved his girlfriend into the family home the same day as his wife was buried.

In the 1906 Census of Manitoba, he was living separately from his wife and children. The census indicated that he was a 'widower", but his wife was still living in the Rural Municipality of Franklin in Manitoba. He and his wife were living together, with their son John William Black, in the 1911 census.

His children described him as "The Meanest Son-of-a-Bitch in Canada". Several of his grandchildren hated him, and refused to even talk about him.

In various records, he is listed as: Alex Black, Alexander George Black, Alexander Hillman-Black. He was most commonly known as Alexander Hillman Black. His probate record in Vancouver, British Columbia lists his legal name as George Alexander Hillman-Black.

Very little is known about his childhood, or his ancestry, with any certainty. In all but one census record, he is listed as being born in Ireland. The 1906 census however, indicates that he was born in Scotland.

However, there is also an Alexander Black, born about the same time as this Alexander, but who was born in Manitoba of a Native father and a "Half-Breed" mother. That Alexander Black "disappears" from the records about 1870, which is about when our Alexander Black married Jemima Johnston.

Alexander Black was my paternal great-grandfather, father of my paternal grandmother