My paternal grandmother was Hannah Slattery, who married John Grimes. This was the starting point for my interest in the Slattery family. Also, I had compiled a history of the Grimes family, and a Daly relative has provided me with a history of my maternal ancestors, the Daly and D'Arcy families. I planned to produce a comparable account of the Slattery's to complete my family tree, and hopefully to share the story with my Slattery relatives.

It has turned out that my goal had to be modified because of the difficulty in finding as much information as I needed. Instead I have summarized herein what I have learned to date through research on the Slattery family. It is by no means complete, but should provide a basis for others who may wish to expand upon it. Also I would be delighted to hear from anyone who can help to fill in the blanks.

About all the I knew for sure of the Slattery family, other than that Hannah had married John Grimes, was that the Slattery's had a butcher shop in the By-Ward Market when I was young. Also I had heard the name of "Blarney Slattery", that there were related Slattery's in New York, and that at least one of Hannah's sisters had worked in the United States.

I soon found that there had been, and still are, Slattery families in Ottawa and vicinity that do not appear to be related to "our Slattery's". However, I suspect that further investigation may prove that some of them are related. Because of this possibility, and because I have accumulated considerable information on most of the persons involved ( which I at least have found interesting), I have included some of this information in an Appendix.

The greater part of "The Slattery's" deals with the story of the entrepreneurs William and his son Bernard, and of the extensive and successful butcher business that they built in Ottawa. Information on the New York branch of the Slattery family has to date been difficult to obtain, but what has been found suggests that their story also could be very interesting.

An abbreviated "family tree" concludes this Introduction, to provide a reference framework to the text of this account. A similar tabulation is included for the families described in the Appendix.