UK visitors Vivien Brock Barnes (second from left) and Penny Brock Strong joined family members on Tuesday at Brock’s Monument where they encountered soldiers from the 49th Regiment. Both women are Sir Isaac Brock's first cousins, five times removed.

Brock University hosted a quick visit from some unusual and special guests this week – descendants of none other than Maj.-Gen. Sir Isaac Brock.

On Tuesday, June 26 – 200 years and 1 day after U.S. President James Madison proclaimed what became the War of 1812 – the British visitors called in to the University’s Campus Bookstore in search of memorabilia depicting their famous ancestor.

They were looking to buy copies of a well-known student recruitment poster that reads, “Isaac Brock Wants YOU”, which they’d seen on display earlier on their trip at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.

The Brocks visited the campus as part of a tour of various Ontario sites that are associated with Canada’s first war hero.

Earlier in the day, they visited Fort George, where Isaac Brock and his officers hosted American officers for dinner on the evening the war proclamation came through, as well as Brock’s Monument in Queenston Heights, where they laid a floral tribute to the General.

After visiting the University, it was off to Kingston where they will attend 1812 commemorative events this weekend.

Michael Strong, whose wife Penny is a descendant of Sir Isaac, said it has all been a special experience for the visitors.

“The family wanted to honour the memory of Sir Isaac,” he said this week.

“We are enormously proud of his achievements and deeply grateful for the way that the Canadian people have taken him to their hearts.”