Extra Children or a Bigger Mystery? - Part 2

We pick up where we left off with the man in black valiantly climbing the Cliffs of Insanity. Oops, wrong story!

In my post "Extra Children or a Bigger Mystery? - Part 1" I mentioned my confusion with how Louisa and Marjory fit into the McKinnon-McDonald tree. I continue that adventure here ...

Since I couldn't find any Louisa or Marjory Baileys in Manitoba vital statistics, newspapers, census record or anywhere else in publicly available records I needed to look at the additional clues I might have in my personal archives.

I had two pieces of paper that seemed to apply to this line (the images below have been cropped due to privacy reasons). The first one included"Aunt Marjorie Waterhouse" and "Aunt Louie Elmhust" along with what appeared to be the children of Aunt Louie. This matched the information on the hand-drawn tree where Marjory is recorded as marrying Herb Waterhouse and Louisa marries John Elmhirst.

Note 1 - Aunt Marjorie Waterhouse and Aunt Louie Elmhust

The second piece of paper include additional details on Marjorie:

• she was a nurse
• full name is Marjorie Stratford Elmhirst
• born in 1903
• possibly married Waterhouse
• child named Hilda

Note 2 - Notes on the McKinnon-McDonald line

For Louie she may have married a Jack Elmhirst and her children were Hilda, Anna, and Jack.

So it was back to the Manitoba "Genealogy Searches for Unrestricted Records" to see what I could discover using the names of the possible husbands. Since I had only one spelling for Waterhouse I figured that might be a good place to start. One little problem. The only Waterhouse marriage with the husband's forename that could be a "Herb" to a wife with a forename of "Marjorie" or "Marjory" has his wife's surname listed as Nelson.

Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Manitoba, Canada, "Marriages," database on-line, Province of Manitoba Vital Statistics Database Search (http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php : accessed 20 Jan 2015), entry for Herbert Alan Waterhouse and Marjorie V Nelson, married 11 Aug 1917; citing registration number 1917-046011.

Nelson? Not Bailey or McKinnon? And if she was born in 1903 what is she doing getting married in 1917? That is just a bit young, although not completely unheard of.

That cause me to pause and to stop everything. This was getting more complicated with every record I turned up. So I left my database and online family tree on Ancestry and turned to my trusty Evernote to create a new note. There I started recording all that I found on those pieces of paper and the hand-drawn tree. Effectively I began with a blank slate starting with Marjorie/Marjory that married Herb Waterhouse and Louisa/Louie that married John/Jack Elmhirst. I also posed a question:

Just how are they related to the McKinnon line?

I also wrote the following down:

Collected information

From the McKinnon notes:
[marginal notes around Marjorie, Louie, Main, John: taken in Lindsay Ont]
- Marjorie Stratford Elmhirst, born 1903, married Waterhouse, child: Hilda, occupation: nurse
- Louie, married Jack Elmhirst, children Hilda, Anna, Jack

Miscellaneous Notes:
- "Aunt Marjorie Waterhouse"
- "Aunt Louie Elmhust", children Hilda & Anna Elmhurst, Jack

MacKinnon - MacDonald chart:
- Marjory m. Herb Waterhouse, child Hilda
- Louisa m. John Elmhirst, children Marjory (m. McMillan), Hilda, Anna, Jack (m. Flor Reynolds)

Manitoba Vital Statistics:
- Birth: Marjorie Stratford Elmhirst, female, born 26 Dec 1902 in R.M. of North Cypress. Mother's name: Luetta Nelson, registration number: 1906-010819
- Marriage: Herbert Alan Waterhouse married Marjorie V Nelson on 11 Aug 1917 in North Cypress, registration number 1917-046011

I was focusing on Marjorie since at least the variations of her forename and husband's surname are probably not as many as for Louisa/Louie and Elmhirst/Elmhust.

Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Manitoba, Canada, "Births," database, Province of Manitoba Vital Statistics Database Search (http://vitalstats.gov.mb.ca/Query.php : accessed 20 Jan 2015), entry for Marjorie Stratford Elmhirst, born 26 Dec 1902; citing registration number 1906-010819.

Looking at the Manitoba Vital Statistics entry for Marjorie Stratford Elmhirst we see that she was born in 1902. Close enough for memory sake to 1903. That seems to be a match. yet her mother is Luetta Nelson. Is that another spelling for Louisa/Louie? Again that married age, now 15 years, is still just a bit young. Plus it is a Nelson who married a Waterhouse and not an Elmhirst. Could whoever wrote those notes confused two Marjories?

More questions and still no clear answers.

To be continued