One of the Least Used Genealogy Resources

As more people come to the party known as family history and genealogy research the majority start their hobby with on-line resources. There are many sites on the Internet that help facilitate that research by permitting people to quickly find records such as:

• census enumerations
• civil birth, marriage, and death registrations
• parish baptism, marriage, and funeral records
• passenger lists
• border crossing forms
• military records
• city directories
• electoral rolls

Yet that only scratches the surface of what is available. The various archives, libraries, and museums are a treasure trove of those hidden gems that often contain the answers to our brick walls. I've mentioned in past posts the need to Check the Local Library and have often mentioned the collections at Library and Archives Canada.

However there is one resource that is often not used. This resource is not a document or microfilm. It isn't composed of paper, plastic, or celluloid. Rather this resource consists of the amazing Librarians and Archivists in those brick and mortar, glass and steel, and concrete buildings that I keep encouraging you to visit.

Maybe you are visiting a library in a town where your ancestors settled. You think you know the exact book you want to consult since your found that book in one of the online catalogues such as WorldCat or on the library's own web site. So you head over to the genealogy section, read the applicable pages in the book and then you are done right?

Not even close!

Before going to that book you should have dropped by the reference desk and said hello to the Librarian. Then you should have let them know what you are researching and if they might be able to point you to what they have in their collection that can help you in your quest.

That is how I met up with another researcher who just happened to be researching the same family line I was interested in. The Librarian brought me over to the genealogy section and made the introductions. We were then able to compare notes, help each other out, and save time by not duplicating our research efforts.

Maybe you have a brick wall and you have looked everywhere in the library or archive. Actually that should be you think you have looked everywhere. Walk over to the reference desk and ask if they have a moment to help you out. Explain your problem and where you have looked. You may just be amazed to find out you really haven't looked everywhere. You see the Librarians and Archivists know their collections. They will ask some probing questions, maybe even check their computer or card catalogue (yes, these still exist), and then take you to the document or book that you didn't even know existed.

So make use of that wonderful resource known as the Librarian or Archivist!

Working Backwards to Move Forward

Much like many of you I too have a family tree hosted on Ancestry. I use that tree for cousin bait and also to let the computers at Ancestry do some of the easy research for me while I sleep. Many of those hints are for census records and after reviewing the documents I make an informed decision as to whether the person on the census page really does match who I am presently working on. With my world subscription (vital for my Canadian, USA, UK, Australian, and even some Irish research) I sometimes get some very strange possible matches to people in my tree. This is one of those cases.

In my tree I have a John McKinlay (my 1st cousin twice removed) born 4 Jul 1891 at 33 Maxwell Street in Pollokshaw, Scotland¹. He is the son of James McKinlay, a cloth bleacher foreman, and Mary Baird. I had found him in the 1901 census of Scotland living with his parents and siblings. The last record of him I could find was as the informant of his father's death in 1916. At that time John was residing at 6 College Street, Glasgow (same place his father's home). After that John disappeared.

In the waning days of 2014 a little hint appeared on John's page. This hint was for a record in the "World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942" collection.

Ancestry.com, "U.S. World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942," database on-line, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 9 Mar 2015), entry for John Baird McKinlay, serial number U601, Draft Board 8, Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey; citing Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration. Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147, National Archives and Records Administration.

The birth date was right and that document recorded that he was born in Glasgow, Scotland. Also knowing that a mother's maiden surname may be used for a middle name I was tempted to added that record. Yet a name and a matching birth date didn't necessarily mean it was the same person. It did mention that a Mrs. Lily McKinlay living at the same address was a "person who will always know your address". Could she be his wife? However, I had to put those questions to the side and deal with other branches of my tree first. Instead of getting distracted by this BSO² I created a To Do item and carried on with my research task I had initially started working on.

Today, while avoiding other activities, I decided to look into this To Do item³.

Instead of linking that record to my existing John McKinlay I created a new person John Baird McKinlay and connected that record to him. I also added a spouse with the first name of Lily. It was a guess that she was his wife but I needed to start somewhere⁴.

Next I looked for John and Lily in the 1940 US Federal Census. From the registration card I knew that John and Lily lived at 867 Sheridan Avenue, Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey, USA and there I found them. But I still don't really have any additional details on John. I do now know that Lily is his wife and she was born about 1892 in England.

1940 U.S. census, Union County, New Jersey, population schedule, Elizabeth, enumeration district (ED) 23-90, sheet 4B, household 120, John McKinlay household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 Mar 2015); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T627, roll 2400.

Can I find them in the 1930 Federal Census of the USA? I didn't really even need to search since an Ancestry hint popped up for that census. But I still needed to read and analyze to make sure it was the correct census for John and Lily ... and it seemed to be the right entry.

1930 U.S. census, Union County, New Jersey, population schedule, Elizabeh, enumeration district (ED) 66, sheet 23A, p. 35 [stamped], dwelling 387, family 574, John McKinlay household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 9 Mar 2015); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T626, roll 1387; Original data: United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1930. T626, 2,667 rolls.

A few more facts appeared. The first is that they were both first married at the age of 27 years. This puts their marriage happening around 1919. As a starting point I'm assuming they were married to each other at that time and this is not a second marriage for both of them. The second is that they immigrated to the United States in 1920. So the odds are that they were married before they came to the USA.

With any luck they married in England (Lily's birth country) or Scotland (last place I found John). If England then I will need to order from the General Register Office for England and Wales for £9.25 and wait a few weeks to get a document. So off to FreeBMD to search for a John McKinlay marrying a Lily.

FreeBMD.org search for marriages for John McKinlay between 1st quarter 1917 and 4th quarter 1920

Only three matches and when I looked at each one none had a Lily or anything close as a possible spouse. So it was off to ScotlandsPeople to see if there was a marriage there for John McKinlay.

ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk search for statutory marriages for John McKinlay, wife's forename starting with "Li", with a year range between 1917 and 1920.

Since it only found two possible matches it was definitely worth spending the 1 credit necessary to see the search results (note that the image above was taken after I viewed the index that is why it is free to view the page).

ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk search results for statutory marriages for John McKinlay, wife's forename starting with "Li", with a year range between 1917 and 1920.

Usually I don't this lucky in my searches but there is John Baird McKinlay marrying a Lila Ada Dunbar in 1918. Since the Scottish statutory marriage registrations normally include the names of the parents of both parties it is definitely worth spending the 5 credits needed to view the marriage registration.

Lanarkshire, Scotland, Statutory Marriages 1855-2009, 1918 Marriages in the District of Garngadhill: 44, John Baird McKinlay-Lily Ada Dunbar, 1918; digital images, General Register Office for Scotland, ScotlandsPeople (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/ : accessed 9 Mar 2015).

There is the John Baird McKinlay that I was hoping to find. Here he states that he is the son of the late James McKinlay, a bleacher, and the late Mary Baird. I actually have documents for James and Mary showing that they died before 24 Dec 1918 so that helps confirm this statement. Even the address for John matches (spelling to be ignored) the information on his father's death registration and John's last known address. This is a definitely a match to my John McKinlay.

I now even have the full name of Lily ... it is Lily Ada Dunbar, the daughter of Oliver Dunbar and Lily Ada Adkins.

So the James Baird McKinlay initially flagged as a hint in the "World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942" collection is the John McKinlay in my tree. Of course a new To Do item needs to be created: find their arrival in the New World.

Tip: Don't discount those hints that don't seem to fit at first. Form a hypotheses and work through the records. Sometimes you need to work backwards to find the answer.

---

1. Renfrewshire, Scotland, "Statutory Births 1855-2009," 1891 Births in the Parish of Eastwood, p. 102, John McKinlay; digital image, General Register Office for Scotland, ScotlandsPeople (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/: 25 Aug 2011).

2. BSO: Bright Shiny Object - the bane of most genealogy researchers since one can easily distract you from what you are presently working on.

3. 530 open items with 239 just for ordering records from the General Register Office of England and Wales. That is over £2200 or about $4200 CDN! Maybe I'll get them when I win the lottery.

4. Always be willing to throw away a theory if it doesn't pan out. However, make sure you record in your Research Log what you found and why it didn't work out.

Searching the Obituary Daily Times

One of those sites that have become invaluable to me for locating fairly recent obituaries is the Obituary Daily Times. If you have a subscription to Ancestry.ca you can also find the Obituary Daily Times in their collections under "Web: Obituary Daily Times Index, 1995-Current". But the Obituary Daily Times web site is constantly updated so use that whenever possible.

Not all newspapers are indexed by the fabulous contributors. However, the list of publications that are or have been indexed can be found on the Publications page. Just be aware that the Obituary Daily Times DOES NOT have the obituaries. It is just an index to help you find the newspaper that does have the obituary or notice of death.

There are two ways you can use this site for your genealogy research. The first is to subscribe to their daily (or twice daily) e-mail. You do that by sending an e-mail to GEN-OBIT-L-request AT rootsweb.com (replace the "AT" with the "@" symbol) and putting "subscribe" in the body of the e-mail. No subject for the e-mail is required. However, since I already get enough e-mails every day I make use of the second option and that is searching their online index.

Searching the Obituary Daily Times database is as simple as going to their search form found at http://obits.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/obit.cgi. There you can search for anything recorded in the index.

For example, I'm looking for recent obituaries for Jenkins. For the keywords I just type in Jenkins. That returns back almost 18,000 possible matches for people with a surname of Jenkins, maiden surname of Jenkins, previously married surname of Jenkins, people who died in Jenkins township in Pennsylvania. That is just a few too many to review in my lifetime. Yet I can also use more than one keyword in the search. In this case, I am looking for any obituaries in the index for any Jenkins in New Brunswick. For the keywords I just use Jenkins NB. Just by adding "NB" I now only have 60 possible obituaries to look through. Below is a snippet of what was returned:

BEERS, Constance (JENKINS)[KING]; 92; St John NB>Auburndale FL; Tampa Trib; 2007-9-18; evallie
CYR, Margaret Helen (JENKINS); 74; Woostock NB; Telegraph Journal; 2002-11-22; jdlmwc
FIDLER, Maxine J (JENKINS); 78; York NB>Troy MT; Missoulian; 1999-4-16; hharley
HANLEY, Dorothy "Dot" (JENKINS); 88; Saint John NB>Halifax NS; Telegraph Journal (NB); 2005-8-31; jdlmwc
HANLEY, Dorothy Parker (JENKINS); 88; Saint John NB>Halifax NS; Chron-Herald; 2005-8-31; kbutler
HEDBERG, Brenda J (ESTEY)[JENKINS]; ; Saint John NB; Telegraph Journal; 2003-3-8; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Betsy Maria (PAGET); 89; Plaster Rock NB; Daily Gleaner; 2007-2-19; rmdi
JENKINS, Betsy Marie (PAGET); 89; Plaster Rock NB; Telegraph Journal; 2007-2-19; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Carl Beecher; 76; Minto NB; Daily Gleaner; 2008-4-28; rmdi
JENKINS, Carmen A (OUELLETTE); ; Saint John NB; Telegraph Journal; 2011-12-19; jdlmwc
JENKINS, David G Rev; ; Rothesay NB; Telegraph Journal; 2013-8-14; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Donald M; ; Saint John NB; Telegraph Journal; 2008-4-19; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Donald Osbourne; 73; Fredericton NB; Saint John E-T-G; 1990-9-28; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Doris Gertrude (CUMBERLAND); 90; Hampton NB; Telegraph Journal; 2008-11-11; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Dow A "Dowie"; ; Nauwigewauk NB; Telegraph Journal; 2006-10-31; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Edith Gertrude (SMITH); 96; Long Reach NB>Cumberland MD; Cumberland T-N; 2006-3-14; gschubert
JENKINS, Eileen Ruth (TOMPKINS); 61; Waterville NB; Daily Gleaner; 2009-4-21; rmdi
JENKINS, Ellen "Nellie" (STACKHOUSE); 101; Medford ME>Saint John NB; Telegraph Journal; 2007-5-22; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Flora A (McGARITY); 77; Cambridge Narrows NB; Telegraph Journal; 2013-9-17; jdlmwc
JENKINS, Fred W "Roop"; 78; Saint John NB; Telegraph Journal; 2009-11-21; jdlmwc

Note how the index is formatted (taken from the Obituary Daily Times Contributors' Handbook):
Surname, Firstname; Age; Place of Birth>Death; Pub Name; Pub Date; Tagname

The surnames are always in upper case and if a maiden surname is provided in the obituary then it is included between "()". If the person was married previously and the previous married surname (or surnames) is in the obituary then that too is included but encased in "[]".

The age, if provided in the obituary, is recorded.

You will see sometimes the place is listed like "Long Reach NB>Cumberland MD". This means that the place of birth is also recorded. In this case the obituary stated that the person was born in Long Reach, New Brunswick and died in Cumberland, Maryland.

The publication name can be a challenge since often the full publication name isn't typed in but instead a short form or abbreviation is used. You can find all the publication name abbreviations on their Publications page. Always double-check the abbreviation to make sure you are looking for the correct newspaper.

The date of publication is in the format of YYYY-M-D. So a publication date of 2003-3-8 converts to March 8th, 2003. Note that there are no leading zeros for the months and days.

Finally the tagname is the code for the contributor's name.

Let's look at the line "JENKINS, Fred W "Roop"; 78; Saint John NB; Telegraph Journal; 2009-11-21; jdlmwc". I note that his nickname appears to be "Roop". An unusual nickname but since I've been researching his line for some time now I know that his grandmother's name is Lena Garner Roop. According to this obituary he was 78 years old when he died in Saint John, New Brunswick. I should be able to find his obituary in the November 21st, 2009 edition of the Telegraph-Journal. I can either see if a local library or archive has this edition or I can check online to see if the Telegraph-Journal has an online presence (they do and their recent obituaries can be searched at http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/obituaries.php).

I could have searched for Jenkins 2009 or Fred Jenkins and his entry in the index would have popped up. The search keywords can be anything recorded in the index.

Just remember, the Obituary Daily Times is just an index. You still have to locate the newspaper and read the obituary to confirm that it is for the person you are searching for.

Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions

Many times as we do our research into the lives of our ancestors we come across census entries that cause us to scratch our head in bewilderment and confusion. Just why did the enumerator record the religion as "N.C." or the birth place as "U.C."? There must be a rational reason and many times there is. First of all, make sure you visit the Censuses page at Library and Archives Canada and read the various sections, especially the "About" page, for clues concerning abbreviations and when the enumerations took place.

However, the next challenge is to find out what were the instructions given to the enumerators. For those censuses taking place after the 1867 Confederation you can find PDF copies of the proclamations and/or manuals on several web sites such as the Internet Archive, Library and Archives Canada, or even the University of Ottawa.

• 1871 Census of Canada Enumerator Manual
• 1881 Census of Canada Enumerator Manual
• 1891 Census of Canada Enumerator Manual
• 1901 Census of Canada Enumerator Manual
• 1906 Proclamation and Enumerator Instructions for the Census of the Northwest Provinces
• 1911 Census of Canada Enumerator Instructions
• 1916 Proclamation and Enumerator Instructions for the Census of the Prairie Provinces
• 1921 Census of Canada Enumerator Instructions

For those censuses taken before Canadian Confederation it becomes a little more of a challenge. Fortunately the Programme de recherche en démographie historique (PRDH), Département de Démographie, Université de Montréal as part of their historical census database construction projects for the Canadian censuses of 1851/52 and 1881 has pulled together some transcriptions to help understand those censuses.

• 1851/52 Census for the Province of Canada including New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
• 1861 Census for the Province of Canada including New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island

Those excerpts may be found in David P. Gagan's article "Enumerator's Instructions for the Census of Canada 1852 and 1861" in the "Histoire Sociale/Social History", Vol. VII, No. 14 (November 1974). Use WorldCat to see if you can find a copy close to you to peruse.

For those more recent census enumerations of Canada such as those taken in 1926, 1931, 1936, 1941, and 1946 a search of the Internet Archive can locate the enumerator manuals.


Tip: Save those PDF files to your computer just in case they disappear from the various web sites.