Hints for Dealing With Ancestry Hints - Member Trees

In my post Hints for Dealing With Ancestry Hints I sort of glossed over how I handle the Member Trees hints from Ancestry when I stated:

"The Member Trees are a special challenge for me since I don't trust anyone's trees (sometimes I even doubt my own work). My usually approach for the member trees on Ancestry is to do a quick glance at what they have posted to see if there is anything of particular interest and then review those documents. Sometimes I will add to my to do list an action to search for a document to confirm what someone added to their tree."

For me, the Member Trees hints fall under my first rule of my genealogy research of "Trust no one"¹

As I start to write this post I have 739 Member Trees hints. That is down from 846 from last week when I decided I really needed to clean up the non-record hints in my Ancestry tree. By reviewing those hints I've created 10 to do items from information I gleaned from the various member page hints. I've also sent to a message to two Ancestry members concerning a possible incorrect marriage fact in their respective trees.

First of all, when going through the Member Trees hints I would recommend starting at the oldest hint. Why? A few reasons:

• The oldest hints are usually about the people you first added to your tree. These are often the people of most interest to you.
• It also can give you a sense of accomplishment as you go to the next page of hints and it isn't a never ending list.

Screen capture from Ancestry Member Trees hints for McKinlay/McMullen tree

As you can see by the screen capture I have 37 pages of hints with 20 people per page. To quickly go to the last page I just type in 37 in the page number box and press the Enter key.

Next I Ignore the hints of people that, according to Ancestry, are not a spouse of a blood related family member or someone not related to me through blood. Back when I started working on my third version³ of documenting my family tree I was still in the "name collecting phase" that most of us go through when we start researching. In the current iteration of my tree I am a bit more focused on the connections I record.  So when I see a Member Trees hint for someone like Jean Brannan that states she is the "mother-in-law of wife of 2nd cousin 3x removed" that is usually a quick decision to ignore the hint. However, even then I might click on the Review button.

Screen capture from Ancestry Member Trees hints for Jean Brannan

When I do come across a Member Trees hint of interest I click on the Review button to see what other trees might have information that I don't. Here is an example of a hint for Daniel Beverly Hatfield, my 2nd cousin 5 times removed. I've blanked out the name of the tree and owner for privacy sake.

Screen capture from a specific Ancestry Member Tree hint for Daniel Beverly Hatfield

As you can see, there is much more information for his family than what I have including a possible first marriage and a list of children. There is even a death date in that suggested tree.

Notice that there is a difference in the date for the marriage to Annie Somerville. This raises a flag for me. Is my information incorrect? Since my master database is not on Ancestry but stored in my offline Legacy Family Tree I need to consult the source or sources I've used. If it is only single source I need to see if I can find a corroborating source for what I have. Of course, I might be in error⁴.

In this case, my source of the date of the marriage to Annie Somerville is from "The Records of The Reverend James Gray, Kings County, New Brunswick 1857-1898" compiled by Graeme F. Somerville.

Date of Marriage: 1893 Feby 8
No of License: 10875 (house of J Gray)
Parties Married and Residence: D. Beverly Hatfield, age 55 Ch. of England Farmer, Norton / Annie Somerville, 19, Baptist, Norton
Names of their Parents: Daniel Hatfield, Mary Lannen / John Somerville, Gertrude Belding
Witnesses and their address: Jane Gray, Sussex / Bella M. Patterson, Sussex

However that book is an extract from the original records. Might there be another set of records I can check to verify the date?

The first place I went to is the "Daniel F Johnson's New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics" collection at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick site. There, in volume 85 number 1421, from the 3 Mar 1893 edition of the Kings County Record of Sussex in Kings County Daniel has extracted:

"Norton (Kings Co.) March 1 - D.B. HATFIELD, our police magistrate, took to himself a wife about two weeks ago, in the person of Miss Annie SOMERVILLE, eldest d/o John SOMERVILLE, section foreman."

But that is still an extract. Can we find an image of a civil or parish record?

In the Vital Statistics from Government Records (RS141) at the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick site there can be found the 8 Feb 1893 marriage record for D. Beverley Hatfield⁵ and Annie Sommerville. So it seems like my information is correct.

What about that possible first marriage? Can we confirm that information?

With that marriage taking place prior to civil registration a search of the Vital Statistics from Government Records is probably futile but since it takes just a minute to do I did it anyways just in case. Nothing was returned using the following criteria:

• Family Name exactly hatfield
• Given Names begins with d
• Years 1850-1860
• County All Counties

A search of the Daniel F Johnson's (DFJ) New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics collection has two entries:

21 Aug 1858 New Brunswick Courier (Saint John, New Brunswick): "m. 26th July, by Rev. W. Alves, D.B. HATFIELD, Norton parish (Kings Co.) / H.A. Hamilton DOANE fourth d/o Capt. Isaac DOANE of (St. John) city."

and

27 Aug 1858 Religious Intelligencer (Saint John, New Brunswick): "m. 26th July, by Rev. W. Alves, D.B. HATFIELD, Norton parish (Kings Co.) / H.A. Hamilton fourth s/o Capt. Isaac DOANE (St. John)"

Hmmm...it appears that her last name isn't Hamilton but is Doane.

What about her death? Is that correct? Back to the DFJ collection and a search for the last name of Hatfield and a forename starting with "D" (the husband is often mentioned in notices of that time). I do find two notices for Adelaide Hatfield for a death taking place in Norton, Kings County, New Brunswick on 5 March 1887. She is recorded as the wife of D. Beverley Hatfield and daughter of the late Captain J.W. Doane.

d. Norton (Kings Co.) 5th inst., Adelaide HATFIELD w/o D. Beverley HATFIELD, Esq. and d/o late Capt. J.W. DOANE, age 53 (Boston, New York and Chicago papers please copy)

J.W. Doane and not Isaac Doane. Sigh, yet another mystery for another day. Also with a request for other newspapers to copy I wonder if there might be family members in those other places.

However, it appears that the information presented for the family of Daniel Beverly Hatfield from this specific public tree on Ancestry is suspect. But I did find clues to work from and records to confirm.

As an aside, just verifying these details took under 30 minutes since I knew where to search. It will take me about an hour to record the details in my master offline family tree database and to make the additions to my Ancestry tree.

The one thing I will never do is just blindly accept those hints from another tree into my own tree.

Keep in mind that an ignored hint can always been viewed by selecting Hints and clicking on "Ignored".

Screen capture from Ancestry for Ignored hints of Jean Brannan in McKinlay/McMullen tree

Those ignored hints are never really lost and can be reviewed if you find that this person is really of interest to you in your family history research.

When doing the hint clean ups from the Ancestry Member Trees, keep in mind that it will take some time. It isn't a simple process and you will always end up with to do items and a lot of data entry. But it is worth it in the end.

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1. I try to follow three basic rules in my research:

1. Trust no one
2. Verify everything
3. Even if written in stone it might be wrong²

2. See my posts Zombie in the census? about Robert Howe and also Endnotes and Footnotes concerning the grave maker for Elizabeth (nee Chipman) Sommerville.

3. I'm currently on my fifth version of the tree as part of my long term "do over" project.

4. Yes, I make mistakes. Sometimes they are whoppers but often they are simple transcription errors.

5. The marriage registration states "D. Beverley Hatfield" but the marriage certificate has his signature written as "D. Beverly Hatfield".

Hints for Dealing With Ancestry Hints

There are times in my genealogy research I find that I need to let the computer do some of the work for me. This is where the hint system in the various online family tree sites such as MyHeritage, Findmypast, and Ancestry can help out.

I have tree on Ancestry that serves two purposes: "easy" record finding and as cousin bait. So I often get hints for the over 10,000 people in my tree. Most of these people were connected to my tree in my name collecting phase on my research and have relationships to me such as "paternal grandfather of wife of 1st cousin of husband of 1st cousin 3x removed". However, I don't want to prune those folks from my tree just in case a closer relationship appears. This means that I have 16,400 hints broken down as:

• Records: 14992
• Photos: 443
• Stories: 119
• Member Trees: 846

I will admit that it makes for a nearly impossible task to review each of those hints for validity. Especially since if a hint is valid for a person it can often lead to several hours of additional research. So this is my approach for whittling down at least some of those hints.

First of all I try to only pay attention to those hints for my cousins, grandparents, and others of "blood" in my direct family lines. I will periodically to go the oldest person of a specific direct line branch and display their tree to see what leaves in Ancestry appear.

Screen capture from Ancestry.ca for a portion of William Bell Little's tree

Keep in mind that often these hints are not from all of the collections but from a select group of commonly used sets such as those found in census, birth, marriage, death, immigration, and military collections.

Of course, by doing this, even more hints might be found and thus your count of hints will go up. But you might find additional clues to break through your brick walls. In my case, with almost 15,000 record hints the number seems to never really go down.

I will often turn to reviewing the photo and story hints since that list is much, much shorter! Here is where I get some of my best clues to investigate.

Screen capture from Ancestry for Story Hints for the McKinlay/McMullen tree

As you can see, someone has posted the possible obituary for Alfred Boller Stanford. It is critical that you review the hint to make sure it really does apply to the person in your tree. Even then, I rarely link another person's document to someone in my tree. Instead I will see if I can find the original document the hint came from. In the case of the "obit for alfred stanford", the person that posted that story stated "By United Press International | February 14, 1985". I can now search newspaper sites like GenealogyBank, Newspapers.com, and NewspaperArchive to find the specific newspaper the obituary was from. Other times you will come across research notes that can help you analyze the information in a tree.

For the photo hints, I will go through the list to see if there is photo or image of a document that adds value to what I have already found concerning a person in my tree. Pictures of headstones can be a particular interest, especially if the poster has indicated the cemetery in which the marker may be found. If I don't have a bith or death date, or even a spouse listed, then the grave marker can possibly give me a clue to hunt down. In the photo hints I've come across not only are there the usual pictures of people and grave markers but also hard to find birth, marriage, and death registrations, clippings from newspapers announcing important events in a person's life, and pages from books that I wasn't aware even existed.

The story and photo hints can also lead you to finding new cousins. Take a look at who that story or photo is linked to. Maybe even drop a note to the tree owner asking them how they are connected to the person. You never know what connection you will make.

The Member Trees are a special challenge for me since I don't trust anyone's trees (sometimes I even doubt my own work). My usually approach for the member trees on Ancestry is to do a quick glance at what they have posted to see if there is anything of particular interest and then review those documents. Sometimes I will add to my to do list an action to search for a document to confirm what someone added to their tree.

Remember, at least on Ancestry, if you ignore the hint it isn't gone forever. It is still available to view in the "Ignored Hints" for a person in your tree.

As for going through my own hints as I was writing this post the results are:

• Records: 15066
• Photos: 285
• Stories: 44
• Member Trees: 846

A net decrease of 159 hints but even more record hints appeared!

Looks like I still have my work cut out for me on Ancestry. However, I did discover a transcription of an obituary I've been trying to locate. I also came across a detailed explanation concerning the parentage of Nancy, daughter of Handley Chipman and Nancy Post, and her date of birth that I need think about and also to examine the source documents mention.

Canadian First World War Resources - A Recap

Many of us in Canada have a connection to a relative or ancestor that fought or served in the First World War. With this year's Remembrance Day also commemorating the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice I thought it was important to look at some of the resources available to us when doing our genealogy and family history research for those that fought or served during the Great War.

Library and Archives Canada

The first place I always recommend is the First World War landing page at the Library and Archives Canada web site. Take the time to look through the various resources available either online or onsite. Some of the resources include:

• Canadian Expeditionary Force
• Aboriginal Soldiers
• Royal Newfoundland Regiment and Newfoundland Forestry Corps
• Imperial War Service Gratuity files
• Non-Permanent Active Militia
• Royal Canadian Navy and Naval Reserve
• Nursing Sisters that served with the CEF
• Military Medals, Honours and Awards, 1812-1969

Don't forget to look at the "Published Sources"since those books can shed some light on the lives of those that served. Some of the online record collections at Library and Archives Canada might only be indices. However, often the digitized documents may be found elsewhere.

Do you have a War Bride in the family? If so, review the War Brides page at Library and Archives Canada for possible collections that you might want to check out.

The War Diaries of the First World War are not the diaries of the individual service member but daily accounts of the CEF units. Searching for the diaries for a specific unit is not a straight forward task but the results can be worth while. There you will find that serving could be days of boring routine followed by hell in the trenches. If you know the unit of your soldier and when they were injured or killed, the war diaries can often help pinpoint where the unit and quite possibly the soldier was on that date.

Maps

Once you have the service file and know where your soldier was on the group through reading the War Diaries then being able to find them on the ground during the fighting is often the next step. McMaster University has an amazing Digital Archive in their Maps Collection for the First World War. You can even look at the Trench Maps for the Western Front.

Newfoundland

FamilySearch has the digitized collection "Newfoundland military service records for the Royal Newfoundland Regiment and the Newfoundland Forestry Corps, 1913-1918" available online. You will need to review the digitized index first to determine the volume and file number. Then you can go to the appropriate digitized microfilm roll to review the service records. You will also find military records and other information about Newfoundlanders in the First World War at the Newfoundland's Grand Banks site.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission helps you find where a service member that died during the Great War is buried or memorialized. You will often find the Grave Registration Report included on the page. If no body was recovered the name may be found on one of several memorials. A photo of the panel when the name is written may also be included on the page.

Memorials

Those Canadians in uniform that died during the First World War (and other wars), you can find their name inscribed in the Books of Remembrance housed in the Memorial Chamber of the Peace Town in Ottawa. You can search the books and view the page from the specific Book of Remembrance.

Veterans Affairs Canada houses the Canadian Virtual War Memorial. The CVWM is a registry to honour and remember the sacrifices of the Canadians and Newfoundlanders who have given their lives serving in uniform.

Ancestry

If you have a paid Ancestry subscription or you are accessing Ancestry from a library or archive then you will find a number of collections including:

• Canada, WWI CEF Personnel Files, 1914-1918 - This collection is the same as what is available directly from Library and Archives Canada. However, the individual services files at Library and Archives Canada come bundled as a PDF whereas on Ancestry you need to retrieve the individual images for each service member.
• Canada, Imperial War Service Gratuities, 1919-1921 - At the end of the First World War, all Canadian service personnel received a payment to help in the transition from military service to civilian life. In December 1919 the Canadian government decided to increase the gratuity for all Canadian residents that served with the British forces during the Great War. These are the records of applications for the increased gratuity payment. Most of the applications were from those personnel that served with the Royal Flying Corp, Royal Navy, and the British Expeditionary Force.
• England, Queen's Canadian Military Hospital Registers, 1914-1919 - This collection includes registers of admission and discharge, and rolls of patient transfers for the Queen's Canadian Military Hospital at Beachborough Park, Shorncliffe.
• U.S., Residents Serving in Canadian Expeditionary Forces, 1917-1918 - The CEF didn't just have Canadians in their ranks. Americans that didn't want to wait for the United States of America to join the war against the Central Powers also joined the Canadian Expeditionary Force.
• Canada, Nominal Rolls and Paylists for the Volunteer Militia, 1857-1922 - Often you will find on the CEF Attestation Papers a mention that the recruit had served in the militia. You may be able to find their name in these nominal rolls and paylists.
• Canada, War Graves Registers (Circumstances of Casualty), 1914-1948 - This database has the death and burial information for Canadian military personnel
• Canada, CEF Commonwealth War Graves Registers, 1914-1919 - The "Black Binder" registers were used to record the final resting place of those that died during the First World War in Belgium, France, and the United Kingdom.
• Canada, Military Honours and Awards Citation Cards, 1900-1961 - These index cards documenting awards and honours received by service personnel may include your service member or Nursing Sister.
• Canadian Passenger Lists, 1865-1935 - Don't forget that those that served overseas needed to come back home to Canada. You will often find them in the passenger lists of the ships that were seconded to act a troop ships.

Other Collections

There is also the Military History Research Centre at the Canadian War Museum. You can search their online catalogue or make an appointment to review the onsite resources.

Was your relative or ancestor a prisoner of war during the First World War? If so, search the Prisoners of the First World War collection at the International Committee of the Red Cross.

A number of the Nominal Rolls for the Canadian Expeditionary Force have been digitized and made available on the Internet Archive by searching for "nominal roll canadian expeditionary force".

Do you have a picture of the service member and you can't figure out the badge on the uniform? Check out the "Badge Registry: The Canadian Expeditionary Force" pages.

The Canadian Expeditionary Force Study Group is a group of enthusiasts with an interest in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. They have amassed a large collection of files and information concerning the CEF and are a great research when digging into the lives of service members and history of the units.

If your ancestor or relative did something particularly brave during the war they might have been "gazetted" with a mention in the Canada Gazette or London Gazette. Remember that some of the awards, honours, and medals were done post-war.

Don't forget to check the newspapers in the villages, towns, and cities that your relative or ancestor lived. Often there will be a mention of them heading off to war, returning, getting injured or killed, and also in memory post-war.

Easy Backups to USB Flash Drive

Backup Reminder

USB Flash Drive

I periodically get asked how I do my backups on my Microsoft Windows 10 based system¹. Besides doing a monthly backup of my computer to an externally connected hard drive I also do a periodic backup of only my genealogy information to a USB memory stick/thumb drive/flash drive. Today's post will cover just how I do that copying to the USB flash drive.

Now I could easily just copy and paste the contents of my genealogy folder to the flash drive. I actually used to do that when I only had a small amount of information to copy. However, I now have over 57 GB² of various images, digitized books, and other related files in my genealogy folder. Some of that information I don't need or want to have backed up since it can be very easily recreated from the original sources³. That still leaves about 49 GB of information to be backed up. If I manually copied all the files I want backed up it would take several hours. Instead I use a free program called SyncBackFree by 2BrightSparks to handle my backups to the USB flash drive.

Why SyncBackFree? First of all, it is free. When on a tight budget, free is often a good thing. Secondly, it doesn't use some fancy proprietary format for storing the backup in. The files on my USB flash drive can be accessed from any modern Windows (maybe even Mac) computer just like any other file. This is a great benefit when it comes to recovering the files after a disaster since all I have to do is copy the genealogy folder on my USB flash drive to my computer's hard disk.

Screen capture of SyncBackFree profiles

As you can see I have two profiles created to do my backups. I have two profiles since I have two USB flash drives that I use to hold the backups and I rotate between the drives. Each USB flash drive has been assigned a specific drive letter⁴. That way I have two different backups available that were taken at different times.

So what does one of these profiles look like?

Screen capture of SyncBackFree profile for creating a mirror backup

As you might have noticed in the screen capture of my profile list, I actually am not making a backup of my genealogy folder but I am mirroring the contents of the folder to my USB flash drive.

Mirroring? What the heck is that?

In a backup, you often have a copy of all the files that you ever had starting from a specific point in time. In a mirror, it is only what exists when you make the copy. For the purposes of my genealogy only backup to the USB flash drive, I just want a snapshot of what I have now. Since I have two USB flash drives that I rotate through, I do have one older copy I can easily access if need be.

I have also only specific sub-folders selected when it does the mirror copy of my genealogy folder. These are often folders that don't change very often or can be recreated from other sources. These excluded folders are backed up when I do my full backup of my computer each month.

Screen capture of SyncBackFree profile File & Folder Selection screen

With how I've defined my profile in SyncBackFree it usually only takes minutes to make a mirror copy of my genealogy folder since only changes are sent to the USB flash drive.

I don't have this kind of backup running automatically. However, anytime I make a large number of changes or additions to my master database I make a backup of my genealogy directory. Sometimes I make a copy of my genealogy folder just because I haven't run a backup for several days. For me, it is as simple as connecting the USB flash drive to my computer, checking to see which drive letter it is, selecting the correct profile, and clicking Run. SyncBackFree will even tell me it there were problems doing the backup.

Remember, this isn't the only way to backup your information. Find the tools and methods that work for you. Just make sure that you do your backups on a regular basis!

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1. Sorry Mac users, I don't have a solution for you. I've been a Windows user for way too many years.
2. Yes, 57 gigabytes of information.
3. My Family Tree Maker sub-folder is my backup of my Ancestry data. I don't use Family Tree Maker to enter information into my tree since I use Legacy Family Tree as my master database but I want to backup the information I have put onto my Ancestry cousin-bait tree.
4. See https://www.howtogeek.com/96298/assign-a-static-drive-letter-to-a-usb-drive-in-windows-7/ for how to do this.

Endnotes and Footnotes

When you come across a book that mentions your ancestor or relative do you ever check the end-notes or footnotes¹?

In my post The Challenge of Finding the "Truth" I wrote about Robert Sommerville and his death. As part of my discoveries I wrote:

Search for him [Robert Sommerville] on Google turns up an interesting find, the book "Covenanters in Canada: Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012" by Eldon Hay. That book has been digitized by Google Books and parts of it are online to be viewed. Once again providence shone on me and on page 104 of that book it states, "Sommerville's active life ended in 1912, following an accident. In failing health, Robert Sommerville died in New York City on 3 February 1920."

I wondered if there was a copy of that book available for me to read since throughout the pages available via Google Books there were indications of end-notes including one about his accident.

My go to site for locating where books might be found is Worldcat. A search for "Covenanters in Canada: Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012" by Eldon Hay returned three places within 10 kilometres and one of those places is Library and Archives Canada. Since I was going there soon to do other research I added the task of requesting that book to my to do list. A check on AMICUS for that book gave me this result so I knew I could request a copy for reading at LAC.

Extract from AMICUS from a search for "Covenanters in Canada: Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012"

Once the book was in my hands I checked the end-notes for the chapter on Robert Sommerville. The end-note about his accident referred me to "RCPNA Synod Minutes, 1920, 151". I couldn't easily locate the first mention in the book of what RCPNA stood for but that is where Google can help. The first hit for RCPNA returned "Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America". I knew Robert Sommerville was a minister with the Reformed Presbyterian Church so I am pretty sure that is what RCPNA stood for in the book about Reformed Presbyterianism.

Since the end-note referred to the Synod Minutes for the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America the 1920 probably was for the year and the 151 was for the page number. So my next question (and hope) is, are the Synod Minutes for 1920 available? Back to Google search with the query "RCPNA Synod 1920" (without the quotes) and to my surprise I found that the minutes are indeed available online and for free via the Reformed Presbyterian History Archives. The Synod Minutes are available from 1809 up to 2016. Clicking on the link for the Reformed Presbyterian Minutes of Synod 1920 brought up a PDF of the Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, Session XCI held in Greely, Colorado, June 3 to 9, 1920. Scrolling through the PDF I came to page 151 and there was "Rev. Robert McGowan Sommerville, D. D." as a section title. It was his obituary.

"Rev. Robert McGowan Sommerville, D. D.," Minutes of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, Session XCI, Greely, Colorado, June 3 to 9, 1920, minutes of the 1920 synod, Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, p. 151.

There was a bit about his history with the church but what caught my attention was the statement, "...made ineffective by an express team running him down on the street of New York, he retired..." I'm surmising that the "express team" mentioned would be a delivery wagon either motor driven or pulled by horses. This corroborates part of the story that was passed down as a tale to family members. Except he hadn't died from that accident (details, details, details...it's always those pesky details).

One other curious note in the end-notes was the one, and I am paraphrasing, that said "Tombstone of Elizabeth (nee Chipman) Sommerville has her death as 12 Mar 1923. She actually died 19 Mar 1924." I had never even noticed that error on her grave marker in the cemetery in Bronxville, New York, USA but looking closer at the pictures I took, the error is there.

It just goes to show how important it is to review the citations and sources used in books about your relatives and ancestors for those useful facts to clear up a mystery. Also, you really shouldn't have blind faith in what is written on those tombstones².

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1. I really hope the answer is yes.
2. See my post "Zombies in the census?" 

The Mystery of Mary Ewart

Since I reside in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada I try to keep my genealogy "to do" list for records, books, and documents that are possibly held at Library and Archives Canada to a minimum. I usually set aside time to visit LAC when I have between 8 and 10 tasks to research. This week I had nine items I wanted to investigate and almost all of them were obituaries in newspapers that may (or may not) be held in microfilm format at LAC. One of them, the death of Mary Ewart, the wife of John Alvin "Jack" McMullen, is what I'm going to cover in this post.

What I had before finding her obituary was not extensive and primarily came from the Manitoba marriage registration document for her marriage to John Alvin McMullen:

• She is born in Aryshire, Scotland about 1896
• Her father is John Ewart
• Her mother is Margaret Kelly

Manitoba Vital Statistics, Marriages,   1914-130051, John Alvin McMullen-Mary Ewart; Manitoba Vital Statistics Agency, Winnipeg.

On Ancestry, as a hint, I came across the tree of another person also researching Jack McMullen and Mary Ewart. Even better, that tree had a specific date for the birth and death of Mary. Now the hint was a bit confusing since it had Mary's son, William John (1919-1961), listed under three spouses with two of the spouses being Jack McMullen. Yet I've seen this before when trees or people are combined so it wasn't too much of a concern especially since I am not merging this tree with my own on Ancestry.

Ancestry Family Tree hint for Mary Ewart, retrieved 18 Oct 2018

What I am more interested in is that this tree has Mary's death occurring 25 Sep 1984 in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada.

A check of the "Microform Holdings: Geographical List" at Library and Archives Canada for Saskatchewan seems to indicate that LAC had a microfilm copy of the Prince Albert Daily Herald for the year I was interested in so I was in luck.

Screen capture from Library and Archives Canada web site search for Prince Albert Daily Herald Newspaper, retrieved 18 Oct 2018

After requesting the microfilm and a few minutes reading through the newspaper starting from 25 Sep 1984 I found Mary's obituary in the 27 Sep 1984 edition of the Prince Albert Daily Herald. The first surprise was that it wasn't Mary McMullen but Mary Henry. It seems that John Alvin McMullen had passed away and she had married Alexander Henry. But all the other facts about her lined up, especially those of her children that I had already recorded in my master database.

"Deaths - Henry," (Prince Albert) Prince Albert Daily Herald, 27 Sep 1984, p. 13, col. 5.

At least I now know where that tree on Ancestry found the details about Mary's birth.

Even though Mary isn't blood she did marry into my extended McMullen family and I like to make sure that the details I do have recorded are as accurate as possible. So off I went to ScotlandsPeople to see if I could find Mary's birth registration. It should be a straight forward process since I've found that the civil records held in Scotland have been easy to search.

Only one problem. There was no Mary Ewart born in 1896 in the County of Ayr. There was one born in 1890 and another born in 1899. But none in 1896 or a year or two on either side of that date. I even tried using the possible variations that ScotlandsPeople can use for searching names but still nothing really matched. I opened up the possible matches by searching in Irvine for the period between 1895 and 1897 for females with the forename of Mary. A total of 96 names were displayed in the index but no Ewart or Kelly or variations got my attention.

Another tree on Ancestry had Mary Ewart listed with her being born in Dundonald, Ayrshire about 1896. Just how many females with the forename of Mary were born between 1895 and 1897 in the Dundonald registration district? Only seven popped up and there was a Mary Gray Kelly born in 1896.

Before getting too excited and paying the credits to see the record I wanted to check to see just how far Dundonald is from Irvine. A quick check with Google Maps showed that those two places were only about 4.6 miles apart. So it was very possible that this is the Mary I am looking for.

Google Maps walking route between Irvine, UK and Dundonald, UK, retrieved 18 Oct 2018

After paying my 6 credits to view the image it really does seem that this is the Mary I am looking for. Her birth date matches that from the obituary, the 12th of January, 1896. What it more interesting is that Mary is listed as illegitimate and her mother, Maggie Kelly, is a farm servant, and no father is recorded.

Ayrshire, Scotland, "Statutory Births 1855-2009," 1896 births in the District of Dundonald, p. 2, Mary Gray Kelly; digital image, General Register Office for Scotland, "Statutory registers Births 590/1 5," ScotlandsPeople (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/).

So how did John Ewart come into the picture?

Another search of ScotlandsPeople, this time for marriages between 1890 and 1899 for John Ewart and a spouse with the last name of Kelly, returns only one entry. That of John Ewart, son of John and Margaret (Brown), a ploughman, and Maggie Kelly, daughter of Thomas and Mary (Gray), a domestic servant, married on 2 Jun 1899 in Dundonald.

So with three hours of research and writing I was able to solve one mystery and get a blog entry done. Not a bad morning. Of course, I still have to go through the rest of the results from my Library and Archives Canada visit.

So don't completely discount those trees on Ancestry. There may be interesting errors and goofs but often there are clues to be found and followed up on.

Reminder - Backups and Disasters

Backup

Backup

Backup

Power Outage map for part of Ottawa retrieved 23 Sep 2018 14h45.

As some of you might be aware, on Friday, September 21st, 2018, the Ottawa region was hit with not just one but two tornadoes so this post really hits home for me. I was lucky enough to not be on the path of the twisters but the winds and rains around me were intense. However, I live in one of the areas in Ottawa that were the hardest hit by the power outage and without electricity or running water (no power, no working pumps in my building to get the water up 20+ floors) I had to leave my place and take shelter with family.

I know we all make backups of our important digital information¹ but have you ever thought about if you can get to that information after a disaster whether it be flood, fire, power outage, or a combination thereof?

Here are a few suggestions...

1. Backup and backup often.

2. Store at least one backup some distance from where you live. Some possible ideas include:
- Give it to a fellow genealogist to hold for you
- Give it to a family member
- Put it in a safety deposit box
- Save it to an Internet cloud service

3. Test your backups. Do you know how to get the information back on to your old or new computer?


I do #1 and #3 often but I seem to constantly fail on #2. However, over the next week or so I plan to rectify that situation!


This reminder just doesn't apply to copies of your digital data. For those with binders of genealogical and family history information have you thought about how to protect and preserve your information when disaster strikes?

Backup

Backup

Backup

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1. You do, don't you? If not, stop reading this right now and make a backup! Really, do it now!

The Challenge of Finding the "Truth"

When we are doing research for ourselves or for a client, one of the challenges that we must tease out of a story is the truth of what happened rather than what was told to us. Here is part of a story that was told within my own family:

"My Aunt Libby had married a Baptist minister and gone to live with him in China to convert the heathen. He must have been one stern man for he had his wife completely cowed. She never made a move without his express orders. So accustomed was she to obeying his every wish, that when they returned after many years to serve a church community in New York city, she was rocked right out of her sense, because he was struck and killed by an auto while crossing a busy New York street. I suppose that after his lengthy China mission, he had not adapted to the great difference in living speeds."

McMullen, Frances Mary Howe (Chipman). "Fran McMullen's Correspondence - Aunt Libby." MS. Mississauga, Ontario, 1936-1987. Privately held by Ken McKinlay, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Ottawa, Ontario, 2018.

There are a few other facts included in the rest of story about Aunt Libby:

• Her name is Elizabeth Chipman
• She was born in 1837
• She was the daughter of Wm Henry Chipman and Sophia Cogswell
• She married Robert Somerville in 1865
• Robert Somerville was a Baptist minister

I wanted to know if the story about Aunt Libby's, my 2nd great-grandaunt, husband was accurate and he was killed while crossing the street.

I first needed to check some of the basic facts so I started with the Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics site to see if they had a copy of parish register marriage entry. I was very fortunate that the Kings County register had survived and was digitized. However, the second page of the entry has been damaged and lost. But enough of the fragment survived to confirm that the marriage took place in 1865.

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives, Marriage Registrations ~ 1763-1939, 1866: 7, 20, R M Somerville-Elizabeth Chipman; digital images, Nova Scotia Archives, "1866 Marriages in Kings County," Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics (https://novascotiagenealogy.com/ : accessed 26 Jan 2013).

As you can see, the marriage took place on 13 Sep 1865 in Cornwallis (Kings County, Nova Scotia) between R^t M Somerville and Elisabeth Chipman. With an age of 27 years at the time of the marriage, her birth year is about 1838. Elizabeth's death registration in 1924 in Nova Scotia listed her parents as Wm Henry Chipman and Miss Cogswell according to the informant, her brother Ross Chipman. So far, so good.

The next step was to find out when Robert died.

According to the story, he died in New York City. I know that Ancestry has the "New York, New York, Extracted Death Index, 1862-1948" collection available but Ancestry states that the indices were prepared by the Italian Genealogical Group and the German Genealogy Group. I know that the Italian Genealogical Group has a web site and a number of freely available databases. So let's go to where Ancestry got the index.

As search for Robert Somerville with a death range from 1865 to 1924 returns two matches but the ages don't quite line up. I searched again but this time looking for last names that "sounds like" Somerville. Four names come back this time including a "Robert M Sommerville", age 83 years, dying 3 Feb 1920 in Manhattan and recorded on certificate 5023. This might be the person we are looking for.

Since the 1920 Federal census of the United States took place on 1 Jan 1920, I should be able to find him there along with his wife Elizabeth.

1920 U.S. census, New York County, New York, population schedule, New York City - Manhatten Borough, enumeration district (ED) 445, sheet 1A, dwelling 1, family 5, Robert Sommerville; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com/ : accessed 28 Jan 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm T625, roll 1194.

There he appears to be with his wife living at 327 West 56th Street in Manhattan.

Let us proceed with the assumption this is the right Robert M Sommerville/Somerville. Can we get a copy of his death certificate without having to write a check? A check of the catalog on FamilySearch shows that they have a "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949" collection. Since he died in 1920 we should be able to find him there.

Screenshot of FamilySearch results for Robert Sommerville, retrieved 23 Sep 2018

And we do but no image is available from home so I will need to visit my local Family History Center to see the image but which microfilm and is it digitized? The "Citing this Record" section states "...FHL microfilm 2,021,133" and a check of the catalog for that film tells me that the "Death certificates (Manhattan, New York), 1919-1948" microfilms have been digitized.

A little while later and after a bit of looking through the images I finally found his death registration. Only one problem...according to the certificate he didn't die due to an automobile accident but from lobar pneumonia.

New York, New York County, New York,  "Death certificates (Manhattan, New York), 1919-1948," (Municipal Archives, New York), 1920, p. 5023, Robert McGowen Sommmerville; FHL microfilm 2,021,133. Cit. Date: 18 May 2018.

I'm not finished yet. Search for him on Google turns up an interesting find, the book "Covenanters in Canada: Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012" by Eldon Hay. That book has been digitized by Google Books and parts of it are online to be viewed. Once again providence shone on me and on page 104 of that book it states, "Sommerville's active life ended in 1912, following an accident. In failing health, Robert Sommerville died in New York City on 3 February 1920."

So it appears there is some truth to the story but not exactly as told.

Recently, while on the way to a friend's wedding (don't all genealogists do that - drop by a cemetery on the way to a wedding?) I was able to visit the Bronxville Cemetery where Robert and Elizabeth are buried.

Photograph of gravemaker of Robert and Elizabeth Sommerville, Bronxville Cemetery, Bronxville, New York, USA

As they say on the TV show "The X-Files", the truth is out there. The challenge we face is to find it!

Would the real William Jones please stand up?

Just recently I completed a research project as a present for my brother-in-law where I explored his maternal grandmother's lines. That is also one of the reasons I haven't been posting any blog items these past months. Since my posts are based on the genealogy research I am doing I didn't want any chance of him learning about what I was finding until I presented it to him on his birthday¹.

Almost all of the research for my brother-in-law involved families residing in England and that meant I had the challenge of figuring out if I had the right records or not since some of the people included the dreaded "Smith" and "Jones" surnames. In today's post I'm going to focus on William Jones.

The first William Jones in this project that I came across was the father of Laura Jones and he was mentioned in the parish marriage registration for James Thomas Morris and Laura Jones. I was very happy to learn that via Ancestry the following digitized parish record collections, courtesy of the Library of Birmingham, have been made available:

• Birmingham, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1937
• Birmingham, England, Church of England Baptisms, 1813-1912
• Birmingham, England, Church of England Burials, 1813-1964

This saved me time and money when it came to requesting various records as part of this project.

So here in 23 Mar 1891 William Jones, the father of Laura, is recorded as having a profession of a Boot Maker.

"Birmingham, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1937," database, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Ancestry (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 11 Jun 2018), marriage for James Thomas Morris and Laura Jones, 23 Mar 1891, Parish of Bishop Ryder; citing Reference Number: DRO 30; Archive Roll: 580; Anglican Parish Records. Birmingham, England: Library of Birmingham.

It is always a good thing when you come across someone having an occupation that is not an "Ag Lab" or just "labourer" since that provides a unique trait for the person that you can use to rule out other people of that same name. So just how many William Jones are residing in England in the 1891 census? According to Findmypast² there are 14,852 results. We need to get a bit more information first to narrow it down. Under the "Advanced options" in the Findmypast search screen I typed in different occupations that are directly related to making shoes or boots such as:

• bootmaker - 11
• cordwainer - 4
• shoemaker - 51
• shoe maker - 43
• boot maker - 28

There are only 137 William Jones in all of England recorded in the 1891 census with those occupations. Still, that is a number of records and people to look at. Let's try a different tack. How about we look at the 1881 census for households where there is a William Jones and a Laura Jones? There we find 92 households. Still quite a few. What if we look for the reverse, households with Laura Jones (including forename variations) with a William Jones in it but adding in her approximate birth year of 1869 that we gathered from her marriage registration? We now find 34 1881 census entries. Of course we are making an assumption that she is living with her father at that time so we need to keep that in mind. I still need to narrow it down to make sure I have the "right" family.

The 1901 census of the household of James T Morris states that she was born in Erdington, Warwickshire. Can I use that information to help me out?

1901 census of England, Warwickshire, Civil parish of Erdington, Ecclesiastical parish of Erdington St Barnabas, folio 33, page 24, Laura Morris; digital images, Ancestry.com, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Jun 2018); citing PRO RG 13/2875.

In the Findmypast advanced search I added "Erdington" to the keyword and three people were left:

Findmypast search rules for Laura Jones in 1881 census of England

That first one really looks promising since, up to this time in my research, she didn't have any other first names recorded. Looking at the record image³ and not just the transcription seems to confirm that this is the right family. But just to be sure, I looked at Mary L Jones and her father, William, is an Accountant Clerk. Emily L Jones' father is Geo[rge] and it is her brother Wm [William] that is the match in my search.

1881 census of England, Warwickshire, Civil Parish of Aston, Hamlet of Erdington, Ecclesiastical Parish of St. Barnabas, folio 125, page 33, Laura Jones; digital images, Ancestry.com, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 Jun 2018); citing PRO RG 11/3046.

We can see that in addition to being a boot maker William is also an Insurance Agent. He is 39 years old, thus born about 1842, and was born in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire.

Checking the 1871 census for that same family we find that William Jones is a "Letter Carrier & Librarian". I wonder if times were tough in the boot making field in 1871?

1871 census of England, Warwickshire, Civil Parish of Aston, Hamlet of Erdington, Ecclesiastical of Erdington, folio 97, page 4, Laura Jones; digital images, Ancestry.com, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Jun 2018); citing PRO RG 10/3159.

From the 1881 census and 1871 census there is another clue to find more records, do you see it? A John Coton in that same household is listed as a father-in-law. Making yet another assumption, that means that Ellen, William Jones' wife, is a "Coton". With both William and Ellen born in Warwickshire and Ellen being born in Erdington (1881) or Aston (1871) there is a pretty good chance I might be able to find the marriage record on Ancestry for the two of them since those places are in the Birmingham area. However, I had no such luck using the parish collections from Ancestry so it was off to FreeBMD.

There was only one William Jones recorded as marrying an Ellen Coton in the civil marriage registrations. Even better, the marriage took place in the Birmingham registration district and recorded in the second quarter (April-June) 1865. That is just a few years before the birth of Charles, their eldest son, as recorded in the 1871 census. So I spent my money, £9.25, and waited three weeks for the document to arrive in my postal mail box. It was money well spent.

England and Wales, marriage certificate for William Jones and Ellen Coton, married 7 May 1865; citing 6d/93/462, Jun quarter 1865, Birmingham registration district; General Register Office, Southport.

There is William Jones, a boot maker, the son of...really? William Jones?? You have got to be kidding me?

Fortunately William Jones the Senior also has a relatively unique occupation, that of a wheelwright. I guess I'll just have to repeat the process all over for him.


As you can see, it just isn't a name that is needed when find anyone in the records. You need a unique combination of other details about that person. It might be where they resided, who they were living with, when they were born, where they were born, a medical condition, or occupation to help you winnow them out from all the other people with the same name.

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1. Yes, he did appreciate the gift. He then spent the next hour reading the report and asking questions.
2. Why use Findmypast in this case? I don't have any family tree recorded there so there is less bias when it comes to searching and the results that are provided.
3. I am citing the images from Ancestry since that is where I originally retrieved them. The Findmypast images, in this case, are the same. 

Finding "Unknown" Children in Findmypast Parish Records

One of the challenges we often face is locating the siblings of children we already know about. That was the case with a recent post in the Yorkshire Genealogy group on Facebook:

"A question about how to search on FindmyPast.com for baptismal records without knowing the child's name. (For those who don't know findmypast is giving free access to records from Sept 7-10.) I am interested in finding all the siblings of someone born in Wakefield, Yorkshire around 1820. Because I do not know the names of all the siblings I cannot search using their own names. If I search on the names of one of the parents, however, I don't seem to find baptismal records for their children. Is there a way to search for the parents and get their kids' baptismal or birth records? Thank you!"

The first challenge was to get a little more information so that I could better help out and to create a usable search. With a bit of prompting this is what was next posted:

"...the father is George Armitage. Mother is listed as Mary Rayner (both in first name field) Armitage. Her full maiden name was Mary Rayner Haigh. Two known children are John Armitage born 25 Oct 1819, baptized 4 Sep 1820 at Wakefield, All Saints. Their other known child is Henrietta Armitage, born 13 Apr 1813, also baptized 04 Sept 1820. There was also a daughter, Jane baptized the same day as the other two, according to the West Yorkshire, Church of England records on ancestry, but I am most interested in finding out whether George and Mary Rayner had other children. George and Mary Rayner were married in Leeds but known children were baptized in Wakefield."

So what do we know now?

• George Armitage is the father
• Mary Rayner Haigh is the mother
• George Armitage and Mary Rayner Haigh were marred in Leeds, Yorkshire, England
• Two children were born between 1813 (Henrietta) and 1819 (John)
• Those two children plus another daughter were baptized in 1920 at All Saints Church in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England

That should be enough information to give us a nice starting point to build a search query using Findmypast.

Here is the starting page I typically get once I am logged into Findmypast.com:

Findmypast.com starting page

We could start at the Findmypast starting page by filling in the boxes in the 'Search our records" section but I'm going to take a different tack by clicking on the "Search" tab on the top banner and selecting "Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers)". This brings me to this page:

Findmypast,com Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers) search page

Since I know where in the world the family was I'm going to click on the "World" drop down menu found on the left side of the screen and select "England".

Also, since the records are all probably in the years before civil registration took place in England and Wales, I'm going to click on the "Parish Baptisms" text within the "Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers)" section on the left side of the screen.

As you can see, there are a few more really useful additional search boxes we can fill in. Each of those specific collections within the "Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers)" have unique search boxes so if you know what type of record you want to look for, select that collection.

Now to fill in the blanks in the search form. As you do so, the floating "Search Parish Baptism" button at the bottom of the screen will change to show how many records match your search criteria. I will put in square brackets the number that appeared on my screen to show the effect of the filters I am using.

1. For the "Last name" type in Armitage. [34,388]
2. Check the "Name variants" box under the Last name since we don't know how the parish clerk or vicar might have written the name. [47,637]
3. For the "Year of Birth" type in 1820 and change the "Give or take" to -+ 10yrs [7,844]
4. For "Where", for the list of counties, just start typing "Yorkshire" and select that county from the drop down list that appeared. [4,203]
5. For the "Locations" type in Wakefield. [82]
6. For the "Mother's first name(s)" type in Mary and leave the "Name variants" box checked. I could add her second first name but the person recording the details in the record book will only put in the first forename [27].
7. Leave the "Mother's last name" box empty since often the last name isn't recorded. [27]
8. For the "Father's first name(s)" type in George and leave the "Name variants" box checked. this will catch any "Geo" or other variations including just initials. [12]
9. Leave the "Father's last name" box empty since we have already put that in our search form above. [12]

So we have gone from 34,388 records down to just 12. Not too shabby! Clicking on the "View 12 Results" button will bring up what was found.

Partial search results from Findmypast for the Armitage Parish Baptism query

Here is a snippet of the results from the search. You will notice a few duplicates. That is due to the information being duplicated in the collections from the various original searches.

Also, these are only transcriptions as can be seen by the piece of paper icon. If there were images then there would be a camera icon.

If you look at one of those records and scroll down the page you will see some text stating:

Index (c) IRI. Used by permission of FamilySearch Intl.

So we know that this is an index and it is under copyright by IRI. Just who is IRI and can we find what this index was created from? Well, IRI is the "Intellectual Reserve, Inc." and it was created by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints¹. This means, at least for my purposes, that I should probably go to FamilySearch to see if I can find the images, or at least the microfilms, so that I can view the scanned in original documents.

Let us pop over to FamilySearch to see if we can replicate the search.

First we need to sign in to FamilySearch. If you don't have an account at FamilySearch it is easy to do so and it is free.

Once I signed in I hovered my mouse over the "Search" text at the top menu and click on "Records" to bring up the search page. Below is my reconstruction of the search I used on Findmypast.

FamilySearch search screen for Armitage

There are many more records return, 36,353 results to be exact, but that is because I didn't do any filtering of the collections. Like in the Findmypast search we there are duplicates, but that is to be expected since it appears that Findmypast used these records for their index.

FamilySearch search results for Armitage query

Hmmm, it looks like there are no images here also. Yet if we click on one of the search results we get the details records and "Citing this Record" text.

FamilySearch Armitage search results details for Edward Haigh Armitage

In the "Citing this Record" we can see that the microfilms used were 0990773 to 990775. A quick search of the catalog for Film/Fiche Number tells us that these are from the "Bishop's transcripts for the parish church, Wakefield, 1600-1857". Those specific microfilms cover a range of dates.

FamilySearch Catalog search results for microfilm 990773

You can see that there is a key symbol above the camera icon. This indicates that we will need to visit a Family History Center to view digitized copies of the microfilm scans of the original documents. Also, since we are interested in the christening/baptisms from 1810 to 1830 we will need to look at the digitized microfilms 990773, 990774, and 990775 to find all the family members.

Could we improve our search in Findmypast and FamilySearch? I think so. If we know the date of the marriage for George and Mary Rayner Armitage I would be tempted to set the starting year as 2 years before that time (just in case the first child was out of wedlock) and 25 years after the marriage. Sometimes the census can help us with a "cut-off" date for the last known child to survive. but even then I would add an additional 5 years to find those "lost" children.

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1. See the Wikipedia article Intellectual Reserve for details of why you will find "(c) IRI" on the indexes from FamilySearch that are used on genealogy research sites.