Family Tree Knots: October 2018

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

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.

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

Thursday, October 18, 2018

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.

Monday, October 1, 2018

Reminder - Backups and Disasters

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?