Etienne Campeau and his Confirmation in 1664

A week or so ago, I came across this question on the Genealogy à la carte Facebook group hosted by Gail Dever:

"I have found references to my 7th g-grandfather Etienne Campeau being confirmed in Montreal on 11 May, 1664 and July 11th of that year. I can't find it in the regular parish book for Basilique Notre-Dame.  The trick fellow group members taught me of looking under Not Stated didn't work as in the Quebec City records on Ancestry.  Any ideas?"

It got my attention since it is what I call a "good question". A name, several dates, and a place is specified along with where the person looked and even how they searched for possible leads. So I figured I'd take a look at what could be found since I'm always wanting to expand my research horizons when it comes to Quebéc records. This is always a challenge for me since my comprehension of the French language is not exactly great.

The first step was to see if I could find any references to the confirmation of Etienne Campeau in Montreal in 1664. So I plunked the terms "etienne campeau montreal confirmation 1664" (without the quotes) into my favourite search engine. The result which initially looked most promising was one on Geni, a site which operates on the "single world family tree model". On the profile page for "Étienne Campeau dit Limousin" managed by Gisèle J.M. Fiola there it is written in a history prepared by Hélène-Andrée Bizier:

"Nothing significant happens in 1664, safe the confirmation of Étienne Campeau whose name appears on two lists of confirmations, one in May and the other dated July 11th"

along with the following noted event found in a bullet list in the same profile:

"Confirmation: 11 Jul 1664, Montréal, Île-de-Montréal, Québec, Canada."

So I continued my searching since the profile page didn't have any sources for those statements.

The next search result which got my attention was "116 – Confirmations à Québec, Trois-Rivières et Montréal en 1664" posted on 28 Feb 2016 in Le blogue de Guy Perron. That post has transcriptions of the various confirmations in Quebéc in a list format. Indeed, there is the name of Étienne Campeau recorded as being confirmed on May 1644 in Montréal. Even better, at the bottom of the list is the source: "Fonds Drouin en ligne. Registre des confirmations. Archives de l’Archidiocèse de Québec. 1659-1725. p. 29-30)."

Next it was off to the online presence of the Archives de l’Archidiocèse de Québec. It took a little bit of browsing on that site to find references to the possible confirmation records. I found a mention at the bottom of their Généalogie : ressources internes page where it stated "Registres de confirmations, 1659-" I also came across the digitization project page where it would appear that the "Registre des confirmations, vol. I, 1659-" was digitized in 2014. However, it seems like they are only available at the archives in person and not online.

I figured I'd also check the PRDH-IGD site for any other clues. In Ottawa, ever since the pandemic, we are fortunate that PRDH-IGD has been made available to us to free via the Ottawa Public Library and our library card. There I found the two entries for a confirmation of Etienne Campeau at Montréal (Notre-Dame-de-Montréal). The first had the date of 1664-05 and the second entry included the day: 1664-05-11. 

The source for the 1664-05 entry is recorded as "LE QUANTIEME DE LA DATE DE LA LISTE DE CONFIRMES A ETE OMIS, ELLE EST SITUEE ENTRE LA LISTE DE CONFIRMES DE TROIS-RIVIERES DU 01-05-1664 ET CELLE DE TROIS-RIVIERES DU 22-05-1664" and Etienne's name is written as "Etinne Campot". However, there is no source specified for the second entry. Both entries also didn't have links to the original documents on GénéalogieQuébec.com so I needed to keep looking.

I revised my search to use the information I'd found and I used the search term "notre dame montreal confirmation 1600..1700 registre" (without the quotes). For those unfamiliar with number searches on Google, the double dots, "..", instruct Google to search a range of numbers. In this case, I'm looking for web pages and documents with the year 1600 to 1700 specified. Of course, Google doesn't know they are years, but a number is still a number.

With that search term I came across the PDF "Register of Abjurations Drouin-Pépin Collection - From 1662" on the Genealogy Ensemble site. The PDF is from their "Register of Abjurations" post from 3 Feb 2015 and within the PDF it mentions "Microfilm #3140 - Diocèse de Québec - Registre des abjurations - From 1662 to 1757". But I'm looking for confirmations so why did Google highlight this PDF? It was this paragraph which helped explain what else might be found on the microfilm:

"Please note, the above microfilms does contain both acts of abjuration and acts of confirmation, for under the leadership of Monsignor François de Montmorency de Laval, Bishop of Nouvelle France from 1659 to 1708, acts of confirmation and abjuration were recorded together within the same parish registers. It does create confusion in trying to decipher if an adult who was confirmed was previously a protestant or simply a non-believer. Some of the acts of confirmations contained within this microfilm also list young people, or it appears to be so - Finally, do not expect an index of people, it does not exist - One must review each document one by one."

I now had a new search term to possibly follow: "Registre des abjurations". So, back to Google for yet another search and I put those words into the search box (without the quotes) and the third result was for a page in the FamilySearch catalogue. FamilySearch catalogue entries are often good since the material may be available online and for free.

That brought me to "Registres paroissiaux, 1662-1848". In reading the notes for the catalogue page two points got my attention:

• Microfilm des originaux dans l'Archives de l'Archidiocèse de Québec.
• Confirmations de l'eglise de Notre-Dame de Québec et autres de la diocèse, 1659-1771 et abjurations, 1662-1757
  

I was just at the  l'Archives de l'Archidiocèse de Québec web site and the confirmations and abjurations line described what I was wanting to find and in the time period I was searching.

So after signing in with my free FamilySearch account I could look at the digitized microfilm DGS 5471926. With 668 images to review I was not looking forward to looking at each page. However, this is where the microfilm information cards come in handing. These cards indicate where one item or volume placed on a microfilm starts and ends and they generally stand out when looking at the page of digitized microfilm images.

Fairly quickly I got to image 524. This is the start of  item 14,"Confirmations" for the Eglise du Canada, Quebec, Canada which was microfilmed on 10 Sep 1981 by the Genealogical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah at the Archeveche de Quebec.

"Canada, Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L99W-6DG9 : 16 July 2014), Localités multiples > Localités multiples > Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1662-1848 > image 1545 of 1689; microfilm title card for Confirmations, Eglise du Canada; Archives Nationales du Quebec (National Archives of Quebec), Montreal.

I slowly worked my way through the images taking the time to read, and in some cases transcribe into Google Translate to help me with my very rusty French, the various introductory pages.

There on page 29, just like the "116 – Confirmations à Québec, Trois-Rivières et Montréal en 1664" post stated, I found the name Etienne Campot confirmed in Montréal on May 1664.

"Canada, Québec, registres paroissiaux catholiques, 1621-1979," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QSQ-G99W-66KZ : 16 July 2014), Localités multiples > Localités multiples > Baptêmes, mariages, sépultures 1662-1848 > image 1563 of 1689; Etienne Compot, Confirmer à Montréal le May 1664; Archives Nationales du Quebec (National Archives of Quebec), Montreal.

Another digitized microfilm copy of the same page can be found in the "Registres paroissiaux, 1662-1848" on DGS 5468668. Yes, I know that this is the same name as the other catalogue on FamilySearch but it appears to be a different filming of the same documents. But it never hurts to always double check since different filmings may include other information or the images might be clearer.

That second confirmation date of 11 Jul 1664 took a bit more work. However, since I was already on FamilySearch I looked for church records for "Canada, Québec, Île-de-Montréal, Montréal". In the catalogue entry for "Registres paroissiaux, 1642-1680", which is for the Catholic church of Notre-Dame, I saw that the description of DGS 8633229 is "Baptêmes, 1642-1680 (comprend des confirmations, 1664, 1676 et 1678); Mariages, 1643, 1647-1650"

"Registres paroissiaux, 1642-1680," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-C3HC-Y3DM-6 : 13 July 2021), image 194 of 524; Etienne Compot, confirmation 11 Jul May 1664; Library and Archives Canada, Registre de la pariosse Notre-Dame, Montréal, 1642-1669, MG-8, G-19, volume 1.

This is the same list of names found in l'Archives de l'Archidiocèse de Québec but now found in the registers for Notre-Dame in Montréal but with a different date.

You never know what you will find as you work through the records and follow the clues found within.

Records that don't make sense...and what to do with them

Everyone comes across records on the genealogy sites that don't tell us much and we are puzzled as to where the record came. Such was the case of a posting in one of the genealogy related groups I follow on Facebook.

"Can someone explain to me how and where I can access the actual record for this marriage? I found this index on ancestry, but I guess I am not smart enough to figure out where the actual source document is or how to reference it. It does mention the film number, but that's all I've got (Film Number: 000010066)."

Screen capture from Ancestry.com for the index entry of Lillian E Overlock and Chas A Overlook from the Maine, Marriage Index, 1670-1921 collection.

First of all, never sell yourself short when it comes to your genealogy and family history research knowledge. We have all been in the same boat way too many times. Just by asking the question shows that you are smarter that many others that will just take that index entry at face value. Even I didn't know where that film number came from. Fortunately the hive mind on Facebook did but I'll get to that shortly along with a common problem that I came across with some of the records we use.

What also caught my attention with this query is that the original poster provided all the details needed to help us to answer the question and he was only asking one question. This is something that I mentioned in my post "Questions and Answers: Dos and don'ts". Even better, his question include a screen capture that included the Ancestry logo and the collection name at the top with all the necessary details.

My first reaction when I come across an index entry like this is to click on the link for the other party listed to see if there is any additional information. However, in this case, nothing new was provided:

Screen capture from Ancestry.com for the index entry of Chas A Overlook and Lillian E Overlock from the Maine, Marriage Index, 1670-1921 collection.

Next I will check the "Learn more..." link under Description for the collection. Again, no additional information was provided by Ancestry as to the source other than it was from "Various Maine County marriage collections." Great...it came from a bunch of stuff and you aren't going to tell us from where.

I also noticed that there was no marriage date recorded in the index. That seemed strange to me for an index consisting of marriages.

Fortunately there are many that are familiar with this collection within this Facebook community and they stated that the "Film Number" is from FamilySearch. The hive mind can be so awesome!

So what can you find out about that film number? After logging on to FamilySearch with your free account start a search of the catalog by Film/Fiche Number:

Screen capture from FamilySearch for a search of Film/Fiche Number 10066.

The search reported back that the film/fiche number is for the "Vital records, 1892-1907" authored by "Maine. Division of Vital Statistics; Maine. Division of Vital Statistics." Following that link brought me to this collection that has 184 microfilm reels.

Screen capture of the description for the collection, Vital records, 1892-1907, containing film 10066.

A search for 10066 on the page brought me to the following:

Screen capture from FamilySearch for a search of 10066 on the Vital records, 1892-1907 collection page.

Only one problem, we are looking for a surname that started with an "O" and the digitized microfilm reel has surnames Woodward to Wyzanski. Something is definitely not right. Time to go back a few steps to see if we can straighten out this point of confusion.

We are going to go back to Ancestry and the Maine, Marriage Index, 1670-1921 collection and try searching again but using a bit of the knowledge we have gained. As you can see below I've just entered in the surname of "Overlock" and the exact film number "000010066". It is important to include those leading zeros since that is what the original record for Lillian E Overlock used.

Screen capture from Ancestry for a search of the Maine, Marriage Index, 1670-1921 collection for a Last Name of "Overlock" and exact film number of "000010066".

Only one results appears with that criteria and the spouse listed has a surname of Wotton. A name that fits within the range provided for film 10066 on FamilySearch.

Screen capture from Ancestry for a search results of the Maine, Marriage Index, 1670-1921 collection for a Last Name of "Overlock" and exact film number of "000010066".

Now we can go back to FamilySearch and look for a 1905 marriage in Maine for Grace M Overlock and George B Wotton.

Screen capture from FamilySearch for a 1905 marriage in Maine, United States for Grace Overlock and George Wotton.

That first record looks like a promising candidate and there is even an image available as indicated by the camera icon on the right side. After selecting that entry I clicked on the image that was presented.

"Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939K-RBGW-P?cc=1803978&wc=71R8-F7C%3A1029440301%2C1029483501 : 20 May 2014), Vital records 1892-1907 > Woodward-Wyzanski > image 1681 of 3463; multiple sources, Maine.

I always try to remember to check the next image to see if there are any additional details. In this case the names of the bride's parents didn't make sense to me:

"Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939K-RBR3-C?cc=1803978&wc=71R8-F7C%3A1029440301%2C1029483501 : 20 May 2014), Vital records 1892-1907 > Woodward-Wyzanski > image 1682 of 3463; multiple sources, Maine.

So, what about going to the previous image? I know from experience that sometimes the back of these cards/forms get microfilmed first.

"Maine Vital Records, 1670-1921," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939K-RBLL-H?cc=1803978&wc=71R8-F7C%3A1029440301%2C1029483501 : 20 May 2014), Vital records 1892-1907 > Woodward-Wyzanski > image 1680 of 3463; multiple sources, Maine.

Look at that, there is a Chas . A. Overlock and Lillian E. Overlock listed as the bride's parents! I think we found the image of the document that the original poster was asking about.

How do I know that this image isn't associated with the image before this one? Well I checked that image and it is for a birth registration. So it seems that this image is the back of the form for the marriage of Grace M. Overlock and George B. Wotton.

Why is there a separate entry for Chas A Overlook [as transcribed by Ancestry] and Lillian E Overlock? I'm guessing that the transcribers didn't realize that the cards had a front and back to them and just recorded what they saw, creating a marriage entry for Chas A Overlook and Lillian E Overlock plus a separate entry for Grace M Overlock and George B. Wotton.

So the short answer, which was provided by the others in the Facebook group where the question was originally proposed, is that the film number is from the FamilySearch collections. However, the longer answer found a marriage registration for a daughter and a possible explanation as to why the original index entry was created.

All it takes is a clue...Coward or Cowaret?

Due to the advances of technology, indexing, and digitization, many times in our genealogy research so many of the documents and records just seem to materialized. However, it takes a clue to two for the computers to do some of the work for us. This is one such case.

I was watching the Ancestry Extra webinar posted on April 28, 2020 on the Ancestry Facebook page about using the Canadian newspapers available on Newspapers.com presented by Anne Gillespie Mitchell . Since I have a subscription that includes the Publishers Extras I figured I do a quick check on one of my ancestors, Kathleen Adeline Martin, my 1st cousin 3x removed, and the spouse of Alex Coward. She died on 26 Oct 1858 and was buried in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada. I already had a number of records concerning her travels between Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Ketchikan, Territory of Alaska, USA.

Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 29 April 2020), memorial page for Kathleen Adeline Martin Coward (11 Jul 1887–26 Oct 1958), Find a Grave Memorial no. 52022423, citing Pioneer Cemetery, Whitehorse, Yukon Census Division, Yukon, Canada ; Maintained by Velvet Withers (contributor 49050024).

I wondered if I could find an obituary and learn where she died.

It was fortunate that one of the newspapers that has been digitized and is part of the Publisher Extra collections is the Whitehorse Daily Star. Just by typing in her preferred married surname of "Cowaret" the article about her death and funeral was the first to appear in a list of 24 matches in that newspaper.

"Mrs. Alexander Cowaret Dies Here," The Whitehorse Star, 30 Oct 1958, p. 9, col. 6; digital images, Newspapers (www.newspapers.com : accessed 28 Apr 2020).

I hope you noticed that the memorial for Kathleen has her surname as "Coward" and the newspaper article recorded her surname as "Cowaret". The story goes is that after she married Alex Coward in 1929 she did not like the name so, the couple was known as Mrs. Cowaret and Mr. Coward¹.

From this article it would seem that she died at home, probably in Minto. But this is where other notices we might overlook can provide additional details. The"Notice To Creditors And Claimants Estate" provided more details almost six months after her death.

"Notice To Creditors And Claimants Estate," The Whitehorse Star, 16 Apr 1959, p. 6, col.46; digital images, Newspapers (www.newspapers.com : accessed 28 Apr 2020).

Here we learned that she died in the Whitehorse General Hospital and not at home and the home is possibly closer to McCabe Creek and not Minto (8 km separation). We also have confirmation of the preferences of the surnames for Kathleen and her spouse Alex.

What about her husband, Alex Coward? I had nothing about him in my genealogy database other than a name. Again, the newspaper in Whitehorse gave me a starting point. In the 5 Nov 1959 edition of The Whitehorse Star I came across this article titled "For Hawaii" where it is reported that:

"Hawaii looks like a good place to spend the winder after putting in more than 40 years in the Yukon, so that's where Alex Coward went last week...He said he definitely would not come back to the Yukon..."

The article includes little details such as:

• born in 1885 in Cairo, Illinois, USA
• came to the Yukon on 13 Aug 1913 to trap
• Alex and his late wife resided in Selkirk until 1952
• his wife died 26 Oct 1958

So I now had a few more clues about Alex.

I entered those details into my cousin-bait tree on Ancestry. Almost immediately I had 8 possible hints. Several of those hints didn't make sense but one of the hints was from the "Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current" collection that links to Newspapers.com. Could this be him?

"Windsor District Obituaries - Alexander Coward," The Windsor Star, 7 Oct 1961, p. 12, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers (www.newspapers.com : accessed 29 Apr 2020).

Definitely looks like him. He passed away in Windsor, Ontario, Canada on 6 Oct 1961. It looks like I will have a bit of work to do finding and recording some of the details of his life.

As for Coward or Cowaret, it is quite simple. Kathleen went by Cowaret and Alex went by the surname of Coward.

---

1. Archives Society of Alberta, Fonds yuk-243 - Kathleen Cowaret fonds description, https://albertaonrecord.ca/kathleen-cowaret-fonds.

Questions and Answers: Dos and don'ts

With the self-isolation happening due to COVID-19 a number of us have been working on our family trees. This also means that many have been hitting those proverbial brick walls. One way of working our ways around, over, or through these genealogical challenges is to ask for assistance from others. With social distancing in effect, a common place I see this happening on is in the various genealogy and family history groups on Facebook.

I've touched upon asking questions and giving answers on Facebook several years ago in Comments about Facebook Comments and Genealogy and Answering Facebook Genealogy Questions but I think it is time to address it once again.

Questions

When looking for assistance in your research, whether it be on Facebook, in some other online forum, or by e-mail, here are a few tips:

Only ask one question at a time

• This can be really hard since often you are chasing a number of challenges with that family or person. Asking multiple questions in the same post can confuse possible responders since they have to untangle the information you have provided.

Be clear in your question

• Make sure that you actually state a question in your post. Preferably the question should be the first sentence in your post.
• Is the information that you are posting understandable? Using proper sentences and paragraphs can really add readability to your post.We are not all e.e. cummings. Upper and lower case are appreciated.

Provide some details

• When you post your question you need to assume that whomever reads the question knows nothing about the family or person. Some of the details may include:
• Location
• Dates or date ranges
• Names
• You might be surprised how often someone asks for help researching an ancestor and they leave off the person's name in the query.
• Tell us where you have looked or if this your first foray into family research.
• However, don't overwhelm the reader with a ten paragraph treatise with a dump of everything you have learned to date.
• If asking about an image or picture then make sure it is as clear as possible so that key details can be picked up. Also, respect the copyright of the owner of the image. Provide details about where you got the image so that others may, if they have access to the source, review it in situ.

Have you done your homework?

• Part of asking a question is that you must have done some of the work first. For example, if asking about locating civil registration records have you learned about the privacy restrictions for that locale?
• Does the question violate the rules of the group? Many online genealogy groups and forums don't allow questions about the living.

Answers

As responders we also have some guidelines we should follow:

Read all the answers posted by others

• The question may already be answered by someone else.
• On Facebook you can "like" a post and that can help add weight to an answer that has been already given. It also provides some feedback to the other responder that their input has been valuable.

Are you answering the question?

• If the question is about a baptism you probably shouldn't be talking about consulting civil registration records or explaining about civil registration privacy restrictions.
• I believe that it is perfectly acceptable that if you can't answer the question directly but have suggestions as to where the poster can look next then you should post that information.

Provide details

• Don't just post a brief answer and leave it at that. Follow the saying:

Give a person a fish, and you'll feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish, and you've fed them for a lifetime

• Give a brief explanation of where you found the information. If it was tricky to locate using a genealogy site's search system, give the key details of your search process.
• Also don't just give an answer like "Check the ____ records". Make sure you add additional information such as where those records can be found. Are they online or are they located in a building somewhere? Remember, often the original poster doesn't have the knowledge or experience that you have gained over time.
• Respect the copyright on any images that you may include in your answer. For any images that you do post from other web sites, try to include the link to the image. The original poster and other readers might not have known about that resource. 

Finally, and this applies to everyone and even though it shouldn't need to be said, be polite.

Finding Loyalists Claims Online

Back in 2014 I wrote a post about Online Resources for Your Loyalist Research Project and in several of my other posts I've touched upon using land records to help you in your genealogy research.

Recently I came across this query in the United Empire Loyalists Association  (UELAC) Facebook  group and decided to see what I could find using just online resources since, with COVID-19 restrictions, brick and mortar archives and libraries are pretty much off limits. I'm also going to look at other sources of information to see what also can be uncovered.

My Orange County, New York ancestor John Darrington settled in May 1783 in King's County, New Brunswick. Does anyone know where I would find details of his 1787 claim to the British Government for his losses as a loyalist? There is a very helpful paragraph in Dubreau's New Brunswick Loyalists - a Bicentennial Tribute (1983), but Dubreau didn't cite any sources beyond a bibliography. I've purchased a copy of the most likely item in that bibliography but it came up short. Any recommendations appreciated.

I took a look at Sharon M. Dubeau's book "New Brunswick Loyalists - a bicentennial tribute" published in 1983 by Generation Press to make sure no key details were missing from the query. The paragraph on John Darington does include the statement that he settled along the Kennebecasis River in Kings County along with the death of his wife, Joanna, in Portland (Saint John) in 1840 at the age of 95 years. What is interesting to me is that the New Brunswick Genealogical Society's "First Families" sources Dubeau's book for their entry but spells the name "Darlington".

For the various claims made by Loyalists we have to look at the Audit Office AO 12: American Loyalist Claims, Series I and AO 13: American Loyalist Claims, Series II to see if we can locate the documents. These are held by The National Archives in England but fortunately Library and Archives Canada have a microfilm copy of the files. Even better, LAC has had the microfilms digitized as part of the Héritage Project. The challenge for us is that AO 12 and AO 13 on the Héritage Project site aren't really indexed for searching. We can manually review the various pages in the microfilms but there is an easier way.

On Ancestry there is the "UK, American Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835" collection which has name indexed both AO 12 and AO 13.

A search of that collection returns three possible records:

Screen capture of Ancestry search results from the UK, American Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835 collection for John Darrington.

Yes, there is a name difference but that is often not unexpected.

There is also another challenge we face with the collection on Ancestry. When I viewed the first record the source citation stated:

The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; American Loyalist Claims, Series I; Class: AO 13; Piece: 025

However, on the side of the image it states A.O.12 /25

Screen capture from Ancestry image from UK, American Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835 collection for John Derington, Account of Losses.

I've actually verified that it is from AO 12/25 by checking the same entry from the Héritage Project. Please bear with me since, as I mentioned, the microfilms that have been digitized by the Héritage Project are indexed by name and I'm going to use their images..

First I had to find volume 25 in AO 12. After a bit of jumping around in the images I found that it started on image 404 on microfilm C-12904. The index started on the next image and that is where I found John Derington listed.

Extract of index from AO 12/25 on Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 405.

The first number is the page for the Memorial with the next number being the page for the evidence.

Here is his claim for £209 and 12 shillings.

Claim of John Derington, p 389, AO 12/25 Claims, American Loyalists - Series I, Evidence, New York, 1786-1787; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 757.

The next page was the sworn statement by John Derington stating his service to the crown.

Evidence for John Derington claim, p 389, AO 12/25 Claims, American Loyalists - Series I, Evidence, New York, 1786-1787; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 758.

Here we learn that according to John, he joined the British soon after Fort Washington was taken. That event took place November 16, 1776 at what is now Manhattan, New York City. So we know approximately when he joined the forces on the side of King George III. He served in the 55th Regiment of Foot as a Private.

There is also the Minutes that Ancestry returned when we searched for John Darrington in the collection. Again, Ancestry's source citation references to AO 13/98 but, like the Account of Losses and Evidence, it is actually found in AO 12/98.

Minutes pertaining to John Derington Memorial, p 302, AO 12/98 Claims, American Loyalists - Series I, Various, Minute Book, Halifax and Nova Scotia, 1785-1888; citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm C-12904, image 2020.

One thing to note about the images I've shown above and those on Ancestry. These images from Library and Archives Canada appear to be transcriptions from earlier records. Below is the image from Ancestry for the minutes from AO 12/98 for John Derington that is taken fro mthe collection at The National Archives in the United Kingdom.

Audit Office., AO12: American Loyalists Claims, Series I, Piece 098: Minute Book, Halifax and Nova Scotia, 1785-1788, p 302, minutes pertaining to John Derington.

However, where else can we look? How about the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick? If we search using the Federated Database Search we will probably either want to search for all of the variations of the Darrington name we can think of, or we can with the Soundex Utility link on the Federated Database Search page to do some of the work for us. There the Soundex search finds 39 possible name variations based on the Soundex algorithm. Most don't apply to this name but there are some interesting possibilities.

In Daniel F Johnson's New Brunswick Newspaper Vital Statistics we find the entry for the death announcement of Johanna Darington, the wife of John, from the January 29, 1840 edition of The New Brunswick Royal Gazette:

d. Thursday morn., Short Ferry, Portland (St. John) age 95, Johanna DARINGTON relict of John DARINGTON, Hampton (Kings Co.), one of the British Loyalists. 

For the surname Darrington there several records concerning land that are of possible interest:
Index to New Brunswick Land Grants, 1784 - 1997 (RS686)

Name	DARRINGTON, John
Volume	NS-1
Page	9
Grant number	3
Place	Kingston Township
County	Sunbury
Date	1784-12-27
Accompanying plan	Yes
Acres	200
Microfilm	F16300
Comment	Re-registered NS Grant of 1784/07/15: Plan 150 Rs. *2/39

[This grant had 26 other names associated with it.]

Index to Land Petitions: Original Series, 1783-1918 (RS108)

Name	DARRINGTON, JOHN
Year	1796
County	Kings
Microfilm	F1039

[This petition has 4 hours names associated with it.]

Index to Land Petitions: Original Series, 1783-1918 (RS108)

Name	DARRINGTON, JOHN
Year	1798
County	Kings
Microfilm	F1040
See petition of	DICKIE, HECTOR

[This petition has 9 other names in addition to John Darrington.]

The first record from RS686 is interesting since that is a re-register of a Nova Scotia grant. Just to refresh your memory, until August 16, 1784, New Brunswick was known as Sunbury County, Nova Scotia. We are fortunate that the Nova Scotia Archives has digitized the early land papers in their collection Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800. Even better, the collection is name searchable!

There I found the image of the grant along with the surveyor's report and certificate, all available for download for free. This was a grant for a total of 4509 acres on the River Kennebeccasis in the Township of Kingston. County of Sunbury (now Kings County, New Brunswick) for 27 people.

John Darrington (Gaynor, James and others  —  year: 1784  —  place: New Brunswick); Record Group 20, Series A, Land Petitions and other material; digital images, Nova Scotia Archives, "Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800," Nova Scotia Archives (archives.novascotia.ca : accessed 31 Mar 2020).

What about those land petitions in RS108. I logged in to FamilySearch and looked at the catalogue for "Canada, New Brunswick" and came across an open set of digitized microfilms in the "Land petitions, 1783-1857" collection. Within the digitized microfilm "1793 Lee, Samuel - 1796 Knox, John" on DGS 8191398 (FHL 1288461) starting at image 738 I found  the land petition from the New Brunswick microfilm F1039.

Darrington, John et al, 1796; RS108, Land Petitions; Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton; FHL microfilm 1,288,461, image 739.

The next page has an important note on it concerning John Darrington where it states "...In the survey made by Jno. Wetmore 25th Sept 1798 only John Darrington is included"

Darrington, John et al, 1796; RS108, Land Petitions; Provincial Archives of New Brunswick, Fredericton; FHL microfilm 1,288,461, image 740.

What about the second land petition from RS108? That can be found a few microfilms further down in the one titled "1796 Leonard, George Jr. - 1798 Raymond, Samuel". In this case you don't look for John Darrington but for Hector Dickie. There, starting at image 647, we find the file folder for that that petition. If you read it very carefully you will see that it is signed (yes, a real signature!) by John Darrington junior. So this is possibly the son of the John Darrington from New York that served in the 55th Regiment of Foot.

Yet another source of possible information concerning land, and even wills, are the Deed Registry Books for New Brunswick. In this case we want to check the New Brunswick, Kings County, deed registry books, 1785-1920; index, 1785-1992 also on FamilySearch.

"New Brunswick, County Deed Registry Books, 1780-1930," images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-6S6X-WX?cc=1392378&wc=M69X-RM9%3A13841801%2C16555201%2C22610502 : 21 May 2014), Kings > Index book, grantor-grantee > 1785-1880, A-L > image 314 of 781; County Office of Service, New Brunswick, Canada.

Here we see there are several instances where John is recorded as the grantor. The one that grabbed my attention was the will for John Darrington Senior found in book G-1 starting at page 238 that was written on February 21, 1798. There a copy of his will has been recorded in the deed registry book since the will involved real estate. In the will John Sr. mentions his wife Johanna and his son John, most probably the John Jr. that signed that second land petition in RS108.


There is also Lorenzo Sabine's work "Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, with an Historical Essay", published in 1864, where he records in volume I on page 359:

DARINGTON, JOHN.  He emigrated to New Brunswick at the peace, and died there. Joanna, his widow, died in Portland, in that Province, in 1840, at the age of ninety-five.

Finally, if we look at the United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada web site in the Loyalist Directory we find an entry for John Darrington that referenced NYGBS; V36 N1 Jan 1905. That translates to the New York Genealogical & Biographical Society Record, volume 36, number 1, January 1905. You can find a copy on the Internet Archive and on page 27 you will find the one line entry about him.

There are many other resources that can be examined but I think we have answered the query in full and then some.

I hope that this helps in your own research into the Loyalists that settled in what later became New Brunswick, Canada.

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.