Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867

One resource I've started to see used more by those with roots in Nova Scotia is Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867 that was compiled by Col. Leonard H. Smith Jr. and Norma H. Smith and published in 1994 by the Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. We are fortunate that this two volume collection has been available since 2007 on Ancestry so that we can review the books at home if you have an Ancestry subscription.

The easiest way to find the two volumes on Ancestry is via a search of the Card Catalogue. Just search for the title" "Nova Scotia Immigrants". Alternately, the links below point to the collection on Ancestry.ca.

• Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, Vol. I
• Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, Vol. II

The inclination by almost of us is to jump in and start searching for the names of our ancestors. However, don't do that, at least not yet.

First of all, visit the title page and the following page and record the details about the volumes. This will help you out later when you create your source citiations¹. Next, read the page with the Abbreviations. Most of the abbreviations we may be used to but some, like "Sr." and "Jr.", might have a context that you aren't familiar with. Both of these sections can be found at the beginning of the volumes. Also, take a moment to read the preface and introduction since those sections explain why this two volume set came into existence.

However, there are two very important sections that you will need to consult once you do find your ancestors mentioned in the books and those are the Bibliographies. These sections will help you to decipher where the compilers found the information.

On with the searching!

Here is an example of one such entry I found for Mary Cantfield².

Col. Leonard H. Smith Jr. and Norma H. Smith, compilers, Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, 2 vols.(Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogy Publishing Co., Inc., 1994); digital images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 Jun May 2020), 2:46.

As we can see, there is quite a bit of information that has been abstracted. We learn that Mary Cantfield is the daughter of Denis Cantfield and Catherine Ryan and the family was of County Kilkenny, Ireland. She married Richard Dunphy in Halifax on 29 Nov 1839. The "q.v." reminds us we need to look up the entry for Richard Dunphy in the volume.

Col. Leonard H. Smith Jr. and Norma H. Smith, compilers, Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, 2 vols.(Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogy Publishing Co., Inc., 1994); digital images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 Jun May 2020), 2:84.

In doing so we learn that Richard Dunphy is the son of Patrick Dunphy and Mary Moran and the family was of County Kilkenny, Ireland .

Yet where did the compilers find this information. That is in the parenthesis at the end, the "(34:129)". To figure that out we need to refer to the bibliographies I mentioned before.

Col. Leonard H. Smith Jr. and Norma H. Smith, compilers, Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, 2 vols.(Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogy Publishing Co., Inc., 1994); digital images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 Jun May 2020), 2:258.

Here we see that the information came from an article "Some Irish Immigrant Weddings in Nova Scotia 1834-1840" by Terrence M. Punch in the 8th edition, issue 2, of The Irish Ancestor published in 1976.

Using PERSI, the PERiodical Source Index, found on Findmypast I was able to find the details about the article and the publication but, after much searching, no online edition was easily available. But that's OK. A check of Worldcat pointed me to Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa where I could view The Irish Ancestor. In the pre-COVID-19 days I would have hopped on the bus since I reside in the same city and gone to LAC to read the article with the details extracted found on page 129. Now, it is a bit more of a challenge.

What other clue is there?

How about that the information came "from records at Catholic archdiocese at Halifax"?

Well a flight to Halifax, Nova Scotia is out of the question for me at this time. Maybe there are some Catholic Church records online. On Ancestry that might be in the "Acadia, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1757-1946" collection. However, I didn't see any records from Halifax listed.

So my next go to site is FamilySearch and their catalog. A search for "Canada, Nova Scotia, Halifax, Halifax" as a place revealed a list of 14 church collections. One specifically caught my attention, that of the "Parish registers, 1830-1969" for the Catholic Church of Saint. Mary's Basilica. Right time period and correct religion. Looking at the various entries I noticed that some were indexed but all were viewable from the comfort of home.

Screen capture of the catalog listing for Marriages, 1830-1873 from the Parish registers, 1830-1969 of Saint Mary's Basilica (Halifax, Nova Scotia).

That digitized microfilm isn't name indexed but that's OK, I have had plenty of practice looking through microfilms. After a bit of bouncing around the images on that digitized reel I came across this:

"Nova Scotia Church Records, 1720-2001," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GBC2-9JV?cc=1925428&wc=M6PF-CWL%3A219772701%2C219796201%2C219809001%2C219901401 : 21 May 2014), Halifax > Halifax > Catholic St Mary's Basilica > Marriages 1830-1843 > image 192 of 262; Catholic Church and Church of England parishes, Nova Scotia.

All the details in the abstract can now be confirmed by looking at the entry from the parish register plus we know now the names of the witnesses.

It is important to keep in mind that most items listed in the bibliographies may not be available online. This is where your to-do list becomes important. Such is the case for my Starr line of Nova Scotia.

Col. Leonard H. Smith Jr. and Norma H. Smith, compilers, Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867, 2 vols.(Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogy Publishing Co., Inc., 1994); digital images, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 Jun May 2020), 1:486.

Joseph Starr, the son of Samuel Starr and Abigail Leffingwell, is of interest to me due to him being in Connecticut at the start of the United States of America War of Independence and supposedly escaping back to Nova Scotia after refusing to serve in the Connecticut militia. So I'm always looking for information about him and his exploits.

Here I learn that the source of the information is on page 238 in the Nova Scotia Historical Quarterly, volume 7, issue 3 published on September 1977 in the article "The History of the Nova Scotia Apple Industry". There is also information in the same article about his mother and father. Although I can purchase a copy, since I'm in no rush, I'm going to wait until Library and Archives Canada is open to the public and read the article there.

A few things to take away from this little exercise:

• When using compiled collections take the time to follow the chain of sources to locate the original documents. Sometimes you may be pleasantly surprised at what you find. Sometimes it is new information not included in the abstract; other times it might be a whole new collection of documents.
• If looking at a baptism, marriage, or burial in a church parish register, take a look around for other events recorded that may pertain to your family. If a marriage, check for a baptism occurring within a few years time. You might come across a child you weren't aware of.
• Not everything is online. But it never hurts to check.
• To-do lists will help you remember what you need to sooner or later to look up. If your to-do list gets long enough you might even plan a holiday to a place that has the archive or library that houses the books or collections you want to review. While your family is out enjoy the sights you can be a time traveller and travel into the past.

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1. Remember those? Your source citations help you remember where you found the information and helps others that may use your work to also know where you found those nuggets about your ancestors.

2. I have no relationship, that I know of, to the Cantfield family. It is just an example that I've helped find the source of the information for someone posting a query on a Facebook genealogy group.

Researching Canadian Soldiers Who Died in the Second World War

Cross of Sacrifice at Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

With the 75th anniversary commemorating the end of the Second World War in Europe approaching I've been seeing a number of posts in various Facebook genealogy groups asking about how to research family members that served in that war. This post will focus on some of the key resources I use to find information about those Canadians that served and died during the Second World War.

As an aside, for records for those that survived the war you will need to visit the Library and Archives Canada page "Requests for Military Service Files". Be forewarned, there appears to be about a 14-18 month backlog in processing the requests. If the service member is still alive, make sure that they request their file right now. Once they pass away, for a period of 20 years, only limited personal information will be released to an immediate family member (spouse, parent, sibling, child or grandchild) of the individual concerned if proof of relationship and proof of death are provided.

My starting point for any of research of a Canadian that served and died in the military during the Second World War is the Second World War: 1939-1945 at Library and Archives Canada. From that page you can learn about what databases and records are available, read the research guides, and find other sources of possible information. You can also go to the Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947 to start your search.

When you search you can just put in the surname and given name(s) of the person. However, if you click on "Show Advanced Search Options" you can fill in additional details. I normally don't use the advanced search fields but for a common name it might help limit the number of entries returned.

Partial screen capture from a search for William Smith in the Library and Archives Canada database "Service Files of the Second World War - War Dead, 1939-1947".

What you will hopefully see is a short list of results with their name, date of birth, date of death, service number, a an item number you can click on to see additional details and possibly download the service file. Most of the results won't have a PDF of the service file attached to them. In fact, only a very small number of the files have been digitized and placed on the Library and Archives Canada site. But don't fret for there are other ways of viewing the files. Keep in mind that the digitization efforts have focused on creating a "genealogy package". This is a selection of what has been determined to be the most relevant documents from the file which highlights the service including enlistment, units served with, family details, medal entitlements, and circumstances of death.

One of the easiest ways of view the files is through Ancestry in their Canada, WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947 collection. According to the Library and Archives Canada page you only need a free account and not a paid subscription to access this collection. Alternately, if you don't want to give Ancestry your e-mail address you can get access to the institution version of Ancestry at your local library or Family History Center (and affiliates).

Partial screen capture of the abstracted record for William Scott, service number K23205, in the Ancestry "Canada, WWII Service Files of War Dead, 1939-1947" collection.

When you do find the entry on Ancestry don't click on the "View" button. That will only bring you to the attestation paper. Instead, click on the "View File Start" since that will bring you to the start of the file folder. From there you can download to your computer the individual pages in the service file. Be forewarned, some of these files can get quite large but there are all kinds of interesting details in the files.

Now that you have the service file, what next?

Stop and take the time to read the file.

Then re-read that file.

And then once more read the file!

There are all kinds of nuggets of information in those files. Often I will go through the file five or six times and record the details into my own genealogy database. To help me decipher the abbreviations in the file I sometimes consult the "Military Abbreviations used in Service Files" page on the LAC web site.

Once that is done I usually head over to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission site to search for the person there. If the name is relatively common you will probably want to filter by "Served with" and the "War". On that site you may find the pages from the Graves Registration Reports, Graves Concentration Reports, and what was written on the grave marker or memorial.

Next I head off to the Canadian Virtual War Memorial to see what they might have on their site. Yu might find an image of the grave marker or memorial, a link to the Second World War Book of Remembrance, and, since people can upload their own images, sometimes copies of newspaper articles or pictures of the person.

If there was a grave marker but I haven't found an image of it yet I will check Find A Grave to see if someone has uploaded the picture. That is how I first saw the marker for my Grand Uncle Ronald MacGregor Warrener who was buried in the Agira Canadian War Cemetery in Italy.

In the service file you may come across a "Field Service" report that details the cause of death and where the body was initially buried.

Canada, "Military Service Record: William Scott, Regimental Number K23205, RG 24, Volume 27004," Field Report; Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.

Often this is a temporary burial but it usually fairly close to where the person died. Sometimes there is enough information in the burial location to find the place on Google Maps. For maps from the war I will often head over to the Digital Archive @ McMaster University Library Maps Collection and select the World War II (1939-1945) collection. However, most of those maps are from before the Invasion of Normandy on 6 Jun 1944. But sometimes I get lucky and find a map from after the invasion that has the details I am looking for.

If you are looking for the War Diaries from the Second World War of the unit they served in you might be fortunate enough to find them digitized on the LAC partner site Héritage. Visit the War Diaries, Ship Logs and Operations Record Books page for details about how to search for any diaries held by Library and Archives Canada.

Sample page of a War Diary for the 3rd Canadian Infantry Division, microfilm T-10530, Library and Archives Canada, http://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/oocihm.lac_reel_t10530.

Keep in mind that these are not the diaries written by the person that served in the war but of the activities of the unit. However, there will be details about what was happening with the unit including where they may have run into the enemy.

Don't forget to do a Google search of the unit that they served in. There are books that have been written about the various units in the Second World War. For example, in the case of William Scott above, he was in the "65 Cdn A/Tk Bty 5 Cdn A/Tk Regt". This translates into "65th Canadian Anti-Tank Battery, 5th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment". A search on the "5th Canadian Anti-Tank Regiment" yields a link to WorldCat where you can find the book "The History of the 5th Canadian Anti-tank Regiment : 10 Sept., 1941-10 June, 1945" about the regiment's role in the Second World War. There is even a book written about the battery William Scott was in called "The History of the 65th Canadian Anti-tank Battery, Royal Canadian Artillery : 9 September 1941- 20 September 1945".

If the regiment has a museum or an archivist, like the the 48th Highlanders of Canada which my Grand Uncle Ronald Warrener served in, then reach out to them to see what they might have in their files. I actually visited the museum of the 48th Highlanders of Canada on one of my trips to Toronto. They didn't have much on hand about Ronald but a few weeks later I received a package in the mail with a chapter describing the battle he was in and he was even mentioned by name. I returned the favour and sent what I had about Ronald back to them for their files.

Hopefully some of the sites and tips in this post will help you to learn more about those Canadians that served and died in the Second World War.

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?" 

Canadian Census Enumerator Instructions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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