Extra Children or a Bigger Mystery? - Part 1

When I first started looking into my family history, much like many of you, I received a packet of hand written notes and family tree diagrams. I thought these were the greatest things for a beginner . At that time I thought they could be treated as gospel and I wouldn't have to do anything else on that line except record the information in my genealogy software. Fortunately I quickly realized that wasn't the truth and so, more than 15 years ago, off I went on my merry journey of discovery.

Well, those notes and trees still haunt me to this day.

Recently I learned of the passing of a distant cousin (2nd cousin twice removed) yet I didn't have her listed in my database. Fortunately whoever wrote her obituary included the names of her parents, John and Margaret (Smith) Murphy. The Murphy name is a branch I was semi-familiar with so I pulled out some of those scraps of paper from my archives to use as possible clues and starting points. Off I went on the familiar path of looking for documentation through my usual sources. It was relatively easy to reconstruct the tree. I was able to find her parents' death registrations in the "BC Archives - Genealogy" collection hosted by the Royal BC Museum web site and also the "British Columbia Death Registrations, 1872-1986" collection on FamilySearch. Working backwards in time I could connect my distant cousin back to Sarah McKinnon (born about 1857 in Canada West, died 31 Jan 1937 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) McKinnon, the daughter of Alexander McKinnon and Ann McDonald.

With the exception of the Cassie and Joe Martin branch (my own connection to this tree) I hadn't added the various branches of the family of Alexander McKinnon and Ann McDonald so I figured this would be as good as time as ever to correct this omission not knowing I would be spending many hours on a little problem.

Below is the hand-drawn tree that was drawn up in January 1990. It actually includes about four more generations for some of the lines but I've cropped those later generations for privacy reasons.

Hand-drawn Family Tree for Alistair MacKinnon and a MacDonald (created Jan 1990)

There are some important little details you need to realize about this tree. The first is that nicknames were commonly used. So someone like Cassie is actually Catherine and Nain is Charlotte. It took me some time to realize that Phoeme is really Euphemia. This can cause all sorts of confusion since many documents from government agencies won't have the nicknames listed. Fortunately sometimes you will find those nicknames in the census records. Also, most of the surnames are accurate but Pryov seems to actually be "Ryan" based on my research. Yet the most important piece of information to keep in mind is that this tree was created based on recollections of one or more people and there will be errors and omissions. And those errors and omissions will be the cause of hours of research.

Using publicly available records and various indexes I slowly and carefully rebuilt the tree until I came to Louisa and Marjory. According to what I was finding they just didn't fit anywhere under  Maggie (AKA Margaret Hannah McKinnon) who married a Bailey (Joseph Alexander Bailey). Along with finding Margaret Hannah McKinnon in the Canadian decennial censuses from 1881 to 1921 and also the 1906 and 1916 censuses of the Western Provinces of Canada I had a copy of Margaret Hannah McKinnon's obituary. Her surviving children were listed and each of them I found in the census records along with Margaret and Joseph. All the kids were accounted for. I was even able to fill in some of the blanks with descendants of those children.

Since the family lived in Manitoba I made use of the "Genealogy Searches for Unrestricted Records" site to search the publicly available birth indexes for any Baileys. The nice thing about the Manitoba birth registration indexes is that the mother's maiden name is included. Since Ancestry also has that same database in their "Web: Manitoba, Birth Index, 1866-1912" collection I was able to use the advanced search features to look for any child with a mother of Margaret McKinnon (and various of that name). I also made use of the "US & World newspapers" collection on Findmypast. That collection includes the Winnipeg newspapers so I was able to find marriage and death notices that contained additional details on the family. It seems that I already had all the recorded ones.

Now I was just a bit baffled and confused. It was time to get serious in my search ...

To be continued

Where Do I Find Ontario Birth Registration Records?

Periodically in some of the genealogy related Facebook groups I see questions about locating civil birth registrations for Ontario, Canada. The Archives of Ontario is the primary repository of the records that are publicly available and you can review their microfilms either by visiting them in Toronto or ordering the films via your library using the InterLibrary Loan system.

Yet what years are actually available? First of all civil birth registrations in Ontario didn't start until July 1, 1869 [see Statutes of the Province of Ontario 1868-1869 (1869), CAP. 30, p. 133]. Even then it took years and even decades before all areas of the province were in compliance with the law. If you are looking for birth registrations before that date then you may want to look at the church records for baptisms. Sometimes, although not all the time, the birth date is recorded as part of the baptism.

The Archives of Ontario "Tracing Your Family History: The Records" page provides the details of what birth, marriage, and death civil registrations are available. They have also made available a pathfinder called "Archives of Ontario Pathfinder to Birth Registrations" that can point you in the right direction to find the birth registration records.

As of today (January 16, 2015) the birth registrations from between July 1869 and December 1916 are available for public consultation. The 1917 indexes and registration are currently not available as they are undergoing digitization. According to the Archives of Ontario web site those microfilms should be available some time around February 20, 2015. For the birth registrations from 1918 to the present you need to contact the Office of the Registrar General of Ontario or submit a request via ServiceOntario. There are restrictions as to who can access those registrations still held by the Office of the Registrar General of Ontario.

There are also a number of other sources for helping you find the civil birth registrations in Ontario:

• Ancestry ($) presently has indexes and images of registrations in their "Ontario, Canada Births, 1869-1913" collection.
• The Ontario Vital Statistics Project (free) has abstracts of the birth registrations between 1869 and 1911 at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~births/index.htm
• FamilySearch.org (free) has indexes in their "Ontario Births, 1869-1912" collection at https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1784212

If you live in Ontario often your local Latter Day Saints Family History Centre, genealogical society, public library, or archive will have the microfilms of the indexes and registrations for that area already on hand.

Finally, although they are not civil registrations don't forget about checking parish records and newspapers in the areas where your ancestors lived. For those born into the Roman Catholic faith the "Ontario, Canada, Catholic Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1747-1967" collection on Ancestry may be of some help. Just note that not all of the parishes or time periods have been included in that collection. Same goes for the "Ontario, Births and Baptisms, 1779-1899" collection on FamilySearch.

Reminder: Call for Presentations for the BIFHSGO Conference 2015

The deadline for submitting your proposals for presentations to given at the 21^st Annual Family History Conference of the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa (BIFHSGO) that is being held September 18-20, 2015 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada is rapidly approaching with a deadline of January 31, 2015.

The three themes for the conference will be Scotland, Photographs in Genealogy, and Technology (including hardware, software, apps, websites, databases, social media, DNA analysis tools etc.). Proposals on these three themes for lectures at the conference on the Saturday and Sunday are sought as well as for workshops or seminars on the Friday.

Details on writing the proposals can be found at www.bifhsgo.ca under the Conference 2015 heading. Make sure you send your proposals to conference@bifhsgo.ca before January 31, 2015!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

To all my friends, family, and especially to you, my gentle readers, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Christmas in the Trenches

As part of the focus on the commemoration of the 100^th anniversary of the start of World War I this year's Sainsbury Christmas advertisement focused on the events that happened during Christmas 1914.

 

What occurred were a number of informal truces at various places along the Western Front. However, what needs to be remembered is that these truces did not extend throughout the theatre of war and there were still skirmishes occurring between Christmas Eve (December 24) and Boxing Day (December 27).

In various war diaries of the time there are hints of these events. From the The Bedfordshire Regiment in the Great War 1914 War Diary transcription:

24 Dec 1914 Relieved by Manchester Regt. at 8pm. Battn took over a section on their right from Dorset Regt. at about 9 pm. without any casualties. Wolverghem & Battn. Hd Qrs shelled by enemy. Reinforcements 69 R & File arrived.

25 Dec 1914 Christmas cards from Their Majesties the King & Queen distributed to all ranks of the Battn. Also present from Her R. Highness Princess Mary. Cold & frosty day. Quiet day. Germans semaphored over that they were not going to fire. Hard frost all day.

26 Dec 1916 Another quiet day. A little shelling by both sides. Some Germans came forward unarmed apparently with a view to friendly intercourse. A few shots fired in their direction as a hint to withdraw. Later, enemy shelled trenches & Wolverghem: damaged several rifles, but only wounded 1 man.

The personal diary of Regimental Sergeant-Major George Beck, of 1st Warwickshire Regiment, included details of those days. An image of the diary pages from the Dorset History Centre along with a transcription was included in the August 24, 2014 article "Midland soldier's poignant war diary reveals Christmas truce of December 1914" in the Birmingham Post:

24th Dec 1914 - Point 63
Quiet day. Relieved 2nd R DUB FUS [Royal Dublin Fusiliers] in the trenches in the evening. Germans shout over to us and ask us to play them at football, and also not to fire & they would do likewise. At 2 a.m. (25th) A German Band went along the trenches playing “Home, sweet Home” and God Save the King which sounded grand and made everyone think of Home. During the night several of our fellows went over “No Man’s Land” to German lines & was given a drink & cigars.

25th Dec 1914 - Trenches St Yves
Christmas Day. Not one shot was fired. English and German soldiers intermingled and exchanged souvenirs. Germans very eager to exchange almost anything for our bully beef and jam. Majority of them know French fluently. A few men of the regiment assisted in burying the dead of the Somerset Light Infantry who were killed on 19.12.14. Fine frosty day. Very cold.

26th Dec 1914 - Trenches St Yves
Unofficial truce kept up and our own fellows intermingled still with the Germans. No rifle shots fired, but our artillery fired a few rounds on the German 3rd and 4th lines and Germans retaliated with a few rounds on D Coys (Company’s) trenches. Two wounded.

In 1984 John McCutcheon wrote the song "Christmas in the Trenches" that poignantly described the scenes and thoughts through the eyes of a fictitious soldier named  Francis Tolliver.

For Canadians the version by John McDermott is probably most familiar to us.

So during this Christmas season, sometime between doing your Christmas shopping and attending those parties, take a moment to remember all those affected by war regardless of the side they were on during the conflicts.

Online Resources for Your Loyalist Research Project

When trying to research your Loyalist ancestors the challenge is locating those key records. It is even harder when you live a distance from that archive, museum, or library (You have checked the online resources of that library near where your Loyalist lived?) that holds a copy of the files you desperately want to read. Fortunately with the Internet it is a little bit easier (although still a challenge).

One thing to keep in mind are the following guidelines as to what defines a Loyalist:

• Either male or female, as of 19 April 1775, a resident of the American colonies, and joined the Royal Standard prior to the Treaty of Separation of 1783, or otherwise demonstrated loyalty to the Crown, and settled in territory remaining under the rule of the Crown; or
• a soldier who served in an American Loyalist Regiment and was disbanded in Canada; or
• a member of the Six Nations of either the Grand River or the Bay of Quinte Reserve who is descended from one whose migration was similar to that of other Loyalists.

Here are just some of the online resources I use:

United Empire Loyalists' Association of Canada

• List of Branches - Often the best place to ask for assistance is either the nearer branch of UELAC or the branch closest to where your Loyalist settled.
• Loyalist Directory - Besides just the list of known Loyalists and whether someone has proven their descent from that specific Loyalist you may also periodically come across the actual application form that was submitted (like what I sent in for proving my descent from Lt. Caleb Howe of the Queens Rangers).

Ancestry ($)

• UK, Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Registers of Soldiers Who Served in Canada, 1743-1882 - This collection consists of extracts from the War Office WO/97 and WO/120 collections of soldiers that served in Canada.
• Canada, Loyalist Claims, 1776-1835 - This is the Audit Office AO-12 and AO-13 collection relating to the Loyalist claims and cases heard by the American Loyalist Claims Commission.
• The Loyalists in Ontario -The book by William D. Reid "The Loyalists in Ontario: The Sons and Daughters of the American Loyalists of Upper Canada" publish in Lambertville, NJ, USA by the Genealogical Publishing Co. in 1973 is a well-known resource. Just be aware that there are some interesting errors in it where Mr. Reid may have combined two families into one in the listings.
• United Empire Loyalists, Parts I-II - This collection is taken from the "Second Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario" as compiled by Alexander Fraser in 1905.
• Old United Empire Loyalists List - This database is taken from the "Old United Empire Loyalists List" that was assembled by the Centennial Committee.
• Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, Vol. I & Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, Vol. II - This is the well-known set of volumes compiled by Lorenzo Sabine. It contains biographical sketches of many Loyalists.
• Loyalists and Land Settlement in Nova Scotia - If you have Loyalist roots from Nova Scotia, this book compiled by Marion Gilroy under the direction of D. C. Harvey and published by the authority of the Board of Trustees for the Public Archives of Nova Scotia may be of interest to you.
• New York, Sales of Loyalist Land, 1762-1830 - Maybe your Loyalist ancestors had land in New York. If so, this collection from the records of Surveys and Maps of State Lands, 1686–1892, Series A4016, Vols. 7–10 and 17 by the New York State Engineer and Surveyor may hold some clues.
• Canada, Pension Applications For Widows and Family of British Military Officers, 1776-1881 - If your Loyalist was an officer and he died during or shortly after the war then his widow or children may have applied for a pension under his name. If so this collection from the National Archives in Kew will be a treasure trove. The WO 42/52–63 "Officers’ Birth Certificates, Wills and Personal Papers. WO 42/52–63. Records created or inherited by the War Office, Armed Forces, Judge Advocate General, and related bodies" records can hold attestations and details about when and where the officer was married, the names of children, and the unit he served in.
• Loyalists in the American Revolution: Miscellaneous Records - This database is taken from a number of sources such as the muster rolls of the 15th Regiment of Foot, 44th Regiment of Foot, 47th Regiment of Foot and  48th Regiment of Foot, 1763; list of men in Sir John Johnston's Brigade; men from the Turloch Militia who Joined Kings Royal Rangers of New York and Butler's Rangers; and the 1778 List of men From Pennsylvania who joined the British Army.
• Canada, Records of British Military Headquarters, 1775-1856 - This database is from WO 28/2–10, 268–269, 303–317 and is the records of the Armed Forces from commands, headquarters, regiments and corps.
• Ontarian families: genealogies of United-Empire-Loyalist and other pioneer families of Upper Canada - This book by Edward Marion Chadwick was published in 1894 and has, as the title indicates, genealogies of various families that settled in Upper Canada.

Library and Archives Canada

LAC has a page describing the various fonds available both onsite and online that can aid in locating information on your Loyalist Ancestor. The following online collections may save you a trip to Ottawa (although it is a very nice city if I do say so myself).

• Land Petitions of Lower Canada, (1764-1841) - Did your Loyalist ancestor settle in Lower Canada (Quebec) or were they an early settler in what later became Upper Canada (Ontario)? Then they may have petitioned for land as a Loyalist.
• Land Petitions of Upper Canada, (1763-1865) - After 1791 the Colony of Quebec was separated into Upper (Ontario) and Lower (Quebec) Canada. This database is an index to the land petitions of Upper Canada. In my post "Upper Canada Land Petitions at LAC" I wrote about how to use this database to look for the petitions in the Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865) digitized microfilm.
• Upper Canada Sundries - The Upper Canada Sundries consists of letters, petitions, reports, returns and schedules, certificates, accounts, warrants, legal opinions, instructions and regulations, proclamations and other documents received by the Civil Secretary of Upper Canada, 1791-1841. This collection housed on Canadiana.ca's Heritage site unfortunately doesn't have a name index but it can be worth looking through. Lorine McGinnis Schulz has written about using this set of digitized microfilms in her blog post "12 Months of Finding Ancestors: Upper Canada Sundries (Part 3 of a 12 Part Series)"
• Heir and Devisee Commission - The Heir and Devisee Commission was established by provincial statute in 1797 to clarify the titles to lands in Upper Canada which had been granted before the provision was made, in 1795, for the issuance of patent deeds on Crown Grants. In The Olive Tree Genealogy blog Lorine McGinnis Schulz has written a number of very useful articles on how to search the Heir and Devisee Commission digitized microfilms. As part of her work she has created a list of what volumes are really on the specific microfilms.
• Loyalists in the Maritimes — Ward Chipman Muster Master's Office, 1777–1785 - This searchable database includes recordss that refer mostly to Loyalists who eventually settled in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Prince Edward Island. They include references to wives and children of Loyalists, some soldiers of British regiments and black members (slaves or free individuals) of Loyalist regiments.
• British Military and Naval Records (RG 8, C Series) - The defense of Canada was primarily the responsibility of British military and naval forces from the early 1700s to 1871. This collection consists of index cards and documents that have details on the various regiments and naval units that were in Canada from that time. It isn't a searchable database so I would recommend you check out my post "Library and Archives Canada RG 8, C Series How-To" on how to look through this collection.
• Black Loyalist Refugees, 1782-1807- Port Roseway Associates - This database includes the 1,498 references to the Muster Book of Free Blacks who settled in Birchtown held at Library and Archives Canada.

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

"Wallace Hale's Fort Havoc" collections are an amazing set of documents compiled by R. Wallace Hale that he has made available via the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick web site. Of particular interest to Loyalist researchers are the following starting pages:

• Loyalist Reference Documents 
• Loyalist Reference Text

Nova Scotia Archives

Until 1874 Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were one colony. New Brunswick was split off from Nova Scotia when the large influx of Loyalists leaving the thirteen colonies of what became the United States of America when the British lost the war and many of those Loyalists settled in Parrtown. If you have any New Brunswick Loyalist ancestors then checking the records at the Nova Scotia Archives needs to be done.

• Nova Scotia Land Papers 1765-1800 - Volumes 1-25, the surviving records from 1765 to 1800, have been indexed and made available online. The searchable index contains 11,464 names of people who received land in the province during that time period.

FamilySearch

New Brunswick, County Deed Registry Books, 1780-1930 - This unindexed collection of the New Brunswick County Deed Registry Books includes not only the usual land records of the settlers of New Brunswick (before 1784 New Brunswick was a county of the Colony of Nova Scotia) but also a listing of those that drew lots in Parrtown (later Saint John). The same list, although with some more details, can be found in Dr. Esther Clark Wright's book "The Loyalists of New Brunswick". You can find some instructions for looking through this collection in my post "Expecting only Deeds and Mortgages? How About a Will?"

Internet Archive

This is one of those great resources that just keeps on giving. Here you will find many out of copyright books that have been digitized for preservation. Just search for the keyword "Loyalists" or "Loyalist" and you will come across articles that may be only 2 pages in length to books with over 600 pages. You can read the articles and books on line or you can save them to your computer in PDF (and sometimes EPUB or Kindle) formats. Here is just a very small sample of what can be found:

• United Empire loyalists
• Claims of American Loyalists (Volume 15) 
• Petition of American Loyalists, 1778 (Volume 1) 
• The loyalists of Pennsylvania 
• Muster Rolls of Three Troops of Loyalist Light Dragoons Raised in Pennsylvania 1777-1778 (Volume 34) 
• The Loyalist refugees of New Hampshire
• United Empire Loyalists of the County of Dundas, Ontario
• Ontarian Families: Genealogies of United-empire-loyalists and Other Pioneer ... (Volume 2) 
• The centennial of the settlement of upper Canada by the United Empire Loyalists, 1784-1884 
• Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution by Lorenzo Sabine

Usually if I find a mention of an older book in an article on Loyalists I will see if it has been digitized and made available either through Google Books or the Internet Archive.

The Diary of Regimental Sergeant Major George Beck

The Dorset History Centre has embarked on an interesting project as part of commemorating the Great War of 1914-18. Daily they are posting the entries from the personal diary of Regimental Sergeant Major George Beck of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. The full entries from his diaries will be posted but they are also tweeting the entries 100 years after RSM Beck wrote them.

Some of the diaries are of the usual stuff that soldiers deal with on a daily basis and can be quite drab and boring.

"29th November: NIEPPE", Dorset History Centre, The diary of Regimental Sergeant Major George Beck, 19 Nov 2014, (http://news.dorsetforyou.com/rsm-beck-diary/2014/11/29/29th-november-nieppe/ : 30 Nov 2014)

While other entries in his diary describe the action and activities of the battalion in detail:

"13th October – CAESTRE", Dorset History Centre, The diary of Regimental Sergeant Major George Beck, 13 Oct 2014, (http://news.dorsetforyou.com/rsm-beck-diary/2014/10/13/13th-october-caestre/ : 30 Nov 2014)

What makes this interesting, at least to me, is that his diary is a personal one and not the official battalion or regimental diary. Although it may parallel what is written in the official diaries, he will also include items of a personal nature or of interest just to him.

If you are interested in reading the World War I battalion level war diaries (AKA WO 95) of the 10 Infantry Brigade: 1 Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment for the period of 1 Aug - 31 Dec 31 1914, they can be downloaded from The National Archives for the cost of £3.30 or viewed for free in The National Archives reading room at the archives itself.