Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small genealogy blog suggested a weekly blog theme of '52 Ancestors' in her blog post "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks." I decided to take up the challenge of the 52 Ancestors blog theme as a means to prompt me into regularly sharing the stories of my ancestors. So over the course of 2014 I will highlight an ancestor, sharing what I know about the person and perhaps more importantly, what I don't know.
The subject this week is one of my paternal 3X great grandfathers, John Shand about whom there is probably more I don't know than I do know.
Scotland's Old Parish Registers record that John Shand was born 20 Feb 1825 in Aucharnie, Aberdeenshire, the son of John Shand and his wife Jean Anderson. He was baptized at the church in Forgue, Aberdeenshire two miles north of his parent's home one week later on 27 Feb 1825.
The records show that John was a worker, a farm servant specifically. By 1853, he was working on a farm in Fyvie, some 13 miles east of his parental home. In that year, John married Isobel (sometimes her name was recorded as Isabel or Isabella) Morrison. I have no idea as to how John and Isobel met or courted given that she lived in Huntly about 35 miles away from where John was living and working. For my sake, I am glad they did meet and marry - or there would not have been a ME! But meet and marry they did, on 22 Jul 1853 according to their marriage registration in the Huntly Old Parish Register.
John seems to have worked hard to support his family and rose from being a farm servant to being a tenant farmer or crofter by 1890. Over the course of the first twenty years of their marriage, John and Isobel welcomed into their family nine known children, the first born in 1854 and the ninth born in 1874. Their family consisted of seven boys and two girls. Their second daughter, Helen, born in 1864, would become my great great grandmother.
By 1900, John was running the Clinkstone Croft in the village of Insch. That is when life seems to have taken a real downturn for John. First, his wife of almost 47 years, Isobel (her death registration records her name as Isabella) died on February 10th due to bronchitis. John was approaching his 75th birthday at the time and I am certain that work would not have be easy for John. His death registration record shows this clearly.
John died on 17 Apr 1906 in Aberdeen, his death the result of chronic heart disease. Sadly, it apears John was not surrounded by loving family members at the time of his death as many modern obituaries record. He died alone in the West Poorhouse which I suspect was not, even at the best of times, not a happy place to be.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Sunday, February 16, 2014
52 Ancestors: Lewis Fitzgerald (1837-1910)
Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small genealogy blog suggested a weekly blog theme of '52 Ancestors' in her blog post "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks." I decided to take up the challenge of the 52 Ancestors blog theme as a means to prompt me into regularly sharing the stories of my ancestors. So over the course of 2014 I will highlight an ancestor, sharing what I know about the person and perhaps more importantly, what I don't know.
This week I'm sticking with my maternal ancestral line and turning the focus on my great-great grandfather Lewis Fitzgerald (Lewis' daughter Mary Jane was my great grandmother - Mary Jane's daughter Gertrude Ellen Foley was my grandmother - and; Gertrude's daughter Anne Margaret O'Neill was my mother).
Lewis was born on 9 July 1837, the son of Daniel Fitzgerald and Rebecca Noble. Lewis' father, Daniel hailed from County Waterford in Ireland, a land he left in 1825 likely for the opportunities presented in the United States, settling in Cape Vincent, Jefferson County, New York just across a strait of the St. Lawrence River from Wolfe Island and Canada. The reasons are not known but around 1843, Daniel and Rebecca moved their family to a one hundred acre parcel of land that Daniel purchased in York Township, just east of the then border of the city of Toronto.
Lewis married Ellen Daley (also seen as Daily in some records) on 11 Sept 1856 in St. Paul's Roman Catholic Basilica, located at Queen Street East and Power Street in Toronto. The church which was located about four miles from their home became a central point in their lives and the church's records reveal not just their marriage but the baptisms of their nine children. According to the History of Toronto and County of York, Ontario, Vol. 2 by Adam and Mulvany (published in 1885), Lewis and Ellen raised their children on a fifteen acre, eventually twenty-five acre, garden and fruit farm located on Lot 8, Concession 2 in York Township. (For those familiar with the city of Toronto, these lands are located within a boundary of Danforth Ave to the south, Woodbine Avenue to the east, Cosburn Avenue to the north, and Coxwell Avenue to the west.)
Life seemed good for Lewis but in 1894, his wife Ellen was diagnosed with cancer and died at the young age of 53. Sometime following her death, Lewis gave up farming, moved into a house at 48 Brooklyn Avenue in Toronto's east end and found employment as a Utilities Worker.
It was in this house that gas from an unlit lamp silently filled his living space, accidentally causing asphyxia and a premature death for Lewis Fitzgerald on 7 Jan 1910. Lewis was buried in the Fitzgerald family plot in St, Michael's Cemetery, Toronto.
This week I'm sticking with my maternal ancestral line and turning the focus on my great-great grandfather Lewis Fitzgerald (Lewis' daughter Mary Jane was my great grandmother - Mary Jane's daughter Gertrude Ellen Foley was my grandmother - and; Gertrude's daughter Anne Margaret O'Neill was my mother).
Lewis was born on 9 July 1837, the son of Daniel Fitzgerald and Rebecca Noble. Lewis' father, Daniel hailed from County Waterford in Ireland, a land he left in 1825 likely for the opportunities presented in the United States, settling in Cape Vincent, Jefferson County, New York just across a strait of the St. Lawrence River from Wolfe Island and Canada. The reasons are not known but around 1843, Daniel and Rebecca moved their family to a one hundred acre parcel of land that Daniel purchased in York Township, just east of the then border of the city of Toronto.
Lewis married Ellen Daley (also seen as Daily in some records) on 11 Sept 1856 in St. Paul's Roman Catholic Basilica, located at Queen Street East and Power Street in Toronto. The church which was located about four miles from their home became a central point in their lives and the church's records reveal not just their marriage but the baptisms of their nine children. According to the History of Toronto and County of York, Ontario, Vol. 2 by Adam and Mulvany (published in 1885), Lewis and Ellen raised their children on a fifteen acre, eventually twenty-five acre, garden and fruit farm located on Lot 8, Concession 2 in York Township. (For those familiar with the city of Toronto, these lands are located within a boundary of Danforth Ave to the south, Woodbine Avenue to the east, Cosburn Avenue to the north, and Coxwell Avenue to the west.)
Above is a snippet view from an 1880 map of the "South East Part of York", showing the Lewis Fitzgerald farm towards the lower left, across from the Clergy Reserve, and 'just down the street' from his brother Joseph Fitzgerald's land, originally owned by Daniel Fitzgerald homestead.
Life seemed good for Lewis but in 1894, his wife Ellen was diagnosed with cancer and died at the young age of 53. Sometime following her death, Lewis gave up farming, moved into a house at 48 Brooklyn Avenue in Toronto's east end and found employment as a Utilities Worker.
It was in this house that gas from an unlit lamp silently filled his living space, accidentally causing asphyxia and a premature death for Lewis Fitzgerald on 7 Jan 1910. Lewis was buried in the Fitzgerald family plot in St, Michael's Cemetery, Toronto.
Sunday, February 9, 2014
52 Ancestors: Flora McRae (abt 1776-1876)
Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small genealogy blog suggested a weekly blog theme of '52 Ancestors' in her blog post "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks." I decided to take up the challenge of the 52 Ancestors blog theme as a means to prompt me into regularly sharing the stories of my ancestors. So over the course of 2014 I will highlight an ancestor, sharing what I know about the person and perhaps more importantly, what I don't know.
This week I am turning the spotlight onto an ancestor in my maternal family lineage. Flora McRae (or MacRae) is my 3X great grandmother, the great grandmother of my maternal grandfather, John Graham O'Neill.
As I was growing up, my mother's side of the family was the Irish side. You can therefore imagine my surprise when I found Flora McRae, and her husband Finlay, and they were not Irish. No, they were Scottish!
I don't know who Flora's parents were but it doesn't appear that she had to change her name when she married Finlay. According to an Old Parish Register record from the parish of Lochalsh in Ross and Cromarty county, Finlay MacRae married Flora MacRae on 19 July 1800, after their banns had been read, that is their marriage contract announced, on 2 July 1800.
Finlay and Flora set up house in Invernesshire, Scotland where the first five of their nine known children were born. Events, however, that pre-dated their marriage and thousands of miles away from them would eventually have a tremendous impact on the life of their family.
Scotsmen who had years earlier left Scotland for opportunities in New York State were uprooted by the American Revolutionary War, seeking refuge as Loyalists in Glengarry County, Upper Canada (now part of Ontario). The establishment of the Glengarry settlement set off an emigration of Highlanders, most notably from Inverness. It seems that Finlay and Flora caught the tail end of this large emigration, likely leaving Scotland around 1815.
I don't know much about Flora's life in Canada during the 19th century but I do know she was widowed and a small story in the Oriliia Times newspaper, dated 5 May 1876, captured the peaceful, but with a pinch of the dramatic, way she left this world. "Mrs. Flora McRae, of the great age of 100 years, who lived in a house by herself, a few rods from that of her son, Colin McRae, Kirkfield, was last Thursday found dead sitting by the fireside, with her clothes almost completely burnt off her body. She was not severely burnt, but when found life was extinct."
This week I am turning the spotlight onto an ancestor in my maternal family lineage. Flora McRae (or MacRae) is my 3X great grandmother, the great grandmother of my maternal grandfather, John Graham O'Neill.
As I was growing up, my mother's side of the family was the Irish side. You can therefore imagine my surprise when I found Flora McRae, and her husband Finlay, and they were not Irish. No, they were Scottish!
I don't know who Flora's parents were but it doesn't appear that she had to change her name when she married Finlay. According to an Old Parish Register record from the parish of Lochalsh in Ross and Cromarty county, Finlay MacRae married Flora MacRae on 19 July 1800, after their banns had been read, that is their marriage contract announced, on 2 July 1800.
Finlay and Flora set up house in Invernesshire, Scotland where the first five of their nine known children were born. Events, however, that pre-dated their marriage and thousands of miles away from them would eventually have a tremendous impact on the life of their family.
Scotsmen who had years earlier left Scotland for opportunities in New York State were uprooted by the American Revolutionary War, seeking refuge as Loyalists in Glengarry County, Upper Canada (now part of Ontario). The establishment of the Glengarry settlement set off an emigration of Highlanders, most notably from Inverness. It seems that Finlay and Flora caught the tail end of this large emigration, likely leaving Scotland around 1815.
I don't know much about Flora's life in Canada during the 19th century but I do know she was widowed and a small story in the Oriliia Times newspaper, dated 5 May 1876, captured the peaceful, but with a pinch of the dramatic, way she left this world. "Mrs. Flora McRae, of the great age of 100 years, who lived in a house by herself, a few rods from that of her son, Colin McRae, Kirkfield, was last Thursday found dead sitting by the fireside, with her clothes almost completely burnt off her body. She was not severely burnt, but when found life was extinct."
Sunday, February 2, 2014
52 Ancestors: John Hadden (1866-1924)
Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small genealogy blog suggested a weekly blog theme of '52 Ancestors' in her blog post "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks." I decided to take up the challenge of the 52 Ancestors blog theme as a means to prompt me into regularly sharing the stories of my ancestors. So over the course of 2014 I will highlight an ancestor, sharing what I know about the person and perhaps more importantly, what I don't know.
This week the spotlight is on John Hadden, my 2X great grandfather. He is also the first of three John Hadden's in my direct Hadden lineage (my grandfather was John Gaull Hadden and my son is John Graham Hadden). The John Hadden who is my 2X great grandfather was also the first significant research 'brickwall' obstacle that I had to break through when I began researching my ancestors.
When I began my ancestral hunt just over 30 years ago, I intuitively started by asking my oldest then-living relatives about our family history. I was told that my great grandfather, Alexander Shand Hadden had brought his family, which included my grandfather, to Canada in order to join his mother Helen Shand with her homestead lands in Saskatchewan. Helen, according to the family story, had re-married in Scotland to man named Gammie and together with their sons, they had immigrated to Saskatchewan in 1907 to homestead. Alexander, being older than his half-siblings, had decided to remain in Scotland where he worked as an engineer on a ship in the merchant marine.
I asked about Alexander's father and Helen's first husband - what was his name and what happened to him? The answer was that no one seemed to know the answers to these questions although it was speculated that he had died in a quarry accident leaving Helen a widow with a young son.
Some of the answers to my questions came later when the then General Register Office of Scotland (since merged with National Archives of Scotland to form the National Records of Scotland) mailed a copy of Alexander Shand Hadden's birth registration to me. Alexander's father was John Hadden, an assistant shopkeeper and general merchant in Bainshole, Insch, Aberdeenshire. Helen Shand, as expected, was listed as the mother. What was not expected was that John Hadden and Helen Shand never did marry.
In his first annual report on births, deaths, and marriages, the Register General for Scotland (report published in Edinburgh in 1861) provided the analysis that, for the year 1855, the first year of civil registration in Scotland, 7.8% of all births in Scotland were "illegitimate." In the north-east of Scotland, which included Aberdeenshire, the rate was 13%, and in subsequent years the rate was greater still.
All this goes to say that the birth of my great grandfather 'out-of-wedlock' in the Aberdeenshire of 1866 was not unusual in any spectacular way. In fact, it is likely that John and Helen did not marry because of their ages at the time of Alexander's birth. Helen was only 18-years old and John was just 17-years old. Following the traditional Scottish naming pattern, their baby was named after the father's (that is, John's) father. Helen kept and raised baby Alexander. John moved on but not necessarily to a free and easy life.
John Hadden was born on 1 Jan 1866, the sixth child of ten known children born to Alexander Bean Hadden and his first wife Jane Mathieson. His father worked primarily on local farms as a labourer and ploughman before finding his calling as a general merchant. Eventually, Alexander would become a Master Grocer and it was into this occupation that he directed his three sons.
The census records for Scotland tell us that by 1891, John Hadden had moved out on his own and was working as a grocer's assistant in Ayr. In 1895, John married Helen Duff. Helen had been married before and was widowed in 1888 when her husband of only three years, Patrick Keating died of tuberculosis.
At the time of his wedding to Helen, John was living in Glasgow and working as a grocer's assistant. It is known that Helen had had a son with an unnamed father when she was 19-years old, years before her marriage to Patrick Keating. After Patrick died, Helen returned to her father's home in Kinfauns, Perthshire where she lived with her father and her then teenage son. I have found no record that suggests that Helen's son, John Duff ever lived with her and John Hadden.
It doesn't appear that the marriage was filled with wedded bliss for either Helen or John. Just six years after the wedding, they can be found living about one half mile apart in the town of Perth, Perthshire.
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John was listed in the 1901 Census of Scotland as a boarder in the Dingwall family household at 7 North William Street whereas Helen was residing again with her father at 17 James Street. While Helen was recorded as being married, John was recorded as being single, something that may be simply explained as an error on the part of the individual who provided the information to the enumerator.
There is no record that I have found indicating that John and Helen ever lived together again. I was unable to find either of them in the 1911 Census of Scotland. John died of pneumonia in Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow on 5 Nov 1924. When he died his occupation was listed as 'Spirits Salesman.'
This week the spotlight is on John Hadden, my 2X great grandfather. He is also the first of three John Hadden's in my direct Hadden lineage (my grandfather was John Gaull Hadden and my son is John Graham Hadden). The John Hadden who is my 2X great grandfather was also the first significant research 'brickwall' obstacle that I had to break through when I began researching my ancestors.
When I began my ancestral hunt just over 30 years ago, I intuitively started by asking my oldest then-living relatives about our family history. I was told that my great grandfather, Alexander Shand Hadden had brought his family, which included my grandfather, to Canada in order to join his mother Helen Shand with her homestead lands in Saskatchewan. Helen, according to the family story, had re-married in Scotland to man named Gammie and together with their sons, they had immigrated to Saskatchewan in 1907 to homestead. Alexander, being older than his half-siblings, had decided to remain in Scotland where he worked as an engineer on a ship in the merchant marine.
I asked about Alexander's father and Helen's first husband - what was his name and what happened to him? The answer was that no one seemed to know the answers to these questions although it was speculated that he had died in a quarry accident leaving Helen a widow with a young son.
Some of the answers to my questions came later when the then General Register Office of Scotland (since merged with National Archives of Scotland to form the National Records of Scotland) mailed a copy of Alexander Shand Hadden's birth registration to me. Alexander's father was John Hadden, an assistant shopkeeper and general merchant in Bainshole, Insch, Aberdeenshire. Helen Shand, as expected, was listed as the mother. What was not expected was that John Hadden and Helen Shand never did marry.
In his first annual report on births, deaths, and marriages, the Register General for Scotland (report published in Edinburgh in 1861) provided the analysis that, for the year 1855, the first year of civil registration in Scotland, 7.8% of all births in Scotland were "illegitimate." In the north-east of Scotland, which included Aberdeenshire, the rate was 13%, and in subsequent years the rate was greater still.
All this goes to say that the birth of my great grandfather 'out-of-wedlock' in the Aberdeenshire of 1866 was not unusual in any spectacular way. In fact, it is likely that John and Helen did not marry because of their ages at the time of Alexander's birth. Helen was only 18-years old and John was just 17-years old. Following the traditional Scottish naming pattern, their baby was named after the father's (that is, John's) father. Helen kept and raised baby Alexander. John moved on but not necessarily to a free and easy life.
John Hadden was born on 1 Jan 1866, the sixth child of ten known children born to Alexander Bean Hadden and his first wife Jane Mathieson. His father worked primarily on local farms as a labourer and ploughman before finding his calling as a general merchant. Eventually, Alexander would become a Master Grocer and it was into this occupation that he directed his three sons.
The census records for Scotland tell us that by 1891, John Hadden had moved out on his own and was working as a grocer's assistant in Ayr. In 1895, John married Helen Duff. Helen had been married before and was widowed in 1888 when her husband of only three years, Patrick Keating died of tuberculosis.
At the time of his wedding to Helen, John was living in Glasgow and working as a grocer's assistant. It is known that Helen had had a son with an unnamed father when she was 19-years old, years before her marriage to Patrick Keating. After Patrick died, Helen returned to her father's home in Kinfauns, Perthshire where she lived with her father and her then teenage son. I have found no record that suggests that Helen's son, John Duff ever lived with her and John Hadden.
It doesn't appear that the marriage was filled with wedded bliss for either Helen or John. Just six years after the wedding, they can be found living about one half mile apart in the town of Perth, Perthshire.
The map, snipped from Google Maps, shows the distance from John Hadden's residence at Point A to his wife Helen (Duff) Hadden's residence at Point B in the town of Perth.
John was listed in the 1901 Census of Scotland as a boarder in the Dingwall family household at 7 North William Street whereas Helen was residing again with her father at 17 James Street. While Helen was recorded as being married, John was recorded as being single, something that may be simply explained as an error on the part of the individual who provided the information to the enumerator.
There is no record that I have found indicating that John and Helen ever lived together again. I was unable to find either of them in the 1911 Census of Scotland. John died of pneumonia in Ruchill Hospital in Glasgow on 5 Nov 1924. When he died his occupation was listed as 'Spirits Salesman.'
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