Paying Respects to Brian and Stephen Hadden

I'm really not sure why I do it but for over thirty years, I have made a point of regularly visiting the grave of my brothers, Brian Joseph Hadden and Stephen Gerard Hadden. Maybe it's because I want to ensure they are not forgotten, or because I wonder what life might have been like had they lived, or because it's what a big brother is supposed to do. Maybe I visit their grave because I fantasize about the real torment we could have caused had they been around to join my brother Bob and I in terrorizing our sister! I like to think that I visit their grave simply because it's the right thing to do, at least for me.

Gravestone for Brian Joseph Hadden and Stephen Gerard Hadden, 

Mount Hope Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 

(photo by Ian Hadden)

Brian was born 25 Nov 1956 and passed away at the age of two months and twelve days on 6 Feb 1957. Stephen was born 2 Dec 1957 and died at the age of one year, two months and twelve days on 14 Feb 1959. Both died as the result of congenital hydrocephalus.

I have no recollection of Brian likely because he did not come home from the hospital but I do remember Stephen. I specifically remember sharing a small bedroom with him in our parent's home. My mother always explained to me that Stephen stayed with my parents in their bedroom, sleeping in a bassinet until our sister was born a few months before Stephen died. My mother moved Stephen to the larger crib but he was not happy out of the bassinet so, he kept the bassinet and our sister got the crib. I also remember the day Stephen died and my mother's explanation to me that he had gone to "play with the angels."

Ian Hadden with his mother Anne (nee O'Neill) Hadden and brother, Stephen Hadden, 1958

When my mother passed away in 1994, my father gave me the only photo of Stephen that exists. He told me that my mother wanted me to have it.  The photo (since scanned) remains one of my most prized family records.  

52 Ancestors: Uncle Gerald Foley (1895-1968)

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.

Uncle Gerald Foley was my mother's favourite uncle, so favoured that my middle name of Gerald was given to me as a tribute to her uncle. Unfortunately, I never really knew Uncle Gerald and have no memories of time spent with him, although Uncle Gerald's funeral was the first funeral that I attended and I do remember much of that occasion.

Uncle Gerald is also the subject of some of the most important lessons I learned about researching my family history. I began my genealogical pursuits in the 'dark ages' before computers, databases, and digital images had been heard of. There were no television commercials extolling me to just type in a name and open a whole world of family connections. No, I had to go to libraries and archives to search through file cards that directed me to other file cards and eventually snippets of information.

One of the first ancestors I wanted to research was Uncle Gerald because of my name connection to him. The problem - no Gerald Foley was born in Ontario, Canada when Uncle Gerald should have been born!

Gerald's parents, my great grandparents, John Foley and his wife Mary Jane Fitzgerald were married at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church on 25 April 1894 in Toronto, Ontario. I have the family oral tradition, a copy of their civil marriage registration, a copy of their church marriage registration and a newspaper article about the wedding as evidence of that marriage. Their three children were born likely between the date of the marriage and 1899 when my grandmother, the youngest of their three children was said to have been born. Even with that narrow search window, I could find no Gerald Foley.

Eventually, computers, databases and digital images became available. I searched for Gerald Foley. Nothing. I tried his brother Clarence Foley. Nothing. Surely I would find my grandmother Gertrude Foley. Again, nothing. How could three children, born within about a five year period, in a time of compulsory civil registration not be found in the civil birth registrations for the Province of Ontario?

This is where I learned my lesson. The names the family used for them were not their first given names. Each of the three children's births had, in fact been registered by their father John Foley, a man who was an astoundingly successful businessman but who was, according to family oral tradition, illiterate. John Foley had been taught to sign his name and he had, in fact, registered the births of his children, signing all three birth registrations.

Uncle Gerald was registered as Louis Fitzgerald Foley. I later found his baptismal registration showing that he was baptized as Lewis Fitzgerald Foley but the family called him Gerald, a name he used and answered to his whole life. Clarence Foley was registered as William Dorsey Foley but his baptismal registration entry clearly shows him to be William Clarence Foley. My grandmother, Gertrude Foley was Ellen Gertrude Foley. Assuming the names the family used were the names to be researched kept me frustrated for a very long time. It is clear that the children of John and Mary Foley were called by and throughout their lives used their middle names.

The Foley family plot gravestone, 

Mount Hope Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario, Canada 

(photo taken by Ian Hadden)

On a very recent visit to Mount Hope Cemetery in Toronto, I stopped in at the cemetery's administration office as obituaries for my Foley uncles informed me that they were both buried there. Uncle Gerald's obituary was published as "Gerald Lewis Foley" and Uncle Clarence's obituary was published as "Clarence W. Foley." I was provided with copies of their internment records (a huge bonus as a genealogist!) and learned that they were buried along with their father John Foley and his second wife, their step-mother Annie McElroy. John Foley's grave was very familiar to me. I have visited and paid my respects many times. The names of my uncles also buried in that Foley plot however do not appear on the gravestone nor elsewhere on the family plot. But now I know where to find and pay respect to my 'sort-of namesake.'

52 Ancestors: Martha (Wilson) McKenzie 1778-1859

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 going back more than 230 years to the birth of my 4X great grandmother Martha McKenzie (nee Wilson). The records of Martha that I have found are few but those detailing events of some significance do exist.

I know that on November 3, 1778 "Peter Wilson in Tillyreach and Isabel Emslie his wife had a daughter baptized, called Martha: witnesses James Bruce and Arthur Watson both in Tillyreach." The preceding is my transcription of the entry found in the Old Parish Registers of Scotland and it is the first record of Martha and her christening in the Kirkton of Tough in the County of Aberdeen, Scotland. According to Wikipedia, this tiny hamlet is where the famous Aberdeen Angus breed of cattle was bred. I'm not sure how I feel about descending from the place known for good meat?

Martha's father, Peter, was a farmer and on July 6, 1806, Martha married a farmer, Lewis McKenzie in Glenmuick, Aberdeen, Scotland. Although Martha was a farmer's daughter who married a farmer, her life was not entirely spent on the farm for at least by 1841 when the first census of Scotland was taken, Martha's husband Lewis was an innkeeper. I suspect that there was some land attached to the inn however, as in subsequent census records Lewis' occupation is listed as innkeeper and crofter.

Together Lewis and Martha reared seven known children, born from 1810-1823.

As she eased into her 80's, if 'easing' was even possible in the highlands during the late 1850's, Martha developed dropsy or as it is known today, edema. She suffered with the dropsy for twelve months according to the doctor who certified her death on May 11, 1859 in the Parish of Cluny. Lewis, her husband of more than fifty years was the informant for the registration of her death. He knew Martha's parents were deceased but he could not remember the name of his mother-in-law, at least not accurately as he offered up the surname Christie. 

Martha's husband Lewis, my four times great grandfather signed the death registration and I always find it interesting to see the signatures of my ancestors, particularly those who lived so long ago.

52 Ancestors: Helen Gammie (nee Shand) 1864-1951 - "The Strongest Woman I Ever Saw"

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.

Helen (nee Shand) Gammie was described to me by my grand uncle Alexander (Alec) Hadden as "the strongest woman I had ever seen." Helen was Alec's paternal grandmother and he had watched her strain and toil, carrying heavy loads long distances as she worked the Gammie homestead lands of southwest Saskatchewan, Canada. 

Helen Shand was born 20 Sep 1864 at Hillhead of Aucharnie in the Parish of Forgue, Aberdeenshire. She was the daughter of John Shand, an agricultural labourer and his wife Isabel Morrison. All was well for the working class Helen, or Nellie as she was called. She worked as a domestic servant, a maid in a local home, until the day she met was smitten by John Hadden, an assistant shopkeeper to his father Alexander Hadden who ran a general merchandise shop in Insch, Scotland. 

Helen 'Nellie' Shand

John and Nellie were both teenagers when they found out that they were going to be parents. And so, on 6 Sep 1883, just before her nineteenth birthday, Nellie gave birth to a baby boy. Following the Scottish naming convention, John and Nellie named their son after John's father Alexander and they included Nellie's surname as the baby's middle name. As they were just teenagers, John in fact was even younger than Nellie and he likely had no real means by which to support Nellie and their son, they decided not to marry. Nellie kept the baby to raise on her own.

A few years later, Helen met and married Andrew Gammie, a local farm servant who is recorded in the 1891 Census of Scotland as the head of his small household and step-father to Alexander, who was then recorded as being seven years of age. Helen and Andrew soon started a family of their own children, three half brothers and two half sisters to Alexander.

When the Canadian government began offering free land as part of an initiative to settle the western prairies, Andrew and Helen decided to leave Scotland and become landowners in the far off land that had been made to sound so attractive. On 22 Apr 1907, Andrew, Helen and their five children arrived in Canada on board the ship "Lake Erie." According to the Gammie family in a commemorative local history "Ponteix Yesterday and Today" (Ponteix and District Vol. 2), the family rented some land while their homestead application was being processed. In 1910, they made the last part of their journey by horse team and wagon to their land, described as W 1/2 of 2-8-11-W3rd south, where they lived in a sod hut until a two-story frame house was built.

When Helen's son James Gammie was killed in World War I, land that James had owned was transferred to Helen as next-of-kin. I'm told that Gammie family members knew Helen was corresponding with someone whose identity she did not divulge. That someone was her first child, the son she left in Scotland as a young man, Alexander Shand Hadden. Helen convinced Alexander to bring his family to Canada and join her working the land. And so, the Hadden family arrived late in 1923 on the Canadian prairies, only to move away in 1927.

Helen's husband Andrew died the year before the Hadden family departed and she continued living on her land for many years before she too passed away at the age of 86 on 2 Apr 1951 in Ponteix, where she was buried next to her husband.

52 Ancestors: Dorothea Carson (Abt 1847-1916)

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 on one of my paternal great-great grandmothers, Dorothea Carson.

At the corner of Patrick and Ardgowan Streets in Greenock, Scotland, there stands a small church. Looking down Patrick Street, you can see the mouth of the River Clyde and the various Greenock shipyards along it's banks. It was in this church that on 6 April 1869 that Dorothea Carson stood beside her maid of honour Margaret Forrest and married Thomas Commisky. 

The marriage record of the event describes Dorothea as being 22 years of age. Both she and her 21-year old groom Thomas recorded that they lived at 4 Sir Michael Street in Greenock. Thomas listed his occupation as contractor's carter. He appears to have learned his carting trade from his by then deceased father Terrence who is listed in the marriage record as having been a master carter. Dorothea's parents are listed as John Carson, a contractor, and his wife, Sarah Ann Jones.

As happy as the wedding day was for Thomas and Dorothea, it wasn't to last long. Just four months later, on 11 August 1869, Thomas died of smallpox. Dorothea was left a young widow with a baby girl, a daughter that she and Thomas had in January 1869 before they were married. They named their daughter Annie. 

I don't know what happened to Dorothea following the death of Thomas as neither she nor Annie appears either under the name of Commisky or Carson in the 1871 Census of Scotland. But Dorothea may have been used to tough times. Dorothea was born between 1846 and 1848 in Ireland, at a time when the infamous famine was ravaging that country. Dorothea first appears in the Scottish records in the 1861 census as a young teenager, working alongside two presumed Carson sisters as cotton mill workers. Dorothea and her presumed sisters, Susan and Janet, were boarders in the home of an Irish farmer in Bridge of Weir, Renfrew, Scotland.

It is known, however, that on 30 April 1878 Dorothea married for a second time in Kilbarchan, a small village outside of Bridge of Weir in Renfrew County. Her new husband was James Little. Although the record of this marriage states that James was a 30-year old forester, it is more likely that he was closer to 37-years of age.

Over the years, James and Dorothea settled into life together with James working in the nearby shipyards and Dorothea working working as a confectioner. On 2 April 1911, when the enumerator came to their door conducting the 1911 Census of Scotland, they recorded, I suspect with some pride, that they had been married for 33 years, had seven children (I know the names of six) of whom five were still alive. Just one week later however, James Little died. Dorothea followed James in death on 18 December 1916, a victim of Brights Disease.