52 Ancestors: Margaret O'Neill (nee Graham) (1854-1937)

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.

Margaret Graham was born on 8 September 1854, according to the records that I have been able to locate about her. Just over 100 years later, I would make her a great grandmother. I know that Margaret was born in the province of Ontario but I have been unable so far to find a record that provides a more precise location, although it is likely that Margaret's family was living south of Barrie, Ontario at the time of her birth.

By 1861, Margaret can be found in the census records living in Holland Landing with her parents. Her father was Patrick Graham, a tailor from Ireland and her mother Catherine McRae, the Canadian born daughter of Scottish immigrants who were part of the Glengarry settlement. By the time Margaret was a teenager, her father had decided to take up farming and so the family moved to Sunnidale, Ontario, just west of the town of Barrie.

There is no record that I have found nor no family story that I have heard about how my great grandparents met, but on 4 June 1894, a 39-year old Margaret Graham married 45-year old William Emmett O'Neill in St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church on Bathurst Street in Toronto. In spite of their ages at the time, it appears that this was the first marriage for both of them and they set about quickly to have three children in the next four years: first a son, John Graham O'Neill (my grandfather) in 1895, then a daughter Kathleen Marie O'Neill (who became a nun) in 1896, and finally another daughter Avila O'Neill (who never married) in 1898.

Margaret and her husband settled into what was from all appearances a quiet life in Toronto. While her husband William worked in the insurance business, Margaret tended to raising their three children and keeping house. When their son Graham, as he was called, was engaged to marry Gertrude Foley, Gertrude's father John Foley informed the engaged couple that he was going to give them a house on Pickering Street in Toronto's east end as a wedding gift. Graham and Gertrude convinced John Foley to instead sell the house to Graham's parents. Margaret and William were residing in that house in 1924 when William died according to his death registration.

The O'Neill Family gravestone, Mount Hope Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario (photo by Ian Hadden)

Margaret continued to live in the house for a short time until she moved into a house with her daughter Avila at 1739 Dundas Street West in Toronto. She then lived with Avila until her own death at St. Joseph's Hospital from chronic myocarditis on 2 March 1937. On 5 March 1937, Margaret was laid to rest to rest beside her husband William in Mount Hope Cemetery following a 9:00 a.m. requiem mass at St. Helen's Roman Catholic Church.

52 Ancestors: William Emmett O'Neill (1849-1924)

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.

William Emmett O'Neill, one of my great grandfathers, entered this world on 26 February 1849 in Barrie, Ontario, Canada - or as it was known at the time of his birth, Canada West. He was the son of Irish immigrants, John O'Neill and his wife, Mary Murphy. They were a Roman Catholic family who lived in a one-storey log house on land that John farmed.

When William was a young man of twenty-two, he found work as a labourer in Tay Township, close to Georgian Bay. By the time he was thirty years of age, he was caring for his widowed mother in Barrie, Ontario while working as a store clerk. William continued working for others in the Barrie, Ontario store into the early 1890's and then decided, through an unknown inspiration, perhaps the death of his mother, that it was time to strike out on his own.

He moved to Toronto, found work again as a store clerk, but also found love. He met and married Margaret Graham on 4 June 1894 in St. Mary's Church. Neither William nor Margaret were 'spring chickens.' William was 45 years old when he married, although he claimed to be only 42 perhaps in an effort to be closer in age to his bride Margaret who was 39 when she married. William and Margaret didn't let age deny them the opportunity to have a family and so in 1895, just more than a year after their wedding, they welcomed their first child, and my grandfather, John Graham O'Neill into the world.

Two daughters would subsequently join the family. First, Kathleen Marie O'Neill, who would later join the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph and be known by her religious name as Sister St. Edwin, in 1896, and then Avila in 1898.

Early in his married and family life, William would change careers. No longer content working as a store clerk, he became an insurance agent, the source of employment for the remainder of his life. He moved his family into a house on Claremont Street in Toronto from where my grandfather told me, they would push their children in a baby carriage through muddy roads to attend the annual Canadian National Exhibition, a little over a mile away. Later, William and Margaret moved to a house further west in the city on Golden Avenue.

On 24 July 1924, at the age of 75, William Emmett O'Neill died in St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. His cause of death was listed as "uremia" or kidney failure. At the time of his death, William and Margaret were living at 189 Pickering Street in Toronto, a home they had purchased from their son's father-in-law John Foley. This was the same house that I would live in for the first nine plus years of my life. On 26 July 1924, William Emmett O'Neill was laid to rest in Toronto's Mount Hope Cemetery where he would eventually be joined in the family plot by his wife, youngest daughter, son and daughter-in-law, and their infant son.

As a tribute to his father, my grandfather named his youngest son, one of my uncles, William Emmett O'Neill. Uncle 'Bill' as he is known to me, has told me often how creepy it is to visit the cemetery and see the headstone at the family plot bearing his name.

Fun With the 1921 Census of Canada?? Finding the Foley and Gaull Families

Well, the day finally arrived. The images of the 1921 Census of Canada became available through Ancestry.ca yesterday at 2:00 p.m. EDT and I immediately began the process of searching for family members.

Ancestry is working on a nominal index for the census records but that searchable index is estimated to not be available for about two or three months. In the interim, the 1921 Census of Canada images are available indexed on a geographic basis. Ancestry describes this geographic index this way, "For the 1921 census, each province was divided into census districts. These districts were divided into sub-districts. Districts were roughly equivalent to electoral districts, cities, and counties. Sub-districts were typically towns, townships, and city wards."

As my paternal Hadden family members did not arrive in Canada until 1923, I focused on finding my maternal Foley ancestors. I knew that one of my maternal great grandfathers, John Foley and his family lived on Pickering Street in the east end of Toronto.

I chose the Province of Ontario and the Toronto East district. This provided me with a list of 70 sub-districts to choose between, including the inmates of the Toronto 'Don' Jail. Some of the sub-districts had geographic boundary descriptions, in rather fine print, that assisted me in eliminating them from my search. I also grew up on Pickering Street so I know all the various street names in the neighborhood. Nothing seemed to match; nothing seemed to be even remotely close geographically. 

Convincing myself that I was simply misreading or misunderstanding the sub-district listing, I began browsing through the images of the Toronto East sub-districts. No, I had been correct. The enumerated streets were in Toronto's east end but still quite a distance from Pickering Street.

A moment before I was about to inform Ancestry that they had forgotten to upload my great grandparent's sub-district, I took a moment of forced calm to again review the available district list. At the bottom of the list I found York East  and scrolling the the sub-district listing I saw street names attached to sub-district 37 that were from my old neighborhood.

Finally, in sub-district 39, I found Pickering Street!

Listed on page 17 of the sub-district census record, living at 96 Pickering Street, was my great grandfather John Foley, his second wife Annie (nee McElroy), and three of his children - Gerald (my namesake misidentified in the census record as Clarence (Clarence was married and was found living in his own home at 9 Pickering Street), my then 23-year old grandmother Gertrude, and John Joseph Foley.

All of the frustration in locating known family members dissolved  But who else was living in the area?

Scanning through the census pages, I found George Gaull, my paternal Hadden great grandmother's brother. George was a driving influence in my family's decision to settle in Toronto's east end after their immigration from Scotland and a few years of farming in Saskatchewan. George and his wife Mary (nee Coulson) can be found living at 67 Pickering Street, a house from which he operated his grocery store. With them was their one-year old son George Leonard 'Lenny' Gaull as well as George senior's sister Elsie Findlater and brother William Fowler Gaull. I knew that Elsie had lived in Toronto for some time before returning 'home' to Scotland but I was unaware that William Gaull had joined his siblings in Canada. According to the record, William arrived in Canada in 1920 and in 1921, he was working as a labourer at a lumber yard, perhaps the lumber yard that was located just a few blocks away from their house.

Patience, something I don't possess a lot of at times, ruled the day. If you are going to search images that are not yet indexed, it can handy to pack a little extra patience in your tool box.

The Wedding of My Maternal Grandparents - J. Graham O'Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley

I have many fond memories of my maternal grandparents, John Graham O'Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley. I was their first grandchild and grew up living just two doors away from their home. My grandmother, Nana as I referred to her, spoiled me, not that I'm complaining.  My maternal grandmother died when I was seven years old and my grandfather when I was 24 years old. I therefore only knew them in their twilight years. It is hard for me to picture them as children, teenagers or even young adults for to me as a child, they were old.

I'm certain that photos exist somewhere, held by someone, of my grandparents' wedding but I have never seen one. So it was especially helpful when I was finally able to discover a small article contained in the Toronto Star newspaper (June 25, 1926 edition, page 24) that described the marriage of my grandparents, J. Graham O'Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley. 

I have searched for newspaper articles about family members for many years, typically relying on a surname as the search term in the local newspaper database. This approach can lead to long and tedious hours of examining multiple search term hits that are not related to my family members. I was successful this time however for two reasons: one, I used the surname Foley for my search rather than the O'Neill surname I had previously been using. As it turned out the article about my grandparents wedding consistently misspells the O'Neill surname as "O'Niel" so my prior searches for the surname skipped over this article. Two,   knowing their date of marriage, I was able to narrow the timeframe for my search, allowing me to search all sections of the newspaper without worrying about receiving an overwhelming number of results.

So here is my transcription of the small article that details my grandparents' wedding:

O'NIEL - FOLEY 

St. Brigid's Roman Catholic Church was the scene of a smart June wedding on Wednesday when Miss Gertrude Ellen Foley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Foley, became the bride of Mr. John Graham O'Niel, son of the late N. J. O'Niel. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Father Armstrong, while during the signing of the register Mrs. Summerfell sang 'O Salutaris' and an Ave Maria. The bride wore an attractive frock of peach georget with hat to match, while her bridesmaid, Miss Mary McCormack, was in powder blue georget with hat to match. The bride carried a shower of Ophelin roses, while her attendant carried Columbia roses. The groom was supported by Mr. John Hammall. Following the ceremony a reception was held at the home of the bride's parents on Queensdale boulevard, where Mrs. Foley and Mrs. O'Niel received with the bridal party. The former wore a becoming gown of cocoa brown crepe, while Mrs. O'Niel was in black crepe. The groom's gift to his bride was a white gold wrist watch, to the bridesmaid a silver mesh bag, to the best man monogrammed green gold cuff links. Following the reception Mr. and Mrs. O'Niel left on a honeymoon trip to Rochester, Cleveland and Detroit. Upon their return they will establish their home at 189 Pickering street, the house being the gift of the bride's father.

Some final observations: I'm uncertain as to who authored the article. I doubt that it was submitted by a family member due to the O'Neill surname misspelling. Also, my grandfather's father was not N. J. O'Niel (or O'Neill) but rather William Emmett O'Neill, who had died two years before this wedding. The term 'georget' was also misspelled  as it should have been 'georgette.' And finally, the last line of the article confirmed a family story that the house at 189 Pickering Street in Toronto was a wedding gift to my grandparents from my great grandfather John Foley. It was also the house that I lived in with my parents for the first nine and one half years of my life.

Memories Enjoyed With Canada Voters Lists, 1935 - 1980

An email from Ancestry caught my attention this morning. Ancestry.ca announced the release of a new 'Canada, Voters Lists, 1935 - 1980' database. The database is fully indexed with images from the fifteen Canadian federal elections that are occurred between 1935 - 1980.

As Ancestry's email announcement points out, the voters lists provide a valuable substitute to census records (that, frankly under Canadian laws, I may not live long enough to see many released). The voters lists contain the names, addresses and occupations of all those who were enumerated prior to each election.

I couldn't resist searching for myself in the latter years of the available voters lists. There I was listed on the 1974 voters list, the first federal election in which I was eligible to vote with the election being held on July 8, 1974, living at my parental home, with the occupation of 'student' beside my name. As the voters lists are based on address, it is a real trip down memory lane as I recalled the families who lived in the neighbourhood around my parent's home. Some I had gone to school with, others were hockey teammates; all brought back memories of a time that seems so long ago.

While searching for the 'Hadden' surname in the database, I was able to track the residences of my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a few cousins. 

Of special interest was the 1945 voters list showing my mother's parents living at 189 Pickering Street in Toronto. This house became my parent's home and it is where I was raised until the age of nine. What made this special though was seeing who the neighbours were. Right next door to my mother's family was the Doody family at 187 Pickering Street, as can be seen in the snippet view below. Mr. and Mrs. Leo Doody are the grandparent's of my sister's husband. My mother had always told us, to our amazement, that the grandchildren of next door neighbours would marry many years later. Now I have the record showing it to be true.

As a side note, on that same 1945 voters list, living at 205 Pickering Street were Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Perkins. What is notable about this is that Mr. and Mrs. Perkins had two sons whom attended St. Michael's Choir School in Toronto. Johnny and Ray Perkins, childhood and young adult friends of my parents, joined with two other choir school friends to form a singing group that gained fame as 'The Crewcuts,' recording chart topping hits like "Sh-Boom." 

I now have find the many other members of my family in these records and then, of course, it will be necessary to start tracking the whereabouts of Ellen's many family members across the country.