X00257 Solved! Who are Peter, James & William Rutherford?

I first found the names of Peter Rutherford (born about 1859), James Rutherford (born about 1860) and William Rutherford (born about 1863) in the 1871 census for Grey County [D01237]. They were living with John Rutherford (1839-1915) and Sophia Amelia Miller (1838-1921), and so at the time I had assumed that the three were the sons of John and Sophia. That is until I did some more research on the family and found the marriage record for John and Sophia, giving a marriage date of 1866 [D03924].

My first thought was that perhaps John had had a previous marriage. But this would be difficult to determine because marriage records in Ontario in the 1850s are difficult to come by. As well, very few newspapers survive from that time period in Grey County.

But eventually, I did manage to luck out and find a mention of John's first wife in his obituaries. Her name was Margaret Spragge and died in 1865 due to a smallpox epidemic that his Owen Sound at the time. I later found that in the Greenwood Cemetery Interment listings [D01131] give her actual date of death as January 5, 1865

Once I knew his first wife's name I was able to find her in the 1861 census [D04003] along with her husband John and her three sons: Peter, James and William to confirm.