Arthur Miller (1876-1876)

A distant cousin who is also researching the Miller family pointed out to me that William Miller and Jane Hardy had another son named Arthur Miller whom I was not aware of previously. He was born 25 January 1876 and died 29 January 1876.

I found his birth and death information online [D06473, D06474]:



According to the death registration, Arthur was born prematurely. I had a look at the Greenwood Cemetery burial list and there is an Arthur Miller listed with matching birth and death dates [D01131].

I went to Greenwood Cemetery and had a look for the stone but I couldn't find anything there. So likely the stone is gone or there never was one there.

Sources:
[D01131] "Owen Sound Greenwood Cemetery Interments" (typescript, 2005), p. 222. Rec. Date: 6 May 2018. ID: D01131. Cit. Date: 28 Jun 2019.

[D06473] Ontario Archives of Ontario, MS 929, reels 1-245, MS929; Series: 23: 579, 7501, 18; digital image, Ancestry.com, "Ontario, Canada Births," (28 Jun 2019). Rec. Date: 21 Apr 2017. Cit. Date: 28 Jun 2019.

[D06474] Ontario Archives of Ontario, Ontario, Canada Deaths, MS935; Reel: 12: 751, 4015, 6; digital image, Ancestry.ca, "Ontario, Canada Deaths," Ancestry.ca (28 Jun 2019). Rec. Date: 3 Sep 2017. Cit. Date: 28 Jun 2019.

X00303: Who is Martha Williams?

Recently I posted about Tattie Williams and the Williams plot at Greenwood Cemetery in Owen Sound. In that post, I mentioned that all of the names in the plot had been identified except for Martha Williams.



The burial listings for Greenwood Cemetery indicate that Martha Williams died 1 April 1873 and was buried 20 February 1874, which seems a little odd. Her age was listed as 0, which might be the case, or it might be that her age was not recorded in the records.

So, I first had a look through the Ontario death records and did not find a Martha Williams who died in 1873. Then I had a look through the Owen Sound newspapers and found the following death notice in the Owen Sound Advertiser for Thursday, April 10, 1873, p2 Col 8:



So then I went back to the Ontario death registrations and then found a record for a Martha Frost who died on 1 April 1873 in Owen Sound and was the wife of Henry H. Williams. She was born about 1858.



This would appear to be the correct Martha Williams that is buried in Greenwood. The only problem is that it still doesn't identify who she is and what her connection is to the Thomas Williams family. So I next tracked down a marriage record between Henry H. Williams and Martha Frost. They were married in Owen Sound on the 14th May 1870.

Henry H. Williams was born about 1854 and was the son of Lewis Williams & Orella Healey.
Martha Frost was born about 1858 and was the daughter of John Frost & Mary Williams.

Now here is where it gets interesting: both of them have parents with the surname Williams. So, could Lewis Williams be the connection with Thomas Williams? Or perhaps it is Mary Williams. Or maybe both of them? Or it could be neither of them and the cemetery recorded the wrong burial location. More research to come.....

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.

X00155 Thomas Williams death information - Solved!

Until recently the only sources that I had for Thomas Williams' [abt. 1792-1868] date of death were the Greenwood Cemetery Interment listings [D01131] and his tombstone.



Both are consistent with a date of death of 26 August 1868. Unfortunately, the date is before the start of civil registration in Ontario, so a death registration record wouldn't exist. I checked the Owen Sound newspapers from the time period, but none of them had a surviving death notice.

But recently, I checked in the listings for the Guelph Weekly Herald, given that he spent a great a deal of his life living in Guelph, Ontario. Sure enough, I found this listing:



Now the date given there is 22 August 1868. So there is a date conflict that needs to be resolved, but now I have an additional source for his date of death.

X00060 Sybil Williams Death Information

So, here's the issue. I'm trying to find a death record or death information for a Sybil Williams (born Sybil Foxwell) (Feb 17 1798 - May 13, 1874)



Here is the known information:

• She was born February 17 1798 in Gloucester, England based on her baptism records [Sources: D00157, D00419]
• She died May 13 1874 based on her tombstone and the Greenwood Cemetery Internment listing [Sources: D01131, D01637]
• She was buried May 15 1874 Greenwood Cemetery, Owen Sound, Ontario based on the Greenwood Cemetery Internment listing [Source: D01131]
• Her religion was Church of England [Source: D01565]
• She was living in Owen Sound in 1871 based on the 1871 census [Source: D01565] and Guelph before that.

Here's the results of my research:

• Couldn't find anything in the Ontario Civil Death Registrations on either Ancestry or FamilySearch
• Couldn't find anything in the Ontario Civil Death Registrations on microfilm
• Couldn't find anything in the indexes of Owen Sound newspapers
• Couldn't find anything in the indexes of Guelph newspapers
• I found a death certification for a Sybil Williams in England in 1874, but it is not her [D03877]

Any other suggestions of places to look? Or next steps to try?

Samina Foxwell Williams death information found!

Some time ago I was looking at the cemetery listings for Greenwood Cemetery in Owen Sound. The listings for the much of the Williams family (Thomas Williams & Sybel Foxwell) list the plot location as G-BLO-6.



So, out of curiousity I decided to have a look to see what other names showed up in that plot. I came across a Minnie McInnis who died November 26, 1878:



I figured that Minnie McInnis could very well be Samina Foxwell Williams, youngest daughter of Thomas & Sybel. The age of 36 would certainly match, as Samina would have been born in 1841. And Minnie could be a derivative of Samina. But I couldn't find a death record for her in Ontario. Nor could I find a marriage between a Samina Williams and a person with the surname McInnis in Ontario. Samina was unmarried in the 1871 Ontario census, so the marriage would have taken place between 1871 and 1878.

Recently however, I found this death notice in the listing for the Owen Sound Times Birth, Marriage and Deaths:



Mrs. John Douglas would be Louisa Williams Douglas, her sister. So she married a Joseph McInnis between 1871 and 1878 and later died in Walnut, Iowa. I haven't found the records for either the marriage or the death, but at least I have some more information about both.