More options for the Margaret Farriage query

A few months ago, I posted an analysis of query X00055 - the search for more information on Margaret Farriage. I was at the OGS conference this weekend and talked to a few people about this brick wall. The people that I talked to made a number of suggestions for further research:

• Investigate the names of the marriage witnesses to see if there are any clues there
• Check ships passenger lists for the late 20s or early 30s and see if there are any similar names that could be possibilities
• Check church records for Nelson Township and Toronto Township for the time period
• Check land ownership for George Miller or names similar to Farriage. Check for neighbours - was Amelia Grant Munro living in the area?
• Research the children of George Miller (both with Margaret Farriage and Amelia Grant Munro)
• Possibly consider Scottish naming patterns, and look for a father named William for either George or Margaret
• Check out Ryan Gilcrest's book on marriage records
• Check out OGS' TONI database

The people that I spoke to were largely in agreement with my theory that the surname of "Farriage" is likely an error.

Finding Margaret Farriage: X00055 Analysis

Some time ago, I had posted that the Margaret Farriage that is married to George Miller is not the one born in Rothbury, England in 1804. So, it's time to re-evaluate and take a look at what is known and what is unknown.

Known facts about Margaret Farriage:

• The only source that I have found that gives her full name is from the Marriage Bonds of Upper Canada p 239 [D00800]
• She married George Miller, carriage maker on Oct 25, 1832 in Toronto Township (now Peel Region). Church not known. [D00800]
• At the time of her marriage was living in Nelson Township (now Burlington, Ontario) [D00800]
• She appears to have given birth to two sons, John born about 1833 and William born 10 May 1834. I don't have sources identified at this time to confirm John Miller's birth, so that may not be reliable.
• William Miller's Marriage Records lists his parents as George & Margaret Miller [D03152]. No maiden name given.
• She likely died some time between May 10 1834 (likely date of birth for William Miller) and Dec 9 1835 (likely date when George Miller married Amelia Grant Munro) [need source]
• According to the 1891 Census, she is of Scottish Origin [D00772]. That being said, this was several years after she had died and William Miller would have been very young when she died.
• At some point, the Miller family moved from Nelson to Cooksville [Need Sources].

Analysis:

• To this date, I have not found the surname Farriage elsewhere in Halton, Peel or southern Ontario for that matter, so I am questioning whether or not that is the real surname. On the marriage licence record itself, the name Farriage was spelled exactly like carriage and marriage which also appear on the form, so it could easily be something that sounded like Farriage.
• Based on the fact that she was married in 1832 and George Miller was born in 1809, a likely range for her year of birth would be 1805 to 1815
• Based on her last child birth and when George got remarried, a likely range for year of death would be 1834-1835
• As mentioned in a previous blog post, there is a Margaret Farridge born in Rothbury, Northumberland, England in 1804 [D00089], but I have ruled out that individual as a possibility because she died in 1809 [D01638] [See D03104]. I have checked the Baptism registers to see if the family renamed a later child Margaret but did not find anything.

Research Strategies:

1. Investigate the possibility that her last name was not Farriage. There is only one source that mentions a name. Note that the written name Farriage appears exactly as carriage. Could it have been that the person writing the bond spelled it the same way as carriage or marriage? We can rule out this possibility if we find a second source that corroborates the name. Some things to pursue:
   • Look for a second source that mentions the marriage and check the name: church records, newspapers, etc. George Miller was strongly Weselyan Methodist
   • Look for a marriage record for William Miller & Jane Hardy (married 1857) [D03152] Marriage record does not mention a maiden name
   • Look for records (marriage, death, census etc) for John Miller born 1833 [X00223]
   
   
   
2. Look for records of a Margaret Farriage, or Farriage family living in the Burlington Area
   • Check with the Burlington Public Library for directories, news, anything from the time period
     • Gravestones/cemetery records
     • Directories
     • Tweedsmuir Histories
     • Newspapers
     • Old books on early settlement
   • Check Hamilton Public Library - same list as above
   • Check Mississauga Public Library - same list as above
   • Check Halinet search
   
   
   
3. Investigate the possibility that William and/or John were born later than 1834. Look for:
   • Birth information for William Miller [X00158]
   • Birth information for John MIller [X00223]
   • 1851 Census information for the Miller family [X00082]
   
   
   
4. Look for a Margaret Farrish (or other variant names) born in Scotland around 1810
   • Check with Scotlands People

The genealogy sad dance

In my tree, I have a marriage between a George Miller and Margaret Farriage in Toronto Township in 1832 (October 25th, 1832 to be specific).


I was able to find a bit more information on George Miller - he was born 1809 in Poughkeepsie, New York - but not much on Margaret Farriage. It certainly doesn't help that the surname Farriage takes on a number of variations - sometimes there is only one r, sometimes e's replace the a's and sometimes there is no letter i.

I managed to find a Margaret Farridge through FamilySearch.org born May 1st, 1804 in Rothbury, Northumberland, England, daughter of William Farridge.



The name is close enough and the timeline is not outside the realm of possibility. As well, George and Margaret's second son was named William, so it all fits. But I was a little hesitant to make the jump that this could be the same person in both Nelson Township, Ontario and in Rothbury, Northumberland, England without more proof.

Now, this was back in the early days when I was just starting out in genealogy. I managed to get in touch with a distant cousin who had spent many years researching the Farriage line and she had the two as the same person, so I made the connection in my tree, figuring that I would verify it with my own research later.

So, fast-forward to a few months ago. I'm now getting around to verifying that line. There was a wavy leaf on Ancestry.com that led me to some other people who had Margaret Farriage in their tree. Most of them either had the same connection as I did or no date of death. But interestingly, two of them had a death date of 1809 with no source. I contacted them, but (like many people with trees on ancestry) neither of them know where the information had come from, and had likely copied it from someone else.

So, I ordered the microfilm reel for Rothbury and sure enough I found the burial entry:



It's blurry, but it's a Margaret Farriage, daughter of William Farriage died October, 1809, aged 5 years. It's definitely the same person.

So, the Rothbury Margaret Farriage born 1804 is not the same as the Nelson Township Margaret Farriage. I checked the Rothbury Baptisms to see if the family had named a later child Margaret, but didn't find anything. So, I now have to delink that branch of the family, and go back to square one as far as finding Margaret's actual birth date, place & parents. It's a bit of a genealogy sad dance, but finding out the truth is far better than wasting time researching the wrong family.