X00120 Solved!!

I had posted previously about X00120 and the mystery of what happened to Jane Louise D'Eye and George Forbes after 1897.

In my previous post, I had found George's death certificate noting that he had died in British Columbia in 1951 [D07117]. I had also narrowed down Jane's date of death between 1901 and 1921, as I had found their daughter's baptism record in 1901 [D07119] and the 1921 census shows George as being a widower [D07118].

But I did some searching on newspapers.com and came across an article in the Calgary Herald dated 25 January 1905 that mentioned that the wife of George Forbes, a CPR employee had died recently [D07122].

The last Friday before January 25th 1905 was the 20th of January. I then checked the death indices for Alberta and found a death registration for a Jane Forbes who died 20 January 1905 [D07120].

So, mystery solved. It took researching in four provinces, two religions and two languages, but I have finally managed to trace Jane D'Eye after 1897. The article in the Herald indicates that her remains were shipped to Toronto and her death registration indicates that she was buried at an Anglican church. I haven't yet been able to track down which church at this point, but that's a mystery for another day.

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Sources:
[D07117] British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency, death certificate 1951-09-004040 (1951), B13208; British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency, Victoria. Rec. Date: 24 Jun 2018. Cit. Date: 17 Dec 2020.

[D07118] 1921 census of Canada, district 6, sub-district 83, Edmonton, p. 11, dwelling 132; RG 31; digital images, ancestry.com (accessed 17 Dec 2020). Rec. Date: 1 Apr 2017. Cit. Date: 17 Dec 2020.

[D07119] Église Saint-Romuald (Farnham, Quebec, Canada), Drouin Collection, "Baptism - Gertrude Ellen Forbes," B.119; digital images, ancestry.ca (accessed 20 Dec 2020). Rec. Date: 20 Dec 2020. ID: D07119. Cit. Date: 20 Dec 2020.

[D07120] Alberta Provincial Archives of Alberta, Alberta Canada Deaths Index, 1905: 227; digital image, "Alberta Deaths," (19 Dec 2020).

[D07122] "Local and General," Calgary Herald, 24 Jan 1905, p. 8, col. 3; digital images, newspapers.com (accessed 19 Dec 2020).

X00120 What happened to Jane Louise D'Eye after 1897?

George Hastings Rust-D'Eye and Henrietta Fox Addison had thirteen children born between 1862 and 1881. So far, I've been able to trace what happened to all of them except for one of them: their fifth child, Jane Louise D'Eye, born in 1868.

Jane came to Canada in 1883 with the rest of the family [D02319]. I have found her Marriage record from 1897, indicating that she married George Forbes, a telegraph dispatcher for CPR [D01887].

But that is the last record that I have found for her. Nothing after that marriage. I haven't found either George or Jane in any census record or death record. At least until recently.

I had a new look on my tree on Ancestry and specifically at the hints for George Forbes (none of the hints for Jane Laura D'Eye were valid). There were a number of hints given for George Forbes, but it's hard to tell which ones are valid and which ones can be ruled out. This is partly because the name George Forbes isn't that uncommon, but also because working for the railway, it's likely that he moved around a lot so it's difficult to say where he could have been living at any given time.

There was one hint, however, that caught my attention, it was a passenger record showing a George Forbes living in Naramata B.C.[D07128]. So I thought that I'd check with the British Columbia death indexes to see if I could find that person. Sure enough there was a George Forbes who died 14 April 1951 living in Naramata, B.C. [D07117].

In the record, the year of birth matches, he's a dispatcher for the C.P.R. He's listed as a widower and his wife's name is given as Jane Louise D'Eye. So it's definitely the right person. Not only does this tell us what has happened with George Forbes, but we now know that Jane had passed by 1951. This gives us a date of death range between 1897 and 1951, which is still quite a wide range.

Another piece of information that the death record gives was that he was in the province twenty-three years prior to his death. So, this means that he would have been living outside of B.C. during the 1921 census. With that in mind I did some additional searching in the 1921 census and managed to find a George Forbes living in Edmonton in 1921 with his daughter Gertrude. The dates match, he is listed as a widower and he is listed as a CPR employee, so it is likely that this is the same George Forbes [D07118].

Gertrude E. Forbes is nineteen years old in the 1921 census, which puts her birth year at about 1902 and also notes that she was born in Quebec. I next checked the Quebec birth records and found a Gertrude E. Forbes born in Quebec in 1901, with her parents being listed as George Forbes and Jane Laura D'Eye [D07119].

So, no definite answers yet, but we can at least now pin down Jane Laura D'Eye's date of death between 1901 and 1921.

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Sources:
[D01887] Ontario Archives of Ontario, Ontario, Canada Marriages, MS932; Reel: 91: 121, 1368, Forbes-D'Eye; digital images, Ancestry.ca, "Ontario, Canada Marriages". Rec. Date: 9 Sep 2017. Cit. Date: 17 Dec 2020.

[D02319] Canada, "Passenger List - SS Oregon 1882"; C-4532 C-4532, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa. Rec. Date: 17 Dec 2020. ID: D02319. Cit. Date: 17 Dec 2020.

[D07117] British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency, death certificate 1951-09-004040 (1951), B13208; British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency, Victoria. Rec. Date: 24 Jun 2018. Cit. Date: 17 Dec 2020.

[D07118] 1921 census of Canada, district 6, sub-district 83, Edmonton, p. 11, dwelling 132; RG 31; digital images, ancestry.com (accessed 17 Dec 2020). Rec. Date: 1 Apr 2017. Cit. Date: 17 Dec 2020.

[D07119] Église Saint-Romuald (Farnham, Quebec, Canada), Drouin Collection, "Baptism - Gertrude Ellen Forbes," B.119; digital images, ancestry.ca (accessed 20 Dec 2020). Rec. Date: 20 Dec 2020. ID: D07119. Cit. Date: 20 Dec 2020.

[D07128] "Manifests of Alien Arrivals in the Seattle, Washington District," online images, ancestry.ca (accessed 20 Dec 2020), manifest, Nederland, 20 Dec 1945, 1207. Rec. Date: 20 Dec 2020. Cit. Date: 20 Dec 2020.