George Miller in Esquessing

I've book looking through property records in hopes of finding some more clues about George Miller. Unfortunately it is a common name. I did come across a reference to a George Miller living in Concession V in Esquessing, Ontario:

I figured that it was somewhat unlikely that it would be the same one, but he did live in Halton region at one point.

So, I managed to look up the record and found that it was Lot 1, Concession V. A George Miller bought the land in 1826 and sold part of it in 1831. THe timing there might be ok, but then part of it was transferred via a will in 1848:

That makes it very unlikely that it's the same George Miller, because the one in my family died in 1891. I've confirmed that it was transferred via a will.

So, unfortunately, not the same George Miller. But at least I was able to rule it out

X00222 Update

I'm continuing to look for evidence of the marriage between George Miller and Amelia Grant Munro (X00222).

I've tried looking for Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian marriages in Toronto Township with nothing found.

Another possibility is that Amelia Grant Munro's brother-in-law, Robert Boyd was a Presbyterian minister in Prescott, Ontario. He became Minister of St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Prescott in 1829 and was th eminister there for fourty-three years, so he would have been the minister there in 1835.

Unfortunately, I checked with the Presbyterian archives for St. Andrew's in Prescott and they did not have a record of that marriage.

X00223 John Miller of Markdale

The Miller family creates all sort of mysteries, partly because they were living in pre-confederation Ontario, where it is tough to find records, but also because they have a very common last name.

One of the mysteries is trying to find anything about John Miller, son of George Miller. According to Miller family lore, George and Margaret had two sons, William and John, both born between 1833 and 1835. They may have been twins.

The only sources that I've found to prove his existence and link him with the rest of the family are an appearance in an 1865/1866 Owen Sound Directory and the 1881 census. Unfortunately, the 1851 census for the section of Toronto Township where the Miller family would have been living has not survived, and he was not living with the family in 1861. There are other records I’ve found with a John Miller in it, but since it is such a common name and there were more than one John Millers living in the area at the time it’s hard to confirm if they are the same person or not.

A marriage record might be able to identify him as it might give names of parents. But I have not been able to find a marriage record for him and he doesn't appear to be married in 1881. I've looked into death records, but I haven't found anything definite.

One consideration is a John Miller who died in Markdale, Grey County in 1911, aged 77 (i.e. born about 1834).

The age is right, the location is certainly a possibility, but there's not much else to go on. So I had a look in the Markdale Standard online for 1911 to see if there was an obituary. I checked all of the papers for the month of March 1911 and found nothing. Not even a mention. I even checked the Flesherton Advance to see if they had picked it up. Still nothing.

It seems unusual that there would be nothing in the newspaper about this, because Markdale just isn’t that big. If there was nothing reported, I’m inclined to think that perhaps this isn’t the John Miller that I am looking for. If it were, I would think that there would have been at least a mention about family members coming in from out of town, but there’s nothing. My take is that it’s likely that this John Miller didn’t have much in the way of family and wasn’t really known within the town.

X00222 Marriage date for George Miller and Amelia Grant Munro

One mystery that I have been trying to solve is the marriage date of George Miller and Amelia Grant Munro.

According to a distant cousin who is researching the same tree, the date of the marriage was 5 December 1835. She did not give me a source for this date however, and she has since passed away and so I don't know where she found the date. The date does fit with the timeline, in that George and Amelia's first child would have been born 7 October 1836, and George's last child from his previous wife would have been born around 1834. So, the date does make sense, but where did it come from?

Another question is where the marriage took place. On Ancestry, a number of people have recorded the marriage date as 5 December 1835 (presumably that information has been copied from one source, possibly even mine) but some list the marriage location as Cardinal, Ontario (formerly Edwardsburgh) and others have listed it as having took place in Toronto. Either place is entirely feasible as Amelia Grant Munro came from Edwardsburgh and George Miller would have likely been living in Toronto Township at the time. It's not entirely clear how they would have met, although there seems to be some evidence that members of the Munro family were living in Toronto and Halton region around that time. So the marriage could have taken place in Edwardsburg, Toronto Township, Nelson (if they were still living there at the time) or Toronto (as people often got married in Toronto at the time).

Since I will likely need to look for church records for this X-File, another question is under what religion would the marriage have been conducted? Both George and Amelia were definitely Wesleyan Methodist later on, although according to George's obituary he converted at some point.

Next steps:

• Check early Ontario marriage records for Eastern Ontario locations
• Check church records for early Toronto Township
• Check newspaper records for the time
• Check obituaries for George Miller and Amelia Grant Munro
• Check newspapers in later years for wedding anniversary notices

Update on X00055: The Nelson Township Papers

Still looking for more information on the marriage between George Miller and possibly Margaret Farriage (for details so far, look for X00055)

Now that the Township Papers are available on Family Search, I had a look through the Township Papers for Nelson Township to see if there were any papers that mention someone with a Miller surname or something close to 'Farriage'. I found this document, dated 1823, that is signed by both a Thomas Miller and a Robert Partridge.

Could this be a connection? Could Thomas Miller be connected somehow to George Miller? Could Partridge be Margaret's actual last name? It could be a clue.

Multiple grave locations for George Miller & Amelia Grant Munro

George Miller and Amelia Grant Munro appear in two different burial locations in Find-a-grave:

Dixie Union Cemetery in Peel County:
- George Miller
- Amelia Grant Munro

Greenwood Cemetery in Grey County:
- George Miller
- Amelia Grant Munro



They also appear in the the transcriptions for both graveyards.

Analysis and conclusion:
I have to think that the Greenwood Cemetery listing is the correct one and that the Dixie Union one is a mistake for a few reasons:
- George and Amelia were known to be living in Owen Sound at the time of their deaths. They left Peel region in the 1860s
- From newspaper accounts, we know that George’s funeral was held in Owen Sound
- I'm more inclined to trust the Greenwood cemetery listing, because the Greenwood Cemetery listing lists the actual burials whereas the Dixie Union one is just inscriptions. I suspect that somebody interpreted the inscription on their son George M. Miller’s stone as being for them as well.

Profile: Margaret Farriage

The next installment of the 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks challenge is "Challenge". For this one I'm choosing to profile one of my ancestors who is proving to be one of the biggest challenges to find anything on: Margaret Farriage.

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Profile: Margaret Farriage [? - about 1834]
4x great-grandmother

It's difficult to put together a profile for someone when you know next to nothing about them. The sources I have for my 4x great-grandmother are very few. You can read more about what I have and have not been able to find by searching for past blog posts using the X00055 tag.

Here's a brief rundown of what I do know about her:

• 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]
• The only source that I have found that gives her full name is from the Marriage Bonds of Upper Canada p 239 [D00800]. I have found no other occurrence of the surname Farriage in Upper Canada around that time. I have checked the taxation records for Nelson Township around that time and found no occurrences of the name. I suspect that the surname may have been incorrectly recorded by the scribe.
• 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, it is more based on family lore. John and William may have been twins. William Miller's Marriage Records lists his parents as George & Margaret Miller [D01116]. 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). The family would have been living in either Nelson Township or Cooksville at the time.
• According to the 1891 Census, she is of Scottish origin [D00772] based on William Miller's information provided. That being said, this was several years after she had died and William Miller would have been very young when she died.

So, not much to go on. I have a marriage date, and a location of where she was living at the time. A date range for a date of death. But no date of birth and as mentioned previously, I'm not even entirely sure about the surname. It also doesn't help that this is a time period in Upper Canada from when there are very few surviving records.

My latest option that I am pursuing is that her surname was actually Farrier, as I there were a couple of families with that surname living in Nelson Township in the 1830s. But nothing positive yet. Solving this case may need to involve DNA.

Sources:
[D00772] 1891 census of Canada, Ontario, district 68, sub-district Owen Sound River Ward, Owen Sound, p. 26, family 107; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.ca, Ancestry (accessed 14 Oct 2017).

[D00800] Canada, Upper and Lower Canada, 23: 2956, Miller-Farriage, 1831-10-25; digital images, Library and Archives Canada, Library and Archives Canada (accessed 11 Nov 2017).

[D01116] Ontario, Ontario County Marriage Registers, 1858-1869, Wellington County: 9, Miller-Hardy, 1857; digital images, FamilySearch.org, FamilySearch .

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

X00153 Solved!

I managed to come across the marriage record for William Miller and Jane Hardy, June 22 1857.



Some interesting findings:
* It's not where I would have expected the marriage to be. It's in Wellington, Prince Edward County. I haven't found any connections to Prince Edward County with either the Miller or Hardy families.
* William's place of birth is listed as the United States, which may be a lead, although other sources list his place of birth as Upper Canada.
* This confirms the names of both sets of parents, as expected. One thing to note is that this is only the second record that I have seen that lists William's mother as Margaret. Only the first name is given unfortunately, because I have only found one record so far that lists Margaret's last name, and I have my doubts about it (see X00055)

Update: I had another look at the record. FamilySearch has the location indexed as Wellington, Hillier, Prince Edward County. But I think this is a mistake and the location is actually Wellington County. Most of the other names on the page live in towns in Wellington county and it would make far more sense for the two to have been married in Wellington County, rather than Wellington, Prince Edward County