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.

Ester Tricker - Henry Reily marriage

I contacted the archives for the Anglican Church of Canada, Toronto Diocese to see if they could find some church records that I was looking for from Toronto Township.

Unfortunately, they weren't able to find very many of the ones I was looking for, but the archivist also offered to search the records for the churches in nearby Etobicoke that would have been aound in the 1840s. I'm glad that she did because she managed to find this marraiage record for an Ester Tricker:

It's a marrage dated 1 September 1840 between an Ester Tricker and a Henry Baily. I was wondering if the surname Baily was a mis-transcription of the surname "Reily" and that this was actually the marriage that I was looking for betwen Ester Tricker and Henry Reilly. One of the key clues was that one of the witnesses to the marriage was a Mary Ann Wade, and Ester Tricker's mother's maiden name was Wade.

So, I asked, and it turns out was that this was a transcription made in the early 1900s because the original records in the church are in bad condition. I mentioned this and the archivist went back to check the original records and found this original:

And it turns out that this was, in fact, the correct record!

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

A String of Accidents (More)

It was over four years ago that I posted about A String of Accidents.

Not much progress to report on solving this mystery, but I have managed to find the original article. I wasn't able to find it in the Hamilton Free Press (from where the transcription was taken), but instead, I found that the Montreal Gazette picked up the story and published it on Tuesday, 2 August, 1831:

An interesting additional notes (which was not included in the transcription) was that the person who caused the accident had his leg broken by a kick from a horse a few days later.

X00241: More on Ann Hardy Barnhill and Mary Hardy Hyatt Sisters?

I've posted previously about X00241 and whether Ann Hardy Barnhill and Mary Hardy Hyatt were in fact sisters.

I've recently found Ann Hardy Barnhill in the 1911 census living in Esquesing.

The census record gives a correct age for Ann of 72 years (which she would have been in 1911), but an incorrect year of birth of 1831 (as opposed to 1838). It also says that she came to Canada in 1835, which is incorrect. But if she had said that she came to Canada when she was four years old (which would have been correct) they would have recorded it as 1835.

She's living with her daughter Nancy as well as Everett Barnhill, son of Matthew Hyatt and Mary Hardy. Nancy's relation to the head of household is given as "aunt" and Ann's relationship is given as "Grandma", which further confuses things because if my theory is correct, their relationships would be "cousin" and "aunt" respectively.

So, it looks as if Everett is related to the family, but it's not entirely clear what the relationship is at this point. It looks like I'll have to go back and re-evaluate what information I have at this point.

X00291: What happened to Hester Sophia Williams after 1841?

Hester Sophia Williams is daughter of Thomas Williams and Sybil Foxwell for whom I have very little information (a similar case to Samina Foxwell Williams - see X00287)

There are two sources that I've found for her so far:
1) Her 1833 baptism record [D00028]



2) The 1841 census where she appears with the rest of the family [D01530]



So, here are the details that we have:

• She was baptized in 1833 and so was likely born about 1833 [D00028].
• The family moved to Canada around 1842 and eventually settled in Guelph, Ontario. The 1851 census for Guelph did not survive, so the earliest census in which the family appears is the 1861 census (where she would have been about 28 years old). She does not appear with the rest of the family in the 1861 census [D01597].

Here are the possibilities:

1. She died in the UK before the family came to Canada. In that case she would have died between 1841 and 1845.
2. She stayed in the UK and never came to Canada. That would have been very unlikely as she would have been under 10 years old when the family came to Canada.
3. She came to Canada, but died prior to 1861
4. She came to Canada, but married prior to 1861.

I'm going to dismiss option 2 as unlikely. So, the next actions are:

• Check UK deaths and burials for 1841-1842 [Option 1]
• Check Guelph and Orillia burials prior to 1861 [Option 3]
• Check Guelph and Orillia newspapers for deaths prior to 1861 [Option 3]
• Check marriages prior to 1861 [Option 4]
• Check later census records for a hester, ester or sophia born 1833 in England [Option 4]
• Check death records for a hester, ester or sophia born 1833 in England [Option 4]

Sources:
[D00028] Saint Peter (Liverpool, Lancashire, England), "Baptism Record - Hester Sophia Williams," Batch No P020273; Dates 1826 - 1833l Source Call No 0093877-0093879; FHL microfilm.

[D01530] 1841 census of England, Liverpool, Lancashire, folio 45, page 37; digital images(accessed 6 May 2018); citing PRO HO 107/559/15.

[D01597] 1861 census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, Guelph, Guelph, p. 14; RG 31; digital images, Ancestry.ca (accessed 13 May 2018).

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 .

X00245: Solved!

So, it would seem that I have received an early Christmas present this year. A while back in a previous post I mentioned that I had found a marriage between Henry Mundy and Ann Sidney Taylor in an index [D02737].



Since then, I have been trying to obtain the original marriage record and it has proved to be difficult. For one thing, because the marriage was performed by an acting chaplin, it wasn't kept with the rest of the records for Fort George marriages. It also appears that it was never microfilmed. So the question is: who had the original record? The Anglican Church archives said that they didn't have it, and that the Archives of Ontario should have it instead. Then when I talked to the Archives of Ontario, they said that the Anglican Church archives should have it.

Recently I attended a genealogy fair where both the Archives of Ontario and the Anglican Church archives both had booths. So, I figured that I could sort it out once and for all. I gave the information to someone and the Anglican Church archives who ultimately was able to find the original record and send me a copy:

Ruling out possible marriage record for William Hardy

I came across the following indexed record [D03486] for a marriage between a William Hardie and a Janet Burns in 1845:



At first it seemed like it could be a match for William Hardy's first marriage to a woman named Jane. I have, however, decided to rule it out for the following reasons:

• The location of York Mills is not exactly where I would have expected the marriage to be. The family seems to have settled around Peel Region, although they moved around a bit in the first few years, so York Mills is not outside the realm of possibility.
• The spelling of the last name as "Hardie" rather than "Hardy" is off, although I have seen it spelled that way before.
• The last name of the bride of "Burns" is not what I would have expected. Other records point to a maiden name of "Irwin".
• The biggest issue seems to be the timing of the marriage. The marriage date given is 1845. Most records seem to point towards a birth year of 1830 for William Hardy and 1832 for Jane. This would put them at 15 and 13 years of age at the time of the marriage. Their first child (as far as I have been able to tell) was born around 1856, so most likely their marriage would have been closer to 1855.

All in all it seems to be too far off from the known data to be a match. But the timing of the marriage seems to make this very unlikely to be the same couple. So, I'm ruling this document out.

X00241: Are Ann Hardy Barnhill and Mary Hardy Hyatt Sisters?

One of families that I’m researching at the present time is the Hardy family who came from Farndale, Yorkshire, England to what is now Peel Region in Ontario Canada in the 1840s. Lancelot Hardy and Ann Wood had several children and I’ve been able to trace most of them to Ontario.

Right now I’m trying to determine if Ann Hardy Barnhill and Mary Hardy Hyatt are sisters.

Ann Hardy married John Barnhill (1824-1868) around 1862. They had two children (that I have been able to identify so far): Nancy Maria Barnhill (1863-1929) and William John Barnhill (1867-1909).

Mary Hardy married Matthew Hyatt (1846-1909) around 1869. They had several children before she died in 1884. Matthew remarried after she died.

I’m definitely sure that Ann Hardy is the daughter of Lancelot and Ann; one record I’ve found gives their names as the parents. I haven’t found the same for Mary yet, but Lancelot and Ann did have a daughter named Mary and the information is definitely consistent with their daughter being the same one that was married to Matthew Hyatt. But I have yet to find definite proof.

The two families were definitely close. They lived in the same area and after Mary died, some of her children started living with the Barnhills and adopted the surname Barnhill. So, it's very likely.

X00080 Solved!

Question: Multiple William Hardys in Peel in the 1871 Census. Which one is the correct one?

Details/Background:
The 1871 Census of Ontario has two listings for a William Hardy born about 1830 in Peel Region. One in Meadowvale [D01576] and one in Streetsville [D03311]. The question is which one is the one that is the son of Lancelot Hardy?



Analysis:
The William Hardy of Meadowvale [D01576] appears to be the correct one for a number of reasons:

• The other Hardy family members also settled around Meadowvale
• The names and ages of the other family members seems to coincide with the family in other censuses.
• William Hardy’s profession is listed as a blacksmith, which coincides with other census results as well as the profession listed in the marriage record between him and Aveline Burns [D00733].

Sources:

D00733 - Ontario Archives of Ontario, Ontario, Canada Marriages, MS932; Reel: 96: 615, 4, Hardy-Burns; digital images, Ancestry.ca, "Ontario, Canada Marriages".

D01576 – 1871 Census of Canada, Ontario, District 39, Sub-district 03, Toronto Township, p. 22, Dwelling 81, Family 86; RG 31.

D03311 - 1871 Census of Canada, Ontario, District 39, Sub-district b, Streetsville, p. 22, Dwelling 66, Family 68; RG 31.

Leach Marriage Record found!

I have managed to find the marriage record for Charles Leach and Margaret Delahaye [D02745].

Based on the fact that they both are unmarried in the 1851 census and their first child was born around 1853, I figured that they married between 1851 and 1853. Sure enough, I managed to find them in the records for St. Luke's Anglican Church married on February 4 1853.



A couple of notes:
1. Charles' occupation is listed as yeoman. I have not seen a record that describes his profession as a yeoman to date. He's usually been listed as a carpenter
2. It is a bit unusual that they would be married in an Anglican church when it is very likely that Margaret comes from a Roman Catholic background. Then again, given the time period and the region, there may not have been much in the way of church options to get married in.

X00151 is now closed!

A String of Accidents

Continuing the search for the Mundy/Dority relationship I came across this obituary for a Francis Moore that provides a great deal of information:



Unfortunately for Mrs. Moore (I have since found out that her first name is Sarah), it seems that she has faced a great deal of tragedy in her life. But it certainly gives a great deal of information for me to follow up on.

For one thing, it references her brother in law Henry Monday drowning in the Niagara River in 1827 referencing the findings I posted last time. So she is likely the sister of Anne Sidney Taylor. It also mentions that her father was a Sergeant Taylor and that her mother remarried a man named Oakes.

So, here are the new X-Files to investigate:

• Investigate a Sergeant Taylor (likely father of Anne Sidney Taylor) who died at the siege of Badajoz, Spain in 1812 [X00200]
• Investigate a Mrs Oakes (likely mother of Anne Sidney Taylor) who died in St. Catherines in 1828 [X00201]
• Investigate a Sergeant Oakes (likely step-father of Anne Sidney Taylor) who drowned in the Niagara River around 1821 [X00202]
• Investigate a Francis Moore (likely brother-in-law of Anne Sidney Taylor) who died in Hamilton in 1831 [X00203]
• Investigate a Sarah Taylor-Oakes-Moore (likely sister of Anne Sidney Taylor) [X00204]