Genealogy Day: My Plan for Cornelius Vollick

Well, I've decided when my first Genealogy Day is going to be, and what ancestor I'm going to work on. Genealogy Day is the day I'm setting aside once a month to work on my own genealogy for a change!

This Friday, October 1st is the big day! Hubs and I have each decided to take our first day as an organizational day. Each of us is going to choose an individual in our ancestry, and organize our notes, documents etc for that person. Then we are each going to come up with a plan for doing more research on that person. That will be our second Genealogy Day - an excursion to do the actual research.

I've chosen my 4th great-grandfather Cornelius Vollick. Cornelius was the son of a Loyalist in Butler's Rangers, and may have been a Loyalist himself. I've got conflicting information on whether or not he too was in Butler's Rangers that needs studying.

Years ago I acquired many petitions, land records and other documents regarding Cornelius but I need to go through them and study them for clues I might have missed first time around. I also plan to make a list of all petitions for Cornelius in the online Upper Canada Land Petitions Index. Part of my plan is to visit the new Ontario Archives building and get all of them again. I have them all but many are bad copies so I want new. Perhaps I missed one or two and if I did, this is my chance to get them.

My land documents and notations for Cornelius desperately need organization. A quick glance last night showed me that I have a lot of land documents, but there is no order to them and I haven't studied them in depth to think about clues found in them.

Cornelius is an important ancestor for me for two reasons. Without absolute proof that he is the father of my Richard Vollick, I can't get my Metis status back. I had Metis status but my tribe (Woodland branch of Ontario Metis Aboriginal Assocation) was disbanded (it's a long story!) and so I need to reapply through the Metis Nation of Ontario. They've already but accepted an application from a "cousin" so I know there is hope. However I descend from a different brother than my "cousin" does, so I have my work cut out for me.

Cornelius is also important because I can't obtain my UEL (Loyalist) status without that same absolute proof that he is the father of my Richard Vollick.

Hubs is going to talk about his plan for Genealogy Day on his blog AncestorsAtRest but without spoiling his blog post, I think he plans on organizing his records on his black ancestor Jonathan Butler, who settled circa 1840 in the Queen's Bush area of Upper Canada - a settlement area set aside for fugitive slaves.

We are excited about this Friday and the first of our monthly Genealogy Days! Do you have your day planned?