NEW: Ontario Canada Marriage Records 1936

It was fun to search the new Ontario Marriage Records brought online by Ancestry.com this week. My mom and dad married in Guelph in 1936 in a double wedding with mom's sister! It was interesting to see my mother and father's marriage.

It was new to me that my dad was a hat-maker! I knew he worked for Biltmore Hats but didn't know exactly what he did there.I thought perhaps a low-level job on an assembly line.

According to the website:

This database is a collection of approximately 3.3 million marriages recorded in Ontario, Canada between 1826 and 1928, and 1933 and 1936. The indexes contained in this collection were created by two different organizations – Ancestry and the Genealogical Research Library in Brampton, Ontario. The following list is a breakdown of the records included in this database and who created the index to them.

Indexed by Ancestry (includes images of the records):

    Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1928, 1933-1935 (MS 932, Archives of Ontario)
    Division Registrar Vital Statistics Records, 1858-1918 (MS 940, Archives of Ontario) [However, there are very few marriages in this record set.]
    Marriage License Books, 1907-1910 (MS 945, Archives of Ontario)
    Delayed Registrations of Marriages, 1892-1919 (MS 948, Archives of Ontario)
    District Marriage Registers, 1801-1858 (MS 248, Archives of Ontario)
    Roman Catholic Marriage Registers, 1828-1870 (MS 248, Archives of Ontario)

Indexed by Genealogical Research Library (no images available):

    Registrations of Marriages, 1869-1919 (MS 932, Archives of Ontario)
    County Marriage Registers, 1858-1869 (microfilm, Family History Library) (the FHL microfilm is of Archives of Ontario microfilm series MS 248, reels 5-18)

Fun Ways to Learn About Your Parents' School Life

I am always on the lookout for the Yearbooks of Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute from the 1920s and 1930s. Both my parents went there, as did many other relatives. 

A few years ago I was lucky enough to find one from 1928, one from 1929 and one from 1933. There was mention of my dad in 1928 and 1929! 

Actra Nostra, Yearbook of Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute

1928. Form 3 Industrial: "What Would You Say if You Saw" (followed by a half dozen student names, each with a one line statement) "Cecil McGinnis attend school regularly?" Hah! Sounds like my dad skipped school a lot!

1929. Alumni Section "Cec MGinnis is [working] at Holman Luggage" 

The fun thing is that I had no idea where my father worked before marrying my mother other than Biltmore Hats. Knowing he was at Holman Luggage sent me scrambling to find out more about them.

The Curator at Guelph Civil Museum told me "They made luggage and cribbage boards". I did more research and found this:

Holman Luggage was first known as the Stratford Luggage Company in 1923 and was located in Stratford. Expansion was necessary and by 1925 Mr. Ivey Holman moved the company to Guelph and it was located on the 2nd floor of 82 Yarmouth. In 1930 they moved to Carden Street in the Bell Piano building. In 1946 there was a fire and company had to relocate to 167 Suffolk St. West. Holman's stayed on Suffolk Street until they closed in 1975. The company manufactured luggage, cases and tables.

I even found a photo of my mother and notice that she had won a Typewriting Award. 

Last week I was able to purchase the 1931 GCVI Yearbook and there was my mother's name again. 

There was no photo but I found out she was in the Second year of Commercial. Now I know that I have to keep looking for the 1932 issue of Acta Nostra to see a photo of her when she graduated.

Biltmore Hats and Dad

My father died when I was just barely a teenager. I never knew that much about him (as odd as that might sound) - what he was like as a person, where he worked, what his hobbies were .... To me he was just "dad" and I knew him as a father, not as a brother, a son, a friend, or a co-worker.

My mother never talked about my dad so I didn't know what he did for a living when they were first married, or how they met. I knew bits and pieces but those bits and pieces were vague half-memories formed while listening to my father when I was very young. He worked in "the city" (Toronto) for Veteran's Affairs. I knew that much. He loved to fish and every fall he went hunting, always coming home empty-handed.

He never talked to me about his childhood or growing up in Guelph, and when i asked about his time in England in WW2 all he ever revealed was that he was in the Signal Corps and, in his words, "swung through the trees like a monkey"

So it was a very nice surprise to find from his WW2 Army Service Records that he had worked at Biltmore Hats in Guelph before joining the army. I received those records about 15 years ago and ever since then have been trying to find some ephemera or item that has something to do with Biltmore. I'm an avid antique collector and often see the Biltmore Hat boxes. But they're fairly large and cardboard, usually in bad shape and not really what I want in my house.

Last month I stumbled on a website called Antiquarius Booksellers based in British Columbia. Much to my surprise they had two older, unused cheques from the 1940s from Biltmore Hats of Guelph, Ontario. Can you imagine my excitement? That is just slightly later than when my father worked there! There was even a picture of the Biltmore Hat building (which I'd not been able to find previously) engraved on the cheques. It goes without saying that I purchased them. And at a very reasonable price!

I'm so pleased with my purchase. The cheques arrived promptly and are in perfect condition as described. They were beautifully packed for shipping.

Now I have a nice page to add to my pictorial history of my McGinnis family. I'll write up an explanation of dad's working at Biltmore Hats and add these scanned photos of the two old cheques and the ad for Biltmore Hats that I found previously. And now I have a more complete picture of my father the person, not just my father as dad.