Fiona asked some very intriguing questions on my
AskOliveTree blog about her Anderson family from Scotland to Ontario Canada. Because I covered so many different aspects of Canadian genealogy in my response, I decided to publish Fiona's question and my answers here on
Olive Tree Genealogy blog Here is Fiona's question:
George
Anderson was born in 1806 or 1807 in Roxburghshire in Scotland. Jessie
Powell was born about 1805 also in Roxburghshire. We don't know when
they married however their son Archibald McLaren Anderson was born in
Scotland in 1822. Their daughter Janet was born in 1835 but we are not
sure if she was born in Canada or Scotland.
We know George, Jessie and Janet (and their youngest child Elizabeth)
all died in Canada in the Huron County area. We have photographs of
their tombstones in the Wingham Cemetery. George died in 1857, Jessie,
Janet and Elizabeth all died in 1880.
We know Archibald arrived in Australia from New York in November 1852.
We can then follow his movements from then..
Our questions are as follows:
1. When did the Anderson family migrate to Canada from Scotland?
2. What happened in 1880 to cause three deaths in the one family?
3. Was Janet born in Canada? We believe Elizabeth was born in Huron County in 1848.
Fiona
- I edited your email for space reasons and removed question 4,
preferring to focus on your first 3 questions. First I must thank you
for a well-written query. You summed up what you knew, what you don't
know and what you found out. You also provided me with a list of
resources you have used. Well done!
And now, on to my answers. I hope you'll be pleased with what I found and my suggestions for further research.
I
don't usually do actual research for a question but yours intrigued me
as the death registrations for Jessie and her two daughters should be
online on
Ancestry.com
and on
FamilySearch. These will show the cause of
death for each and thus would answer your question #2. So I had a
quick look and found all three. There are many extra clues in death
registrations too.
Death registrations show that
Jessie died of old age. Janet (who is registered as Jeanette) shows her
place of birth as Dumfries Township Canada and her cause of death as
consumption. The informant for both deaths was John Anderson, a Miller
of Wingham. I suspect John was a son of Jessie and George because in
1870 he buried his 3 month old daughter Jessie - no doubt named in
honour of his mother.
I had to hunt for a bit for
Elizabeth's death registration as she died a married woman and so was
under the name Elizabeth Linklater (her husband being Peter). Elizabeth
also died of consumption in 1880.
Suggestions for Further Research
Census Records
Since
her death registration shows Janet/Jeanette born in Dumfries ca 1835,
you could look for the family in the 1851 census. Much of the 1851
census for Ontario is missing but being curious I decided to have a
look at Canadian census records on
Ancestry.com. Sure enough there they are - not in Huron Co. but in Blenheim Twp
Oxford County.
The family consists of George, Jessy
[sic], Janett [sic] 18, John 16, William 14, Margaret 12, George 10,
Isabella 6 and Elizabeth 4. All the children are listed as born in C.W.
which is Canada West, which is present day Ontario.
Widen Your Search Parameters
Don't
forget to expand your search if you can't find someone first time. So
even if you think the family is in a certain location in a certain year,
if you don't find them, widen your search parameters - don't exclude
other locations.
Wildcards Are Your Friend
Use
wildcards. Jessie was found as Jessy. Janet was found as Jeannette and
Jeannet. This is where wildcards are useful. A search for Jes* for
example would pick up Jessie, Jessy and any other variant spelling that
begins with Jes.
The family is still in Blenheim Twp in 1861. Jessie is now a widow. They
must have had a bit of money for they are shown as living in a 2-storey
brick home. Most of their neighbours were in log or frame houses either 1 or 1
1/2 storeys.
Land Records
George
is listed as a farmer so it is possible you will find him in l
and records, which would narrow the timeline for his immigration from Scotland.
You could now get the
Agricultural Census for each census year. The Agricultural portion of the census will provide you with a land location and more details such as how much land was pasture, how much was cultivated, and so on. Few Agricultural Census are online so you may have to order microfilm in to a library or
family history center for this.
You can also check the
CLRI which is the Ontario Land Record index to find if George was a
first time buyer of Crown land, and if so you will then have an exact
year of purchase and under what conditions he acquired his land. This will also indicate if there might be a petition on file.
There
may also be tax or assessment records available for the pre-1851 time
period for
Oxford County. I would also check
Waterloo County as that is
where Dumfries Township is located.
Immigration Records (Ships Passenger Lists)
Unfortunately
Ships Passenger Lists to Canada before 1865 are few and far between. It
was not a requirement that passenger lists be archived before that
year. There are some surviving lists but they are few and far between. The best idea would be for you to go to the online project called
Filling in the Gaps and
check each online project to look for your ancestors. The online
projects include shipping company records, steamship records for
bringing passengers down the St. Lawrence River once they landed in
Canada, Immigration Officer records and so on.
Summary
Based
on what I found online we now know that your family arrived in Canada
ca 1835 or earlier. If Archibald was born in Scotland in 1822 you now
have a timeline of 1822-1835.
We know a few more
children from the census records. It is possible that by researching
each of their movements you will find out more about the family in
Scotland and in Canada and their arrival. There may be an obituary for
one of their children which gives details of the parents' arrival in
Canada.
One item of great interest I think is that
three of George and Jessie's children gave their mother's maiden name as
SLATER at their marriages. You have her maiden name as POWELL. It's the kind of discrepancy that is great
fun to research!
Please do let us know how it goes. I'm quite interested in this family now.
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