The Bigamist in My Family Tree

Olive May Peer, born November 1898 in Port Credit Ontario, share a common Peer ancestor. Her 3rd great-grandfather Jacob Peer, who I wrote about in the book "The Peer Family of North America" is my 4th. great-grandfather. My grandmother, also named Olive Peer, was Olive May's cousin.

In February 1927 Olive May married Robert Jackson. She could not have known that her husband was using an alias, that his real name was Robert Rodgers, and that her husband would be charged with two counts of bigamy and sentenced to time in jail.

The story of Robert's arrest and sentence appeared in The Globe (1844-1936); Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont] 24 Sep 1927: 16.

This was a revelation for me in my research. My Peer ancestors were always mixed up in something wild - from the tightrope walker Stephen Peer (my great-grandfather's cousin) to the first base jumper Harmon Peer (great-grandfather's brother)

According to the newspaper article Robert Rodgers married Kathie Elliott in 1914 before enlisting in the military. They separated but did not divorce in 1917. That was wife #1.

Later Robert married Cecilia Wallace. That marriage did not work out and they separated but did not divorce.

His third wife was poor Olive May.


September 1927 finds another brief article in the Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971); Toronto, Ontario [Toronto, Ontario]24 Sep 1927: 20. The judge in the case seemed to view Robert's crimes very favourably, which I find stunning.

The Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971); Toronto, Ontario [Toronto, Ontario]11 Nov 1927: 24. has more news of Robert, telling its readers that there is only one prisoner in the Brampton Jail and that is Robert. He was serving 3 months for Bigamy and apparently suffering from rheumatism, which prevented him from being transferred to Guelph.

I was curious about what happened to those three wives (and Robert) so I began my research.

I discovered more secrets including an alias that Robert used when he married Olive. I learned much more about his three wives (Jessie Cathie Elliot, Cecilia Wallace, and Olive May Peer) and the children they bore with Robert.

The stories of the abandoned wives are now told in my newly published e-book "The Bigamist in My Family Tree: Robert Rodgers 1890-1953 & His 3 Wives"  available on Amazon

Ancestor Marriage Record Finder Helps You With Your Brick Wall

Most genealogists search the obvious marriage records such as Church records and Vital Stats (Marriage Registrations or Certificates). These records are fairly well known but before Civil Registration began, in whatever country your ancestor was from, you will have to look for other records for a marriage date.

If we don't find our ancestor in one of those common marriage records, we're often stuck! Where to search next? The Ancestor Marriage Record Finder can help direct you to alternate sources for marriage records. All we need to do is think outside the box.

Ask yourself what happens when a couple marries? What events take place around a marriage? What kind of Marriage record paper trail is created at the time of marriage of an individual? The answers to these questions will lead you to other sources of marriage records and hopefully end that brick-wall.

Ancestor Marriage Record Finder: Finding a Marriage Record When You've Hit a Brick Wall is now available as an Ebook or a paperback on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca

Announcement re 100 Million Dutch Records on Ancestry

The following announcement was sent to Olive Tree Genealogy yesterday:

More than 100 million birth, marriage and death records from the Netherlands are available online for the first time thanks to an agreement between Ancestry.com, the leader in family history and consumer genomics and CBG, the Netherlands Centre for Family History.

The collection is made up of indexes of civil registration records, population registers, church registers and family announcements from a comprehensive network of archive organisations within the Netherlands. Most of the records cover events from the 19th and 20th Century.

To date this collection has only been available in its entirety via the dedicated WieWasWie database, as operated by the Netherlands Centre for Family History. Now these records can be accessed and shared by Ancestry’s 2.5 million family history enthusiasts around the world.

Nikolai Donitzky, Ancestry’s Managing Director of Content for Europe, comments: “The Centre for Family History and regional archives have done a remarkable job in gathering and digitizing these records across the country. We are delighted to help share this extensive collection of Dutch records with a worldwide audience.” Leo Voogt (Executive Director of CBG) adds: We have worked with the archive community in the Netherlands to provide a unified window on all our joint genealogical records. Working with Ancestry.com will generate an enormous additional audience for these holdings and will drive new traffic to the sites of the participating institutions in the Netherlands.

The collection is available on Ancestry.com from 6th June, 2016.

More About the 10M Irish Catholic Parish Registers Coming in March

Drumgooland Parish Baptisms 1833

Ancestry.com will be launching the Ireland Catholic Parish Registers online in March of this year. With more than 10 million Catholic Parish records, this launch will help create the largest collection of Irish registers available online.

Here's some facts to keep us all anticipating this debut!

The collection means that Ancestry.com will have over 55 million Irish records and will provide the largest collection of Irish Catholic parish records available online.

The collection is made up of Baptism, Marriage and Burial records from over 1,000 Catholic parishes across the whole of the island of Ireland - both in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. 

Baptism and Marriage records make up the majority of the collection and Burial records can be found primarily for parishes in the northern regions.      


Ancestry.com has indexed records from over 3,500 parish registers. This is the first time that the collection has been indexed with the images linked online.

Update on Early Irish Marriage Records Online

The IGRS (Irish Genealogical Research Society) now has over 66,000 marriage records online. The index of early marriages is free to search. A quote from the website states:

With so many parishes in Ireland not having any register of marriages before the 1840s, the database is fast becoming an invaluable tool in identifying where and when ancestors tied-the-knot. It includes references from a myriad of different sources: books, gravestones, family bibles, deeds, wills, letters, court records, published journals, newspapers, census transcripts and old age pensions forms, to name just a few.

Sources drawn upon for this particular update include marriage licence bonds from a number of diocese covering all or parts of counties Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny, Laois, Longford, Offaly, Roscommon, Sligo, Westmeath, Wexford and Wicklow; and there are further references to marriages from the Registry of Deeds.

New Genealogy & History Records on Heritage Website

This is an announcement from Library and Archives Canada:

The following is a list of digitized microfilms that have been recently added to the Héritage website. Please note that although the titles have been translated, the records are still in the language of origin.

• Amherst Papers
• Canada. Department of the Interior: Letters patent
• Canadian Home Economics Association fonds
• Department of Canadian Heritage, Canadian Parks Service: Park/subject classification system
• Department of Indian Affairs, Edmonton Agency: General operational records
• Department of Indian Affairs, Manitoba Regional Office: Central registry files
• Dominion Lands Branch registry
• France, Archives Nationales. Contrôle général des finances. Sous-série G7 [French National Archives fonds, finances records, sub-series G7]
• Frank Wright fonds
• Henry Elvins Spencer fonds
• Henry Pringle fonds
• Immigration Program: Headquarters central registry files
• Indian and Inuit Affairs Program: Modified duplex numeric system
• Ministry of the Overseas Military Forces of Canada: Courts martial records, 1914-1919
• Parish registers: Manitoba
• Registrar of Shipping New Carlisle [Quebec], 1856-1902, and Quebec City [Québec], 1787-1965
• Radnik fonds
• Roderick K. Finlayson fonds
• Sir Henry James Warre fonds
• William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth fonds
• William Osgoode fonds

Credits: "Announcement Quote. Eps10" by 2nix on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Free Access to All Canadian birth, marriage and death records

Free access until January 27, 2014, 11:59p.m. (ET) to All Canadian birth, marriage and death records on Ancestry.ca 

To view these records you will need to register for free with Ancestry.ca with your name and email address. Once you have registered you  will be sent a user name and password to access the records. 

If you haven’t already, you will be prompted to register once you start trying to search and view the records. After January 27, 2014, you will only be able to view these records using an Ancestry.ca paid membership.

So don't wait! If you have Canadian ancestors now is your chance to find their Vital Statistics records. 

Free Access to International Marriage Records at Ancestry.com

Good news for genealogists. Until April 21, 2013, Ancestry.com is offering free access to its International Marriage Records collections.

This is a huge set of international records and should be very helpful to anyone looking for their ancestors' marriages.

Ancestry Canadian Marriages free until Feb. 18, 2013

It's not too late! There is free access to the Ancestry.ca Canadian Marriages collections available between Feb. 14^th and 18^th 2013

Caveat Emptor? Or Does Michigan have a Complaint Desk?

A few days ago I wrote about ordering a Marriage Record from Michigan using VitalChek. The blog post is Disappointment of a Michigan Marriage Record and summarizes the aggravation and the expense ($70.25) for this record

Julie Cahill Tarr wrote to say (in part)

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the information that's on the certificate is not even correct. First off, the "file date" is wrong, it's actually April 3, 1877. The Aug 1 date is the date that the clerk recorded the state copy for the year 1876. This is a minor mistake.

This second mistake is not so minor. The witnesses were actually Andrew H and Christine Stafford, both of Lapeer (they gave you the one for the marriage below Barney and Maggie). And there is a church listed for the pastor, which is correct (E. L. Little), I think it says "1st Bap Ch Lapeer." It also notes the Barney was a laborer.

The record can be found here (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-12390-89997-9?cc=1452395&wc=990450) line 1719. It's part of the Michigan, Marriages, 1868-1925 database"

 Julie goes on to add "That's a lot of money for a piece of paper that doesn't have the correct information and is missing possible clues, such as the church"

I agree! So today I checked the online image (thank you Julie!!) and saw that all the errors Julie found  are indeed there, and I found yet another. The age of the bride (Maggie McGinnis) is incorrect on the transcript. The image clearly shows her age as 18 but my official transcript has hear age as 16.  

[ Image found at https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-12390-89997-9?cc=1452395&wc=990450 ]

I can see that whoever transcribed the document wrote down the names of the witnesses of the marriage UNDER my Barney and Maggie. They skipped the correct witness names which Julie found.

I am less than impressed. Interestingly at the bottom of my official transcript it states

"I hereby certify that this is a TRUE AND CORRECT representation of the vital record facts on file..." The upper case letters are mine for emphasis.

So the bottom line is that I paid over $70.00 for a document CERTIFIED to be "TRUE AND CORRECT" and it is full of erros. My question is what is my recourse? Do you think it will do me any good to file a complaint? And where and to whom do I complain?

The fact that the image was online is entirely my oversight; that is not my complaint. But should not the "verified" transcript have the correct information copied from the image on file?

Disappointment of a Michigan Marriage Record

Recently I ordered an 1876 Marriage Certificate from Michigan through VitalChek. I desperately wanted the name of parents of the bride (Maggie McGinnis)  and FamilySearch does not have the image online.

Maggie is part of my McGinnis family in early Ontario but I cannot determine if she is the Margaret baptised at Church of Our Lady in Guelph on January 17, 1857 to parents Daniel McGinnis and Margaret Downey *or* if she is the Margaret baptised at Church of Our Lady in Guelph on December 6, 1856 to parents Joseph McGinnis and Fanny Downey.

She married Barney McGinnis who was the son of Daniel's brother Hugh McGinnis. I lose track of both girls after 1871 census so have not been able to eliminate either as the Margaret who married Barney.

The marriage certificate might have the information I need. On the plus side, the certificate arrived very quickly at my door. On the disappointed side, neither bride nor groom's parents' names were recorded. And on the negative side - the cost! The total cost was $70.25 U.S.

Have you picked yourself up from the floor yet? Let me give you the breakdown.

Certificate      36.00
Processing       8.50
Shipping        25.75

Yes I knew the total cost before I ordered so there was no surprise there.  But I think it's exorbitant.  Especially since on  the same day I used VitalChek to order Maggie's death certificate from California. The cost of that order totalled $48.50 That's a big difference! The breakdown was a bit different:

Certificate     16.00
Processing       6.00
Shipping        26.50

So why was a Michigan certificate $20.00 more than a California one? I don't have the answers to this difference by state and in the end it's no use complaining. I wanted the certificate and I paid for it. End of story.

Let's hope that Maggie's death record has her parents' names! Otherwise I've just spent almost $120.00 for two certificates I didn't need. To say I'd be disappointed is putting it mildly.

But that's the price we often pay in this wonderful hobby called genealogy.

Featured Genealogy Database: Newtown Long Island Church Records 1736-1846

Friday's Featured Database is First Reformed Dutch Church of Newtown, Long Island Communicants 1741, Baptisms 1736-1845, Marriages 1835-1846

This is a free set of church records for genealogists, online at Olive Tree Genealogy at http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/nn/church/newtown1.shtml

More church records for New York can be found at http://www.olivetreegenealogy.com/nn/church/

Caveat re Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1801-1930 on Ancestry!

Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1801-1930 on Ancestry.com has recently been updated. I was pretty happy to see that as my family lines are Ontario back to 1800. I immediately began searching for some of my earlier ancestors.

At first I didn't notice anything unusual. Then I realized that ever index result I obtained had the SAME MOTHER for both the bride and groom. Uh-oh!

Here's a few examples to show what I found:

Name: Charlotte Peer
Birth Place: Nelson
Age: 53
Estimated birth year: abt 1824
Father Name: John Thomas
Mother Name: Mary Thomas <==
Spouse Name: George Hardbottle
Spouse's Age: 73
Spouse Birth Place: Yorkshire England
Spouse Father Name: John Hardbottle
Spouse Mother Name: Mary Thomas <==

Name: Denzalo J Peer
Birth Place: United States
Age: 41
Estimated birth year: abt 1831
Father Name: Abraham Peer
Mother Name: Mary Peer <==
Spouse Name: Amelia Taylor
Spouse's Age: 18
Spouse Birth Place: England
Spouse Father Name: Henry Taylor
Spouse Mother Name: Mary Peer <==

I began to click on random results that were not mine. Same thing - same name for both mothers. I checked the images where images were available. Nope, the mothers' names were not the same on any of the images.

For example, the image shows that George Hardbottle's mother's name is recorded as Mary Hardbottle and Charlotte's is Mary Thomas. The image shows that Denzalo Peer's parents were Abraham and Mary while Amelia's were Henry and Eliza.

I checked over 30 marriage registrations. All had the same error.

Then I realized that I could not check the ones that did not have images attached. That's a huge problem! However eventually through trial and error I stumbled on the way around this.

Here's an example of a marriage index entry with NO IMAGE attached to verify parents' names:

I searched for STEPHEN PEER (His name is first in the index results)

Name: Stephen Peer
Birth Place: Canada
Residence: Ancaster Township
Age: 21
Estimated birth year: abt 1842
Father Name: John Peer
Mother Name: Nancy Peer <==
Spouse Name: Mary Newton
Spouse's Age: 22
Spouse Birth Place: England
Spouse residence: Nelson Township
Spouse Father Name: Thomas Newton
Spouse Mother Name: Nancy Peer <==

Notice that both mothers are given as Nancy Peer. Which one is correct? All you do is reverse your search order. You've searched for Stephen, now search under his wife's name (Mary Newton)

Now you get the indexed results with Mary's name first:

Name: Mary Newton
Birth Place: England
Residence: Nelson Township
Age: 22
Estimated birth year: abt 1841
Father Name: Thomas Newton
Mother Name: Sarah Newton <==
Spouse Name: Stephen Peer
Spouse's Age: 21
Spouse Birth Place: Canada
Spouse residence: Ancaster Township
Spouse Father Name: John Peer
Spouse Mother Name: Sarah Newton <==

Now you get Sarah Newton as the mother of both. In this example it is easy to figure out which mother (Sarah Newton or Nancy Peer) goes with the bride and which goes with the groom. The mothers are recorded under their married names (not their maiden names) so Stephen Peer's mother is Mary, and Mary Newton's mother is Sarah.

The problem that is hard to work around is when the mother's maiden names are given - which mom goes with the bride and which with the groom? The only way then is to check census records and hope you can find the parents.

This is a serious flaw that Ancestry.com has managed to introduce in the database search results. The data has been indexed correctly but the search results fields are not being pulled into the results as they should be.

Please be cautious using this database until it is corrected!

Ontario, Canada Marriage Registers by Clergy, 1896-1948

Ancestry.com has just released a new database Ontario, Canada Marriage Registers by Clergy, 1896-1948

This database is a collection of 18 volumes of marriage registers compiled by the clergy under the Registration Act of 1896. These registers contain over 12,000 marriages and cover the years 1896 to 1948. Most of the registers were compiled by Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian ministers.

The Registration Act of 1896 mandated that clergymen report marriages within 30 days of when they took place. Under previous laws, marriages could be reported within 90 days. This act went into effect July 1, 1896.

The registers consist of preprinted forms that the ministers simply filled out whenever a marriage took place. These forms had spaces to record the following information about the bride and groom:

* Name
* Age
* Residence
* Whether bachelor/spinster or widow/widower
* Occupation (for the groom only)
* Religious denomination
* Names of parents

The record also indicated whether the couple was married by license or by banns, included the signatures of the bride and groom, and provided the names and addresses of the witnesses. At the bottom of each record the minister was to sign and date the record, certifying the authenticity of the recorded marriage.

Delaware Marriage Records, 1744-1912

Delaware Marriage Records, 1744-1912 are now on Ancestry.com

Information listed in this database may include: names of bride and groom, ages of bride and groom, marriage date, and marriage place. There are many early marriages in this set of records. Great news for those searching for ancestors in Delaware

9 Million Historic Philadelphia Records Now Searchable Online

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH—In conjunction with the Federation of Genealogical Societies' 2008 Annual Conference in Philadelphia, FamilySearch announced the availability of two historic Philadelphia City record sets online—Death Certificates for 1803 to 1915 and Marriage Indexes for 1885 to 1951. The collections provide access to nearly nine million deaths and marriage records. The free databases are available at FamilySearch.org (go to "Search Records" and then "Record Search pilot").

Before now, researchers interested in searching the Philadelphia Death Certificates for 1803 to 1915 and Philadelphia Marriage Indexes for 1885 to 1951 had to mull over 2,000 reels of microfilm in a local family history center or write to the archive and wait for a response. The new databases and images published online by FamilySearch now place the historic collection at the fingertips of researchers from any computer with Internet access.

Philadelphia Deaths 1803 to 1915 (Index and images)
The Philadelphia Deaths Collection is actually derived from death certificates, registrations of death, and various city and hospital death records, including some prison deaths. In all online volunteers transcribed 1,612,000 images located on 1791 reels of microfilm to create the free online index linked to the original images.

The collection consists of Philadelphia Death Certificates, 1904-1915, (657,000 names), Registration of Deaths, 1803-1903, arranged by year and cemetery (912,600 names) and various city and hospital death records, 1860-1903, (818,900 names). There are some gaps in the years of the hospital death records.

Philadelphia Marriage Indexes 1885 to 1951
This project has two phases—the digital conversion of the original documents and a searchable index linked to the images of the originals. Digital images to the Philadelphia Marriage License Index, 1885-1951, are the first piece of the project published by FamilySearch this week. Next will be to digital publish images of the actual marriage certificates, and then to create a searchable index of the 5,418,000 names online linked to images of the original documents.

The 31,500 digital images of the Philadelphia Marriage License Index are easy to navigate using FamilySearch's online image viewer because they are organized by year and then alphabetically by last name. The index gives the names of the bride and groom with the date of the marriage; so it is useful even without the link to the digital images of the original certificates—which are coming.

Continue reading 9 Million Historic Philadelphia Records Now Searchable Online

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