Continued from Part 1 of A Canadian Case Study
Elmira's Death
Using
Ancestry.com
I searched
first for Elmira's death. Using wildcards for both first and last name,
I typed *lmira Ste*en* into the search engine, with keyword "Essex" and
date of death 1873 +/-2
*lm*ra allows for variant spellings of Almira, Almyra and Elmira, Elmyra
Ste*en* allows for variations in the surname such as Stephens, Stephen, Stevens and Steven
And
there she was. Almira died 12 Mar 1872 of consumption which she had for
9 months. The informant was William Stephens of Anderdon, so we know it
is the right person. I'm already suspecting that little Annie may also
have died of the same disease as it was very contagious. But back to
Almira. She is listed as having died at age 23 years and 7 months and
was born in Malden Township Essex.
Clues: We can
look for Almira in the 1861 and 1851 census for Malden Township. But I
want to hunt for Elmira's marriage to William first.
Elmira's Marriage to William James Stephens
When I found Elmira's death record,
Ancestry.com very nicely gave me some
"Suggested Records" for individuals they believed might be Elmira. I've
learned not to ignore these but to check them out. The first thing I
noticed was that there was an Almira Lane listed in 1851, 1861 census
and the Ontario Marriage Records. I've shown you this in the image
below.
 |
| Suggested Records for Almira |
And bingo, what appears to be her marriage to William. He's
been transcribed incorrectly as Shephard instead of Stephens but we can
be 99.9% certain it is him. There's no image attached so if I were you I
would get the original image from the Archives of Ontario or a local
FamilySearch centre to verify.
But here is what the
transcription showed:
William James Shepherd [sic] age 25 born England
s/o John and Bridget, Willliam living Anderdon married Almira Lane, age
23 d/o Levi and Patience, living Colchester. They married 10 Nov. 1868
in Amherstburg Township in Essex
To learn more about Elmira you can look at the 1851 and 1861 census for Almira Lane in Malden Township.
Little Annie's Death?
I may have found little Annie's death. She is
recorded in
Ancestry.com Ontario Death records as Sarah Almeda Stephens but after her first name Sarah, it
appears the name Ann has been written and then crossed out with one
line. The reason I believe this may be little Annie is because she died of
consumption at age 3 years, 6 months in October 1873, she was born in
Anderdon and the informant was William Stephens, farmer
To be absolutely sure this is the correct individual we could hunt for her birth registration under Ann or Sarah or even Almeda. You do need to verify that this is not a different child and a diffferent William Stephens
Summary
So what have we learned from these records?
William was in Ontario at least by November 1868 when he married Elmira/Almyra Lane in Essex County.
Elmira died in March 1872.
William & Elmira had one daughter known who was born in 1870 probably in April and who died in October 1873.
William remarried in 1875. At both of his marriages he gave his parents' names as John and Bridget.
William
was a farmer and thus a search of land records is warranted. Finding
out when/if he purchased land in Essex Co. will provide a better
timeline for immigration
Further Research Avenues
William should be found in 1861 Ontario census or in 1861 England. Many of the 1861 census returns for Ontario are missing so we can't
conclusively say he was not in Ontario that year. A search of
English records for 1841 and 1851 may find him with his parents. I would
search under his parents' names, but realize that Delia can be a
nickname for Bridget and that Bridget may be an Irish name.
Of
course there's always the chance that William's parents also came to
Ontario. If so, they might be found in the online records.
I'll continue sharing my research into William pre 1868, and William's parents, John and Bridget Stephens, in Part 3
