Take It With a Genealogy Grain of Salt

I've been sorting through old papers for the past two days. Tucked away in a folder in a filing cabinet in the basement was a magazine dated 1988. It's a  Financial magazine, all about making money, investing wisely and so on. This particular issue featured stories of people who had invested wisely and retired early, or were successfully juggling a career with pursuing a dream.

I was puzzled as to why I'd saved it but figured there had to be an article featuring someone I knew. Sure enough there was. The article was a glowing report of a man, we'll call him Sam. Let me preface this with the fact that I knew, and still know, Sam very well.

The article revealed that Sam had a  high-paying career and was also a rather successful emerging artist (I use the word artist to describe actors, writers, poets, painters, sculptors). Sam worked part-time to support his art and his yearly wages which were given in the article were extremely good.

The article portrayed Sam as a very successful person pursuing his dream while earning a more than decent living. A descendant finding this article 50 or 100 or more years from now would be thrilled to think their ancestor was such an amazing person!

But the author of the article only knew Sam for a brief moment in Sam's life. I've known him for a very long time and also know what has happened to Sam over the past 24 years since the article was written. 

The truth is that Sam has made bad choices in his life. The details are personal so I will simply say that his path in life was a downhill one, not the successful one portrayed in the magazine. He is not a successful artist. He no longer has a high-paying career.

He's a very different person from the person portrayed in the magazine article. Reading it made me realize that as genealogists we should not rely on one article or one obituary to paint the full picture of an ancestor's life. These are all subjective views written at a specific moment in time. Take it with a grain of salt. Or at least recognize that it's only one small piece of a person's entire life.

From Theory to Fact: 30 Years in the Making

For 30 plus years I've searched for a record showing where my McGinnis family came from in Ireland. I don't mean the town or village (although that would be nice), I mean the County.

Lest you think I'm a pretty bad genealogist who can't find what might seem to be a simple little record, let me explain:

My McGinnis roots stem from a large family group that arrived in Puslinch Township, Wellington County Ontario circa 1831. That's early for Ontario. At that time it was a wilderness called Upper Canada and was very sparsely populated.

As anyone who has searched for ancestors in Upper Canada can testify, genealogy records pre 1851 are few and far between. There are no census records (they didn't begin until 1851), no vital registrations (they didn't start until 1869) and church records are sparse.

If, like mine, your ancestors were Catholics in Ontario you're pretty much out of luck for church records as most are in the hands of local priests who have them locked securely away. The public is not allowed access even to older records in the mid 1800s.

There were few newspapers in that time period. Of the few that were published, not many have survived. Those that survive for the area I need are not indexed. So an approximate date of an event is a necessity in order to hunt for an obit or other record.

Ships passenger lists were not archived until 1865. There are substitutes but my McGinnis don't show up on any. Don't get me wrong - there ARE some records for this early time period in Ontario - tax and assessment records, land records, and a few other miscellaneous record sets. But every local area has different records that have survived.  So it's a long process to find out what records exist and where they are kept.

Back to my Irish family who arrived from somewhere in Ireland circa 1831. I have land records for them. I have tax and assessment records back to 1833. I have death records. I have marriage records. I have some Catholic Church records of baptisms in the 1840s. I have  Catholic Church burial records for many of them. In fact with my 30 plus years of research on all branches of the original McGinnis settlers, I've got an entire filing cabinet drawer full of relevant documents.

In order to learn where in Ireland my McGinnis family originated I have searched all 9 children down several generations. I've hunted for obituaries and death records in particular, praying for a mention of a town or county in Ireland.  Nothing.

However there was one son for whom I have not been able to find a death record or obituary. I knew he died between 1881 and 1891. I knew where he lived. But nothing could be found.

Family lore from descendants of his branch claimed Belfast as his place of birth. Family lore from my branch claimed Belfast as the place of birth of my great-grandfather's sister.

I had my brother's DNA done. We linked in with McGinnis families near Belfast. I contacted a descendant of one of the two known sisters from Ireland. She had early photos and on the back of one was written, in period handwriting, "Katesbridge Ireland" Katesbridge is in Co. Down and not far from Belfast.

This was all pretty exciting for me as it definitely gave me enough clues and pieces of circumstantial evidence to hesitantly proclaim that PERHAPS my Joseph McGinnis was from Katesbridge or Belfast in Co. Down. Perhaps.

Still unable to find a death date for the one remaining brother (Hugh) who was born in Ireland, I set my research aside. Then the breakthrough - two amazing women who have written several history books, spent many years going through newspapers to gather obituaries for (drum roll please!) people who had lived in Puslinch Township.  Doesn't sound impressive? It is. "A Celebration of Lives: Obituaries of Puslinch Township Wellington County Ontario" was published recently as a two-volume set consisting of 1,408 pages. There are over 6,500 obituaries. It's impressive.

It had limited printing but I managed to get the last copy. It arrived last week. Of course I skipped right to the "M" pages and unbelievably there it was - an obituary for my Hugh McGinnis of Hespeler. His obit stated he was born in Co. Down Ireland.  I know an obituary is only as reliable as the person giving the information but it is another piece of evidence. I wish I could find his death registration but still no luck, even with now knowing the month and year and location of his death.

This morning I scrolled through every image on Ancestry.com for a period of 12 months from his death with no success. His death is not there. But I have the obituary and that thrills me! It adds to the growing weight of clues.

Second wonderful item - Hugh's wife was born in USA circa 1810. Due to finding other bits and pieces of clues, including finding her parents' and siblings' names, I found a record in 1830 in Potsdam New York which I was pretty sure was her family. Pretty sure, but not positively proven, so not good enough for me.

Did I mention that one of Hugh's brothers married one of his wife's sisters? The finding of the Potsdam record was important because I know that Hugh (and probably his siblings) was in America before 1831. This would give me more locations for searching if my theory about Potsdam was correct.

And there it was in my new-found obituary book. The obit for Hugh's wife stating that she was born in Potsdam New York in 1810!

I love it when a theory becomes fact. Proven fact. I don't care how long it takes, I refuse to give up! And the moral of my story is that you should never give up either. You never know when that little tidbit of information will fall into your hands. Maybe it wasn't available when you first began your research. New data is being found and transcribed all the time. Who knows, maybe the piece you need is waiting for you right now.

So stop reading this blog post and go back and look over your earlier research! Is there a clue there? Something you couldn't find 10 or 15 or more years ago, but  maybe now you can? What are you waiting for???!!