Our Immigrant Ancestors - Jacob Peer Flees in American Revolution

There is a lot of discussion about immigration in America right now. Tempers have flared, and different groups hold various strong opinions. There is also Brexit, where immigration was a large focus of the recent vote which resulted in the U.K. leaving the E.U.

I've been following this for several months and it occurs to me that those of us in Canada, America, and Australia have immigrant ancestors. Have you researched yours? Do you know who they were, why they came to your country and when? Do you know how they fared once settled in their new land? Were they welcomed? Were they shunned? Was their discrimination based on their religion or ethnic origin? These are all questions that are important, and interesting to discover. With that in mind, I'm the dedicating Saturdays (as many as needed) as the day to join me in discussing your immigrant ancestors.

You will be able to read any you are interested in by using the keyword Immigrant Ancestors. I'm going to share each week what I know of my immigrant ancestors to North America (whether that is USA or Canada)

My 4th great-grandfather Jacob Peer, the immigrant ancestor to Ontario, was living in Newton Township, Sussex County, New Jersey in 1774. Jacob was forced to leave New Jersey because of his British sympathies during the American Revolution. He settled near Hamilton Ontario in June 1796.

Jacob and his family lost everything in New Jersey and settled in what was then the wilderness of Upper Canada where they had to make a new life for themselves. Jacob and his 6 sons and 2 daughters had many descendants settling in Ontario, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

This is one of the immigrant families I researched and wrote about in a 6-volume set called The Peer Family in North America. The hardships they endured were felt by many in those turbulent times and I wanted their stories told.

1797, 13 July: Declared in his land petition that he came to the province in June 1796 and had a wife and daughter in Barton where he owned a farm.  He was granted 200 acres on 14 July 1797. A statement by Nathaniel Pettit dated 10 July 1797 states that he was acquainted with Jacob Pear [sic] in the State of New Jersey, and that because he was "much attached to the British Constitution" he "suffered greatly both in his person and property in the Late War between Great Britain and America"



 

Index of Claimants Found in Commissioners Reports 1836-1845 Ontario

Canadiana.Org has digitized 21 films of the Heir & Devisee Commission Papers (Heir & Devisee Commission papers 1797-1854, found in their Heritage Collection), and that's a good thing for genealogists. These records have valuable and informative genealogical documents.

But as mentioned in a previous blog post I wrote called Heir & Devisee Commission 1797-1854 on Canadiana.org - Listing Errors and a Workaround, the index and description of what is in each film, as provided on Canadiana.org,  is incorrect.

I have been slowly going through each film and noting the correct contents in detail.  My first set of detailed listings of the contents of film H1133 can be viewed at No Response from Canadiana.org so here are the Heir & Devisee Commission Film Details 

A complete and correct list of contents of many of the films can be found on Olive Tree Genealogy website at Finding  Aid for Heir & Devisee Commission Online Films

As I continue in my corrections, I happened upon this wonderful index of names for Commissioners Reports 1836-1845 on film H1151.  The Canadiana.org description stating that H1151 contains V. 90-98 is incorrect. This film contains V. 86-89 Below is the index for Names A-C for Volume 86 of microfilm H1151 Heir & Devisee Commission. You may save these images to your computer then enlarge them in your graphic program to read. There are 32 pages of names total and I will continue publishing them here on Olive Tree Genealogy blog. 

Volume 86 consists of Commissioners Reports 1836-1845 on images 49-319. Using the index below, you see that Robert Brown is indexed as page 168. We can then go directly to the Heir & Devisee Commission online microfilm and hunt for this page in order to view Robert's claim.

Robert Brown's name mentioned on page 168

....to be continued

Searching Ontario Canada Land Records, eh?

1826 Land Petition John Greenlees

Last night I stumbled on two land petitions for my 3rd great grandfather John Greenlees. That's right, I said "stumbled on". Yes it's a bit embarrassing to admit my finding these petitions from 1826 and 1833 was not an act of brilliant genealogy sleuthing. 

Finding land petitions may not sound exciting but not only do they add details to an ancestor's life, they often contain clues to other records or facts that were not previously known. In this specific instance the 1826 petition gave John's year of immigration from Ireland to Ontario Canada. It also provided the number of children he had in 1826.

Last night I went to a lookup service site I use sometimes and entered GREENLEES into the site search engine. I’ve searched for my Greenlees family before on this site but the owner often adds new indexes so since I was bored with TV I figured what the heck. Bingo! Up popped two index entries for my ancestor in the Upper Canada Land Petitions (UCLP). That puzzled me because the UCLP have been online as a searchable index at Library & Archives Canada (LAC) since 2010, and the actual images have been online for at least a year.  I’ve searched them dozens if not hundreds of times but I’ve never seen a petition for John Greenlees. 
 
My next stop was the online UCLP indexes at LAC. It’s a bit tricky finding the petitions there because the searchable indexes are on one spot on the site and the actual digitized images are on another – and there is no link from one to the other. First you head to the Indexto Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865) to search the indexes. But here’s the important part of searching this index. When you search for an ancestor, take advantage of the wildcards that LAC allows. 

For example, searching for GREENLEES does not bring up my ancestor John. But searching for GREEN* brings him up for both those petition entries I found on the other website. For those his name is rendered as GREENLESS.   Here’s the embarrassing bit – I know to use wildcards. I do use wildcards. But apparently I never used them when searching for my Greenlees family! Either that or I somehow overlooked searching for them in the UCLP. Once your name of interest is found you must click on the link for each name. 

Clicking on the index entry for John Greenlees 1826 provides me with the information I need to find the digitized image(s) online. 

Name:  Greenless, John

Place:  Nelson

Year:  1826

Volume:  208A

Bundle:  G 14

Petition: 142

Microfilm:  C-2032

Reference: RG 1 L3

It would be nice if LAC had an easily found link to the digitized images but unless you then go back to your results, click on SEARCH HELP, then choose HOW TO OBTAIN COPIES you will be lost as to what to do next. Choosing HOW TO OBTAIN COPIES takes you to an explanation and buried in it is a sentence saying you can view the digitized images for the UCLP online. The word “online” is linked. 

But guess what! Clicking on that link takes you to another page of information about LAC’s digitization projects. Buried within this page is an explanation that “some” items from LAC’s “numerous collections” have been digitized and you can search for what you want by going to a BROWSE BY TITLE or BROWSE BY TOPIC page. Phew! Nowhere will you find a link that specifies you can search the UCLP digitized images. That's a major fail in my mind.

But the workaround is that you can go directly to the digitized UCLP images with the link I have provided here. I suggest you open a second browser window for the actual images so that you have your first window still open to the information you need (Microfilm #, Volume #, Bundle and Petition #) You'll be jumping back and forth to doublecheck that you are in the right volume and bundle as you search for the petition you want.

Using John Greenlees 1826 petition, I’ll show you how you find the image you want on the digitized microfilm. I need Microfilm:  C-2032 so I must go page by page until I find the film number I need.  It is on the 3^rd page of film numbers. I click on the film number and the first image of 749 appears. The first page won’t help me so I usually enter 50 in the box so I go to image 50. 

Source details at bottom of digitized image

 Scroll right to the bottom until you can see Upper Canada Land Petitions and the source detail including the Volume, Bundle, Years and more. We need Volume 208A for John Greenlees. But a look at the info on image 50 shows we are in Volume 208. So we have to jump ahead. There is no way of knowing how far ahead you need to go so I just usually go by 50 at a time. Sometimes I go head a few hundred because you can always go back. So I jumped to image 100 (still not the right volume) and then 200. Image 200 shows me I am in Volume 208A, Bundle 14.  We can also see it is for letter “G”. Now we check what Bundle we needed for John Greenlees and it is G14. So we are in the right Volume and Bundle. 

Next is the all-important petition number. We need #142. So now we scroll UP on the image we are on (200) and check the top of the actual petition.   The petition number is usually on the right top but sometimes on the left. In this case Image 200 shows the petition number on the top left is 120a

The petition we want (142) is ahead on the reel. You might do the math and think you only need to go head by 22 but most petitions have at least 2 pages, sometimes dozens. So I would go ahead 50. I’m not worried because if I jump past #142 I can always go back.

Going ahead 50 takes me to image 250 and I can see that it is Petition 131a. I’ll go ahead another 25 and see where I am. That brings me to Petition 139. Finally I hit on image 302 which shows me the petition #142 for John Greenlees. If you happen to get to your desired petition # but it has a letter after it (such as 142b) then you have gone too far. The petitions are numbered in sequence and always start with a number. Each page of the same individual’s petition is given a letter so if John Greenlees has a 4 page petition they will be numbered 142, 142a, 142b and 142c.

Be sure to save every page including the “envelope” as it has important information on it. I’ll explain how to interpret the information on the "envelope" in another blog post. Meantime you may want to read about other land records in Ontario - where to find them and how to search the databases. It is found at Finding Ancestors in Ontario Land Records

Filling in the Gaps - Finding an Ancestor Arriving Canada Before 1865

Cindy asked Olive Tree Genealogy a question about her Irish ancestors' immigration to Canada.

thank you in advance for your time,  I am trying to find my husbands family.

http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/25599501/person/1678863353 Robert Moynan born 1821 in Ireland and his wife also from Ireland lived in Farnham and is buried there along with his wife. I am looking for records of emmigration but find nothing.  I do know that some records from Ireland are missing and I don't know if they came as "Poor" any ideas?

 Hi Cindy - I see from your online tree that the family were in Quebec before 1851 when their daughter was born. That's a challenge because prior to 1865 ships passenger lists for Canada did not have to be kept. So finding one is tricky. Some have survived but most have not.

Don't despair though as there are substitutes to finding an actual passenger list, such as shipping company records, Emigration Agent records, Steamship records from ships taking immigrants up the St. Lawrence River, etc.

But first you might want to try to narrow your timeline for their immigration. Have you checked the online Lower Canada Land Petitions to see if Robert petitioned for land?

When you are ready to begin your immigration search, Filling in the Gaps has a comprehensive list of all passenger lists and substitutes for ships passenger lists to Canada before 1865. Each one is linked to an online database. The one exception is the 1831-1865 records from the Hawke papers which are not online but can be consulted at the Ontario Archives. Hawke was an emigration agent who kept records of arriving passengers. However the James Allison papers (another emigration agent) are available online or as a lookup from 1823 to 1845.