Scotland Poor Law Applications and Registers helping with a mystery

 

My 3x great grandparents John Mavor and Elizabeth Ledingham, in Ellon, Scotland never registered the births of their 11 children. Over the years, search tho I may, some of them are proving hard to find. Unless they died in Scotland after registration, I’m done for. Alexander, my 2x ggf, and his brother Francis immigrated to eastern Canada. Son John the bigamist, I found in Michigan. Christian had a son and died in the poor house. Jane (found thru dna) immigrated with her newly married daughter and son-in- law to western Canada. George moved to Glasgow for work. William was not mentioned, nor on the 1851 census, so I presume dead. Elizabeth got married and lives in Old Meldrum. That leaves Catherine, Bathia and Leslie unaccounted for. They were on the 1861 census, nothing after. 

Earlier this year Ancestry uploaded some Scotland Poor Law Applications and Registers. There was one for my 3x ggf John Mavor, and lo and behold!! All living children are mentioned. Also it’s nice to see that some of his children helped him out financially as they could. 

So this tells me that Catherine is married and living in England! So I popped over to Find my Past and there I found a Catherine Mavor (a decidedly Scottish name) marrying Joseph Pemberton. I checked a couple of the next UK censuses and, yessiree… Catherine was born in Allon (Ellon). He was a widower with children and Catherine never had any of her own. The family lived in Wales where Catherine died at a ripe old age in 1923. 

At the time Christian and Bathia were unmarried and servants living in, what looks like, Loudoun. (Any thoughts?) Still looking for Bathia. John remarks that his son John is presumed dead, because I guess he never heard from him once he left home. But I did find the scallywag as I said, in Michigan. Also Leslie is presumed dead. Still looking for him, I guess at this point he could be anywhere, and it seems to be a common name. 

So, all to say that the Poor Relief register helped me a lot in researching some members of this family. 

Genealogy in Barbados

My Seale line is from Ireland (originally from England) and I have traced lines from Ireland to the US, Australia, New Zealand, and even back to England.

I had my DNA tested at Ancestry and so far (with those that have trees) I do match with Seales from Australia, the US and England… and two matches from Barbados! So of course that put me on the trail of researching in Barbados. 

So far the earliest record I find is John Seale who married Elizabeth in Barbados in 1722. The ones I match DNA with are descended from Abel Seale and Rebecca Ward. No parents’ names were listed on this record. 

More records are found and uploaded every day, so perhaps one day I’ll be able to find a common ancestor. 

Meanwhile here are some links I found that have to do with Barbados. There may be a couple of books at Internet Archive you can only borrow, just need a free account. Some are for all the colonies, just type Barbados in the search box.

The Barbados Archives has a search box and results can be in newspapers which are online. 

Relevant Links

Archives of Barbados

Info on Family Search

Barbados Family History Blog

Original lists of people that went from Britain to the American Plantations 1600-1700

Omitted chapters from the original list w/ rolls from Barbados census 1679/80

General account of the first settlement of Barbados (written in 1755)

British Plantation Association Oath Rolls 1696

Historic Houses of Barbados 

Barbados Plantation Owners

Simmonds’s Colonial Magazine 

Colonial Office List 1881

Barbados Almanac 1797

Lists of cities, towns and villages in Barbados

Other info on the 1931 Census of Canada

 

Finally, we are able to search the 1931 Census of Canada on Ancestry by name, and attach them to profiles. I’d like to remind you that if you come across spelling errors, please correct them while you are there. It only takes a few seconds. Click on “add or update information” on the left at record view. 

At Ancestry on the 1931 census search page scroll down where you can (and should) read the info about the census. I imagine that soon LAC will publish more info, as in other years… district and subdistrict names, street index, and instructions to enumerators. 

In the meantime you can read the instructions to enumerators here… 

Instructions for Northwest Territories, parts of Yukon, Hudson’s Bay here

In case anyone has an ancestor who was an enumerator commissioner for the 1931 census, or you don’t know and would like to check, or you’re just interested… they are listed by province and district in the Report of the Auditor General of Canada 1932-1933 (mark 938). The Commissioner is responsible for each enumerator in his district, who each have a subdistrict. The commissioner is also responsible for giving the enumerators in his district training and handing out supplies they will need to take the census.

Remember that many cities standardized house numbers around this time. If you think your ancestor moved down the street since the last census, it’s more than likely that their house number (and in some cases street name!) was changed. 

Related Posts:

Getting more from a census

Canada Census Takers

Fille du Roi as Occupation?

 

If you have roots in 1600s Quebec, you likely have a few Filles du Roi or Filles a Marier on your tree. 

 

I did the genealogy of the family of a friend and they had many Filles a marier and Filles du Roi on their tree. I wanted to highlight them in my genealogy report. I found that the easiest way to keep track of them and make a list was to put Fille du Roi or Fille a Marier as an Occupation fact for that person. 

I am a big fan of the free program FT Analyzer for it's great features. I downloaded the gedcom for the above tree and uploaded it to FT Analyzer, then clicked on Occupations...

You can see that on this tree there are 10 Filles a Marier and 8 Filles du Roi. Clicking on the the occupation will give a list of persons with that occupation. This one is for the Filles a marier.

Although I have no Filles du Roi, I find it handy when looking on my tree for my ancestors that had a certain occupation.

The trick is to be consistent with how you write the occupation. You can see in the sample above I wrote the occupation mason three ways... mason, maçon, maitre maçon, whereas I was more consistent with the soldiers, starting the occupation with Soldat.

Filtering your Tags in your Ancestry Tree.

 

You have used the Tag feature in Ancestry - so how can that help you?

When I establish a DNA match or connection on my Ancestry tree I make sure to tag either the match or the connection, or sometimes both. 

I wanted to find all the people on my tree that have DNA connections, or are a DNA match, so I used the Tag Filters

Go to Tree View on your tree. It doesn't matter if it is family view or pedigree view.

Click on Tree Search (top right), then Filters.

Then choose DNA tags, and you can choose one of three... common ancestor, connection or match. I didn't necessarily want to know the common ancestor, but the person in my tree that the match is descended from. So I will choose DNA Connection.

Click Done. I get a list of all the 15 people I tagged as a DNA connection.

You can do this with all your Tags. I made custom Tags for people that I have found their will. 

I Tag someone when I have ordered their will and change it to Have Will when I receive it. So using the filter Have Will gives me a list of those 11 ancestors.

You can use one of the many pre-set tags that are offered in the four different categories, or you can create custom tags for whatever suits your purpose.

Media Files in Family Tree Maker

 

I have seen people commenting many times in genealogy Facebook groups that they don't like to upload their gedcom to FTM because they can't get the media. That's because all has to be done from the Family Tree Maker program. 

Here is how to get media attached to people on Family Tree Maker.

First open Family Tree Maker and  make sure your uploader is up to date.

Next, make sure you are logged in to Ancestry.

Here some people make the mistake of going to Ancestry, downloading a gedcom of their tree, then importing the tree into Family Tree Maker. You can do that, but you will not get the media files. 

 

Next go to the Ancestry leaves in the top right hand corner and click on Download from Ancestry.

From the new screen you choose your tree that you want to download and follow instructions. This takes a long time when it comes to the downloading media part. You can do other things on your computer in the  meantime, just don't close the FTM screen.

When I downloaded my FTM program I saved the folder in Documents. All the media that downloads with my tree goes in that Family Tree Maker folder creating another folder named the same as your tree... here is it named Seale Family Tree Media

Once the program is finished downloading the media, you are set to go. When you click on a person you can see the media for that person. Here I chose my 2x ggf Andrew Smith Tait. You can see he has 20 facts and 16 media.

Any records, images, and stories will download with the tree. Since they are now downloaded onto your computer, they are there to stay, even if you do not renew your membership. The only thing it seems that does not download are all the Web Links I had attached to each person. 

One thing I WISH I had done from the beginning of time, is rename the media as it was attached in Ancestry. Now, for example, in the Seale Family Media Files folder there are 93 images named Lancashire, England, Births and Baptisms, 1813-1911. I would have to open each one to see who it belonged to. Something to add to my To Do list. 

The Book of English Trades

 

I had the link to this book tucked in among the links in my post The Calico Printer but it really should have it's own spotlight.

The Book of English Trades and Library of the Useful Arts, 1827

The book has descriptions of over 75 trades, some with woodcut images. If known they give the origins of the trade.

The Optician

At the rear of the book are drawings and explanations of some machinery used at that time, including a water mill

Water Mill 

Many of my ancestors' trades are in there including carpenter, shoemaker, calico printer, spinner, bookseller, wheelwright, tailor... to name a few.

Relevant Links

The Book of English Trades and Library of the Useful Arts, 1827

Looking for Ireland will dates - finding a hidden gem!

 

Today I am so grateful for the school system that taught me how to quickly scan down a long list of names.

I was on the Family Search website in the Ireland Probate section, checking all that would have surnames with the letter S

I was mostly looking for my earlier ancestors that were in Ireland. When I clicked on Index to Administration Grants O-Z 1595-1810 and scrolled through I found an unexpected gem!

I know I could have clicked on the Search symbol and searched for all with the name Seale, and I did do that first, but I never would have found this record as the name was transcribed with a C as Scale. Besides you never know if you'll come across a name you recognize.

I navigated to the S names (that are not in alphabetic order by the way, only order of date) going past the earlier years to before the first known year I have ancestors there, about 1680, looking for the Seale name in Queen's County. Scanning past lots of Searle and Sale... the first entry I came across was Image 187, will for Thomas Seale, carpenter, died in Trim, Meath in 1690. That is a new name and place to me, so it goes on my list of things to check into. 

I continued scrolling through the S names, page after page.. oh there's another one. Hey! What?? It is for a Marriage License issued to Richard Seale and Margaret Higgs !! This jibes with the Pedigree of Seales that Richard was married to a Margaret, and didn't have her surname or a date. Now I do!

For 1712, SEALE Richard and Higgs Margaret - ML #15

The Index to Administration Grants have a lot of Marriage License entries, I found a couple of other Seale marriage license entries. The other record sets seem to be all Wills or Intestate. 

Now I know why I have distant dna matches to people with the surname Higgs!

Relevant Links

Indexes to probate records 1536-1858, and surviving will books 1644-1834

How to search newspaper articles (and more) at BAnQ

 

Many people are finding it daunting to search for newspaper articles at BAnQ. It is not just the language, but also the format. Here I will try to help you navigate the site, as I know in genealogy it is much more rewarding when you can find what you want by yourself. 

To check availability go to the List of Newspapers and click on the area you are looking for and you will get a list of available titles and years. There is no point searching for what is not there. With that in mind, be aware that some articles may have been published in a larger city newspaper. My ancestor had lived most of his life in the Sherbrooke area but his retirement years were spent in the US with his daughter. His obituary was in the Sherbrooke papers. (note: most English Eastern Townships news will be in the Sherbrooke papers)

Getting there

First of all, since most of the site is in French, I recommend searching using the Chrome browser, as you can easily translate into English or any language with just a click. 

In the search bar of your browser type banq numerique to bring up the site. Right click anywhere on the page and choose Translate. If it does not come up as English or the language you want, click on the three dots and choose your language.

In the Search bar where it says All, click on the dropdown menu and choose Quebec Heritage / Reviews and Newspapers. Now you can either type a name in the search box, or just leave it blank, then click on the search symbol.

Searching the website

First search by name. Then to reduce results use the filters on the right of the red bar. Clicking anywhere on the red bar will open or close the filter section. Use Proximity Search to find the two keywords together. Click on Title to choose the newspapers for your area (you can choose more than one). Start to type a title, or use the scroll bar on the right. Click on the Date filter to choose the year, or a range of dates for an obituary or article. Give it a minute to load the whole paper and it will go to the first page the name appears on - which may not be the page you want. Then scroll down, checking for the highlighted words until you find what you are looking for.

A regional paper might not have an obituary column, but it may be written under the town name. Taking Sherbrooke again as an example... the births and deaths column may list only Sherbrooke residents, but I found a nice long obituary under Waterville, the village where they lived. 

Sometimes the newspaper did not digitize well because the print may be too blurred for the OCR software (Optical Character Recognition). Then it is recommended to browse the newspapers you think the article or obituary may have appeared in. 

With no name in the search box, follow the above steps to choose Title and range of Dates. With, or instead of the Title, you can try Place Represented. Once I choose a newspaper, I always go to the front page first to see if there is an index telling me which page the obituaries are on. Some older papers have no index and you have to browse each page.

If you are searching for an accident or other than an obituary, use those keywords in your search.

Once you get used to navigating the site, there is so much more to explore than newspaper articles. Another thing to try is use the top drop down menu to look at notary records, maps and plans or texts. Using texts I searched Ile Reaux and came up with some interesting old documents about where my ancestors lived. Searching a New France surname could bring up affidavits, certificates, guardianships, and trials! 

Use your imagination for keywords and don't limit yourself. 

Note:  If you are a resident of Quebec you can register for a free subscription, which will allow you to save your searches, borrow digital books, and gives you access to all their remote services. There is a charge for non-residents. 

Searching on a mobile

Using a mobile phone is a little different than on the website but you pretty much navigate as above. Clicking on the red bar takes you back and forth to the filters and the results. Again, if you use Chrome you can use the translate to switch to English.

Church Canon Laws - baptisms, marriages, burials and more

 

The Canon Laws of a Church dictate the way its members should live, salaries of church clerks and pastors, allowable penalties, and also includes the rules of baptisms, marriages and burials. 

Marriage laws were actually dictated by the civil courts, but the church could give penalties if a marriage went against what the church believed.

In some of the earliest church laws if a child was not baptized within 30 days of birth the father was fined, and if the child died before being baptized the father had to give up everything he owned! Baptisms differ only slightly in religions as to who can be baptized, as the church wants as many souls as possible. (Turn page for who may be sponsors). A conditional baptism is often seen in early records.

Canon Law of Catholic Church 1920

Some gave rules about god-parents or sponsors.

Presbyterian Law 1884

One of the canon laws that was discussed since at least 1761 in all the churches at some time or another, is the "marriage with a deceased wife's sister". 

Presbyterian Law 1882

I don't know about you, but I have at least a couple of ancestor relatives who married their sister-in-law when their wife died. Especially when there were young children involved.

 

The laws of the church were also strict about who could be buried on holy ground. 

Church of England - Burials 1850

All religions have canon laws and you can look up what they were for the religion of your ancestors. 

Relevant Links

What is Presbyterian Law as defined by the Church Courts 1884

A Dictionary of Canon Law, Catholic Church 1920

Laws and Canons of the Church of England 1850,  Vol 1

Laws and Canons of the Church of England 1850, Vol 2

Today's Code of Canon Law - Catholic Church

Church Handbook for members of the Anglican Communion 1907

The Parson's Handbook, Church of England 1902

Laws of the Church of Scotland 1830

Supplement to the Laws of Church of Scotland 1836

Laws and Discipline of the Methodist Church in Ireland 1889

Catholics and the Marriage Bill 1866

Marriage with the Sister of the Deceased Wife Presb. 1868

Marriage Act - various years and places

Use Ancestor Projects to try to break your brick wall

 

When you upload your dna data to GEDmatch you may get an overwhelming amount of matches from just about every genealogy dna company.

There is a way to narrow down the pool and connect with those that may hold the key to your success in breaking your brick wall. GEDmatch has many tools to help you, and I like the Ancestor Project tool. 

Ancestor Projects is still marked as new though it has been around for a little while now, and there are many projects to choose from. There are DNA projects for countries, areas within a country, surnames, ethnic groups, etc. 

I have joined a few, one being the county in Ireland where my Seale family is from. I also joined a group for Lanakrshire, Scotland as I am stuck on my Thomson line in and around Glasgow.

Here's how it works.  Under DNA Applications click on Ancestor Projects. 

Scroll down to the projects available, looking at the name of the project and the description. When you find one that may help you click the Join button, answer the questions and give your GEDmatch number. You will hear back from the group within a day or two and then follow their instructions. 

Most of these projects are connected to a Facebook group or a website, where you can connect with your matches within that group. Others you may have to email the administrator. 

TIP: If you are trying to go waaay back you may try lowering the threshold to 5 or 6.

Notes and Comments on Ancestry

NOTES

On your tree at a person’s profile you can click Tools, View Notes, and you can write anything you want there. Only you can view the notes, and the people that you invite to be Editor on your tree. No other people can see your notes.

View Comments will give you the same box and you can choose Tags, Notes or Comments.

COMMENTS

Many of us have had this experience…

You know, with evidence, that a line on your tree is correct and you see other people have put the wrong people on their tree. I have seen trees with right guy with right wife and right children and right dates, but with wrong parents. Or right parents and wrong wife. Others have perpetuated these errors. What do you do?

This is how I handle this situation.

First I message the people and gently, politely tell them what is wrong, why I think so and ask if they could please make changes. After a while when I see the message is read, they don't reply, and no changes are made I will send another message saying if they want I can email them the evidence. Still no change? Then I take measures they may not like.

On their page I go to Tools, View Comments and there I write a comment detailing why it is wrong. Then a number shows up by the person’s name letting people know that there is a comment there. Anyone else researching that person can read the comment and know there is a discrepancy. They will see who made the comment and can then message them for clarification. 

UPDATE 2023: Ancestry made changes to the Comments feature and now tree owners can delete comments on a tree they own. Argh! 

The great thing about this… the tree manager can not delete the comment. Only the person who writes the comment can edit or delete it. The tree manager can hide the comment, but it is only hidden to them, not to others looking at their tree.

If the tree manager asks me to delete the comment I reply that I don’t want others copying the errors and I will delete the comment  once they make the appropriate changes to their tree. Or if they say nothing and I go back and the changes were made I will delete the comment and thank them.

Sometimes I write comments on a profile myself. I do this if I am not sure of something, or if there is a discrepancy in dates or names. This way anyone looking at my tree can see the comment, whereas if I wrote a note no one would know.

What would you use notes and comments for?

Using Find-A-Grave when there is no burial

What do you do when you want to add a memorial for a family member to Find a Grave but the person was not buried?

My ancestors are all linked on Find a Grave. I have some family members that were cremated, and one whose body was given to the Anatomical Board for medical research, and I was still able to make memorials for them and link them to their ancestors.

When my brother died he was cremated and his ashes scattered. The funeral home that took care of his arrangements plants trees in a local park in the name of their deceased clients and their names are put on a wall. They have a big ceremony once a year when loved ones can choose their tree and plant it.

My great grand aunt Dora Porter died in a home for the indigent and she left her body for medical research. I was able to procure the entry in the Cadaver Receiving Book and I added that as a photo on her memorial. If I had a photo of her I would add it.  

Some ancestors are buried but there is no stone.  If you know the location of the burial you can make your own gravestone in the spot in the cemetery with photoshop or some such program. If not you can just make a gravestone as photo for that person

My baby sister died before her first birthday and my Dad had her buried with no stone. I found the burial information in his effects and a good friend went to the cemetery and found the spot where she was buried, leaving flowers and taking a photo for me.

These are the steps to adding a non-burial memorial on Find-A-Grave....

Choose Add a Memorial

Check "Not buried in a cemetery?" 

Choose what type of non-burial. Choices are...
... Buried or Lost at Sea, Cremated, Donated to Medical Science, Lost at War, Animal/Pet, or Burial Details Unknown.

Then add the information as you normally would and link to your ancestors. You can use whatever you want as a photo, the possibilities are endless. 

 

Publications from the National Library of Scotland

The National Library of Scotland has a collection on Internet Archive with thousands of items comprised of books, maps, manuscripts and more. 

Use the small search box on the left to search the collection. Click on the lines to the left of the sort bar to see list view.

 

The items include, but are not limited to...

Directories and Almanacs

The Border Counties Directory

Family Histories and Genealogies

County Registers 

Military Lists (army, navy, air force)

Honor Rolls

Dictionaries

Relevant Link

National Library of Scotland 

Related Post: Scotland Genealogy Resources 

   

Missionary Ancestors

*Update: 28 Oct 2022… 

Well, I did it again. I went down the wrong rabbit hole. I have two children of the same name in a family and I mistakenly thought the first had died. There was a Jessie born 1867, a Jessie died 1891, and a Jessie born 1891. It was actually the Jessie born 1891 that also died 1891. The Jessie born in 1867 became a well-traveled and married woman, the reason why I couldn't find either Jessie  in England after 1891. I discovered this was the Jessie through another member tree at Ancestry. Doing my own research, her death record had the names of both her parents, so I knew it was my Jessie. 

Jessie Tait was the sister of my great grandfather. Jessie became a missionary student at Doric College (aka Doric Lodge) in Bromley-by-Bow, London, situated behind Harley College (for men). On the 1891 census these women attended the college with her:

Amy Judd, 26, Bristol

Eliza Tebutt, 27, Rothwell

Mary Millard, 26, Clay Cross

Prudence Wellwood, 23, Ireland

Maggie Waugh, 31, Coatbridge, Scotland

Emma Whelpdale, 23, Charlton, Kent

Ada Walson, 26, Hornsey, London

Gertie Van DeMolen, 29, Holland

Sarah Ann Cheam, 25, Colchester

Amy Pike, 23, Kensington, London

Mary Smith, 20, Clapton, London

Jesse Tait, 24, Liverpool

Maggie Emslie, 22, Scotland

Epiline Arrestad, 32, Norway

Carrie Bishop, 24, London

Florence Wacker, 26, Leeds

Madame Brogniez, 28 France

In 1892 Jessie Tait was one of five women accepted as a member of the North Africa Mission

North Africa, Aug-Sept 1892 issue, pg.87

Then later it was noted that Jessie's mission trip was delayed due to lack of funds.

North Africa, Dec 1892 issue, pg.132

  

These are some of the women that had been accepted in Feb 1892, two of them from Doric Lodge (aka Doric college)

North Africa, Feb 1892 issue, pg.23

The book also tells how much money was needed to outfit and pay passage for the missionaries going to Africa. 

Jessie was soon sent to Algiers where she was in service to the Mohammedan women. 

In 1893 Jessie married William George Pope, a missionary in Algiers since Feb 1891. Their marriage was registered in the British Consular marriages. William had attended Harley College in Bromley-by-Bow where he was a missionary and linguistics student. William became proficient in French, Arabic and Italian. 

East London: Sketches of Christian Work and Workers 1896, pg.123

This is a photo of the Missionaries in Algiers at the time.

North Africa, Sept-Oct 1891 issue, pg.106

Names of those in the photo:

Dr C.S. Leach, Mr Cuendet, Mr E.H. Glenny, Mr W.G. Pope, Mr A.S. Lamb

Miss Thomas, Miss Read, Miss Stewart, Miss Freeman, Miss Trotter, Miss Gray

Mrs Leach, Miss Day, Miss Young, Mrs Lambert, Miss K. Smith, Miss Cox, Mrs Cuendet

Miss Shelbourne, Miss E. Smith

It is too bad there does not seem to be any more issues of  North Africa: The Monthly Record of the North Africa Mission, as Jessie would surely be mentioned in the next few issues, as would perhaps their marriage and birth of children.

*UPDATE: The monthly Record of the North African Mission have now been all uploaded online for free. See link below, 1890-1969.

The couple had a child born in Algiers, Algeria, the next child born in Scotland, the third child born in Susa, Tunisia, then the last two born in Liverpool. The Pope family arrived back in Liverpool in 1901 when William took a post as secretary for the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, and gave many talks about his time in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. 

In 1906 William was called to be the pastor for the Toxteth Tabernacle in Liverpool. They stayed here until 1914, when the family immigrated to Australia, where they lived in Melbourne, Brisbane, then back to Melbourne. 

Jessie died at the age of 60 in 1927 at Ivanhoe, Melbourne, Australia. William retired from the pastorate at the age of 69 in 1936.

Relevant Links

North Africa: The Monthly Record of the North Africa Mission

North Africa Monthly Record 1890-1969

East London: Sketches of Christian Work and Workers, 1896

Meeting of the Mission in North Africa of the Methodist Episcopal Church 1910

A hand-book of the Foreign Christian Missionary Society,Ohio 1893

Memoirs of Christian missionaries UK 1848

London Missionary Society

The Church Missionary Gleaner

Church Missionary Society – Missionary Registers

The Church Missionary Intelligencer (and others)

The blue book of missions for 1905, 1907

The Encyclopaedia of missions: Vol I

The Encyclopaedia of missions: Vol II

Africa Rediviva. Or, The occupation of Africa by Christian missionaries 1891

Annual Report of the Hawaiian Mission Children's Society

American Baptist Foreign Mission Society

Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America

New York Mission and Tract Society