A Newfoundland Discovery in Devon

I haven't been posting lately because I'm finally getting around to starting on those projects I've had in my head for a long time.

One of the two projects I'm going back and forth with is going through all the BMD registers for the little village where my King ancestors lived. The first register starts in 1559, and of course is in tiny neat-ish fading writing, and in Latin. 

I think the second entry "might" be one of mine, it was spelled Kinge or Kynge early on.

So saving all these early ones for another day, I started on the second book (starting 1653 by the old calendar) and it's a little easier on the eyes. Plus it's in English. I'm transcribing all the King names onto a spreadsheet. I only have to do baptisms before 1740, marriages before 1693 and burial before 1699. The ones after those dates were already transcribed, in alphabetic order, and I can just copy and paste the blocks of King names into my spreadsheets. If I find one I need I always check it in the register to be sure it was transcribed correctly. This helps me straighten out who's who with all the Thomas, John and Mary names.

So I'm looking at baptisms for the village of Loddiswell in Devon, England. I've recorded from 1653 and I'm up to 1696. The writing on this page is erratic, from tiny to big, faded to clear, and I came across this clear entry...

Nov 30 was baptized Thomas Robings being then about nine years old who was born in New Found Land Poor (?)

I don't know if there's family that stayed in Canada or they all went back to England, but there you go... a gem for someone to find someday. 

I'm stuck in Acadia

The reason I have been quiet this past couple of weeks, is because I am doing the genealogy for a friend. His ancestors go back to Acadia, an area for which I have never done any research. It doesn't help that the Acadians were expelled from the area in the mid 1700s and they scattered to the four winds.  There is a good write-up about it with maps and dates at erudit dot org.

I think they were part of the 1758 migration, because their 3rd-to-last child was baptized in Port Royal in 1754. There were two children born after that - the trick is to find where?? I know they exist because they later married in parts of Quebec, settling around St-Philippe and St-Constant.

You can see by the map at erudit that I have many places to look for my friend's ancestors, including New England, parts of Quebec... and France. 

Taking a 55 minute ferry from the town of Fortune, Newfoundland you can reach St-Pierre et Miquelon, islands owned by France. Some Acadians fled there.

For overseas places owned by France, such as the islands and Martinique, there is a website called Archives Nationale d'Outre-Mer (anom) that has register images you can download. The site is in French but you can use a tool like Google Translate to switch to English. You can sort the results by year or by place. It is easy to navigate and figure out.

Another fact I didn't know, is that L’île Saint-Jean (now PEI) was under French rule and registers for the city of Port-La-Joye from 1721-1758 can be found at this site. Under Canada there is also an index of deaths 1748-1760 for l'Hopital Quebec. 

If your ancestors went to mainland France and you have an idea where they went, many places have their registers online - the links are at The French Genealogy Blog in the left hand column, by department. 

If you have any advice or suggestions to help in my research, I'd be glad to hear from you!



Relevant Links

Overseas National Archives 

The French Genealogy Blog

Getting more from the Dictionary of Canadian Families

Researching Quebec ancestors you undoubtedly use the "Dictionnaire Généalogique des Familles Canadiennes" (in seven volumes) by Abbé Cyprien Tanguay.

The easiest way to research a Quebec couple's ancestors is to always start with the marriage record, since most French records give the names of the fathers and the maiden names of the mothers of the bride and groom. Then finding the person's baptism record you are more likely to have the right guy or girl. In many cases you can get your line of ancestor's back to when they arrived from France in Quebec in the 1600 or 1700s with the help of these volumes, Volumes One and Two being the earliest immigrants.

Take the information with a grain of salt, as he did make a few mistakes. Use it as a guide, not a bible. Always try to find the original baptism, marriage or burial record in the parish register. Unfortunately some very old ones have become unreadable with age, even to seasoned readers of old Quebec records. The people at Drouin have tried to transcribe some of the ones more unreadable when scanned.

There are the odd records that do not mention the parent's names and we have to be detectives. One entry in the Dictionary says that Jean and Helen's daughter married Francois. But when you look at the parish registers it is a different same-last-name couple's daughter that married Francois, as her father was deceased, her mother had remarried and the record says the bride's step-father attended the wedding. Aha!

Then again, some of the mistakes are not his, but rather those of the priest or clerk who made the entries.  I found one marriage record where the priest (or his assistant) wrote down the groom's mother's name in place of the bride's!  Oops! 

For the first ancestor of a line that arrived in Quebec the entry gives his parents names, and approximate year and parish of birth in France (as they stated in their marriage record). Some of the places may not be recognized by Google, and I have seen written on family trees variations of where the parish may be, all giving different cities or even provinces!! 

In Volume One if you go to the back of the dictionary there is listed the places names in France as of 1631.

Diocese in each province of France

Alphabetic list of cities and their province in France

There is also a list of parishes and missions in Quebec, in chronological order of the year established...

Parishes and Missions in Quebec from 1621 to 1871

List of Parishes in each Diocese in 1871 ....

Parishes in the Province of Quebec in 1871

When making a record of each ancestor, I like to use the spelling of his name on the baptism record including dit names adding a note of variations found in subsequent records, and the original name of the places they were baptized, married and buried adding a note of the name of the place today. 

If you go to the back of Volume Seven there are other lists - names of men's surnames with variations...

List of men's surnames with variations, Vol 7

.... and names of women not born in Canada, with names of their husbands..

Alphabetic list of women not born in Canada

Volume Three tells a different story... one of slavery! 

"On April 13, 1709, New France intendant, Jacques Raudot passed the Ordinance Rendered on the Subject of the Negroes and the Indians Called Panis, legalizing the purchase and possession of Indigenous salves in New France."

There are many websites telling about slavery in Canada, I won't go into it here.
At the back of Volume Three there is a list of persons enslaved with the names of their owners...

Names of enslaved people and their owners

Relevant Links

Dictionnaire Généalogique des Familles Canadiennes

Vol 1: A - Z

Vol 2: A to Chapuy

Vol 3: Charbonneau to Eziero

Vol 4: Fabas to Jinines

Vol 5: Joachim to Mercier

Vol 6: Mercin to Robidoux

Vol 7: Robillard to Ziseuse   

  

Marriage Licenses of the Diocese of Exeter

Marriage Licenses of the Diocese of Exeter 1524-1630

"The Diocese of Exeter matches almost exactly the boundaries of the county of Devon, including Torbay and Plymouth."

I ran through my list of Devon surnames, and there is one possibility...

1631 Aug 24 Thomas Lapthorne, pg 118

This is an entry of a marriage license issued 24 Aug 1631 for Thomas Lapthorne of Ermington and Margery Adams of Modbury.  This could be an ancestor of my 6x ggf  William Lapthorn who married in 1715 in Ermington. 

There are other names that match my surnames, but not the places. 


Also gives some unexpected entries...

I wouldn't want to be Alexander Preston right about then!! 

Be creative in your spelling of names when using the search box.  



Relevant Links

Marriage Licenses of the Diocese of Exeter

St. Bees, Cumbria

What a cool name for a village! 
St Bees is a coastal village on the Irish Sea in Cumbria, England. 


Here we have a Register of the Priory of St Bees. 

It is in Latin and in numbered paragraphs, and a corresponding number with enough translation to understand what the record is. Some show references to a preceding paragraph. 

There is list of priors, a general index, and an index of names in the back. 

  


Relevant Links

Register of the Priory of St Bees

St Bees, Cumbria, England

Whitehaven Archives and Local Studies Centre - St Bees Genealogy

Serendipity Sunday - Automobile Registration

I came across something this week that reminded me of the first car I drove. 
But let's start back a few years.....

My paternal grandfather was a travelling salesman and owned a 1928 Buick Sedan. Every summer he packed up the car with gear and took the family camping in Maine.

My Dad always had old used cars and worked on them himself in the driveway. Before the war he had an old Ford Roadster, and I found the registration card among his papers.

Dad was living at his parents' place after the war, and was fixing another old car of his on the driveway - Mom was on the ground under the car taking bolts out of the oil pan, all smeared with oil, when his parents drove up... and that was how they met her.  

My Dad used to let us sit on his knee and "drive" the car when we were little, but when I was turning 16 and ready to get my license I wanted to learn to drive from someone who would be more patient with me. I signed up for the driving lessons that were being given at the Lakeshore YMCA . The instructor picked up three of us in his special vehicle that had a passenger side brake. He even had us drive into the city at traffic hour! I got my license first try.

At that time the car I was allowed to drive was my Mom's - a second hand early 60's beige coloured Studebaker Gran Turismo, that had been owned by the president of a company.  I loved that car, it wasn't huge like a lot of cars of that time and it felt sporty.  At 16 I also loved that when I pulled in at a gas station the young attendants always asked to look under my hood. My friends and I got summer jobs at the new mall that year, and I drove us all to and from work. My Dad wanted me to be able to change a flat tire, so he made me take off all four and put them back on again, jumping on the jack handle to make sure the lug nuts were all tight. My parents were away when we had our first snowfall that year, so Dad had a friend come over and help me to practice winter driving. In later years I was the go-to person when any of my friends had to go to the city or out in a snow storm.

France was the first country to introduce the license plate in 1893. The first in North America were made in Massachusetts in 1903.  Following are links to some US Automobile Registration books, with owners name and residence.  Some say the kind of vehicle. 
Perhaps you can check with your department of motor vehicles to see if there are old vehicle registration or permit books that have survived.

The first link is the booklet I found that started me thinking of my first car.
On this list, the first name is that of Mr Frank D Kemp of Springfield Massachusetts, who had a 1925 Paige with the license plate number 88.



Relevant Links


New England auto list and tourist ; containing complete list of all automobiles including dealers' and commercial cars also motor cycles registered in New England

California Automobile Registration 1914-1916

California Automobile Registration (1917 and 1921)

California Registration of motor vehicles and names of licensed chauffeurs

List of registered motor vehicles - Connecticut - to 1920

Vehicle registration history and info for different countries (Wikipedia)

Early Auto Registrations of Florida, 1905-1917

List of registered motor vehicle owners, North Carolina

South Australia, motor vehicle registrations 1906-1927

Farmer's Directories

Many of my ancestors were agricultural labourers, farm servants, or farm owners.

My 2nd great-grandfather, Alexander Mavor, a young man of 23 at the time of the 1851 census of Scotland was working with his brother Francis in Methlick, less than 10 miles from his home in Ellon, Aberdeenshire. He was an agriculture labourer on the farm of Jonathan Whitehead. So I wanted to know what kind of farm it was and what kind of work he did.  I did a search for the name Jonathan Whitehead, clicked books from the drop-down menu, and up came Volume 11 of the "Coates's Herd Book" for the UK. It is a collection of books of pedigrees of short-horned cattle and their breeders, with a list of subscribers in the back. Just as we do for our human family, they trace their cattle's family tree back to the 1600's.
Also, in the 1865 edition of the book "Field and Fern" (Scottish flocks and herds), it mentions that "... he [Mr. Hay of Shethin] and Mr. Whitehead of Methlick had once a great shorthorn-bull trade, but the latter retired in '56". Aha, so it was a cattle farm, breeding Shorthorn Aberdeen Angus.

In reply to my pedigree and social register articles, a reader recently said there should be a register for agriculture labourers.  Well, they may well be in the regular town directories or post office directories of where they live.  But if your ancestor was a farmer .... labourer, servant, or owner - I did find a few links of interest, including some Farmers Registers and Breeders Registers.  

Also check Livestock Brand Books in your area of research.
This is the brand registered to my great-grand-uncle in Daysland, Alberta

Relevant Links

A century of Agriculture in Aberdeenshire (member names pgs 85-90)

Lovell's Farmer's Register of the garden of the Eastern Townships 1909

Prairie Farmer's Directories - Illinois, Indiana, Michigan

Reports of tenant farmers' delegates on the Dominon of Canada

Coates's Herd Books - UK

Field and Fern (Scotland) 1865

Farmer's Register - US (a few editions)

The Wool Grower and Stock Register (USA 1852)

The Country Gentleman's Magazine (UK)

Westmorland agriculture, 1800-1900 (UK)

Supremacy of Aberdeen-Angus Cattle

Officers, students and graduates of the Kansas State Agricultural College (several years) 

Prizes: l'exposition de Montréal et carnaval des fermiers de l'Est :cinquième exposition provinciale, septembre 11-19, 1896

The Union Publishing Co's (of Ingersoll) farmers' and business directory for the counties of Halton, Waterloo and Wellington, Ont – 1906

Union Publishing Co's farmers and business directory for the counties of Bruce, Grey and Simcoe - Ontario

Morrey's Farmers and Business Directory, County of Haldimand, Ont; Containing the Following Valuable Information: The Name, with the Post Office Address, Lot and Concession, of each Farmer; also whether a Freeholder or a Tenant – 1884

Members of the Highland and Agricultural Society (w/members UK, AU, NZ,CA)

Farmer's Cabinet and Herd Book, PA

Farm and Fireside, OH

Herd Book of the National Pig Breeders, UK 1914

The Canada Herd Book, 1867

International Directory of Stock Breeders 1928-1929

The only complete directory of the poultry, pigeon & pet stock breeders in the United States of America 1891

Search Alberta Livestock Brands

Alberta cattle and horse brands 1907-1913

Alberta and Saskatchewan Brand Book 1907

Brand book of the state of Arizona up to 1920

The Social Register

 Hôtel Ritz Paris 1898

My Great Uncle Harry developed Parkinson's Disease in his late 40's and it got so bad he could not work. His wife, my Great Aunt Bessie, had a job at the Ritz-Carleton Hotel in Montreal, where she worked her way up to Head Housekeeper. Montreal's was the first location to bear the name Ritz-Carleton. Some of the Ritz hotels, like the one in Boston, checked people out in the Social Register or Who's Who before permitting them to stay there.

The Blue Book or Social Register was on the desk of every socialite back in the day. There are different publication names, but all hold the names of only the prominent families.
The Social Registers sometimes give names of all family members, what days they are "receiving", and if the person is really "important" it gives a little biography.  Some have lists of marriages and deaths for the preceding year in the back of the books, as well as the names of the different elite clubs and societies of that city.


The Chicago Social and Club register is the first publication to recognize Chicago women and their achievements. It gives quite a bit of information about them, where they were born, the date of their marriage, what clubs they belong to etc...

For those in the UK you want the Peerage books, in 9 volumes, printed in 1812. The first edition was published about 1709.

The Canadian Who's Who is still being published, containing biographies of prominent Canadians, selected on merit alone. 

Relevant Links:


Dau's Society Blue Book for Montreal, Ottawa and Quebec

The Society Blue Book, Toronto 1902

The Society Blue Book, Toronto and Hamilton 1910

The Grand Rapides Society Blue Book

The Albany and Troy Society Blue Book 1917

The Indianapolis Blue Book

Social Register, Chicago 1908 (+others)

Chicago Social and Club Register

Social Register, Boston Vol 1 - 1901 (+others)

Social Register, New York Vol 1 - 1917

Social Register Locater 1916 

Social Register of Saint Joseph, Missouri 1903

Social Register of San Francisco 1919

San Francisco Blue Book and Club Directory 1927 (+others)

The North Shore blue book andsocial register, Vol 19 (1915) - Containing lists of the summer residents of the principal resorts along the North Shore from Nahant to Rockport

Other Social Registers listed at Hathi Trust website, including New Orleans

Who's Who in America Vol 2: 1901-1902

Collins's Peerage of England; Vol 1 (of 9) Printed 1812

Collins's Peerage of England - others listed

Lain & Healy's Elite Directory of Brooklyn. 1877

Royal Blue Book and Court Guide - London 1911

Boyle's fashionable court & country guide, and town visitingdirectory: London 1903

The List ; a visiting and shopping directory of New York City for the Season of 1886

Thom's Irish Who's Who 1923

Genealogies & Registers

Genealogy of Ludwig Herzog von Württemberg

I realize not everyone has it within their present budget to subscribe to a pay genealogy site to look up BMD records. Besides the Family Search site, which is free, there are other sites and publications that hold BMD records, indexes or genealogies of our ancestors.

As I said in my article titled "No Luck of the Irish" I found my ancestors in one of the Irish Pedigrees published in the early 1900's. I found other family members in their community histories at Our Roots.  A lot of counties, towns, societies or individuals have put together genealogies over the years, and some have published transcripts of registers or indeed copies of the actual records in some cases.

In the UK a guy named William Phillimore Watts Phillimore (brother to Reginald Phillimore Phillimore the artist) of Nottingham who was a genealogist. He founded a publishing business, and therewith he published what are called the Phillimore Registers. One of the links below is for the Catalogue of Phillimore's parish registers. If you see the parish you want, at Internet Archive (archive.org) search [parish name] register + Phillimore. Also for the UK you can google search [county name] + OPC or parish register. Quite a few of them are transcribed online. (OPC is Online Parish Clerk). There is another site for the South Hams of Devon with info PLUS volunteer lookups - click the ask button. They broke down one of my walls for me, and sent me the marriage certificate. More genealogy people helping people.  Wonderful!!

Ontario is a difficult place to find records for.  Luckily there are several volumes published of "Papers and records - Ontario Historical Society" which hold a lot of birth and marriage records, and include other interesting information. That link is below as well. Check the index of each volume and some random pages, as not all registers are under a heading "Look here for registers!!" I have also provided the links to BMD of the other provinces.

I have also found for you some books with records for the USA, including some early Quaker records. You can find more Quaker records by searching at archive.org using the keywords quaker (or friends) + records.


Relevant Links:


London Marriage Licenses 1521-1869

Newfoundland Vitals

New Brunswick Vitals

Nova Scotia Vitals

PEI Links and Vitals

Quebec BMD Records 1621-1979

Généalogie Québec

Papers and Records - Ontario Historical Society Vol 1 - Baptisms ad Marriages

Fort George - Ontario Historical Society Vol 15-18 Military Baptisms 1821-1827

Marriage Records of Thomas Cummings - Niagara Peninsula, Stamford and Chippawa

Marriages at Church of Assumption, "La Pointe de Montreal du Detroit" 1760-1781

Papers and Records - Ontario Historical Society - several volumes

Manitoba Vitals

List of men married by the Catholic Missionaries at Red River Mission 1818-1831

Saskatchewan Vitals

British Columbia Vitals

Mayflower Descendents: quarterly magazine and passenger lists

Catalogue of Phillimore's parish register series 1913

Marriage Records, Marion County, Indiana 1929-1944

Martin County, Indiana birth records 1-2

Martin County, Indiana birth records 3-4

Miller County, Mo Birth and Death Records 1883-1890 Transcribed by I. S. Yarnell

Birth and death records, 1764-1870's - Quaker - Mill Creek, IN

Birth Records of Livingston County, MO - 1883-1891

The Birth, Marriage and Death Register, Lancaster, Mass 1643-1850

Birth Record Book A 1755-1882; Wayne County, Indiana Monthly Meeting

The Records of Lee, Mass 1777-1801

Vital Records of Washington, Mass, to the year 1850

The old records of the town of Fitchburg, Mass (several volumes)

New Amsterdam & New Netherlands Records

Quaker Records, Peru, Clinton Co, NY

Australia Victoria BMD historical index stored as cvs data

The New England Historical and Genealogical Register Published quarterly since 1847 

Genealogical Register of the Town of West Boylston, Mass to 1858

New Brunswick Genealogy Files

Tweedsmuir Local town and family histories - Ontario

Irish Pedigrees (see Ireland links for more, blog "No Luck of the Irish")

Pedigree Register London 1867 (+ others)

The database Íslendingabók contains genealogical information about the inhabitants of Iceland, dating more than 1,200 years back (not English)

Record of the Smith Family from John Smith born 1655 Ireland

Lancashire Online Parish Clerk

South Hams, Devon - records and volunteer help

Genealogies del comtes de Barcelona 

Marriage contracts of Natchitoches (Louisanna) 1739-1803 

History of the Parish of Banchory-Devenick, Aberdeenshire 1890 

Here you will find several volumes of "Genealogy : a journal of American ancestry" - includes marriages and deaths, graves of soldiers, Preachers names, etc..New England - starts in the 1700's

Les Canadiens Francais de Fall River, Mass 1883

The Publications of the Pipe Roll Society - UK (several volumes) - Latin

Pedigrees from the plea rolls (UK): 1200-1500

Edward Hall of Rehoboth, Mass. [1658] with intermarriages

The Dominion Annual Register and Review (Several years) hold marriages and deaths

Watertown, Mass records - several volumes - 1738-1822

Land Records for Hartford, Conn

History of Brome County, QC from the date of grants of land therein - 1908

Newton, Conn: 1708-1758: proprietors and maps (map missing - try library copy)

Maniwaki and the Gatineau Valley

Tasmanian Government - Surnames List and Records

The chronological diary for the year 1725 : containing the most remarkable transactions and events, as well civil as military, and domestick as foreign, viz. removals, promotions, births, deaths, marriages &c. that happen'd during the course of that year

Italian Genealogy

History of Brome Co, Quebec (Brome, Knowlton, Potton) 1908

Magazine of New England History (several volumes)

Twenty three classes according to the same number of illustrious families and genealogy of Italy in Italy - and insignia of the families - (Latin) 1710