Discoveries in the 'Do Over'

What new discoveries have I come unearthed doing research in my 'Do over'? OurOntario.ca website: In addition to indexing newspapers from Barrie Ontario, there are now digital images of older editions!! And they are continuing to add more. Bonus!! This will save me from spending days at the Barrie Public Library scrolling through microfilm. So far, I have found the Brentwood's correspondent's entries covering the death and funerals of my great-grandparents: William Daisley Allen (1935) and Mary Jane Woodland (1938). Although their deaths fall out of the range of what Ancestry is able provide, I found the information very beneficial with listing various attendees at the funeral as well as a brief history of the couple during their married life. I did more searching on that website and found an article covering the 60th anniversary of my great-grandparents. I have copies of photos taken of the couple at that event, but it was a fantastic find to discover that the event had been documented in the newspaper. Trying to remember to search the site as I deal with each individual in my database - at least the ones that lived in the Barrie area. As I'm still working on my great-grandparents branch, that covers almost everyone! So far, I have found the 1925 obituary of the first husband of my great-grandparents' eldest granddaughter. I remember that granddaughter and her second husband as they lived in the house on the Allen family farm that my great-grandparents had moved into when they had turned over the family farm to my grandparents. I have also found the brief marriage announcement of that woman's parents. I already Ancestry's image of the marriage registration for that couple, but the Brentwood news article also gave details of the bridal shower and attendees. And in the same column, I found that my maternal great-grandmother had returned home from visiting family in Toronto and my maternal grandparents had hosted a bridal shower for the school teacher who had been boarding with them. Gotta love small town gossip news. At this rate, it will take me forever with the 'Do Over'.

"Do Over" or Not?

It's been suggested in the genealogy community for people to do a 'do over' with their genealogy. The reasoning being that most people did not do proper citations when they were starting out with their genealogy research. An another rationale is that with revisiting sources with a more experienced eye, one may pick up on additional details that had been overlooked when the source was originally viewed. With 15 years, give or take a year or two, of research, did I really want to that? When I first came across the discussions, I thought 'no way'. Several years ago my database got corrupted and I've never have recreated everything. I had been faithfully backing up the database, but all the backups were backups of the corrupted records. I had started adding images and the way Family TreeMaker handled images, at least at that point in time, ballooned the size of the file. The programmed wouldn't allow backup to a thumb drive, only the harddrive or CD. But my database was larger that what a CD would hold and I was constantly running out of harddrive space with the frequent backups I did. Thinking that had something to do with the database getting corrupted, I decided to split the database into several for the various branches. Which I have been maintaining for the past 5 years. But has several of branches lived in the same geographical area, I was finding more and more overlapping and was doing 'see' references in databases. Using Rootsmagic, it is a somewhat easy procedure moving families from one file to another. But it often lead to problems with source citations as a source wasn't necessarily entered the same way in the different databases. For the past year or so, I have tossed around the idea of merging all of the databases into one massive one as Rootsmagic doesn't embed images within the database, only links to wherever one chooses to store the image. Sooo....that gets back to the current exercise going on in the genealogy community. I decided if high profile people in the genealogy community are questioning the quality of their past research and are prepared to start over, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to do the same. So I did! For the past couple of weeks, I have been re-doing my research, doing my best to not just copy of my previous databases. I'm doing my best to only enter data found in legitimate sources. But I have to confess that I am frequently consulting my previous database for dates and locations to use as guidelines as to where to search to find a document to verify the information. Is the 'Do Over' going to be worth the time? You betcha! By combining all my branches into one large database, it will make it easier for looking up individuals and doing printouts of trees. And by forcing myself to redo research on individuals, I am finding more information than what I had before as more information is now available online that when I previously researched the individual. And so far, I haven't gone past my father's grandparents!

Great-great grandparents separated?

What happened with my Great-Great grandparents, John Alexander Schell and Mary Jane Ross? Many years ago I found John A Schell listed in the 1911 Canadian census living with one of their daughters in Muskoka. He died a few months after the census (confirmed with death certificate). Since John was listed as a widower, and family trees uploaded on WorldConnect gave death dates for Mary Jane as around 1902 or 1905, I accepted that she had died sometime between the 1901 and 1911 censuses. The couple were together in New Lowell at the time of the 1901 census. I have yet to locate burial location for either one of them. Were they buried together, or separate in the vicinity of the locale of their death? I have visited the Angus Cemetery numerous times (many of my branches have been buried there) over the years and they are not buried there. I haven't made the time to visit the New Lowell or Glencairn cemeteries (where other branches are located), but have purchased the Cemetery books published by the Simcoe Branch of the OGS for those two cemeteries. I have also searched a similar book for the Stayner cemetery at the library for the Saskatchewan Genealogical Society. Besides the mystery of their burial location, where was Mary Jane (nee Ross) Schell at the time of the 1911 census. I will need to recheck my records, but I believe I have previously accounted for all of their children in that census and Mary Jane is not listed with them. If Mary Jane was still living, but the couple living apart, in 1911, why was John A listed as widowed? I know quite often, a divorced person was listed as widowed to avoid public shame. However, I also know that information recorded in a census is not always accurate for a variety of reasons.

Aboriginal Ties?

One of my Allen cousins contacted me asking me what information I had on our great-grandmother, Mary Jane (nee Woodland) Allen. He had been talking to another cousin who, over the years, had heard her father and one of his sisters make references to Mary Jane being native. My cousins also have the understanding that grandchildren of Mary Jane Woodland who had lived in the Parry Sound area had hunting/fishing rights in Alquonquin Park only granted to people with Aborginal blood. Unfortunately, those individuals are now deceased and their only remaining sibling was born after their grandmother had died. I do not remember my father ever mentioning any aboriginal ties, but then he rarely mentioned the brother that only lived a few hours. Any documentation I have on Mary Jane Woodland has her listed as Irish with both parents being born in Ireland. Similar for my Allen ancestors, the exception being Mary Jane Woodland's mother-in-law, Mary Ann Widdis, who was born in Upper Canada. Mary Ann's oldest brother was reportedly born in New York before the Irish born parents located in what is now Mono Township in Ontario. My cousins' information has Mary Jane Woodland being baptised as St. James Anglican Church in Toronto. I have never found her baptismal information, but both her parents (Joshua Woodland & Catherine Craig) and in-laws (Robert Allen & Mary Ann Widdis) were reportedly married in that church. So it is reasonable that their children were eventually baptised in that church. How does one go about proving, or disproving, family folklore?

What happened to Reginald Cooper?

When I located grandmother, Gertrude Georgina Cooper, in the 1901 census for the United Kingdom I discovered something that I had not been aware: my grandmother had a younger brother, Reginald. At least there was a 3 month old male listed in the household as the son of John Cooper. I mentioned this discovery to some of my aunts and they were unaware of this uncle. The family emigrated to Canada in the early 1900s and in the 1911 census for Canada, I found my grandmother as the only child still living with the parents in Mimico (part of the Toronto area). Her older siblings were married and living elsewhere. I have found the ship manifast of when the John Cooper left the UK for Canada (in August 1902) as well as the manifast for their arrival at Quebec City, with destination of Toronto. (Actually the oldest son, Albert, didn't travel with the family, but I found a manifast for when he arrived at Ellis Island just months after the 1901 UK census.) So who is this Reginald? Why was he not with the family when they emigrated to Canada? Was he left behind for some reason? The 1901 census had also listed John Cooper's family living in the household and he didn't emigrate. Or had Reginald died? Online records for births in the UK only seem to be indexes with very minimal information. And unfortuantely, for me, both 'Reginald' and 'Cooper' are common names. However, upon closer examination of the birth and death indexes jointly, there was a 'Reginald George Cooper' birth registered in Monmouthshire during the first quarter of 1901 and a death for a 1 year old 'Reginald George Cooper' was registered in the first quarter of 1902, also in Monmouthshire. Is it safe to assume that the two entries are for the same person? And more importantly, this infant was my grandmother's brother? The timing would fit as the death was months before the family left for Canada. Was that a deciding factor for the relocation? I have never heard what prompted the family to move from Blaenavon Wales to Mimico Ontario. I have not been able to associate 'George' with other family members, except for my grandmother's middle name being 'Georgina'. But maybe the name has nothing to do with other family members and was a trendy name at the time.

Ontario Genealogy Conference 2012 (Kingston)

I attended my first genealogy conference this past weekend: the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS)was held in my hometown this year, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity. It was amazing! I got to meet Lisa Louise Cooke (Genealogy Gems) at her vendor table and of course attended all of her presentations. I got to experience some of the presentations I have been listening about for the past 5 years on podcasts.

I packed alot into the 13+ days, but I wanted to participate as much as possible. So on Saturday I attended the 8 am plenary session and continued on through the day until the after dinner talk. Sessions on Friday didn't start until 9am, but I went early to get registered and get oriented with the lecture rooms and vendor area. And that evening didn't end until after 9pm. Sunday was a short day as nothing started until 9am (got to sleep in!) and ended at 3:30pm. Met numerous people at the various sessions and at the lunch and dinner tables.

Granted there was down time at lunch and pre-dinner, but that just provided one with extra time to browse through the numerous vendor tables. Given the amount of money I spent, that may not have been a good thing. Rationalization: saved on shipping, and in some cases the vendor had a conference special (thank you Lisa!). Finally got a FlipPal (thank you Rick & Sandra Roberts from GlobalGenealogy) and accessories...now no excuse to plow my way through the Legere photo collection.

Apparently the draws for prizes were done differently this year. Included in one's registration package was 30 coupons and was left up to each individual to desposit one part of each double coupon into the tin cans displayed with each prize - either on the vendor's table or on a common table in the hallway. I don't think I was the only attendee who put numerous tickets in the can for Evidence Explain by Elizabeth Shown Mills - but I was the winner! (Thank you again, Rick & Sandra from GlobalGenealogy).

I debated about attending the session on research with Ancestry.com as I've been a subsciber for a number of years. But I know from taking various computer courses, etc over the years there is always something to be learned, or short cuts. I was glad I did as the instructor (from Ancestry) announced their show special: 20% discount off of subscriptions or renewals! As my annual subscription is coming up for renewal this summer, that was one vendor table I needed to be sure to visit. When I first visited the Ancestry table, the person doing renewals wasn't there. When I returned later in the day, the girl I had talked to remembered me and pointed out the person I needed to see. That woman was busy trying to trouble shoot some problems, but eventually turned her over to someone else for more in-depth discussion. Not only was I able to do my renewal with the 20% discount, I was able to switch my world deluxe via Canada instead of the US (which had been the only way at the time I had upgraded to the world deluxe). So with the discount and altering the package, I save at least $80, if not closer to $100 (depending on what the exchange rate would have been)...savings goes towards the cost of the conference and/or FlipPal purchase.

I strongly encourage everyone to attend such a conference if the opportunity arises. Yes, it can be expensive, but unless your local genealogy society, public library or Family History Centre routinely offers workshops, where else do you have the opportunity of getting educated? And as mentioned above, purchases I would probably have been doing, one may save money with a confernce special, or shipping. Besides the fact of actually seeing the item before purchasing the item.

William Deadman revisited

While doing further searching for William Deadman, I found a website Rhead Deadman Family which did have William Deadman (husband of Ellen Heath) as the individual who died in 1864 and is buried in Carrville Cemetery.

Information on this site also took me back at least 2 more generations in England and connected the John Deadman (husband of Mary Bone) I had stored in my file as a possible relative in my Deadman family. William and John were half-brothers. I had previously recorded info on John Deadman and Mary Bone as they had located in Ontario in the same area as William and Ellen and I figured there was a connection somehow, but it was a matter of verifying.

With the additional information on the people in England, I searched for IGI records on FamilySearch as well as the British census to fill in more of the gaps.

Rule of thumb: keep searching - even revisiting sites you have previously searched as the internet is always changing. And once additional information is obtained, use the "new" information for further searching.