Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small genealogy blog suggested a weekly blog theme of ’52 Ancestors’ in her blog post “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.” I decided to take up the challenge of the 52 Ancestors blog theme as a means to prompt me into regularly sharing the stories of my ancestors. So over the course of 2014 I will highlight an ancestor, sharing what I know about the person and perhaps more importantly, what I don’t know.
This week I am turning the spotlight on one of my paternal great-great grandmothers, Dorothea Carson.
At the corner of Patrick and Ardgowan Streets in Greenock, Scotland, there stands a small church. Looking down Patrick Street, you can see the mouth of the River Clyde and the various Greenock shipyards along it’s banks. It was in this church that on 6 April 1869 that Dorothea Carson stood beside her maid of honour Margaret Forrest and married Thomas Commisky.
The marriage record of the event describes Dorothea as being 22 years of age. Both she and her 21-year old groom Thomas recorded that they lived at 4 Sir Michael Street in Greenock. Thomas listed his occupation as contractor’s carter. He appears to have learned his carting trade from his by then deceased father Terrence who is listed in the marriage record as having been a master carter. Dorothea’s parents are listed as John Carson, a contractor, and his wife, Sarah Ann Jones.
As happy as the wedding day was for Thomas and Dorothea, it wasn’t to last long. Just four months later, on 11 August 1869, Thomas died of smallpox. Dorothea was left a young widow with a baby girl, a daughter that she and Thomas had in January 1869 before they were married. They named their daughter Annie.
I don’t know what happened to Dorothea following the death of Thomas as neither she nor Annie appears either under the name of Commisky or Carson in the 1871 Census of Scotland. But Dorothea may have been used to tough times. Dorothea was born between 1846 and 1848 in Ireland, at a time when the infamous famine was ravaging that country. Dorothea first appears in the Scottish records in the 1861 census as a young teenager, working alongside two presumed Carson sisters as cotton mill workers. Dorothea and her presumed sisters, Susan and Janet, were boarders in the home of an Irish farmer in Bridge of Weir, Renfrew, Scotland.
It is known, however, that on 30 April 1878 Dorothea married for a second time in Kilbarchan, a small village outside of Bridge of Weir in Renfrew County. Her new husband was James Little. Although the record of this marriage states that James was a 30-year old forester, it is more likely that he was closer to 37-years of age.
Over the years, James and Dorothea settled into life together with James working in the nearby shipyards and Dorothea working working as a confectioner. On 2 April 1911, when the enumerator came to their door conducting the 1911 Census of Scotland, they recorded, I suspect with some pride, that they had been married for 33 years, had seven children (I know the names of six) of whom five were still alive. Just one week later however, James Little died. Dorothea followed James in death on 18 December 1916, a victim of Brights Disease.
Renfrew
52 Ancestors: Agnes Little (1908-1958)
Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small genealogy blog suggested a weekly blog theme of ’52 Ancestors’ in her blog post “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.” I decided to take up the challenge of the 52 Ancestors blog theme as a means to prompt me into regularly sharing the stories of my ancestors. So over the course of 2014 I will highlight an ancestor, sharing what I know about the person and perhaps more importantly, what I don’t know.
Agnes Little was ‘Granny’ to me. My paternal grandmother, she was as her surname implied small in stature at just four feet, ten inches in height, but a giant force in her family.
Agnes was born, according to her birth registration, at 6:10 AM at 1 Harvie Lane in the West District of Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland. She joined her young parents, James Little, an 19-year old apprentice iron caulker (better known now as a riveter), and his wife Margaret Mitchell, an 18-year old mother of one, that is Agnes’ older brother Edward Sweeney Little. Agnes’ parents had married in March 1906 when they were just 17 and 16 years old respectively. Over the next few years, Agnes would be there to welcome two additional brothers and a sister into her parent’s family.
Perhaps it was a sense of adventure but more likely, it was a desire to find greater opportunity under the Empire Settlement Act of 1922 that lead Agnes to leave Scotland in 1928. And so, on 16 Jun 1928, with her one-way, third class ticket in hand, Agnes boarded the ship ‘Regina’ of the infamous White Star Line in the Port of Greenock bound for Quebec City in Canada. Her immigration records show that Agnes had been working as a domestic servant in Greenock but planned to work as a “Ward Maid” in Toronto, Ontario where she had accommodation waiting for her at the Salvation Army Hostel.
I can’t imagine that I have ever had enough of a sense of adventure nor the bravery that I think was needed to make this kind of move. As my children know, my sense of adventure has a much smaller geographic reach, larger than that of my parents, but still incredibly minute when compared to my grandmother. And, Agnes relocated thousands of miles from the only home she knew with only $10 in her possession!
Before leaving Scotland, Agnes was told that when she arrived in Toronto, she could look up the Haddens, a family of Scots who had emigrated to Canada just a few years earlier. Agnes did as she was told and by October 1929 she was married to the youngest Hadden son, John.
Agnes died at the too young an age of 50 on 18 Nov 1958 and is interred at Pine Hills Cemetery in Toronto.
While I remember her, I admit the memories are now vague but my mother loved to recall for me how Agnes, two weeks before she passed away and in spite of the debilitating anguish of the cancer that would claim her life, mustered up the strength to hide from me and feign fright when I visited her to show off my Halloween costume.
And of course, my mother never failed to remind me of Granny’s favourite expression, spoken with her best Scottish brogue, “Me tongue’s me passport.”
52 Ancestors: Margaret ‘Maggie’ Mitchell (1889-1976)
Amy Johnson Crow of the No Story Too Small genealogy blog suggested a weekly blog theme of ’52 Ancestors’ in her blog post “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.” I decided to take up the challenge of the 52 Ancestors blog theme as a means to prompt me into regularly sharing the stories of my ancestors. So over the course of 2014 I will highlight an ancestor, sharing what I know about the person and perhaps more importantly, what I don’t know.
Margaret ‘Maggie’ Mitchell was one of my paternal great grandmothers. She is high on my list of “If Only I Had Known Then What I Know Now” ancestors. As far as I know, I am the first of her great grandchildren and more importantly, she was the only one of my great grandparents living at the time I was born. Potentially, I could have had a chance to meet and get to know her a little. Sure, there were obstacles in the way of that meeting, like an ocean of distance separating us, but most significantly, I didn’t know she was still alive as I grew up likely because I never asked instead, I just assumed that she like all my other great grandparents had passed away years before I was born.
Maggie was born on 22 April 1889, the second child and daughter of William Mitchell and Agnes Sweeney, in the middle district of Greenock, Renfrew, Scotland. At the time of her birth, the Mitchell family was living at 3 West Quay Lane in Greenock. Her father, William, listed himself as a shipyard labourer in Greenock when he registered her birth on 24 April 1889.
Life in the working class of the late 19th century could be tough and that is how I imagine it likely was for Maggie and her family. At some point in the 1890’s, likely around 1895, William abandoned his family. In an 1899 birth registration for her daughter Agnes, Agnes Mitchell listed herself as “wife of William Mitchell who, she declares is not the father of the child, and that she has had no personal communication with him for 4 years.” In the 1891 Census of Scotland, Agnes can be found living in Greenock and recorded as working as a shopkeeper. Also living in her household, was Joseph Branchfield who Agnes married in 1905 and with whom she had additional children. During this tumultuous time, Maggie and most of her siblings were sent off to live with their maternal grandmother, Helen (or sometimes seen as Ellen) Sweeney (alternate spelling is Sweenie).
In 1906, some calm seems to have been restored to Maggie’s life as she married James Little, an apprentice iron worker, on 22 March at 48 Kelly Street in Greenock. Maggie was only 16 years old when she married but James, her new husband, was a much older, mature 17 years of age. In spite of their youth, it appears that they achieved some stability as their family grew to include five known children: Edward Sweeney Little (born 1906), Agnes Little (my grandmother, born 1908), James Little (born 1910), John Little (born 1913), and one of my favourite grandaunts (Aunt Jennie) who I did have the great pleasure of meeting, Janet Triggs Little (born 1920).
It seems clear to me that Maggie and James honoured their ancestors in choosing names for their children. For example, Edward Sweeney Little named after Maggie’s maternal grandfather and Janet Triggs Little named after James’ aunt Janet (Little) Triggs.
In 1944, James Little passed away while Maggie lived until 1976 when she too passed way in her beloved Greenock.