Seeing My Great-Great Grandmother For The First Time

January 12, 2012March 5, 2015ianhadden1955 2 Comments

One of the motivations for my family history journey was the wondering about the family left behind when my ancestors left Scotland and Ireland. I have written about this previously. What happened to them and then their descendants? Where are they all now?

I have been lucky that through the marvels of technology, a.k.a. the Internet, I have been able to begin the process the making some of those re-connections with my long lost cousins from all parts of the globe, much to my amazement.

My most recent cousin connection has been with a cousin, Helen, who lives in New York City and her sister, Marie, who lives in my home province of Ontario, Canada! Both Helen and Marie had spotted a couple of my blog posts about our mutual ancestor, Agnes Sweeney who married William Mitchell and then Joseph Branchfield.

I have always been proud of the adversity that my ancestors faced and overcame. Agnes was certainly no exception. She was born in a Paisley, Renfrewshire poorhouse in 1870 and was only 15 years old when she married my second great grandfather William Mitchell. She became a mother for the first time when she only 16. Sometime following the birth of their fifth child, William disappeared. What happened to him is still not known. Did he abandon the family? Or, was there something else like an imprisonment or an institutional confinement? I may never really know.

Agnes married Joseph Branchfield in 1905. Joseph had been a boarder in Agnes’ house which was located near the docks in Greenock, Scotland where Joseph worked. It appears that Agnes may have finally enjoyed some stability in her home life until her death in 1928.

And now, thanks to cousin Helen, I have a photo of Agnes who is pictured with Joseph and five of their children. I can certainly see some resemblance to my paternal grandmother who was Agnes’ granddaughter.

A Review of 2011 And a 2012 Forecast

January 4, 2012ianhadden1955 1 Comment

It’s that time of the year again. A time to review accomplishments from the previous year and set some goals for the upcoming year.

Last year, 2011, was affected by my ongoing recovery from Guillain Barre Syndrome, which hospitalized me from October through to mid-December 2010. In February 2011, I returned to work, and yes, I now admit it that was too soon. My recovery and the lingering mobility challenges I face meant that we could not travel as we might have wanted. The impact was no conference attendance! But still, some research work did get successfully completed.

I was able to find and trace the sensational Vermilyea murder that occurred in Belleville, Ontario in 1934 and is connected to my wife’s Faulkner family branch. I recounted in a series of posts some of the Irish immigration experience that my family would have experienced in their 19th century immigration to North America.

I was able to scan the four volumes of diaries left by my wife’s great grandfather Louis Henry Wagner documenting his experiences from December 1872 through to November 1891, from the time he was in his teen years through his education, his first marriage, the birth of my wife’s grandfather, the death of his first wife and eventually through to his second marriage. They provide a fascinating glimpse into life in 19th century rural Ontario, Canada, seen through the experiences of a young man trying to establish himself.

I obtained the court records concerning the trial of my third great grandmother, Rosannah Mitchell (nee Dowds) that lead to a series of posts about the calibre of the evidence used to convict her and send her to prison for eight years.

Most importantly, I was able to connect with a number of ‘new’ cousins whom I had not had the pleasure of knowing, which then lead to sharing family information and photos. These connections are invaluable to me!

So what beckons in 2012? Well, more recovery and on a personal note, and especially important, is retirement and, with that, the ability to dedicate more quality time to genealogy – attending society meetings my work schedule didn’t permit, attending at least one conference, furthering my genealogy education that I have only been able to dabble in.

Most importantly, in 2012, as a retired person, I will be able to spend time doing what I like to do best – hanging out with my wife and sharing all the experiences that life brings us! It should be a great year!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town!

December 24, 2011March 5, 2015ianhadden1955 2 Comments

Tonight’s the big night for all of us kids!

Christmas Eve in my parental home involved a mandatory bath followed by dressing in new pajamas before placing our Christmas stockings (large red felt socks) on the living room, and later recreation room, sofa. Each year was of course marked by a trip to see Santa and share with him what we wanted for Christmas, and to pose for a photo.

Below, my sister, my brother and I are pictured with Santa. I guess the photo to be from about 1964 based on our apparent ages. I love the galoshes we were required to wear as well as my Davy Crockett ‘bulky-knit’ sweater, made by our mother, and especially becoming with the wool ‘fringe’ adorning each arm!

Platt S. Miller’s Magazine Cover

December 14, 2011March 5, 2015ianhadden1955 Leave a comment

Platt S. Miller married Catherine Kimmerly on New Year’s Day in 1854. The marriage took place in Napanee, Lennox and Addington County, in what is now the Province of Ontario, Canada. Catharine was my wife Ellen’s first cousin, four times removed.

Although I had information about Platt and Catherine, Platt again came to my attention when I discovered his photo on the cover of the Ontario Genealogical Society’s quarterly magazine, Families, Vol. 32, No. 2 (pictured to the right) from May 1993, while I was doing some volunteer proofreading work for the OGS.

This find was a stroke of luck! Although the information about the cover photo of Platt is not sourced, it nonetheless provides several leads about Platt, Catharine and their family. The following is the information provided about Platt and his photo:

“This photograph of Platt S. Miller, metal moulder, shown with the tools of his trade, comes to us from Margaret Jane Snider of Ocean Springs, MS.

Platt S. Miller was born in Napanee, Canada West, on 17 December 1830. He was the son of Garrett Miller, tailor, and Eleanor Wright.

Platt married Catherine Kimmerly on 1 January 1854 in Napanee. Their known children are: Margaret A. Eleanor, born 20 Novemeber 1854; Henry, born c.1856; George Maitland, born c.1860; Alice Felindann, born 5 May 1862 in Napanee; Catherine Adelaide; Francis Augustus; Aseneth, died at 6 or 7 years.

Platt and Catherine lived in Napanee through the 1860s then moved to the village of Almont, township of Almont, Lapeer County, Michigan, where Platt worked at the Lockhurd Foundry.

Catherine Kimmerly was born 1 July 1828/9 in Canada West, the daughter of Henry Kimmerly and Margaret Fretz, and the granddaughter of Andrew Kimmerly, UEL. She died 25 October 1906.

Platt S. Miller died 24 September 1900 in Almont and was buried there in the Ferson cemetery with his wife.

The original of this photo is a tintype, and is unusual in that Mr. Miller is pictured in his work clothes and with his tools. People of that period are usually photographed in their finery, so this picture is to be valued.”

Platt and Catherine can be found living in Almont in the 1870, 1880, and 1900 US Federal Census records. In 1900, they reported that they had nine children but that only four were still living at the time. Thus far, I have been able to find eight of the nine children. More work is obviously need to track down their missing child.

The collection of Families can be found in the ‘Members Only’ section of the Ontario Genealogical Society’s website at http://www.ogs.on.ca/.

The Connection Has Been Made!

December 2, 2011ianhadden1955 1 Comment

In my last post, I recounted two “anonymous” comments that had recently been left for me on a May 2011 posting about William Mitchell’s disappearance or perhaps, his abandonment for whatever reason of his family sometime in the mid-1890’s. Both of the comments indicated that William’s wife, Agnes Sweeney, my second great grandmother, had taken in a little girl named Mary Lafferty and raised her as her own. By the time this had occurred, Agnes had re-married to Joseph Branchfield and so little Mary was essentially raised as a Branchfield family member.

I concluded the last post by requesting that those who had left the comments to please contact me. I’m happy to report that Marie and Helen, daughters of Mary Lafferty Branchfield have contacted me and the information that they have begun to share is also pouring in (more about some of the discoveries and surprises provided so far will be shared in future posts).

Needless to say, I am thrilled to have been able to connect with these new ‘cousins.’ Although neither knew my second great grandmother (as Agnes passed away in 1928), they did know Agnes’ children well as their aunts and uncles. I’m certain to learn much more about these family members who until now had only been names on records and in my database.

This branch of the family (my father’s maternal line) moved from Scotland to the United States many years ago. While I always have wondered about the hardship of immigration that my ancestors experienced, particularly leaving family behind, usually knowing they would never again be seen, I continue to be amazed that we cousins could be living so close together and yet not know it. Just as I am amazed, based on the information about members of this family branch, about family resemblances, talents, and choices of employment that seem to run inexplicably through the family.

So thank you to Marie and Helen for reaching out and if there are more Branchfields out there, I’m waiting to hear from you too!

3 Harvie Lane, Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland

November 27, 2011ianhadden1955 2 Comments

I was fascinated this past week by a comment left on an older blog post (May 2011) by Patricia. The blog post detailed the ‘disappearance’ of my great great grandfather William Mitchell sometime in 1890’s, essentially his abandonment of his family.

Patricia shared through her comment that my great great grandmother, Agnes (nee Sweeney) Mitchell Branchfield, had taken in her grandmother Mary Lafferty and raised her as her own. According to Patricia’s comment, Mary referred to Agnes as her mother and to Agnes’ children as her siblings. Clearly signs of very close relationships and most understandable given what must have been the circumstances.

Unfortunately, the 1911 Scottish Census, the most recent made public, does not show Mary Lafferty living with Agnes and her family. In 1911, Agnes was residing at 3 Harvie Lane in Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland with her second husband Joseph Branchfield and their five children and two children from Agnes’ first marriage (listed as step-sons to Joseph). On the census record, 3 Harvie Lane is listed as a “Common Lodging House,” containing 13 rooms with windows and providing a home to 36 people. The most likely Mary Lafferty that I have found in 1911 Greenock was born around 1908 and whom might have become orphaned around 1918.

Common lodging houses were not the abode for the rich and famous and were often of significant concern for health and criminal activity issues in the 19th century United Kingdom. So my great great grandmother did not lead a life of luxury but more likely faced a daily struggle to make ends meet and keep her family intact. Joseph, her husband, at least worked, like most men in the area, at the nearby shipyards where he was employed as a labourer.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that 3 Harvie Lane exists any longer, likely having given way to some form of Greenock modernization. So Patricia, if you are reading this post, please contact me with more information at ianhaddenfamilyhistory@gmail.com.

A Story Debunked – The Case of Margaret (Graham) O’Neill

November 5, 2011March 5, 2015ianhadden1955 Leave a comment

Margaret Graham was born on September 5, 1854 in Canada West (previously Upper Canada and now the province of Ontario). As her birth was before civil registration commenced and as I have not yet checked the Roman Catholic records for area churches, I suspect her birth occurred in Simcoe County, north of Toronto as that is where the Graham family can be found in subsequent Canadian census returns.

Margaret was a student at the school in Holland Landing, Ontario when she was 6 years old according to the 1861 Canada Census. Her father, Patrick was a tailor from Ireland who had met and married her mother Catherine in Ontario. By 1871, the family had moved a bit further north in the province, settling in Sunnidale, Simcoe County, Ontario. It seems that by 1890, Margaret had had enough of life in mainly rural area in which she lived and so she she headed south to the city of Toronto.

It was here that met and on June 4th, 1894, she married William Emmett O’Neill. According to their marriage registration, neither had been previously married. I mention this fact as they married a little later in life than most. William was 42 years old and Margaret was 38. Oh, how their lives must have changed when over the course of the next four years, Margaret gave birth to a son (my grandfather John Graham O’Neill) and two daughters (Kathleen and Avila).

Although the family resided primarily in the west end of Toronto, they eventually moved to a house they purchased from their son’s future father-in-law, John Foley, at 189 Pickering Street in the city’s east end. This is where a family story passed on to me from my mother begins and now ends.

The house at 189 Pickering was not only lived in by my great grandparents through the 1920’s and 1930’s but was passed on through the family eventually becoming my parent’s first home when they married in 1953. The house is small by today’s standards, a two bedroom semi-detached home that was functional but could be cramped at times. According to my mother, Margaret (Graham) O’Neill died in the ‘master,’ front bedroom of 189 Pickering Street in 1937. When I lived in the house the story didn’t really bother me but later in life, as I began documenting my family’s histroy, I thought it a little creepy that I might have conceived in the very room that my great grandmother died in.

But she didn’t! As a result of re-checking databases (in this case the Ontario death records on Ancestry), I found Margaret’s death certificate. Margaret died on March 2, 1937 at St. Joseph’s Hospital of chronic heart problems, a long way from my first home on Pickering Street. In fact, according to Avila O’Neill, who was the informant listed on the certificate, Margaret and Avila were residing together at 1739 Dundas Street West prior to Margaret’s hospitalization. The funeral arrangements were made through Ryan and Son Undertakers on Dundas Street West and Margaret was buried alongside her husband William in Mount Hope Cemetery in Toronto on March 5, 1937.

A ‘creepy’ family story debunked and a lesson to re-check already mined databases learned!

Checking It Twice

October 14, 2011ianhadden1955 2 Comments

I’ve discovered unanticipated rewards for messing up by not including source citations in my genealogy database and having to now spend hours correcting the errors of my ways.

To give you a sense of scale, my database has almost 21,000 facts and just over 12,000 citations and that is after many hours of effort to correct the situation! While I have admittedly had a tendency to focus on my direct paternal Hadden ancestral line or puzzling maternal lines like that of John Foley, needing to add source citations has drawn me to revisit ancestral family lines like the Sweeneys, connected to my paternal grandmother.

As I have proceeded through my ancestral families, where I have cited fact sources I have been attaching the digital images of the documents, usually in JPEG format. Adding the images not only makes for a more robust database but eliminates the need to later hunt for the document on my computer hard drive if I want to review it at a later date. One difficulty I have encountered is having a fact but no digital image that I used as the fact source, applicable where I know a digital image was available and used. This has ‘forced’ me to re-think the fact to ensure that it fits and usually to re-search for the record. I have been successful in retracing my original research and finding the source but now I look at the source information with, I hope, a more mature understanding of genealogy research. Questioning the search results with even basic questions like ‘Is this really the right family?’ and “Do the ages or dates match for all family members?’ has uncovered some facts that I once believed to be true that are not correct for my family.

The best example I can offer was my tracing of a Hadden family through Aberdeenshire, Scotland several years ago only to later, based frankly on gut instinct, to discover that the family was in no clear way, related to me. All because I had neglected to look at all of the information that my great grandfather’s birth record offered. Specifically in that case, I had neglected to pay attention to the occupation listed for my great great grandfather.

Checking the the facts and sources twice is allowing me to not only improve the quality of my database but also to ‘prune’ the family tree of unverifiable facts and in some cases individuals.

In my next post, I will share a discovery on the Sweeney family that I had not for some reason noticed previously, even though I have had a copy of the digital image of the record for years.

Been Away For Too Long

October 10, 2011ianhadden1955 1 Comment

It’s been far too long since I added to my blog but I’ve been in the research desert, and thus I had little to share. As America sang, “In the desert you can remember your name …” but that felt like about all I could remember or offer.

While research leads turned into dead ends, I began to focus on updating my genealogy database, making up for my carelessness in the early days. You know, entering data based on reliable sources, usually with documents I had saved electronically on my computer hard drive, but no sources cited. Who needed a source citation when I had the original document? When I had finally realized the error of my ways, I suspected that my database really couldn’t be in too bad a shape. Wrong again!

Lots of great information and facts about the 12,000+ ancestors are contained in the database however, my rookie way of thinking left me without having all of the facts displayed with proper source citations. Even though I find it easy to add the citations with my RootsMagic 4 software, it is nonetheless very time consuming. In addition to citing the sources, I have been attaching the supporting documents to the facts and although this takes just a few extra computer ‘clicks,’ it does represent even more time especially because I don’t always remember where I filed the original document!

So, although I have been somewhat absent from blogging, I have been tediously busy with genealogy! The only time saver for me has been using a new computer that is so much faster at completing tasks than the five plus years old computer that I thought might last until I retire from my day job next summer. Lesson learned – when it takes twenty minutes for your computer to start up, it’s time for a new computer!

As a footnote, I can’t let today pass without mentioning that today is the ‘anniversary of my death!’ While that sounds a bit (?) melodramatic, it was on this date one year ago that I ‘flatlined’ while in the intensive care unit of our local hospital. I guess if you are going to have that experience, being in the intensive care unit is the best place possible. While I have some clear memories of that day, the moment of crisis is not one of them. Based on what the doctors, nurses and my wife, Ellen, have told me, the ascending paralysis caused by Guillain-Barre Syndrome managed to reach my chest, causing me to stop breathing and subsequently go into complete arrest. Ellen had been called into the hospital very early that morning by the nurses who had been observing my rapidly declining health. She arrived just as the medical emergency was called.

If not for the quick actions by the hospital’s medical staff, I wouldn’t be here today. I certainly owe them a huge debt of thanks!

From Leather to the Pulpit

September 20, 2011ianhadden1955 Leave a comment

Not all of my great grandparents could read and write which perhaps explains why I have not heard of any letters or family records containing their thoughts and reflections. My wife Ellen on the other hand is more fortunate. Her great grandfather Louis Henry Wagner (1857-1945) began a diary when he was 15 years old. In all, Louis filled four leather bound diaries in his lifetime although he did not make daily entries during his ‘diary days’ of December 1872 to November 1891.

While census records along with birth, marriage, and death vital records help build a framework of family activities, Louis’ diaries put ‘meat on the bones’ of that framework, helping to explain how events unfolded and decisions were made. In reading through Louis’ diaries, I was particularly taken with his entry of August 4th, 1877 when he provided a summary of the events of the previous four years during which time he had fallen away from using his diary.

Louis wrote:

“Recalling the principle events which happened within the last four years, it is quite probable that I may miss some very important occurrences for which though I am myself to blame, since I neglected to keep a diary until the beginning of the present year.

In the Fall of the year [18]73, I quit schooling and bargained with my uncle [Louis Breithaupt] to learn the tanning trade to which Grandpa [Jacob Hailer] would not consent since the term I was required to serve – being five years – would take me some months longer than my 21st birthday. This afterwards proved a benefit to me. The bargain was made as Uncle today certifies on Grandpa’s back porch. Of course, all orally. It was as follows: That I was to stay in the tannery three years – being taught there in that time everything that was to be learned. The remaining two years I was to serve in the store. I was to receive my board at his house and either an annual pay of $50.00 or annually $30.00 and the remaining $100.00 at the end of the term of five years. This was left to my option. Of course, I decided for the former.

Grandpa said: Do as you please; but I’ll not consent.

But there remained the old story: I had to do anything and everything. Was to do this and was to do that. Never set to work at anything to be learned at the trade. I complained. Uncle told me to work at anything I liked in the tannery. I did so as well as I knew how but being a boy of 16, I failed the object I sought after. As matters stood, I was perfectly disgusted with Uncle on my apprenticeship.

I was therefore heartily glad when Will [William Henry Breithaupt] went to Toronto on 17th March 1874, and gave me a chance to get into the leather store. I therefore took that position to which Uncle did not even say a word, knowing full well that I would earn him more there than in the tannery. Here I remained until the Fall of 1875.

In the meantime Will had taken a “B” certificate in Day’s commercial college and returned. Being not always needed in the store, we were sometimes sent to the tannery to make belts – something we hated to do more than anything else.

As it had been granted me in the bargain to go to some college during the term of my apprenticeship and as I was perfectly sick of being at home, so I insisted on Uncle that I would like to go the Northwestern College at Napierville, Illinois in the Fall of 1875. As he could do nothing else so he gave me always a mute reply which I took for his consent.

I consequently took leave of Berlin on or about the last of August….”

It was near the end of his first term at Napierville that Louis describes he “embraced true religion which afforded me unspeakable happiness” that lead him to a career as a minister in the Evangelical Association, like his father before him.

I sometimes find it difficult to determine the occupation or series of occupation that my great grandfathers pursued, let alone have a description left to me of exactly how my ancestor found his vocation.

Ian Hadden's Family History

Welcome to my genealogy blog featuring, primarily, the stories of the Hadden and Wagner families along with the occasional research tip and genealogy commentary from Ian Hadden

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