The Case of George Irvine – An Enigma Wrapped in a Conundrum

ianhadden1955 2 Comments
My cousin Pamela Gaull posted some comments on my recent blog post about one of our common ancestors, Mary Jane Gaull. In one of her comments Pamela pointed out that George Irvine, born George Gaull, had listed his father as being George Irvine on his marriage registration. Pamela makes a valid point in suggesting that the father of the twins could have been a man named George Irvine just as ‘young’ George listed on his marriage registration.

It got me to thinking about George and what we really know about him from the records found to date. So here is my analysis of those records and the questions that I still have lingering in my mind.

We know from George’s birth registration that he was born on February 8, 1860 at Whitehaugh, Chapel of Garioch, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom. George was one of two twin boys, the other being John Gaull, and their mother was Mary Jane Gaull. The births were registered by the twins’ grandfather, Mary Jane’s father, John Gaull on February 28, 1860 at Chapel of Garioch. The births were registered as being “illegitimate” and no father is named for the boys. According to the birth registration, George was born at 3:00 A.M. and his twin brother John was born at 4:00 A.M.

We know from the 1861 Census of Scotland that George was ‘boarded’ out to the family of James and Isabella Hooey who lived in nearby Inverurie. James and Isabella Hooey (the spelling of this surname was offered as Howie in the Will of the twins’ grandfather John Gaull) were not a childless couple in search of a child, for the same census that records George ‘boarding’ with them also records that the Hooey’s had three daughters living with them in the household. These daughters were aged 22, 15 and 12.

Were the Hooey’s (or Howie’s) in search of a son? I don’t know. James Hooey was recorded as being 47 years old in 1861 and his wife Isabella was recorded as being 48 years old at the same time. Given the age of their youngest daughter in 1861, that is 12, the Hooey’s would have been 35 and 36 when that daughter was born respectively, therefore young enough to have had additional children. Their youngest daughter would have been born about 1849 thus pre-dating civil registration in Scotland. Each of the three Hooey daughters recorded in the 1861 census record are recorded as being born in Aberdeenshire suggesting a likely long-term residency for the family in the county. Yet the Old Parish Registers, Catholic Registers and the civil registrations do not provide any additional Hooey children either being born or having died. There were 39 births registered between 1835 – 1854 under the surname of Howie but none with the parents recorded as James and Isabella.

It is in my view then still a mystery as to why George, the oldest of the twins, was ‘boarded’ out. I also can find no record suggesting that there was a financial transaction involved in the ‘boarding’ out of George.

There is evidence that the family kept ‘tabs’ on George though. For example, in his Will, dated December 3rd, 1892, Mary Jane Gaull’s father, John Gaull refers to his acknowledged grandson George as “George Gaull sometimes named George Howie [or Heowie], sometimes George Irvine.” John Gaull, the grandfather, directed that one hundred British pounds sterling be paid to George from his estate. Clearly, John Gaull knew of George’s surname change(s).

In all of the records I have reviewed, it seems that there are only two likely candidates as the father of the twin boys. Alexander Glennie, the man who married Mary Jane Gaull just a few months after she gave birth to the twins, and George Irvine, the man named by twin George (Gaull) Irvine on his marriage registration in 1883. I am not convinced however that there is evidence, meeting the Genealogical Proof Standard, for a determination that either man is their father.

The only evidence in favour of the case for Alexander Glennie is the circumstance of his marrying Mary Jane Gaull six months after she gave birth to the twins. However, there is no evidence that Alexander accepted Mary’s child John and assisted in raising the boy. In the 1871 Census of Scotland, Alexander and Mary Glennie are found residing at Tillyfro in Cluny whereas the then eleven year old John Gaull is residing with his grandparents John and Mary Gaull in Chapel of Garioch. In 1881, the twin John Gaull was still living with his grandfather who by then was widowed.  
Both of the twin boys were married in 1883. John Gaull married Harriet McKenzie on June 15th at New Inn in Cluny and George (Gaull) Irvine married Isabella Watt on December 5th  at 48 High Street in Airdrie. As was required, both of the twins were asked to provide information about their parents as part of the registration process for their marriages.

John did not provide a name for his father, rather he simply indicated his mother to be “Mary Gaull married since birth of Bridegroom to Alexander Glennie and now his widow.” Twin brother George however provided the names of his father as George Irvine, a farm servant, and his mother as “Mary Irvine MS [maiden surname] Gall.” Aside from the misspelling of the Gaull surname on George’s marriage registration, it is known that his mother Mary did not marry, and was not married at the time of George’s marriage, to a man named George Irvine. John’s marriage registration recording of his parent’s names is accurate whereas George’s is not accurate with respect to the recorded marriage of his stated parents. That Mary Gaull and George Irvine never married is fact however, that fact in and of itself does not rule out the possibility that a man named George Irvine was the father of the twins George and John Gaull.

In order to determine if George Irvine is possibly the father of the twins, it is necessary to find a man named George Irvine who was of an age and living in close enough proximity of Mary Gaull to be the father. There were six men named George Irvine living in Aberdeenshire in 1861, the year following the birth of the twins when the census was taken. One of these was just one year old in 1861 so he can be ruled out as the possible father. Two other men are unlikely to be the father because of their age; one was 77 years old in 1861 and the other was 55 years old and while they might have had the potential for fathering children, it is unlikely they would have been in an intimate relationship with a 22 year-old Mary Jane Gaull. 

Two of the remaining three men were of the ‘right’ age, one was 27 years old in 1861 so would have been about 25 in 1859 when Mary became pregnant but he lived in Fraserburgh, about 37 miles away. The other man was 23 years old in 1861 so he would have been about 21 years old when Mary became pregnant, that is, he was the ‘right’ age for a relationship with Mary but he lived in Foveran, a distance of more than 20 miles away. I think both of these men can be ruled out of fathering the twins because they don’t appear to have been living close enough to Mary to have been in a relationship with her.

This leaves only one George Irvine, who was recorded as being 20 years old in 1861 so would have been about 18 or 19 years old in 1859. This George Irvine lived in Old Meldrum, a distance of about seven and one-half miles away. He is also recorded as having be born in Chapel of Garioch so was familiar with the town and many of it’s families. Of all the George Irvines in Aberdeenshire at the time, this man appears to be the most likely candidate to be the father identified by George Gaull Irvine. 

In addition to being about the right age and living in close proximity to Mary Gaull, this George Irvine was a farm servant, just as George Gaull Irvine would record for his father’s occupation on his marriage registration. George Irvine, the possible father, is recorded in the 1861 Census of Scotland as being a ploughman servant to David Philip, a farmer of 197 acres.

Unfortunately that is where the evidence seems to end. I am still left with two possible fathers for the twin boys, George and John Gaull. I have found no record in which John Gaull states the name of his father and the only record found to date in which George states the name of his father is his marriage registration. But that recording of the father’s name is built around a fabricated marriage between his mother Mary Gaull and a man named George Irvine.

My cousin Pamela might be right. A man named George Irvine could be the father of the twins. But until additional records are found, I am of the opinion that we can’t definitively determine the identity of the father of the twin boys John and George Gaull. We can only determine good possibilities.
Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: Mary Jane Glennie (nee Gaull) 1837-1925

ianhadden1955 3 Comments

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.

Mary Jane Glennie (nee Gaull) is my 3X great grandmother and one of several ancestors that I would love to have had a chance to meet. Mary didn’t invent anything for the betterment of mankind; she wasn’t famous at all but I have always had an impression that Mary was one of those ‘tough-as-nails’ on the surface but marshmallow interior individuals who all of us likely know at least one of. There is no singular incident that leads me to this impression. It based purely on my view of her life in it’s entirety.

Mary Gaull was born around 1837 in Broomhill, Kintore, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She was the daughter, and unusually it appears the only child, of John Gaull, a farm overseer, and his wife Mary Christie. It is likely that Mary’s upbringing was comfortable for the times, but by no means extravagant, given her father’s farming abilities. But her upbringing was also likely rather strict as her father appears to have maintained high moral standards.

Life for Mary Gaull thus became more difficult when she gave birth to twin boys, out of wedlock, in February 1860. Mary named her sons George and John but the name of the twins’ father has not been found in any record to date. As was the practise in Scotland at the time, the birth registrations for the twin brothers clearly and boldly labels them to be “illegitimate” children. Mary’s father, John Gaull even decades later in his will referred to them as his “illegitimate” grandsons.

I have commented previously that I do not know the reason but it is clear from all records that Mary ‘gave’ one of her twin sons, George, to the family of James and Isabella Hoey (or Hooey or Howie) who lived in Inverurie. George would later change his surname to Irvine. Mary raised her remaining son John (one of my great great grandfathers) in her parents home, but only for a few months, for in August 1860, when the twins were just six months old, Mary married Alexander Glennie at Chapel of Garioch. 

Alexander Glennie was a farmer who settled his wife, her son, and eventually the five known children that Alexander and Mary had together on a 60 acre farm at Tillyfro, Cluny, Aberdeenshire. Was it possible that Alexander Glennie was the father of the twin boys? Absolutely, but there is no evidence found to date other than the circumstance suggested by his marrying Mary so soon after she gave birth to the boys.

Sadly, Alexander died in February 1879 leaving the farm to his wife. Mary was aided in the running of the farm with monies from her husband’s estate along with monies subsequently inherited from her father’s estate when he died in 1892. 

When John Gaull died, according to his estate file, he left money for his grandson George Irvine and ‘liferent’ on the Gaull farm at Cairnley to his other grandson John Gaull. The residual of the estate went to his daughter Mary Glennie, minus the amount of 250 British pounds which John claimed in his Will that Mary had borrowed to aid in settling her husband Alexander’s estate. Mary denied that she owed her father the money and John Gaull’s estate executors finding no “voucher” nor other corroborating documentation of any such loan noted their finding in the estate inventory, deducting a single shilling from the estate seemingly as a token gesture to John’s wishes. 

Mary thus continued to run the farm at Tillyfro, hiring farm hands as needed, until her own death at the age of 88 on the 30th of March 1925.  Mary Jane (Gaull) Glennie was laid to rest in the kirkyard of the church in Cluny, Aberdeenshire, in the same grave as her son James who had died six years earlier at the age of 51.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: Gertrude Ellen (or Ellen Gertrude) O’Neill (nee Foley) 1898-1962

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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.

‘Gertie’ is my maternal grandmother. Gertie is the name my grandfather, her husband, J. Graham O’Neill called her. I just don’t really know if Gertie, short for Gertrude, was her first name or her middle name.

She was born on April 16, 1898 in Toronto, York County, Ontario, Canada. She was the third child and first daughter of John Foley, who listed his occupation as teamster on her birth registration and his wife Mary Jane Fitzgerald. 

Although he became a very successful businessman, John Foley could not read nor write but he did register the births of his children – and signed each birth registration (as he had been taught how to sign his name for business purposes). Because he couldn’t read, John Foley signed the registrations even when they had his children’s names recorded incorrectly. The family also had the habit of calling their children by their middle names. Eldest son Lewis Fitzgerald Foley was called Gerald, next son William Clarence was called Clarence but his birth was registered under the name William Dorsey!

So was my grandmother Gertrude Ellen or Ellen Gertrude? I don’t really know for certain and perhaps, it doesn’t really matter. Her birth registration states Gertrude Ellen and her baptismal record states Ellen Gertrude. Her death registration states Gertrude Ellen but my grandfather was the informant for the registration so he was likely stating what he commonly believed to be true. To add some confusion, the 1901 Census of Canada lists her as Ellen G. Foley. Most records including her marriage registration and newspaper announcements about the wedding say her name was Gertrude Ellen so I guess that is what I will go with.


Gertrude Ellen (Foley) O’Neill with her husband J. Graham O’Neill and their first grandchild, Ian Hadden



Gertrude was born at 25 Blong Avenue in an area of the city now referred to as Leslieville. Soon after her birth, she was baptized in St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church, the same church in which her parents had married four years earlier. One week before her first birthday however, the family was turned upside down when her mother Mary Foley died of “septic poisoning.” 

For the next four years, Gertrude and her older brothers were cared for by housekeepers that her father hired. For example, in 1901, it was Mrs. O’Sullivan, an Irish widow who, along with her two teenage children, came to live with the Foleys and kept house. The family circumstance changed in October 1903 when John Foley married Annie McElroy. Life seems to have not only stabilized a bit but also got more comfortable for Gertrude as her father’s business became more and more successful and the family’s wealth grew.

On June 23, 1926, wearing a peach coloured georgette gown with matching peach coloured hat, Gertrude Foley married John Graham O’Neill at St. Brigid’s Roman Catholic Church, both signing the church marriage register as a soloist sang Ave Maria. At the wedding reception, held at her parent’s home on Queensdale Avenue, Gertrude was presented with a white gold wristwatch by the groom. Her father gave the newlyweds a house at 189 Pickering Street as a wedding gift.

They would not live in that house however until sometime in 1937 when they returned to Toronto following the death of Graham’s mother. It had been a tough economic time, the Depression era had set in and they had moved with their eldest child to Detroit in 1929 where Graham had been offered a job. Over the eight years they lived in Detroit, Gertrude had given birth to two additional children, a daughter (my mother) and then a second son.

Back in Toronto, Gertrude and Graham settled into life raising their children, seeing each of them marry, and then welcoming grandchildren.

I spent a lot of time with my grandmother Gertrude O’Neill or ‘Nanna’ as I called her because we lived just two houses away from her. I was her first grandchild and I admit that she put a lot of effort into spoiling me. I can still feel the devastation of July 13th, 1962 when I heard my mother calling across the street to a neighbour and telling the neighbour about my grandmother’s death that afternoon. My mother didn’t know at the time that I was in that neighbour’s kitchen, building model airplanes with the neighbour’s son.



Following a funeral at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church, Gertrude Ellen Foley O’Neill was interred in the O’Neill family plot at Mount Hope Cemetery where she would be joined years later, to forever rest in peace, by her husband Graham.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: Margaret O’Neill (nee Graham) (1854-1937)

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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 Graham was born on 8 September 1854, according to the records that I have been able to locate about her. Just over 100 years later, I would make her a great grandmother. I know that Margaret was born in the province of Ontario but I have been unable so far to find a record that provides a more precise location, although it is likely that Margaret’s family was living south of Barrie, Ontario at the time of her birth.

By 1861, Margaret can be found in the census records living in Holland Landing with her parents. Her father was Patrick Graham, a tailor from Ireland and her mother Catherine McRae, the Canadian born daughter of Scottish immigrants who were part of the Glengarry settlement. By the time Margaret was a teenager, her father had decided to take up farming and so the family moved to Sunnidale, Ontario, just west of the town of Barrie.

There is no record that I have found nor no family story that I have heard about how my great grandparents met, but on 4 June 1894, a 39-year old Margaret Graham married 45-year old William Emmett O’Neill in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church on Bathurst Street in Toronto. In spite of their ages at the time, it appears that this was the first marriage for both of them and they set about quickly to have three children in the next four years: first a son, John Graham O’Neill (my grandfather) in 1895, then a daughter Kathleen Marie O’Neill (who became a nun) in 1896, and finally another daughter Avila O’Neill (who never married) in 1898.

Margaret and her husband settled into what was from all appearances a quiet life in Toronto. While her husband William worked in the insurance business, Margaret tended to raising their three children and keeping house. When their son Graham, as he was called, was engaged to marry Gertrude Foley, Gertrude’s father John Foley informed the engaged couple that he was going to give them a house on Pickering Street in Toronto’s east end as a wedding gift. Graham and Gertrude convinced John Foley to instead sell the house to Graham’s parents. Margaret and William were residing in that house in 1924 when William died according to his death registration.


The O’Neill Family gravestone, Mount Hope Cemetery, Toronto, Ontario (photo by Ian Hadden)



Margaret continued to live in the house for a short time until she moved into a house with her daughter Avila at 1739 Dundas Street West in Toronto. She then lived with Avila until her own death at St. Joseph’s Hospital from chronic myocarditis on 2 March 1937. On 5 March 1937, Margaret was laid to rest to rest beside her husband William in Mount Hope Cemetery following a 9:00 a.m. requiem mass at St. Helen’s Roman Catholic Church.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

Calling All Merners – The 62nd Annual Merner Family Reunion Is Set

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The date is set for the 62nd Annual Merner Family Reunion! The reunion is being held again this year at the Seaforth (Ontario) Golf and Country Club on Sunday, July  13th beginning at 1:00 p.m. and includes nine holes of golf for those interested or family games at a nearby park for the non-golfers. The reunion is capped off by a social hour with a cash bar and a family barbecue. Cost for the dinner is $15 (Cdn) per adult and $7.50 per child 5 and under.

The reunion is organized by Ellen’s cousins Marg Nicholson and Liz Bartliff, whom like Ellen are descended from Jacob Emanuel Merner and his wife Susannah Schluchter. Ellen and I attended the reunion last year and had a great time. Of course, it was also great to meet so many previously unknown cousins.

Cousins Liz Bartliff, Ellen (Wagner) Hadden, and Marg Nicholson at the 61st Annual Merner Family Reunion in 2013


If you are connected to the Merner family, not too busy, and want to enjoy a great afternoon with great people, whether you golf or not, I encourage you to make the trip into southwestern Ontario for this family reunion. You can contact me at ian.hadden@rogers.com for more information on how to reserve a spot at the reunion.


Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: Andrew Gammie, Sr. (1861-1926) or Why My Family Moved to Toronto, Ontario?

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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.

When I became curious about the history of my family, some thirty plus years ago, one of the first people I spoke to was my great uncle Alexander Gaull Hadden, or Uncle Alec as I knew him. Uncle Alec told me what he knew of the family. His paternal grandmother was Helen Shand. She had given birth to his father, my great grandfather Alexander Shand Hadden and then later re-married a man named Gammie. In 1907, she and this Gammie fellow moved to Saskatchewan to homestead. Years later, she contacted her eldest child Alexander and invited him and his family to come join her working on the farm in Canada. In 1923, the Haddens accepted her invitation.  

The family story went a bit further but still lacked detail. Uncle Alec told me that his mother, Jessie Gaull, didn’t like it in Saskatchewan, with it’s bitter cold in winter, so in 1927, the family moved to Toronto, Ontario where Jessie had a brother George Gaull who owned a small grocery store. Uncle Alec also made a comment I wrote down in the notes I made during the family history interview with him and have kept to this day. The comment was that there was some tension between the Gammie boys and his father Alexander. No details. Nothing more said.


Andrew Gammie (1861-1926)



I first must confess that I am not genetically related to Andrew Gammie Sr. and I am not really descended from him. But Andrew Gammie Sr was the step-father to my great grandfather Alexander Shand Hadden as seen in the snippet below from the 1891 Census of Scotland.




Andrew Gammie was the eldest son in a family of ten known children (five boys and five girls) born to Andrew Gammie and his wife Jane Christie. Andrew was born on 28 Jun 1861 in Huntly, County of Aberdeen, Scotland. Andrew’s father was a successful farmer of 135 acres in Monqhitter, Aberdeen, Scotland, employing two men and a boy according to census records. It is very likely that Andrew worked on the farm and learned from his much from his father.

On the 14th of June, 1890, Andrew married Helen Shand, a domestic servant, in Ythan Wells. As the census record above shows, with Helen came her son Alexander Hadden whom she had raised on her own, supported by her Shand relatives. Andrew was 29 years old and Helen was 25 when they married. A year later, and just a few months after the 1891 census was taken, Helen gave birth to their first child, the first of three sons. They named him Andrew, like his father and grandfather before him.

Sons Peter and James, or ‘Jimmie’ as they called him, would follow over the next four years. Finally, in 1897, they had a daughter whom they named Helen, after her  mother. I’m not certain as to the reason, but Helen and Andrew later adopted a little girl born in 1904 named Whilimena (Williamina) Alexander, known in the family as ‘Minnie.’

Andrew supported his family by working as a farm servant and then as a baker’s van driver and grocer’s carter. Opportunity knocked, at least in Andrew Gammie’s eyes, when the Canadian government offered the chance at land ownership – for free. All that was required was moving half-way around the world to the prairies of Saskatchewan. It was with this promise in mind that Andrew and Helen along with their five Gammie children boarded the Lake Erie in April 1907 for the voyage to St. John, New Brunswick and from there to Stoughton, Saskatchewan where they would wait for their homestead application to be approved and land granted.

While they waited for their land, Andrew moved his family and worked on farms first in Morse, Saskatchewan and then in Anerley, Saskatchewan. Likely the lessons in farming he received from his father now served him well. Eventually, their homestead application was approved and the family settled on and began farming their own land near Aneroid, Saskatchewan.

As in all families, the kids grow up and begin making their own decisions. Such was the circumstance when on 17 May 1916, sons Peter and James enlisted in the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force. The two Gammie boys went off to fight in World War I but only one would return. Jimmie would die of shrapnel wounds suffered when the Allies were taking a bridge in Fricheux, France. He was buried not far away in a military cemetery outside of Arras, France.

Land that Jimmie had acquired in Saskatchewan, not far from the Gammie homestead was bequeathed to his mother Helen. It was help with this land that she sought when she invited her first-born Alexander Hadden to come to Saskatchewan. Eventually, Alexander agreed to the move and to help with the farming even though he really had no farming experience. I’m told by a member of the Gammie family that Helen had kept her correspondence and this offer secret and so I suspect it was quite the surprise to the Gammie children when their half-brother Alexander Hadden and his family showed up on the prairies in 1923. It is also likely that there was much that needed to be done so there was not much time to quibble about the new arrivals.

However, on 23 August 1926, at the age of 65, Andrew Gammie died. He also died intestate, meaning he had left no will. I don’t know the reason, but Helen, now a widow, chose the younger of her two surviving sons to be the executor of her husband’s estate. Andrew Gammie’s estate file records that Helen, Andrew Jr. and Helen, the daughter, all renounced their rights to letters of administration which were duly granted to Peter by the Surrogate Court, appointing him as executor.

On 11 January 1927, when Helen Gammie renounced her rights to the letters of administration in favour of her son Peter, she listed her husband Andrew’s survivors as: herself, her sons, Andrew Gammie Jr. and Peter Gammie, and Helen Gammie, then Mrs. Harold Hardement. No mention of step-son Alexander Hadden nor adopted daughter Minnie Alexander Gammie. Son Andrew’s renunciation instrument listed the same survivors.

However, just two and half weeks later on 29 Jan 1927, Peter Gammie signed his affidavit as executor that included an inventory of his father’s estate and a list of the surviving family members to whom the estate would pass. Those surviving family members were: his mother Helen who would receive as required by law one-third of the estate, Andrew Gammie Jr., Peter Gammie, Helen Gammie then Mrs. Harold Hardement, and Whilimena Gammie, adopted daughter. No mention of step-son Alexander Hadden.

The estate that they divided consisted of land valued at $7,000, the property described as West Half, Section 1 in Township 8, Range 11, West of the 3rd Meridian. The remainder of the estate consisted of a stove, kitchen cabinet, table, chairs, bed (valued at a combined $100), a wagon, two plows and a set of harrows (combined value of $135), and 6 horses at $60 per head (total $360). The total estate value was $7,595 of which Andrew’s widow Helen received $2,351.66.

And so, the Hadden family, just four years after leaving their home in Scotland appear to have been stranded, at least by circumstances on the prairies of Saskatchewan. Was this the cause of the tension my uncle had told me about? If it was, it seems entirely understandable to me. With apparently nothing for them in Saskatchewan, was this the reason the family moved to Toronto where at least there was some family support available? It seems entirely likely to me. 


Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: Margaret Wagner Bean (nee Hailer) 1831-1918

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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.

Over the past several weeks I have been highlighting one of my direct ancestors. This week, I am stepping away, just a little, from that practice. Rather than one of my direct ancestors, I am turning the spotlight onto one of my wife Ellen’s direct ancestors, her great great grandmother Margaret (or Margaretha) Wagner (nee Hailer).


Margaret Wagner Bean (nee Hailer) in 1906



The reason for this variance is simple. A week ago, Ellen and I were in the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo, Ontario to attend a family funeral. While driving to our hotel, I pointed to a street sign and Ellen’s eyes lit up as she knew the significance of the street name.


Margaret Avenue street sign (at intersection with Bridgeport Street East, Waterloo, Ontario)


Margaret Avenue runs roughly north from Kitchener’s downtown core, beginning at Queen Street North, to it’s termination just south of University Avenue in Waterloo. Margaret Avenue is also named in honour of Ellen’s great great grandmother Margaret Wagner (Fear, Jon, Flash from the Past: Many a train passed under Margaret Avenue Bridge, Kitchener Waterloo Record, 17 Dec 2010).

Margaret was born Margaretha Hailer, the eldest child of Johann Jacob Hailer and his wife Margaret Riehl. She was born in 1831 in Chippewa (now Niagara Falls), Upper Canada. Her parents, Jacob and Margaret Hailer settled in Chippewa soon after they married in 1830 but, not long after the birth of their first child, they moved to Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario. According to author and biographical sketch compiler A. J. Fretz (born 1849), Jacob and Margaret Hailer were the first German born settlers in the town of Berlin (Fretz, A. J.. A genealogical record of the descendants of Christian and Hans Meyer and other pioneers : together with historical and biographical sketches. Harleysville, Pa.: News Printing House, 1896, page 122).

Margaret grew up in Berlin with her four sisters – Catherine, Harriet, Marion, and Caroline – and their one brother, the youngest of the children, Jacob. In 1849 Margaret married Jacob Wagner, a minister in the Evangelical Association. Following their marriage the young couple set up house near Buffalo, New York where Jacob’s ministry as a preacher was headquartered. It was here that Margaret and Jacob were joined by their two children, Catherine, or Kate  as they called her, in 1851 and Louis Henry, who later followed in his father’s footsteps becoming a minister, in 1857. Life on the road was hard for Jacob and his health suffered as a result. So in November 1857, he decided to give up preaching and entered into a business partnership with his best friend Phillip Ludwig ‘Louis’ Breithaupt, a Buffalo tanner. Louis Breithaupt was also Jacob’s brother-in-law, having married Margaret’s sister Catherine after Jacob had introduced the two to each other. Each of them would contribute between $3,000-$4,000 dollars as capital to start a tannery operation In Berlin.

Margaret must have been elated at the prospect of having her husband home all the time, especially since the new business was to be established in Berlin, not far from her parental home. On April 1st, 1858, Jacob Wagner and Louis Breithaupt finalized their partnership agreement for what would become the Eagle Tannery. Jacob Wagner was established as the partner responsible for running the operation.

The good fortune did not last long however. Jacob died suddenly on 19 April 1858. Margaret’s parents were there to comfort and support the young widow, ensuring that Kate and young Louis went to school. In 1862, Margaret met and married Daniel Bean (Biehn), a school teacher and farmer from Blandford in neighbouring Oxford County. On marrying Daniel, Margaret left her son Louis in the care of her father so he could continue his education, at least until young Louis convinced his grandfather Jacob Hailer and uncle Louis Breithaupt that what he really wanted was to apprentice in the tannery business, a career that didn’t last long.

Margaret moved around southwestern Ontario with her husband Daniel as he moved between school teaching jobs. During their marriage, Margaret and Daniel had six known children. In 1885 Margaret was again widowed when Daniel died in Mildmay, Ontario. Now on her own and in her mid-50’s, Margaret moved back home once more where she lived in a house with her two youngest children Jacob and Margaret ‘Alma” Bean. When Alma married Alfred Bender in 1907, Margaret moved into a house with them.





On the morning of Sunday, July 7, 1918, Margaret (Hailer) (Wagner) Bean was found dead. Dr. J. F. Honsberger, the coroner, would determine that the cause of death was apoplexy (or stroke). Margaret was laid to rest on 12 July 1918 next to her first husband Jacob Wagner and beside her parents and Breithaupt in-laws in Kitchener’s Mount Hope Cemetery.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: William Emmett O’Neill (1849-1924)

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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.

William Emmett O’Neill, one of my great grandfathers, entered this world on 26 February 1849 in Barrie, Ontario, Canada – or as it was known at the time of his birth, Canada West. He was the son of Irish immigrants, John O’Neill and his wife, Mary Murphy. They were a Roman Catholic family who lived in a one-storey log house on land that John farmed.

When William was a young man of twenty-two, he found work as a labourer in Tay Township, close to Georgian Bay. By the time he was thirty years of age, he was caring for his widowed mother in Barrie, Ontario while working as a store clerk. William continued working for others in the Barrie, Ontario store into the early 1890’s and then decided, through an unknown inspiration, perhaps the death of his mother, that it was time to strike out on his own.

He moved to Toronto, found work again as a store clerk, but also found love. He met and married Margaret Graham on 4 June 1894 in St. Mary’s Church. Neither William nor Margaret were ‘spring chickens.’ William was 45 years old when he married, although he claimed to be only 42 perhaps in an effort to be closer in age to his bride Margaret who was 39 when she married. William and Margaret didn’t let age deny them the opportunity to have a family and so in 1895, just more than a year after their wedding, they welcomed their first child, and my grandfather, John Graham O’Neill into the world.

Two daughters would subsequently join the family. First, Kathleen Marie O’Neill, who would later join the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph and be known by her religious name as Sister St. Edwin, in 1896, and then Avila in 1898.

Early in his married and family life, William would change careers. No longer content working as a store clerk, he became an insurance agent, the source of employment for the remainder of his life. He moved his family into a house on Claremont Street in Toronto from where my grandfather told me, they would push their children in a baby carriage through muddy roads to attend the annual Canadian National Exhibition, a little over a mile away. Later, William and Margaret moved to a house further west in the city on Golden Avenue.




On 24 July 1924, at the age of 75, William Emmett O’Neill died in St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. His cause of death was listed as “uremia” or kidney failure. At the time of his death, William and Margaret were living at 189 Pickering Street in Toronto, a home they had purchased from their son’s father-in-law John Foley. This was the same house that I would live in for the first nine plus years of my life. On 26 July 1924, William Emmett O’Neill was laid to rest in Toronto’s Mount Hope Cemetery where he would eventually be joined in the family plot by his wife, youngest daughter, son and daughter-in-law, and their infant son.

As a tribute to his father, my grandfather named his youngest son, one of my uncles, William Emmett O’Neill. Uncle ‘Bill’ as he is known to me, has told me often how creepy it is to visit the cemetery and see the headstone at the family plot bearing his name.


Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: Daniel Fitzgerald (abt. 1806-abt. 1885)

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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.

Daniel Fitzgerald was my 3X great grandfather. He was the grandfather of Mary Jane Fitzgerald whom I profiled in this space last week. There are some things that I know about Daniel and many things that I still have not determined or proved.

I know that Daniel was born in Ireland. All records concerning Daniel are consistent is stating Ireland as his place of birth. Precisely when he was born however is still a bit of a mystery.

According to the 1840 U.S. Federal Census he was born between 1800 – 1810 as that census records Daniel as the male head of his household, aged between 30 and 40 years. The 1851 Census of Canada (taken in January of 1852) records his age as 45 thus placing his year of birth about 1806. In 1861, the census states he was 54 years old, so born about 1807. But in 1871, the census records his age as 68 years so born about 1803, and finally, the 1881 Census of Canada, the last census record in which Daniel appears, states he was 72 years old, so born about 1809. 

While a precise date of birth for Daniel eludes me, at least I know approximately when he was born and that he immigrated from Ireland to the United States. According to “The History of Toronto and County of York, Volume 2,” written by Graeme Mercer Adam and Charles Pelham Mulvany and published in 1885, Daniel, of whom the authors provided a biographical sketch, moved to Cape Vincent in New York State in 1825 where he settled into a farming life with his wife Rebecca Noble. Adam and Mulvany state that Rebecca was a native of New York State although there is some evidence, especially in census records that indicates Rebecca was also born in Ireland.

The  motivation is not known but Daniel and Rebecca moved moved their family from Cape Vincent to York Township, the area just outside the then eastern border of the city of Toronto. Adam and Mulvany state that this move took place in 1843 and that Daniel acquired 100 acres of land at Lot 5 on Concession 2. Early maps of Toronto and the surrounding area show Daniel Fitzgerald living just where Adam and Mulvany said he was, that is, on Lot 5, Concession 2.

Daniel farmed his land with his sons, most notably Lewis and Joseph. When Lewis ‘came of age,’ he purchased his own lot of land down the road on Concession 2 at Lot 8. Joseph however left York Township and spent a few years in Lambton County before returning home and purchasing the family homestead.

There should be a record of Daniel’s death as Daniel was alive in 1881, evidenced by his appearance in the census of that year, and this was well after compulsory civil registration of all births, marriages, and deaths commenced in the Province of Ontario in 1869. But no record can be found. 

The family clearly knew of the civil registration requirement for when Daniel’s wife, Rebecca, died in 1879, her death was registered (the cause of death being listed as “old age sudden”, precisely the way I want to go). Roman Catholic church records have offered no clues. The likely cemetery of his burial, St. Michael’s Cemetery in Toronto, has his name on no monument designating his final resting place although the family plots of his children and grandchildren are easily evident in the cemetery. 

The only clue as to Daniel’s death is offered by authors Adam and Mulvany whose 1885 work states that Daniel was already deceased. His story is told but not yet fully. I am certain there is more to discover.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com

52 Ancestors: Mary Jane Fitzgerald (1864-1899)

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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.

I have always felt a closeness to my great grandmother Mary Jane Fitzgerald even though I have no idea as to what she looked like or, what she liked or disliked. My mother often mentioned the name of Mary Jane Fitzgerald when talking about her own family history and told me that my great grandmother had died young.

Mary Jane Fitzgerald was born into the family of Lewis Fitzgerald and his wife Ellen Daley on 22 May 1864, the fifth of nine known children. Mary Jane’s father, Lewis, was a gardener, one of many who famously farmed the lands east of the Don River in what was then referred to as York Township, now part of the city of Toronto. 

The Fitzgeralds were an Irish Catholic family who attended mass each Sunday at St. Paul’s Basilica, Toronto’s oldest Roman Catholic church. Their church was about four and a half miles away from their home, not very far using today’s means of transportation but I suspect it was not an easy journey in the mid-nineteenth century probably in a horse-drawn wagon over muddy, dusty, or snow-filled rough roads. But the church records from St. Paul’s Basilica show that they were there often as evidenced in Mary Jane’s entry in the church’s baptismal register.




Of Mary Jane’s eight siblings, seven were sisters and it appears that they all remained on the family farm until they married. This was certainly the case for Mary Jane. I am unaware as to how they met but on 25 April 1894 Mary Jane Fitzgerald married John Foley in St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church on Leslie Street in Toronto, confirmed by a civil registration, the entry of the marriage in the St. Joseph’s church marriage register and an article in the local Toronto newspaper. The newspaper story provides the further detail that the wedding party and guests went to the home of the bride’s parents for supper and congratulations following the wedding ceremony.

John and Mary Jane Foley lived in this house at 25 Blong Avenue in Toronto. 

25 Blong Avenue, Toronto, Ontario (from Google Streetview)


It was here that they welcomed into their family first Lewis Fitzgerald Foley (or Gerald as he was always known) on 17 February 1895, William Clarence Foley on 28 September 1896, and finally, my grandmother Ellen Gertrude Foley on 16 April 1898. 

It was also in this house that Mary Jane’s story came to an abrupt and premature end when she died on 9 April 1899, just a week before her daughter’s first birthday. The cause of death listed on her death registration was septic poisoning. Mary Jane was only 34 years old.

Mary Jane (Fitzgerald) Foley was buried at St. Michael’s Cemetery in Toronto in the same grave as her mother who predeceased her five years earlier. Ten years later, Mary Jane’s father Lewis would join them in the same burial plot to eternally rest in peace.

Contact me with your stories, questions and comments at ian.hadden@rogers.com