I’m posting photos from my collection of family photographs on Saturdays with a brief explanation of what I know about each picture.
Perhaps many of you can relate to this photo of my wife Ellen Wagner as a five year-old girl offering a helping hand with the baking. As best we can surmise, the photo was taken by one of Ellen’s parents in the kitchen of her family home. The dog looks less than impressed.
I’m posting photos from my collection on Saturdays with a brief explanation of what I know about each picture.
My uncle James (Jim) Hadden (1935-2005) and yours truly spent some time contemplating the mysteries of life and our plans for the universe. Actually, I was probably trying to convince him that getting an ice cream cone was a really good idea. The photo was taken around June 1958 when I was visiting my paternal grandparent’s home at 53 Darrell Avenue in Toronto.
Uncle Jim was a career firefighter in the city of Toronto and was very well liked by his colleague firefighters who enjoyed being on shift with him because he was an exceptional cook! They were not as thrilled with him, on that one occasion, when he required that they eat an appetizer of haggis before he served the main meal.
The Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS) has extended the early bird registration deadline for this year’s annual conference until April 10, 2015.
The 2015 OGS Conference is being held in Barrie, Ontario under the Theme “Tracks Through Time.” The early bird registration fees for the full weekend conference are $135 for OGS members or $175 for non-members. Tours of local historical sites and facilities will also be available with an additional fee for those interested.
This year’s conference features speakers like Dr. Janet Few, Kirsty Gray, Kathryn Lake Hogan, Janice Nickerson, Thomas MacEntee, and Dave Obee, to name but a few.
A great conference line-up and a great deal if you can attend. Click here to check out the full conference program.
I’m posting photos from my collection on Saturdays with a brief explanation of what I know about each picture.
Spring is trying to arrive in my part of the world (southern Ontario, Canada) after what has been one of the coldest winters on record. With the arrival of the new season, it will soon be time to think about cleaning up the yard and assessing the ravages of the winter.
This photo of yours truly was taken about the time I was three years old. It appears to have been taken, likely by my father, in the backyard of my paternal grandparents John Gaull Hadden and Agnes (Little) Hadden. Their home was at 53 Darrell Avenue in Toronto, Ontario. Clearly, child labour laws weren’t the same back then.
My mother, as I recall, seemed to particularly like the pants, or ‘rompers’ with small zippers at the side of each pant leg as she called them. I don’t recall getting a vote on my wardrobe selection.
The following announcement has been made by the ScotlandsPeople website:
“We’re delighted to announce that the Valuation Rolls for 1865 have just been added to the ScotlandsPeople website.
The new records, which are FREE* to search, comprise 1.3 million indexed names and 76,512 digital images. The Rolls, which are searchable by both name and address, cover every owner, tenant and occupier of property in 1865, offering a fascinating window into the lives of mid-Victorian Scots.”
The FREE search feature is in effect until April 19, 2015 but viewing images until that date will still cost two credits.
ScotlandsPeople is the ‘official home’ of the records held by the National Records of Scotland in Edinburgh, Scotland.
First, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! A day described by some as a time when everyone is either Irish or wants to be!
It is a day when I immediately think of my own Irish ancestry. Specifically, my maternal ancestry.
When I began researching my family history, it seemed that ethnic ancestry was easily described as my maternal ancestry was Irish and Roman Catholic whereas my paternal ancestry was Scottish and not Roman Catholic.
I discovered eventually, through many hours over many years of research, that my maternal ancestry was Irish with a good dose of Scottish blood and that my paternal ancestry was Scottish with a good dose of Irish blood. Things are not always as simple as first presented.
My mother often regaled me with stories of her maternal grandfather. A man named John Foley whom it was claimed lead a rags to riches life. John died, so my mother told me, in 1927 in Florida on a business trip. He died before my mother was born so she didn’t know him but she did love to pass on the stories she no doubt heard from her mother.
Finding John Foley’s grave in Toronto’s Mount Hope Cemetery was the easy part and as a bonus, the family had ‘set in stone’ his dates of birth and death for me. Being set in stone meant according to most dictionaries that the dates were firm, immutable, permanent and unchangeable. As seen below, John gravestone states that he was born February 16, 1864 and that he died on January 13, 1927.
As I researched my great grandfather’s life, I discovered that he died not in Florida as I had been told but rather in Los Angeles, California. His trip in January 1927 was not for business but rather it was a vacation. The State of California, various newspaper articles, and John Foley’s estate file all confirmed his date and place of death. But what of his birth?
John was born in what is now Ontario, Canada. He was born in pre-confederation Canada, at a time when there was no civil registration requirement for births. Therefore, there was no birth registration to be found. So I turned to the census records.
John can be found first in the 1871 Census of Canada recorded as being 8 years old and living with his parents William Foley and Bridget (McTeague) Foley in Barrie, Ontario. Both William and Bridget are recorded as being born in Ireland. Also in the household were John’s three brothers and two sisters. John is recorded as being the youngest of the four boys.
Based on that 1871 census, John was born about 1863. In the next census, that of 1881, John is recorded as being 18 years old, so again a birth year of about 1863. Unfortunately, John is (at least thus far) no where to be found in the 1891 census. However, in the 1901 census, John is recorded as being a widower (his wife, my great grandmother, Mary Jane Fitzgerald had died on April 9, 1899) living with his three young children along with a housekeeper and her two children. His date of birth is recorded as April 1865. The 1911 census records John’s date of birth again as April 1865, and finally in the 1921 census, John is recorded as being 56 years of age from which can be calculated a year of birth of about 1865.
Fortunately FamilySearch has posted the Roman Catholic Church records for numerous parishes in Ontario covering the period of 1760-1923 (there is no index available but images can be browsed which can be a lengthy but in my case rewarding bit of research) and so it was that I discovered John’s baptismal register record in the records of Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Roman Catholic Church in Barrie, Ontario. The baptismal register misspelled the family surname as ‘Froley’ but provided me with what I believe is the first recording of John’s February 16, 1863 date of birth.
Even when the dates of your ancestors appear to be ‘set in stone’, nothing can be taken for granted until all the evidence is in.
I received notification today that the Scottish Government is currently undertaking a public consultation on issues connected with burials, cremations and the management of cemeteries. If you have Scottish ancestry, as I do, then you might be interested in reading the consultation paper.
Gravestone of James Hadden and family, St. Peter’s Cemetery, Aberdeen, Scotland
The government in Scotland is looking to “modernized” the legislation that governs burials and cremations while also addressing some related issues. There certainly seems to be a solid case for the need of updated legislation as the current Burial Act was enacted in 1855. The Cremation Act came into effect in 1902 and has been updated occasionally through regulatory changes as recent as 2003. It seems the government would also like to leave room for future funeral technologies such as resomation and promession.
It was common practice that a grave plot, or lair as it would be referred to in Scotland, was purchased by family members in perpetuity for the burial (or disposal) of the bodies of loved ones. The family was typically responsible for the maintenance of the cemetery plot. With the passage of time, however, the maintenance of the cemetery plot was often abandoned by the family as members moved away from the area over several generations. With the current added pressure of limited cemetery space, the government is looking at the practice of reusing cemetery plots.
The reuse of cemetery plots is not new and the consultation paper states that the practice is used in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Greece. The paper further cites the case of the City of London (England) Cemetery and Crematorium where about 1,000 graves have been reused.
The Scottish Government is proposing to discontinue the sale of cemetery plots in perpetuity and rather, provide for the ‘lease’ of a cemetery plot for a period of 25 years with further 10 year extensions to the lease allowed. The goal of this approach would be to ensure that a family member was taking responsibility for the plot’s maintenance. It is also proposed that cemetery plots be reused in cases where the last burial in the plot was at least 75 ago and the owner of the plot cannot be traced. Prior to reuse, a cemetery would be required to advertise it’s plan to reuse the plot through various media including the Internet for a period of twelve months. If a family member objected to the reuse, the family member would need to be prepared to assume plot maintenance responsibility.
In circumstances when a plot is reused, the original gravestone or memorial marker would remain, maintained by the cemetery owner, but a new memorial marker would be allowed on the plot for the new burial(s). Rules are also proposed for a “dig and deeper” approach to plot reuse that would involve exhumation of remains, placement of the remains in a “new container” and re-burial of the container at a deeper depth to allow new burials.
What might be of interest to genealogists is the question of how long burial and cremation records should be kept? The government already encourages the use of electronic records but asks the question about how long they should be required to be maintained. Do they need to be maintained in perpetuity or is 50 years long enough?
The consultation runs until April 24th, 2015 and I would encourage everyone, especially those with Scottish ancestry to read the consultation paper and provide input. And, I need to start thinking about what I would do if they ever want to reuse my 4X great grandfather James Hadden’s final resting place (pictured above)!
Alexander Bean Hadden is my 3X great grandfather and I recently was asked by Hadden cousins to share my ‘theory’ on where his middle name of Bean came from, so here is what I think is a reasonable conclusion in the absence of any contradictory evidence.
The odd thing about Alexander is that he was commonly known with a middle name of Bean however, I have found no records in which his name is recorded as Alexander Bean Hadden. Records simply provide his name as Alexander Hadden.
Below is a list of the records in which I have found Alexander:
As can be noted, I have yet to find Alexander in the 1901 Census of Scotland. The hunt for that record is still in progress.
So Alexander in all of those records is simply record by the name Alexander Hadden. No Bean name is recorded nor is there a middle initial of ‘B’ used. So where could Alexander have received the middle name of Bean by which he seems to have become commonly known by, but unrecorded? Evidence that he was known by Alexander Bean Hadden is found, for example, in his daughter Mary, naming her first son, Alexander Bean Hadden Wright, after him.
My theory is based on Alexander’s baptismal registration from 1836, shown below:
(Note: I apologize for the small size of the image but I’m still getting used to the new blog platform!)
The names of the witnesses to the baptism of the infant Alexander were a man named Alexander Bean and a second man named Alexander Smith. I imagine that Alexander Hadden’s parents James Hadden and Mary Smart chose these men carefully for their first, and as it turns out only known son. So my theory is simple: Alexander Hadden was called Alexander Bean Hadden, his middle name being ‘adopted’ in honour of his godfather Alexander Bean. Further, in Scottish naming tradition, Alexander as the first son would have been named William, after his father James’ father. As it happens William was also the name of Alexander’s mother’s father. But William wasn’t used and instead James and Mary Hadden named their first son after someone who must have been very close to them but as far as I know not related by blood nor marriage.
So that’s my ‘story’ and I’m sticking to it, that is, until evidence presents itself that causes me to have to re-think the issue of ‘Bean.’
The Scottish Special Interest Group of the Ontario Genealogical Society is hosting a Symposium to be held on Friday, August 21, 2015. Registration for the day long event is now open.
The day will feature a line-up of speakers and a marketplace. For those arriving early, a piper will enhance your marketplace browsing. The event is being at the Courtyard by Marriott Hotel in Brampton, Ontario and the registration fee including a continental breakfast and lunch.
Click here to register or contact scottishsigogs@gmail.com for further information.
Creastleaf is a free online resource that provides tools that allow you to build a family tree. It provides free space of up to 1 GB for family photos (more space is available for a fee) and also allows you to share the tree with other family members so they can add to it.
Really, from my view, Crestleaf is about capturing family stories. This is accomplished, presumably, by different family members adding their own perspectives to family events and their photos of the events.
My experience is that family photos get passed along, sometimes divided among siblings, when parents pass away. Often, these photos may end up collecting dust in a forgotten box. Consequently, one family branch may not know of nor ever have seen photos of great grandparents and past special family occasions. Using a online resource tool like Creastleaf might allow for better family sharing.
Creastleaf boasts in providing access to almost 90 million genealogy records. This is a reference to the Social Security Death Index (SSDI) and Crestleaf uses the June 22, 2011 version of the index containing almost 90 million names. Crestleaf is not a site to conduct a “reasonably exhaustive search” of records. Other than the SSDI, there are no other records available.
Crestleaf recently published a family relationship chart which they have kindly provided to me and gave me permission to share. The chart is available for printing on the Crestleaf blog.
The Crestleaf site is free and easy to use. I was able to set-up a free account and get started on a basic family tree in just a couple of minutes. If you are looking for a way to tell and share the stories of your family, presumably with other family members who may live some distance from you, using Crestleaf just might be a good means of connecting.