November Wrap-Up

It's time to see how I did on my November goals! (Hint: Better than October, but still not perfect.)

• Find all census records pertaining to my great grandparents (includes 1881, 1891, 1901, 1906, 1911, and 1916 Canadian censuses, and any applicable records in other countries). Link to them on WikiTree and download the images. Done!
• Finish scanning the pictures I've received from my mom's side of the family. Work on getting some of them up on WikiTree. Still not done. I did get through another album, though, plus the loose pictures. Now I really need to get some acid- and lignin-free albums to move these to, because these old albums are absolutely brutal.
• Focus on filling in all descendents of my great great grandparents. Try to get in touch with more distant cousins to help with this. Some good progress made here. I've got pretty much all of the descendents of my great grandparents done (one of them is a mystery cousin that may prove challenging). I've got a pretty good list of descendents of Narcisse Daigneault and Domitilde Perras. Realistically I can't fill this in much more without finding some distant cousins to help fill it in.

So, not too shabby this month! I'm just gonna keep working on that scanning until one month I can announce that I've finally finished it... and then I'll start on another set of family photos.

How did you do on your goals for this month?

Jonas Aspinall's mistaken family tree

Jonas Aspinall, b. 1857 in Chester, Cheshire, England

I made an unfortunate discovery at the library on Saturday. I was there using Ancestry Library Edition to find some sources, and one person I did a search on was Jonas Aspinall. Jonas is my great great grandfather. I got as far as him in my tree through first hand knowledge from my grandparents. As I got in touch with some of my second cousins, I was sent trees that had his ancestry filled in for quite a few generations. I figured I'd hit the gold mine.

Unfortunately, it looks as though someone may have made a mistake somewhere along the way, which led to a whole tree that probably isn't connected to my family.

Jonas' father's name was also Jonas Aspinall. I know that for sure from his marriage record, which lists the fathers of the bride and groom. According to the trees I've seen, his mother's name was Ann Kangley, and his father's parents were Jonathan Aspinall and Hannah Stake. However, on Ancestry I saw two marriage records for people named Jonas Aspinall (the age of the older one). One was to an Ann Rangley (maybe Kangley was a typo?), and showed Jonas' father as Thomas Aspinall, and the other was to Susey Sykes, and showed his parents as Jonathan Aspinall and Hannah Stake.

So, what this tells me is that either my 3x great grandmother was actually Susey Sykes, and Jonas Sr.'s genealogy is correct, or Ann Kangley (or Rangley) is correct, and the rest of the family tree is wrong. Unfortunately, I suspect the latter is the case. I found a blog called Aspinall Family History that has the genealogy of the Jonas that married Susey Sykes. It lists their children, and there is no Jonas among them. Granted, he could just be missing from this site, but my hopes aren't very high.

So, I ordered the birth certificate for the younger Jonas Aspinall. Ancestry only had the FreeBMD index, not the whole record, so I had to order it from the UK on the GRO website for something like £9.50 (thank goodness the GBP isn't as insanely higher than the CAD these days). It should ship this Thursday or Friday, so hopefully I'll have it by the end of next week.

With any luck, the birth certificate will state the name of Jonas' mother, and from there I'll know for sure whether Thomas Aspinall or Jonathan Aspinall is my 4x great grandfather.

This just goes to show that you can't assume you've found the right person based on name alone. Every relationship must have a record proving that link. I find that marriage records are great for that, as they often include the names of both parents of both the bride and groom, and if you've already got the names of the bride and groom, you can be pretty confident that you've got the right record.

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2011

I just recently learned of the Geneabloggers Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, and have decided that it looks like fun! So you can expect way more posts than usual during the month of December. Every morning I'll be writing about another topic that has to do with my memories of Christmas growing up. I'll also throw in a bit about my present day Yule celebrations.

Regular posts will continue pretty much as usual, but perhaps a bit less frequently what with all the Advent Calendar posts. I don't want to flood your feed reader, after all!

If you'll be participating in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, feel free to leave links to your posts in the comments of mine, so I can read them. If you celebrate something other than Christmas (as I do), I'd be especially interested in learning more about your celebrations!

Cleaning up WikiTree profiles

Since my posts here have been a bit less frequent in the last few weeks, I thought I'd talk a bit about what I've been doing lately. I guess the reason there have been less posts is that I haven't been focusing a lot on actual research. I've still been busy, though! I've done quite a bit of scanning (the last Scanfest was really productive for me!), and I've been adding more sources to various individuals in my family tree, mostly by searching through lots and lots of census records.

Another thing I've been spending some time on is specific to WikiTree. In case you're not familiar with it, WikiTree is an online, collaborative family tree project. I wrote more about it in a previous post. One difficulty in such a design is that when a bunch of people create their family trees, especially through GEDCOM imports, you end up with a bunch of profiles describing the same person.

I noticed that there's a group of people on WikiTree trying to clean up the duplicate profiles of European aristocracy, and decided to take on a similar effort myself. So lately I've been making lists of profiles of my Acadian ancestors, and planning out where merges should be made.

So far, I haven't really done any actual merging at all. The trouble is, I'm not the one in charge of all these profiles, and the people who are aren't very active on WikiTree, apparently, so it's been tough to coordinate things. I'm planning to request supervisor status, which will allow me to merge open profiles (which most of these profiles are, thankfully) without being on their trusted lists. So here's hoping that works out!

On a related note, I now have over 600 people in my family tree! I can't believe how much it's been growing lately! I've been adding a lot of descendents of my ancestors lately, and every time I do I hope that it will connect me to someone else who's working on their family tree and is my distant cousin. It's so exciting!

Fabianna Perras

I've come across an interesting mystery that's something new to me. I've been tracking the family of Raphaël Perras and Marie Auxilia Beaudin through the censuses. Raphaël and Auxilia moved from Quebec to Manitoba in the 1870s, and had a family in St. Francois Xavier.

The one child that's causing me problems is Fabianna Perras. Fabianna is recorded as Raphaël's and Auxilia's daughter in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. She was born in 1899. However, the 1906 census records a son named Falianna (looking at the original image, it could be Fabianna). While the transciption put his age at 7, which would make him born in 1899, when I looked at the original image it pretty clearly says 4.

So, are these the same child? If so, is Fabianna a boy or a girl? Was he or she born in 1899 or around 1902? Or, did this family have a daughter named Fabianna, and then a son named Fabianna or Falianna? That doesn't seem very likely, since they never both appear in the same census, and the daughter was obviously alive in 1906 since she is in the 1901 and 1911 censuses.

Another hint appears in the 1916 census, where once again we find Fabiana, a daughter. Here she is 17 years old, so born in approximately 1899. Therefore, I think it's safe to say that the 1906 census is simply wrong.

It's a strange error to make, though. This isn't a Quebec census, where fils (son) and fille (daughter) are abbreviated very similarly, making transcription of gender difficult. This census is in English, and quite clearly says "son".

Veterans' Week - Joseph Carmel Lavoie

The veteran of the day in my family tree today is Joseph Carmel (J.C.) Lavoie.

J.C. (often called "The Major") was my great grandfather. He was born on February 15, 1878, in Quebec, the son of Jean-Baptiste and Philomene (Gagne) Lavoie.
J.C. fought in World War I. Unlike the other people I've profiled this week, he was a professional soldier, not a farmer that went to fight for the war. At the time of the war he already had military experience, and had the rank of lieutenant.

Luckily for me, J.C. survived the war, came home to his wife, Alice Bard, and had 8 children, including my grandfather, Louis. J.C. died on November 2, 1960, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Well, that about wraps up Veterans' Week for me, since I think I've run out of relatives who fought in a war, at least that I know of. I seem to recall that my grandfather, Louis Lavoie, fought in WWII, but I have not yet done the necessary research to find any records related to that. (It's a bit harder to get records for people who lived through WWII.)

As always, feel free to share links in the comments if you've written posts this week about your veteran relatives.

Veterans' Week - Leslie Austin Angus

The veteran of the day in my family tree today is Leslie Austin Angus.

Leslie was my great grandfather. He was born on April 9, 1893, in Drayton, Pembina, North Dakota, the son of Robert Byron Angus and Julia Orange Johnston. He is one of my few relatives to have been born in the United States. Several lines of my family on both sides moved to North Dakota and then back into Canada, at a time when that area was great for homesteading. By the time Leslie joined the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force, he was living in Barwick, Ontario.

Leslie fought in World War I. He survived the war (lucky for me!), and went on to marry Mildred Grace Watts and have 8 children, including my grandmother. He died on June 3, 1974, in Fort Frances, Ontario.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Veterans' Week - Phillippe Daigneault

The veteran of the day in my family tree is Phillippe Daigneault.

Phillippe was my first cousin twice removed, the cousin of my paternal grandmother. He was born on July 31, 1894, in St. Francois Xavier, Manitoba, the son of Emilien and Sarah (Hogue) Daigneault.

Phillippe fought in World War I. The record of this is held by Library and Archives Canada. I don't know when he died, whether it was in the war or much later. He was recruited in 1917, which is after the last available census (1916), so I guess I won't know for sure until later censuses are released.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Veterans' Week - Lucien Richard

Yesterday, for my first Veterans' Day post, I wrote about Gerard Richard. Today's veteran is Gerard's younger brother, Lucien Joseph Arthur Richard.

Lucien was my great uncle, the brother of my paternal grandmother. He was born on August 30, 1924, in Manitoba (probably in St. Francois Xavier), the son of Alphonse and Bertha Richard.

Lucien was a rifleman in the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, R.C.I.C., unit, in World War II. He died on August 15, 1944, almost making it out of the war. The record of this is held by Library and Archives Canada.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Veterans' Week - Gerard Richard

I just learned from Genealogy Canada that this week is Veterans' Week. That gave me an idea for a short series, so this week I will be sharing the military service records of my relatives who fought in World Wars I and II.

Today's veteran is Gerard Joseph Lionel Richard. He was my great uncle, the brother of my paternal grandmother. He was born on May 22, 1919, in Manitoba (probably Sainte-Anne). He was the fifth child of Alphonse and Bertha Richard.

He was a trooper in the British Columbia Dragoons, R.C.A.C., unit, in World War II. On April 18, 1945, at the age of 25, having almost made it out of the war, he died. I don't know how, as I haven't yet ordered the full record from Library and Archives Canada.

Stay tuned this week for more military records from my family tree. Do you have relatives who fought in a war? Tell us about them in the comments, or blog about them and leave a link in the comments.

Finding Mary Elizabeth Prince's parents

A couple of months ago, I wrote about my troubles confirming the parents of Mary Elizabeth Prince. I had found a census record from when Elizabeth was young, in which she was living with her parents, but I couldn't be sure it was the right family, because I didn't have anything definite linking her to her parents. I'm happy to say that that has changed.

On FamilySearch, I found a death record for an Elizabeth Peterson, who's father's name was Henry Prince. This is definitely my ancestor, since she has the right birth last name, married name, and birth year, and died in an area of Ontario that many of my ancestors on that side of the family lived in. And the father's name is Henry Prince, which matches the name of the father on that census record I'd found.

As further confirmation, that death record says that Elizabeth's mother's name was Elson. The census only had the first name, Sarah Jane, so this didn't prove anything right away. But then I found this 1881 census record for the family. It includes Henry and Sarah Jane, along with a bunch of their children (not Elizabeth, since she was already married), but it also includes two other people, whose relation to the family I can't be sure on since the 1881 census doesn't specify this. Their names are Mary Elson (age 75) and James Prince (age 33). Now we have the connection to the Elson surname. I wonder if Mary is Sarah Jane's mother. It certainly seems promising! And James could be a brother of Henry's, perhaps.

So, in conclusion, Henry Prince and Sarah Jane Elson are my great great great great grandparents! And I'm a tiny bit German! Neat! Genealogy can be such a satisfying hobby. :-)

November To Dos

It's time for another month's goals. Last month I didn't quite achieve all my goals, but I learned about what does and doesn't work for me, and I think the to do list helped to give me some direction. Here's what I plan to do in November:

• Find all census records pertaining to my great grandparents (includes 1881, 1891, 1901, 1906, 1911, and 1916 Canadian censuses, and any applicable records in other countries). Link to them on WikiTree and download the images.
• Finish scanning the pictures I've received from my mom's side of the family. Work on getting some of them up on WikiTree.
• Focus on filling in all descendents of my great great grandparents. Try to get in touch with more distant cousins to help with this.

Wish me luck! And what about you? What do you want to accomplish in November?