Monthly Archives: April 2016

Genealogy

Socialists and Auctioneers

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Emma Forster. Reprinted courtesy of the genealogy website myprimitivemethodists.org

Yippee!

For a while there I thought I had an illustrious ancestor, Joseph Cowen, the radical Liberal MP from Newcastle-on-Tyne. Here was someone I could be proud of and  someone my ‘socialist’ brother, living in Europe, could be proud of, too. Or, so I thought.

Upon looking up my great-grandmother Emma Cowen’s father, John, on familysearch.org ,  I discovered that the man was born in Blaydon Manor, Durham, which would make him the brother of this famous Joseph Cowen.

There was no other John Cowen born in Durham in 1832, his birth year, so it had to be him. Right?

I texted my brother in socialist Denmark along with a capture of a statue of Joseph in the town of  Newcastle. “Look, who we’re related to. We’re NOT the descendants of lowly coal-miners. He’s got Daddy’s eyebrows, doesn’t he?)

My brother, probably washing down his grass-fed beef with an artisanal beer, immediately texted me back:  “That doesn’t sound right to me.”

So, I double checked to find I had been foiled by a census typo.

My real ancestor John, great great grandfather, was misspelled in the 1841 UK Census under John Cowin. This John Cowin was born 1932 in South Bedburn, Durham. Another later Census entry for the family confirms Emma Cowan’s dad was born in Bedburn.

Emma is my great-grandmother from Durham, who married John Forster, Primitive Methodist Minister, from Cumberland, who produced Dorothy in 1895, who married a Malayan planter, Robert Nixon (from Helmsley) in 1921 and whom I only met once in my life, 1967, the year of Expo67.  Dorothy is subject of my play Looking for Mrs. Peel.

So, it seems, I am not the descendent of a radical liberal politician, friend to Anglo-Jewry, but a descendant of one John Cowen, a Victorian Age auctioneer.

(And that is correct, because Emma Cowen was born on Eliot Street, in Crook and Billy Row, Durham, and his auction house was located there, I discovered on yet another online document.)

Because I had to know, I checked to see that the profession of auctioneer was a pretty lucrative one at the time, although one that was despised because it preyed on human misery.  Thackery, apparently, simply hated auctioneers.

Bankruptcy was often used in Victorian era novels to make a point about human greed and to propel the plot. George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss, which I just listened to online, includes a sad, plate-by-plate  description of a family bankruptcy.

Going backwards in time over the UK Censuses, I discovered John was the son of a grocer, Joseph, Crook and Billy Row, Durham, who was the son of another grocer, Joseph  from Auckland Bishop, who was the son of someone who worked in the lead smelters at Alston, Cumberland. (If I got things right.)

Lead smeltering. Now, there’s the hideous job I was looking for! If your ancestry  can’t be illustrious, it might as well be pitiful.

It didn’t take me long to find out all about the lead mining industry in Alston, Cumberland, where most of my Cowens lived. (The place is still crawling with Cowens.)

There are lots of books out there on the subject. I downloaded one off Archive.org  about Alston and ‘its pastoral and mining people.’

For a time, apparently, lead mining was the only industry in the area, so my ancestor had no choice.

He had about 8 kids so the work didn’t dampen his mojo.

Lead was in everything back in the Victorian era, even in food, up until 1900 or so. (Lead actually smells and tastes nice, as any girl from the 1960’s who skipped on the sidewalks of our polluted  city streets knows very well.)

These Durham Cowen’s were all religious, described  as dissenters. Their births and marriages were registered at Redwing Chapel, Garrigle, Cumberland.

Here’s a drawing of the same chapel in the book about Alston and its people.

redwingchapelpic

Genealogy

Société de généalogie de Québec

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The indexes of people and places found on commercial online genealogy search engines are not always complete or precise. In some cases, indexes compiled by local genealogy societies can fill in these gaps.

This post is the first in a series that will tell you about the indexes of marriages, baptisms, deaths and burials of English-language families in Lower Canada and Quebec. They refer to both Protestant and Catholic church records. You can purchase these indexes as spiral binders, hard-cover books, CDs or, in some cases, as online downloads, from genealogy societies across Quebec.

Volunteer researchers (usually genealogists or historians) have compiled these indexes from two sources. Some come from records held at the 10 branches of the Archives nationales du Québec. In other cases, the researchers actually visited the vaults of Protestant and Catholic churches – something that can no longer be done since most of these records are now held in centralized archives.

Today, most residents of Quebec City are French-speaking, but at one time there was a large English-speaking population in the provincial capital. If you had ancestors in Quebec City, the Société de généalogie de Québec may be able to help you. If you have trouble understanding the French text on the society’s website, cut and paste the text into Google Translate.

The burial records of Mount Hermon Cemetery may be particularly useful for 19th-century ancestors. In the spring of 1847, a group of Protestant businessmen, shipbuilders, merchants and clergy called a public meeting to discuss the possibility of buying land for a rural cemetery. The old Protestant cemetery located near St. Matthew’s on rue Saint-Jean was full and the authorities requested that a new cemetery be established outside the city limits. With the help of lumber merchant John Gilmour, a member of the first municipal council of Sillery and the founder of the cemetery, The Quebec Protestant Cemetery Association was created on February 11th 1848. The cemetery is located in the Sainte-Foy-Sillery borough of Quebec City and overlooks the Saint-Lawrence River.

Société de généalogie de Québec

Postal Box : C.P. 9066 Succ. Sainte-Foy

Québec QC G1V 4A8

Library : 1055 Avenue du Séminaire, local 3112 –

Pavillon Louis-Jacques-Cassault – Cité universitaire Laval, Québec

Contact us: http://www.sgq.qc.ca/nous-joindre

418-651-9127

General emails: sgq@uniserve.com

www.sgq.qc.ca

Boutique (Book Store) http://www.sgq.qc.ca/boutique-genealogie-repertoires-dvd-histoire

Click on: Répertoire paroissiaux

Item # 112 – Mount Hermon Cemetery – Cimetière de Mont-Hermon – Mount Hermon Cemetery burial register from 1848 to 1904 – English-language book of 380 pages in total, 60 pages of indexes of people – Between 1848 and 1863, 6,164 entries; half of the deceased were members of the Anglican Church (2,991), Presbyterian Church (1,117), Methodist Church (583)

Cost of book: $50. CDN + $20. CDN shipping – Purchase form:  http://www.sgq.qc.ca/images/_SGQ/Publication/formCommande2015.pdf

418-527-3513

Brian J. Treggett, Superintendent,

1802 Chemin Saint-Louis, Québec, QC,

G1S 1H6

mounthermon@qc.aibn.com

http://www.mounthermoncemetery.com/en/

Compiled by: Jacques Gagné

gagne.jacques@sympatico.ca

2016-03-13

Genealogy, Ireland, Ontario

Susan Dodds’ Sampler

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A precious item hung in our hall while I was growing up, made by my great, great grandmother. I often wondered about the woman who made it. Finding out about her was one of my first genealogical searches.

The sampler was made of rough woven linen with cross stitches of bright coloured wool. There were red strawberries, green and yellow borders and rows of letters and numbers. What was very clear on the sampler were the words in black, “Susan Dodds and Tattinclave” and the date “Aprile 12 -19, 1840.” I knew the family came from Ireland and finally discovered that Tattinclave is a townland in County Monaghan, Northern Ireland, just north-east of Castleblaney and Oram near the Armagh border. That was the where, then there was the who?

Many samplers have a saying or a motto embroidered on the bottom but unfortunately here, there is much wear making Susan’s difficult to read. What can be read is “lord our spirits” showing that Susan was a religious person.

This was confirmed in a letter, Susan and her husband Alexander Bailey carried to Canada from Rev. Samuel Dunlop, a Presbyterian minister. It stated, ” I have known the bearer Shusana Dodds since she was a child. She is not only of an unexceptionable but an examplary moral character. She is the daughter of very pious parents and prior to her leaving this country in full communion in our church. She was married previous to her going to America to one Alexander Bailey by the Rev. W. Momson. They are both a sober industrious young couple and persons in whom I believe confidence might be placed. April 13, 1843.”

In a box with family letters and photographs was a little hand sewn booklet. It was sent to Susan by her sister Eliza Dodds in 1871.There is a letter in the front where Eliza explains that Susan should use it to record events in her life and though they may never see each other again there is comfort in knowing God is looking after them both. In it were recorded all the births and as life would have it, some of the deaths of her children. There are few clues to other parts of her life with only “Dada was made a church elder 1839 and I joined the church 1840.”

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Oct 16, 1871 Susan D Bailey Register Book

After they arrived in Toronto, Alexander worked as a carpenter while Susan began raising children. Their first child Eliza Jane was born in 1844, but died the next year. They had seven more children, another Eliza Jane, Mary, Robert, William, Isabella, James, and Joseph who would have kept Susan busy. It was the last, little Joseph, who appeared to have had the greatest effect on their lives. He died at seven years of age in August of 1871, falling from a pile of lumber. Perhaps his father was supposed to be watching him as at this point the family seemed to break apart.

Even while mourning her son, Susan appeared to be a strong woman. She was recorded as the head of the household while her husband seemed to have disappeared. She held the family together as some of her children, Isabella and James continued to live with her until her death in 1896. Her son Robert pictured with her here, died of tuberculosis in 1882.

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Robert Bailey and mother Susan Dodds Bailey

When my mother began down sizing, she offered us an item from the house every birthday. The sampler was my first choice. It now hangs on my wall.

Notes:

Dodds, Eliza. Register Book. Letter to Susan Bailey. October 16, 1871. Ireland. The booklet was sent after Joseph died.

Dunlop, Samuel, Rev. Letter to To Whom It May Concern. 13 Apr. 1843. Ireland. In author’s possession.

“Canada Census, 1881,” index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MVF7-172 : accessed 19 Nov 2014), Susan Bailey, Yorkville, York East, Ontario, Canada; citing p. 126; Library and Archives Canada film number C-13248, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; FHL microfilm 1375884.

With the help of Google I found the whole quote on the sampler.

“Swiftly thus our fleeting days, Bear us down life’s rapid stream. Upward lord our spirits raise. All below is but a dream.”    This is the second verse of a hymn “While with Ceaseless Course the Sun” by John Newton who also wrote Amazing Grace. It was in a book, Olney Hymns London: W Oliver 1779. Book II Hymn I.                                                                                                                                                                   

The place-name is also spelled Tatinclieve or Tattintlieve. It is 219 acres, in the county of Monaghan, the Barony of Cremorne, the parish of Muckno, Poor Law Union in 1857 in Castleblaney and in the Town land census of 1851 Part I, Vol III page 262.

It is assumed Susan’s parents were James Dodds and Jane McKee. There is a James Dodds renting 44 acres ( the most land in Tattinclave) in 1861. There is also a record that James Dodds was an elder in Garmony’s Grove Presbyterian Church in 1840.

Rev Samuel Dunlop was the minister in Garmony’s Grove Presbyterian Church from 1822 until his death in 1848. Garmony’s Grove was originally set up in connection with the Presbytry in Market Hill. The baptismal records only begin in 1844. Some of the people who attended this church may have been buried in Clarkesbridge or Newtownhamilton which is in Armagh. These three churches were united for a time. With the record of the marriage of Susan and Alexander being in Armagh, they might have been married in Newtownhamilton. This information was from Paula McGeough, personal communication.

Genealogy, Great Britain, Quebec

Lusitania Legacy

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The crowd of 600 invited guests and thousands of spectators cheered as the great ship slid into the waters of the Clyde on June 7th, 1906. She had been commissioned by Cunard, built at the John Brown and Company shipyards, and christened the Lusitania. For a brief time she was the largest ship on the seas. 1.

 

One man in the crowd may not have been cheering: my grandfather James Rankin Angus. He knew the employment he had so recently secured as a joiner would soon be over. On September 7th, 1907, her outfitting completed, the Lusitania would make her maiden voyage to New York. 2.

 

In November of the same year, my grandfather set sail on the Sicilian for Quebec City.3. What led him to immigrate? It is unlikely that he could not have found work at John Brown or any other shipyard. Ship-building on the Clyde was at its height and no doubt James had acquired significant skills working on the luxurious Lusitania. Had his time in the Royal Marines developed a wander-lust? Two of his eight years in the navy were spent in “service afloat”. 4. Or was it the example of his older brothers, one who immigrated to Australia and another to Malaysia? 5.

 

James was born on October 17th, 1878 in Patrick where the Kelvin River enters the Clyde .He was one of ten children born to David Angus, a shoemaker, and his wife Anne Rankin.6.  Originally the village had been a milling centre but the growth of the Clyde-side ship building industry in the 1800’s led to Patrick’s rapid expansion. Hundreds of multi-story tenement buildings were erected to house the flood of workers. When my grandfather left Patrick it was rough, dirty and crowded, far from the trendy area of Glasgow it is today. 7. He would miss only his family.

 

There is no record of James’ early years in Quebec City. He came to Canada a Presbyterian and a Freemason 8.  so one can only assume he found employment contacts and a social life through his church and his Masonic Lodge. In 1912 he opened the Angus Book and Stationary Store 9. , a business that thrived until 1935 when the Depression led to its demise. 10. James ended his career working for the provincial government. He never owned a car but walked to and from work with his head held high and his back ram-rod straight. A proud man. 11.

 

James married Jean Jamison Brodie, the daughter of a wealthy Quebec City flour merchant, in 1911 12.  and fathered three sons. All three enlisted when World War II broke out and served their country overseas. His first born died in the skies over Germany in 1943. 13. The remaining two returned to marry and give him the grandchildren he so dearly loved.

 

For eight years the Lusitania sailed the Atlantic until she was sunk by a German U-Boat on May 7th, 1915 off the coast of Ireland with the loss of more than a thousand lives.14. James gave his wife a tin box of sweets with a commemorative photo of the ship on the lid, the ship that had ultimately led him to her and a life in Canada. The cherished tin remained on her desk for as long as they lived in their home.15. My grandparents’ marriage spanned fifty-three years.16. Today their descendants number thirty-four, an enduring legacy.

 

 

 

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitania
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitania
  3. com, UK, Outward Passenger Lists, 1890-1960
  4. Certificate of the Service of James Rankin Angus (#9151), Royal Marines, 1906 – on file with writer
  5. Family letters – on file with writer
  6. Birth certificate James Rankin Angus; census records 1871, 1881, 1891 – on file with writer
  7. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Partick
  8. Masonic Records – on file with writer
  9. City Directory, Quebec City 1912 – first listing of bookstore
  10. City Directory, Quebec City, 1935 – final listing of bookstore
  11. Personal memory and observation
  12. Quebec Chronicle Telegraph clipping June, 1911 – on file with writer
  13. RCAF Service Records of Colin Brodie Angus and Bomber Command Service Bar (awarded 2013) – on file with writer
  14. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitania
  15. Personal memory and observation
  16. Death certificate James Rankin Angus – on file with writer
Genealogy

The German Presence in the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspé Peninsula

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This compilation on the German Presence in the Lower St. Lawrence and Gaspé Peninsula is the last of a series on German-speaking immigrants to Quebec. Families that settled along the shores of the St. Lawrence River north-east of Quebec City and in the Gaspé region integrated well into their communities and attended a variety of local Catholic and Protestant churches.

In this compilation, you will find the historic names of the Quebec counties in this area, from their beginnings in the French regime, through the period when Lower Canada was a British colony and into the modern era of the province of Quebec. This document lists the churches these German-speaking families might have attended, and where to find their birth, marriage and death records.

German Presence Lower St. Lawrence & Gaspesia Adj

 

Genealogy, Montreal, Quebec

The Priest

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Sydenham Bagg Lindsay (1887-1975)

The recent McGill graduate and qualified Associate of the American Guild of Organists in New York City cautiously approached his father, in 1908, with his dream to enter the priesthood.  His father, a stockbroker, answered simply: “Not much money in it!”  But there was no doubt Sydenham Bagg Lindsay had a vocation.

He studied theology at the Montreal Diocesan Theological College and then at Lichfield Theological College in England.  In 1910, he was ordained Deacon in Montreal and then an Anglican Priest in 1911.

He served in various parishes in the Montreal area including St. John the Evangelist where he met his wife, Millicent Thorpe Hanington, daughter of Dr. James Peters Hanington.  They were married in 1918 at the height of the flu epidemic when only thirty guests were allowed in the church!

Soon after that, he became Assistant Priest at St. Matthews, Quebec City, then Trinity Church in Beauharnois.  Two years later he was given his first parish – St. Mark’s in Valleyfield.  He continued with his ministry all over the Diocese of Montreal and some of his parishes included St. Aidan’s in Ville Emard and St. Simon’s in St. Henri. Finally in 1940, he became the rector of the Church of the Advent on Wood Avenue, in Westmount.

During the depression, when he was at St. Simon’s in the slums of Montreal, not only did  it take real ingenuity to produce the Christmas pageant without any money but the confirmation veils were stolen just a few minutes before the Bishop arrived![1]

World War II brought an end to the depression, but also, alas, an end to the lives of some of his parishioners.  His daughter, Mary Kerr, recalled that “many a bereaved parent, spouse or friend told us what a help my father was in their time of sorrow.”[2]

As rector of the Church of the Advent, he built up the parish and the boys’ choir which became quite famous and drew a large congregation.  It was a great thrill for him.

In his “spare” time, Sydenham was a classics scholar and church historian and kept up a correspondence with people all around the world, including missionaries and the fellowship in Western Canada.  He also regularly contributed to the “Letters to the Editor” column in the newspaper writing “no more than three or four sentences but always to the point, saying all that need be said in a few words”[3].

He also wrote and published the following four books:  A Historical Sketch of St. Columba’s Parish, Montreal, The Church of England and the Reformation (A Lecture Delivered in the Diocesan College, Montreal, on the 10th March 1954), Bishops of the Lindsay Clan (1957) and The Three Hours’ Vigil (1965).

In 1950, he was made an honorary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral   His health began to fail in 1953 and he retired as Rector of the Church of the Advent.  He stayed on as assistant priest, happily and humbly helping his successor. There may not have been “much money” in his calling but his “golden” jubilee in the ministry was celebrated in style in 1960. I was only three years old at the time.

I, however, remember him fondly as my Grampa-Lin, quietly joining in the family get-togethers.  He loved his grandchildren and amused us in his special way.  When pouring out drinks at family dinners, he would ask us: “Would you like ginger ale or Adam’s ale?” – Adam’s ale being water, of course!

 Church of the Advent

 

[1] Personal recollection of his eldest daughter, Mary Thorpe Lindsay Kerr, 1993.

[2] Personal recollection of his eldest daughter, Mary Thorpe Lindsay Kerr, 1993.

[3] The Gazette article “Canon Lindsay’s 50 years of Service.” Oct 14, 1961