Genealogy, Quebec, Research tips

Using the BAnQ’s Pistard to Research Your Ancestor’s Life

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Some family history researchers complain that Pistard, (pistard.banq.qc.ca), the online search tool for documents stored at the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), is too complicated difficult to use because it is only in French. I beg to disagree.

The site offers its own online translation tool, users can buy their own French/English dictionaries or they can use online translation tools such as Google Translate. As for the complaint that Pistard is too complicated, I think that is a myth. Pistard by BAnQ is easy to navigate in both the normal search option and the advance search option.

Remember, Pistard is not an online database of marriages, baptisms and deaths. At the BAnQ, there is an online search engine addressing such events, and it is a good one. See http://www.banq.qc.ca/archives/genealogie_histoire_familiale/ressources/bd/

Nor does Pistard address notarial acts including marriage contracts, land purchases and sales, after-death inventories or guardianship of minors after the death of both parents. BAnQ has a superb online search engine addressing notaries. See http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/notaires/ You can search each notary’s index of acts and, when there is an asterisk beside the notary’s name, the acts have been digitized. (Ancestry.ca also has a collection of Quebec notarial records. For hints on using it, see the blog Genealogy a la carte, Oct. 6, 2016, http://genealogyalacarte.ca/?p=16520)

Pistard does include archival resources including letters and other text documents, diagrams, land surveys, photographs, drawings and items on microfilm. It includes an online database addressing issues that were dealt with by judicial courts, judicial appointees by Governors or Lieutenant-Governors of New France or by Intendants of New France and appointees of the latter who acted on behalf of the King of France on subjects such as fraud, breach of contracts, unpaid debts, illegal transactions such as the sales of liquor to first nation people, or simply the removal of a fence.

Let me give a couple of examples using, with her permission, several ancestors of my friend and fellow genealogist Claire Lindell. Two of her pioneer ancestors were Claude Jodoin and Julien Fortin. I searched for each name in Pistard.

Jodoin was a neighbour of two farmers in the Seigneurie de La Chevrotière. When these two farmers argued about the location of a fence between two farms, the regional Justice of the Peace had to settle the issue.

Jodoin in Pistard EN
This is a screen shot of the search result for Claude Jodoin, translated by the BAnQ

The second case I have selected deals with the children of Julien Fortin and Suzanne Quenneville. It appears that, after the death of both parents, their daughter Marie was placed under the care of a Jean-Baptiste Lachaise and/or a Pierre Charbonneau. This one is not clear: only the actual document could clarify the reason the judicial system had to solve the issue.

Fortin Pistard
A search in Pistard for Julien Fortin brought up this result, and I then applied the BAnQ’s online translation tool. 

 

The online description of each document posted on Pistard is only a recap of the real document, which is stored in one of the 12 branches of the BAnQ across Quebec. In some cases, Pistard will link you to an image of the original document and a brief description of the case. If not, you can obtain the complete file through an email request.

For each query on Pistard, search results indicate the Cote (Shelf)  #, the Judicial District or Region and the Dossier (file) #. Then, through an email to the repository where the document is kept, you can obtain a download within a few days, for free.

A few months back, I had a telephone conversation with a clerk at BAnQ Vieux-Montréal. I asked her, if you receive an email in the English language, will you reply in English? She replied yes, adding that she was then working on a query from Australia. The person said his ancestor, who had been a Quebec Patriot during the Rebellions of 1837-1838, had been deported to Australia. The BAnQ clerk sent this researcher numerous documents about his ancestor at no charge.

Genealogy

Collateral Ills

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During the First World War, 2,504 nursing sisters served in the Overseas Military Forces of Canada. Unlike the British nursing sisters, Canadian nurses were actually part of the army, not an auxiliary unit. They were given the military rank of lieutenant to ensure the respect of the men. 1

There were forty-six Canadian nursing sisters who gave their lives while serving. Six were killed or mortally wounded on land; fifteen met death from enemy action at sea. Eighteen died of disease. 2 Ella Edna Willett, my great-aunt, survived illness not once but three times during her service in France between 1915 and 1919. 3

Ella was born on January 21st, 1892 in Dimock Creek, Quebec, 4 the tenth and youngest child of Alexander Willett and Susan Barter. She trained as a nurse at the Montreal General Hospital in Montreal. 1 On June 3rd 1915 at age twenty-three she enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. 5 She apparently came from an adventurous family. Three of her older brothers including my grandfather, locally known as the Wild Willet Boys, left home to seek their fortune in the Yukon. Ella may have felt she could match their adventures by going overseas with the army.

Ella served in two Canadian Stationary Hospitals in France, #2 in Outreau and #3 in Boulogne. She also served in two Canadian General Hospitals, #7 in Etaples and #11 in Liverpool, as well as a transport ship sailing between England and Canada. 6

The process to save the wounded began at a casualty clearing station, the patients having been brought from the front by field ambulance. The stations were nearly always situated on a railroad siding. Some patients required immediate surgery, others were moved quickly by ambulance train to better equipped stationary hospitals and still others to general hospitals for long-term care. Some of Canada’s most brilliant and experienced surgeons served in the stationary hospitals. To be one of the nursing sisters who served with them was said to be the highest ambition of most Canadian nursing sisters. 7

The responsibilities of the nursing sisters were long and arduous under grueling conditions: blood and gore everywhere, rats often underfoot, the cries of the wounded, planes soring overhead and the shrieking of dropping bombs.  The sisters had to shorten their skirts to keep them out of the ever present mud. 8

By far the greatest emotional drain on the sisters must have been the huge numbers of casualties arriving day after day and the triage system: deciding who needed immediate attention, who could wait, and who had no hope to survive and had to be left to die. Through all of this the sisters were said to work calmly and remain cheerful and comforting. 9

On September 2nd, 1916 Ella was struck down with appendicitis and underwent surgery herself in Boulogne’s General Hospital. She was given three weeks sick leave to England (at half pay!) before returning to her unit. 10

Two years later, on October 31st, 1918, Ella was again admitted to hospital, this time in Rouen. She was diagnosed with measles complicated by bronco- pneumonia. These were the days before anti-biotics. On November 6th she was listed as dangerously ill and remained on the list for eighteen days. Upon recovery, she was sent to a hospital in the south of France to recuperate (likely once again at half pay). She returned to duty on January 9th, 1919. 11

The final blow for Ella was the Spanish Flu, one of the deadliest diseases in human history.

Spanish Flu attacked young adults and moved with grim speed. Victims’ lungs filled with bloody, frothy liquid and their faces turned blue as they drowned in their own fluids, often overnight. It killed 2.5% of those infected as opposed to roughly 0.1% of previous flu outbreaks. 12

The military provided an ideal incubator for Spanish Flu. The soldiers were in the age group that was particularly vulnerable and they lived in conditions conducive to its spread. Stressed, dirty, hungry, wet and cold, massed in camps, huddled in trenches and tents or jammed into troop trains and ships, soldiers were easy prey. 13 Ultimately they spread the disease to the doctors and nurses who cared for them

Ella was admitted to #4 Canadian General Hospital in Basingstoke, England with Spanish Flu on March 6th, 1919. She was hospitalized a full month but amazingly she survived. 14

Ella returned to Canada in August 1919 under the general demobilization of troops. 15 She married William Boyt, an American, and had one son. William died in in Florida in 1978 at age ninety- one. Ella died in 1985 in Vancouver at age ninety-three. 16

 

 

 

  1. Nicholoson, G.W.L. Canada’s Nursing Sisters. Canadian War Museum, 1975.
  2. Ibid
  3. Willett, Ella. Service File Accession 1992-93-166, Box 10376. Archives Canada
  4. Willett, Peggy. Personal Family Tree
  5. Willett, Ella. Service File Accession 1992-93-166, Box 10376. Archives Canada
  6. Ibid
  7. Nicholson, G.W.L. Canada’s Nursing Sisters. Canadian War Museum, 1975.
  8. Ibid
  9. Ibid
  10. Willett, Ella. Service File Accession 1992-93-166, Box 10376. Archives Canada
  11. Ibid
  12. Lorinc, John. “Peacetime Killer.” Canadas History, Oct. 2018
  13. Sharon Adams. “War and the Spnish Flu.” Legion: Canada’s Military History, Sept. 2018.
  14. Willett, Ella. Service File Accession 1992-93-166, Box 10376. Archives Canada
  15. Ibid
  16. Willett, Peggy. Personal Family Tree
France, Genealogy, Research tips, Resources Outside of Montreal

Finding Ancestors in French Municipal Archives

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The attached 43-page PDF addresses the Archives communales de France, also known as the Archives municipales de France. This is the second most important group of archives in France for tracing the families of New France and Acadia. The 95 Archives départementales de France are the number one source of information addressing French Canadians, Acadians, Franco Americans, Franco Ontarians and others. (See also, Researching Your French Ancestors Online, posted May 13, 2018, https://genealogyensemble.com/2018/05/13/researching-your-french-ancestors-online/)

There are some 400 municipal archives. I have selected the 124 largest, including archives that offer online access to some files, or at least an online description of the contents.

In 1792, the Assemblée législative de France (The Legislative Assembly of France) took away the responsibility for issuing birth, marriage and death registers from the curés (priests) and gave these duties to local mairies (city halls). At about the same time, a new civil register of France was created addressing acts of birth, marriage, divorce and death. This register was named the Registre de l’état-civil, and the documents were issued by the city halls.

Subsequently, when many cities and towns created their own archives communales (municipal archives), these local municipal archives were assigned responsibility to safeguard the civil registers.

After the creation of the 95 Archives départementales de France, a great number of the local archives communales (municipal archives) turned over their actes de l’état-civil, or copies of these records, to the regional archives départementales. Other municipal archives did not do so. As a result, some of the files found in municipal archives of France can also be found in the regional archives départementales, while other dossiers cannot be found anywhere else.

The majority of genealogy societies in France work closely with their local archives communales. Many of these genealogy societies share the same building or adjacent building to the archives communales of their region.

Here is the link to the PDF: Archives communales de France – 2018-09-04 Rev

Genealogy, Quebec, Research tips

Searching the BAnQ for books and documents

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The Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), the Quebec provincial library and archives, is making some changes to its online search tool that will impact you if you are looking for some books about history.

Pistard pistard.banq.qc.ca will continue to be the primary search tool if you are searching for documents owned by BAnQ. For example, Pistard is the place to search for records of non-criminal offenses such as unpaid purchases of goods, as well as letters and various documents, maps, diagrams and photographs. You can also find documents that were issued by Judicial Districts of New France, Quebec under British Military Rule, Quebec under Lower Canada and Quebec under Confederation.

What the BAnQ has removed from the Pistard search tool is published books which are not owned by BAnQ. You must now look for such books through the Catalogue cap.banq.qc.ca

A search for the name Bagg through Pistard, for example, brings up a list of 24 documents, several of which are plans (diagrams) of property that belonged to a member of the Stanley Bagg family. You can view images of some documents returned by a Pistard search by clicking on the word Coll. on the far right-hand side of the list of results. You can also try researching this database directly from Google by searching, for example, the words Pistard and Bagg together.

One result from Pistard refers to the records of notary Stanley Clark Bagg, but it just describes the collection. To see the index of his notarial acts, you must search on http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/notaires/

A search for the name Bagg through the Catalogue brings up 123 results, only one of which is a book that refers to the family – an archaeological report on the house of Abner Bagg, built in 1821.

If you wish to borrow the excellent book by John Francis Bosher, Négociants et navires du commerce avec le Canada de 1660 à 1760, you would now (2018) conduct your online search through the BAnQ Catalogue.

If you want to borrow the English-language version of the same book by J.F. Bosher, Men and ships in the Canada Trade, 1660-1760 – A biographical dictionary by J.F. Bosher, the online search process is also done through the new BAnQ Catalogue.

The publisher of these two books, Canada Environment – Canadian Parks Services, has discontinued the sales of the English-language version of this superb book. According to the policy of BAnQ in regard to Canadian authors and Canadian publishers, once a book has been removed from the marketplace, BAnQ will digitize that book and the digitized version can be viewed at two of the 12 repositories of the BAnQ: the Collection nationale within the Grande Bibliothèque de Montréal; and BAnQ Québec – Archives nationales du Québec at Université Laval in Quebec City.

You must reserve such digitized books by email. Only the person who has ordered a book by email can have access to these precious and discontinued books. I did so about a month ago, but I have yet to visit the Collection nationale. At my next visit, I will be reminded politely by one of the librarians or technicians that I have not yet reviewed that book on one of the four library computers reserved for such services.

I will explain other aspects of searching on Pistard in future posts.

Genealogy

My Mother’s Breakout Years

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World War II was raging across Europe and the Pacific and the newspaper headlines were dire, but for my mother, the war years may have been the best of her life. After a sheltered childhood, she finally moved out from her parents’ house and found a job. Best of all, towards the end of the war, she met my father.

Joan Murray Smith was born in Montreal in 1918. She grew up an only child and attended a small, all-girls private school a short distance from her house. She was a good student, but shy and unsure of herself.

After finishing high school, she enrolled in art and typing courses. She kept up with her old school friends and there were always lots of parties to attend. In 1937, she and her parents boarded The Empress of Australia and sailed to England and Scotland for a short holiday. It was to be her only trip abroad. Two years later, the war broke out and such vacations became impossible.

A few years later, Joan joined the war-effort in her usual quiet way: she found a clerical position with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). At that time, the NFB was in its infancy. It was headed by John Grierson, a Scottish-born pioneer in documentary film-making, and my mother was thrilled to work there. She later told me that she helped set up the film library at the film board. She was well-organized, and no doubt she found the job both interesting and rewarding.

Many of NFB’s early films were morale-building movies focused on Canada’s role in the war. They also produced documentaries informing people about civilian defence and the roles of different branches of the armed services. Other films were short educational documentaries about food and agriculture, and there was a series of films targeted at women to help homemakers deal with shortages of consumer goods. These were shown in movie theatres across Canada, while libraries made them available to school and church groups. In rural areas, they were shown in community centres, using travelling projectors supplied by the NFB.

The NFB’s head office was located in Ottawa, a two-hour train trip from Montreal. Joan lived with her friend Denny and Denny’s father for a year, then she moved into a house with several other young women. Using the office typewriter, she wrote to a friend, “I am enjoying myself hugely. I got caught up in a round of small gaiety and am finding housekeeping wonderful fun. Not that I do anything but wash up as all the other girls have earlier hours than I do and always have the food ready for me at breakfast and dinner, which is very lucky for all concerned.”

Ottawa is a quiet city, but it was probably more interesting during the war. One of its chief advantages for a young single woman was that it was full of officers. As Joan wrote in another letter, “I have discovered a very nice captain whose chief virtue is that he is a wonderful dancer, but who unfortunately isn’t stationed here.”

Joan and Jim engaged

Then she met Jim Hamilton, her husband-to-be. He too was working for the NFB. He had a science background and was making a film to educate members of the armed forces about sexually transmitted diseases.

Intelligent and something of a non-conformist, Jim was shy with women, while Joan was looking for someone different from the conservative sons of wealthy Montreal families she had grown up with. My vision of my future parents in their dating days comes from a photo, taken in the Gatineau hills on what looks to be a warm day in early spring 1946 in which they looked happy and carefree.

 

 

Genealogy, New France, Quebec, Resources Outside of Montreal

Seigneuries of the Lower St. Lawrence and of the Côte-du-Sud

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If some of your ancestors lived along the south shore of the Lower St. Lawrence River (the Bas Saint-Laurent, as it is often called today,) the attached PDF compilation is designed to help you learn more about their lives.

See PDF:  Seigniories of the Lower St. Lawrence – Revised Version 2018-09-03

The river is tidal here, and so broad that the far north shore is hardly visible. This beautiful area of rolling farmland and salt marshes has been settled for generations, with many residents making a living fishing, building boats and transporting goods and people on the river.

south shore egret
South shore of the Lower St. Lawrence River

Until the 1850s, almost all the land was owned by a few individuals, known as seigneurs, who rented it out to the censitaires, or tenant farmers. Most seigneurs were honest and caring individuals who took care of their tenants. They granted lands to the settlers and financed their first years with money, food, cattle and other animals, farm equipment, wood-cutting tools, building tools and rifles.

In return, the censitaires would repay on a yearly basis their seigneur with beaver furs and other types of fur. They also repaid them with hard-wood, a precious commodity in the 17th century in Europe, for most hard-wood forests no longer existed on the European continent. If the seigneur and his family resided on the seigneury, the censitaires would bring them eggs and meat, as well as fresh milk.

south shore famrland
Farmland along the south shore of the Lower St. Lawrence

Many of the seigneurs on the attached list were merchants or fur traders, and obtained most of their revenue from the sale of wild furs and hard-wood. Some were importers and exporters and dealt with merchants in French port cities such as La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Rouen and Le Havre.

The compilation on the PDF attached includes six main sections:

The Seigneurs: this section focuses on the historic landowners on the south shore of the Lower St. Lawrence, including links to biographies of these individuals.

Regions: the geographic regions described in this compilation are Montmagny, l’Islet, Kamouraska, Témiscouata, Rivière-du-Loup, Les Basques, Rimouski, Neigette, La Mitis (Métis), Matapedia and Matane in the Gaspé.

Cemeteries: a list of historic cemeteries in this area.

Notaries: this compilation includes the names of notaries who worked in this region, the places and years they practised, and the archives where their acts can be found today. The notaries handled important legal documents for people, including wills, marriage contracts, business agreements, land rental and sales agreements, and protests in cases of disagreement.

Bibiothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ): locations and contact information for the archives, and how to order documents online.

Genealogical and historical societies in the region: contact information

With regard to the notaries listed in the attached PDF, the majority of the notarial acts can be obtained through the BAnQ online (free, http://bibnum2.banq.qc.ca/bna/notaires/ or http://www.banq.qc.ca/archives/genealogie_histoire_familiale/genealogie_banq/guide/archives-notariales/index.html), FamilySearch.org (free), or Ancestry.com (subscription). Ancestry has two distinct databases covering different time periods during the lifetime of a notary. Also listed are the notarial acts which can be obtained through Généalogie Québec (Drouin Institute online), (https://www.genealogiequebec.com/en/.

For each notary selected, if a URL address has been posted, this indicates that the genealogy provider’s online databases contains notarial acts. If a URL address has not been posted, this simply indicates that the provider does not own fonds of this particular notary.

Genealogy, Quebec, Technology

Keeping Up with the Montgomerys

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autoshow

Montreal Auto Show. 1914. McCord Museum photograph

Roads trips. They have been a staple of life in North America for over one hundred years and it all began around 1910 in American and Canadian towns.

In big cities like New York or Montreal there was little need for an automobile, what with the streetcars and subways. As silent film footage from the era shows, the city roads were preposterously chaotic.

But, in the  towns during the warmer months, anyway, an auto was both useful to get around and quite the status symbol for the well-off professional man.

Case in point: Dufferin Street in Richmond, Quebec, a leafy stretch lined with red-brick homes in the Queen Anne Revival style.(1)

In 1910, the Skinners, the Nicholsons and the Montgomerys are neighbours on the north side of Dufferin.

Floyd  Skinner, a dentist, buys his first auto in 1909. So does Nathan Montgomery, a man in his forties who is already retired. (2)

Margaret Nicholson, my husband’s great grandmother, living in the pretty house called “Tighsolas” between them, doesn’t think much of these extravagant testosterone-fueled impulse purchases. She writes this in a letter to her husband, Norman, who is away in Northern Ontario working on the railroad:

“Mr. Montgomery is going to buy an automobile. He is getting rid of his horse. Don’t you think he’s foolish?  I would not want one. They are too dangerous.” (3)

TheNicholsos

Norman and Margaret Nicholson, daughters Edith and Marion and Aunt Christine Watters.

 The Nicholsons, you see, never, ever, get to own an automobile. In 1910, they are house-rich but cash poor. They cannot begin to afford a ‘motor’ because in 1910  autos can cost as much as a fine house, in the 2,000 to 4,000 dollar range. (4)

If Margaret Nicholson is very wary of the newfangled horseless carriage, her daughter, Marion, my husband’s grandmother, is not. In fact, she accompanies the Montgomerys on their 1909  auto-buying excursion in Montreal.  Marion, a teacher in the city, tells her mother about it in a letter but wrapped in a little white  lie. “I bumped into the Montgomerys on the street. He is buying an auto and she is in for a shirtwaist suit.”

I suspect this is a lie because in the Nicholson family album there is a photograph of Marion and Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery posing in front of the Motor Import Company of Canada on Atwater and St. Catherine. Marion likely had planned to meet the Montgomerys all along.

MarionMON.PNG

Marion, left, caught in the act of accompanying her neighbours on an auto-buying excursion.

If Margaret felt autos were dangerous, her eldest daughter, Edith, also a teacher, clearly did not.  In the summer of 1911, Edith traveled all the way to Montreal by motor with the Skinners.  Here’s how Edith described her trip in a letter to her dad:

“As you will see by the address, I am in Montreal. I came in with Dr. and Mrs. Skinner in the motor Friday. Left home at 10 am and got to Waterloo at 12.30 had dinner. Saw all we could of the town and left at 2 for Montreal, got here at quarter past six. Without one break down. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed every minute of it.

I will name the places we passed through so you will know the country we passed through. Melbourne, Flodden, Racine, Sawyerville, Warden, Waterloo, Granby, Abbotsford, St Caesar, Rougemont, Marieville, Chambly, Longueil, St. Lambert, Pointe St Charles.

Don’t you think I was a very fortunate girl to have such a trip?

 

Itineray

1911 itinerary.  6 ½ hours for 93 miles.  The speed limit in the city was 8 miles an hour and 15 miles an hour in the country.

 The Eastern Townships is a very hilly place so this pleasure trip must have been quite the  roller-coaster ride for Edith and possibly a bit hard on the, ahem, lower body, especially if Edith was wearing a tight corset under her ‘duster coat.’ (5)

In 1910, autos were considered toys. Motoring was considered a fad, a pastime. The preface to the special insert promoting the 1910 Westmount Horse Show in the Montreal Gazette claims, “The automobile will never replace the horse in Man’s affection.” (6)

So wrong.

Although it was wealthy males who kick-started the automobile revolution, it was women and teenagers who had the most to gain from it.  They were free at last to travel far and wide on their own.

freeatlast.PNG

Free at Last! Margaret’s youngest daughter Flora and friends on an automobile ride in the country circa 1920.

So, here we have three houses on Dufferin Street in Richmond, Quebec – and already two automobiles.

Still, if you pay attention to her actions and not her words, it  is clear that Margaret Nicholson doesn’t really hate autos. Margaret often allows Mr. Skinner or Mr. Montgomery to take her to the mail to post letters to her husband.

 What she says to Norman in her letters is to soothe his prickly pride, that’s all.

To make things worse, just around the corner on posh College Street live Isabella and Clayton Hill, Margaret’s sister and brother-in-law. Clayton is a prosperous stone-mason and, much to Margaret’s chagrin, he owns an especially fine automobile.

Clayton'sauto

Magical Mystery Tour Car. Clayton’s Auto. A Pierce Arrow, perhaps. Very expensive at about 5,000 dollars.

Margaret is always feuding with Clayton and her sister mostly over the care of her elderly mother.

She remains bitter about her relations’ good fortune. In another letter to her husband she writes: “Clayton’s auto has broken down again. Isabel says the repairs are costing a fortune. Aren’t we lucky not to have one.”

Then, again, she accepts rides from her brother-in-law on occasion.

In 1910, there was no resisting the lure of the motorcar. The swanky male ‘toy’  was already proving to be indispensable even to its most vocal female critics.

Nichsolsonhomeafewdaysago

Tighsolas as it looks today.

  1. Richmond was a railway town, on the decline, between Portland, Maine and Montreal, Quebec. Queen Anne Revival style homes had irregular roofs, turrets, and lots of gingerbread moulding.
  2. On the 1911 Canada Census
  3. Nicholson Family Letters. Author’s collection.
  4. This was all changing with the Model-T Ford, and mass assembly. In 1910 Ford claimed his factory was putting out 1,000 autos a day. And he paid his people good salaries so they too could buy an auto. Soon, average middle class families could own a motorcar at around 400 to 600 dollars.
  5. Duster coats were long affairs meant to keep women’s clothes clean. Cars with an internal combustion engine were notoriously dirty.  Steam driven cars were dangerous and noisy. Electric cars, clean but slower-moving, were aimed at women in advertising, and, maybe, just for that reason, they did not catch on, at least until 100 years later.
  6. Magazine articles of the era were already pointing out that ‘the Billion Dollar Toy’ was creating significant waves in the economy, a sign that the auto wasn’t merely a toy but here to stay. By mid-century automobiles and automobile parts were the driver of the US economy.

 

Genealogy, Scotland

Regular and Irregular Marriages in Scotland

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My dad always said that my grandmother, Elspeth Orrock McHugh, was warm and generous and ready to do anything for the family. I was not surprised to find out that she hosted her sister’s wedding in her home in Dundee, Scotland on November 1, 1901.1 They would have just moved into this home2 and it would have been quite an event in her already busy life.

Elspeth had three young daughters, Anne and Elsie, aged three and two, 3 and Sarah Jane who was just 3 months old.4 Imagine hosting a wedding with three children under the age of three. Then again, the extended family would have been there to help.

Elspeth’s sister, Jemima Kinnear Orrock and Duncan McMillan Bissett had a regular marriage even though it took place in a private home. The certificate of marriage states that it was performed in accordance with the rites of the Church of Scotland and after banns were read,5 sometimes referred to as “crying the banns” or “crying the siller.”6 Banns or proclamations of marriage were read in the church three weeks in a row in case there was an impediment to the marriage.7 It is clear from the information on the marriage registration that this marriage was religious and therefore regular. This is just one of the ways that couples could legally marry in nineteenth century Scotland. In England, marriage was a religious sacrament whereas in Scotland it was a legal contract.8

Scotland’s distinctive marriage laws were based on mutual consent, rather than religious ceremony.9   Even so, the most common type of marriage took place in accordance with the rites of the Church of Scotland. The Marriage Act of 1836 also allowed priests and ministers of other churches and religious groups to perform marriage ceremonies.10 Marriages in accordance with the rites of other religions were also considered regular marriages.

Unlike England, Scotland did not allow civil marriages until an Act of Parliament in 1939.11

Interesting enough, Scotland also allowed other distinctive marriage arrangements, termed irregular marriages, that were considered legally binding and, as noted above, based on mutual consent.

A couple could simply pronounce themselves married in front of witnesses. They could also just pronounce themselves married, but it was more common to have witnesses in case they needed to prove it at some point.12

A promise of marriage, followed by a sexual relationship was also considered a binding legal marriage. Although this had to be backed up by some sort of proof, often by a written promise of marriage.13

And there was also the marriage by ‘habit and repute’ whereby the couple simply presented themselves in public as man and wife. 14

Even though the Church of Scotland frowned upon irregular marriages, it was preferable to ‘living in sin.’ Therefore these irregular marriages were tolerated. Their children were considered legitimate and were entitled to inherit property.15

Any irregular marriage could be registered if the couple presented themselves before the sheriff or magistrate. They usually had to pay a fine. Even though Scotland was tolerant of irregular marriages, they were not common in the 19th century. Most citizens preferred to be married either in church or in accordance with the rites of the church in a private home.16

 

  1. Scotland’s People web site, Statutory registers Marriages, marriage registration of Jemima Kinnear Orrock and Duncan McMillan Bisett, November 1, 1901, accessed July 31, 2018.
  2. The 1901 census, taken on the night of March 31/April 1, 1901 gives the family’s address as Milbank Road. The registration of Sarah Jane McHugh to Elpeth and Thomas McHugh on August 10, 1901 gives the Fleuchar Street address, the same as the address at which Jemima and Duncan were married. Therefore they would have had to have moved between March and August 1901. See references 3 and 4 below.
  3. Scotland’s People web site, 1901 Census, National Records of Scotland, entry for Thomas McHugh, accessed April 6, 2018.
  4. Scotland’s People web site, Statutory registers Births, birth of Sarah Jane McHugh, August 10, 1901, accessed December 1, 2017.
  5. Scotland’s People web site, Statutory registers Marriages, marriage registration of Jemima Kinnear Orrock and Duncan McMillan Bisett, November 1, 1901, accessed July 31, 2018.
  6. Rampant Scotland web site, Did you know? – Marriage customs in Scotland, http://www.rampantscotland.com/know/blknow_marriage.htm, accessed August 19, 2018.
  7. National Records of Scotland web site, Old Parish Registers – Marriages and Proclamation of Banns, https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/research/guides/birth-death-and-marriage-records/old-parish-registers/marriages-and-proclamation-of-banns, accessed August 22, 2018.
  8. University of Glasgow web site, School of Social and Political Sciences, Scottish Ways of Birth and Death, Marriages, https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/socialpolitical/research/economicsocialhistory/historymedicine/scottishwayofbirthanddeath/marriage, accessed August 20, 2018.
  9. Ibid.
  10. Ibid.
  11. Ibid.
  12. Ibid.
  13. Ibid.
  14. Ibid.
  15. Ibid.
  16. Ibid.
Genealogy, Quebec

Uncle Paul to All

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(Updated – “Be Kind” is my new motto and Uncle Paul was one of the kindest people ever!)

The headline read: “Bachelor awaiting his 11th child”. The 1969 newspaper article covered my Uncle Paul’s month-long trip to Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines to visit “all his children”[1]. He sponsored his first foster child in 1961 and, eight years later, he had 11 foster children.

IMG_3028
1969 – Uncle Paul travels internationally to visit his foster children.

My uncle, Paul Lindsay (1923-1987), was my mother’s only brother. He was interested in how the money raised by the Foster Parents Plan[2] was spent helping children and their families in developing countries. So, in 1969, he booked the first of several trips at his own expense and visited all his foster children in person. He was greeted like a hero everywhere – sometimes with a banner across the main street reading “Welcome Uncle Paul”.

Foster Kids 1969
Uncle Paul with some of his foster children and their family.

He served for 20 years as a director of both the Canadian and international organizations of Foster Parents Plan (now known as Plan International).  His ultimate dream was to have two children, a boy and a girl, in each of the areas served by the organization.

Uncle Paul worked as a stockbroker with the Montreal brokerage firm MacDougall, MacDougall, MacTier.  Every weekday afternoon, he left work early and volunteered two hours of his time at The Montreal Children’s Hospital, playing with the kids in the orthopaedic ward. He was much appreciated and recognized as one of their principal volunteers during that time. Years later, I wrote and dedicated a children’s book to him called Bonnie – The Car with a Heart.[3] All proceeds from the sale of the book were donated to the Montreal Children’s Hospital in his memory. But not even “Bonnie” had a heart as big as Uncle Paul!

After his retirement in 1983, he moved from Montreal to Amberwood, a small community in Stittsville  just west of Ottawa. He quickly became a well-known member of his new community. One of his proudest moments was being approved as a “block parent” with their official sign posted in his window. In the year 2000, shortly after his death, the local park he helped develop for the neighborhood children was named after him.

Paul Lindsay memorial
Paul Lindsay Park Dedication
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Uncle Paul’s Nieces, Nephews and Family – May 2018

Another of his passions in life was music, listening to his high-end audio system as well as singing with the Montreal Elgar Choir for 30 Years[4]. When I was very little, he would cup my ear and say my pet name, “Little Lou”, in his deep baritone voice. The vibration tickled and made me shiver with delight.

Uncle Paul loved games! Perhaps it was the child in him. All kinds of games: golf, bowling, cards, Scrabble … and betting games at racetracks and casinos! He had a holiday apartment in the French Riviera (possibly purchased with his casino winnings? Who knows!) When in town, the French children would gather at the local café waiting for “Oncle Paul,” eager for the promised coin or two. I stayed there with him one night in 1974 while backpacking around Europe with a friend. The next day, he bid us “au revoir” both of us with our own bottle of French perfume as a gift.

My cousins and siblings all have fond memories of our Uncle Paul.  We never minded sharing him though; after all, he was Uncle Paul to all!

Paul Sydenham Hanington Lindsay (1923-1987)

[1] The Province, Vancouver, BC – August 12, 1969

[2] https://wiki2.org/en/Plan_Canada – as referenced August 12, 2018

[3] Bonnie – The Car with a Heart, written and published by Lucy H. Anglin – September 2010

[4] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/montreal-elgar-choirchorale-elgar-de-montreal-emc/ – as referenced August 12, 2018

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