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

Genealogy, Quebec, United States

Lucie Bagg: Her Story

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Lucie Bagg, half-sister to my three-times great grandfather Stanley Bagg, has represented a brick wall for me ever since I started genealogy five years ago. I had never heard of her, or of her two half-sisters, before I started to research the Bagg family. I found a record of her baptism in La Prairie, Lower Canada (now Quebec),1 but that was it.

Gradually, clues emerged. Lucie was mentioned as a beneficiary in the will that her half-sister Sophia Bagg, veuve (widow) Gabriel Roy, wrote in 18562, so I realized she must have lived to adulthood. Then I ran across an 1816 marriage record for Lucy Baggs and William Kaene in Buffalo and Vicinity, Erie County, New York.3 It was easy to imagine that she had moved to Buffalo since her family was originally from the United States. I found the Kaene family on several public members’ trees on Ancestry, but I wanted evidence that the Lucy I had found was the Lucie I was looking for. Finally, I found it: the 1860 U.S. Federal Census listed Lucy Kaene, born Lower Canada.4

Now I can tell her story:

Lucie Bagg was born on 11 Jan. 1789 in La Prairie, Lower Canada to American-born, Protestant parents, but since there was no Protestant church in the town, she was baptized in the local Catholic church. The priest who recorded her baptism was French-speaking and he used the French spelling of Lucy in the register. Lucie lived much of her life in the United States and appears in census records as Lucy, but to her family in Canada, she remained Lucie.

Lucie’s father, innkeeper Phineas Bagg (c. 1750-1823), had moved to La Prairie, on the banks of the St. Lawrence River near Montreal, from Pittsfield, Massachusetts with his four children by his now- deceased first wife and with Lucie’s mother, who was probably Ruth Langworthy.5 He had fallen into debt in Pittsfield and lost his farm to repay his creditors, so he had come to Canada to start a new life.6 La Prairie was then a prosperous town on the route between Montreal and New England, and a number of Americans lived there.

By 1810, Lucie’s half-siblings were beginning to launch their careers and marry. Phineas and son Stanley moved onto the island of Montreal and opened the Mile End Tavern at a crossroads about a mile north of the city.7 The Mile End property was a farm as well as a tavern, and perhaps Lucie helped feed the animals or serve the tavern guests.

In 1816, when she was 18, she married William Kaene, a 19-year-old Pennsylvania-born farmer, somewhere in or near Buffalo. At that time, Buffalo was a village on the eastern shore of Lake Erie. Several years earlier, during the War of 1812, British troops had burned it.

opening the Erie Canal crop

In 1825, the Erie Canal linking Lake Erie with Albany and the Hudson River was completed. Perhaps Lucie attended the canal’s opening ceremonies in Buffalo, the waterway’s western terminus.8  The canal gave a big boost to Buffalo’s economy as the town became a transfer point for both passengers and goods.

In an 1832 city directory, William was listed as “grocer, main Street, dwelling public square”.9 A directory published in 1836 indicated the couple lived a short distance northwest of the town, at the corner of Pennsylvania and Tenth streets, and identified William as a farmer.10

Lucie and William had at least three children: Louise Sophia (1817-1911), Julia Elizabeth (1829-1910) and Ella (1836- ).11 There are big gaps between the girls’ ages, so Lucie may have had other children who died young.12

Julia married John Alexander Brewster in 1858, moved to California and had three children.13 Louise married Harrison Otis Cowing in 1839 and had nine children, two of whom may have died young. 14

Cowing ad 1850-51 directory cropHarrison Cowing was a grocer and merchant in Buffalo and became the official head of the household. In 1850, the Cowing family, Lucie and William and their unmarried daughters were living in the brick family home at Pennsylvania and Tenth.15, 16 At that time, William’s occupation was land dealer. He died two years later.17

Lucie was still living with the Cowing family at the time of the 1860 federal census and of the 1865 state census.18 After the Civil War, several of the Cowing children moved to the Midwest, and it appears Lucie joined them. She died in Lafayette, Indiana on February 2, 1874.19

Photo credit:

“Opening of the Erie Canal” engraving of a print by Howard Pyle (1853-1911), from The Evolution of New York: by Thomas A. Janvier. www.eriecanal.org, accessed Feb. 28, 2016.

Commercial Advertiser Directory for the City of Buffalo, embellished with a new and correct map. Jewett, Thomas & Co., publishers, 1850. p. 5. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015049262119;view=1up;seq=29

This article is also posted on Writinguptheancestors.blogspot.ca

Notes and footnotes

  1. “Quebec, Canada, Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection), 1621-1968” [database on-line]. Ancestry.com, (www.ancestry.ca, accessed 27 Feb. 2016), Gabriel Drouin, comp. Drouin Collection. Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Institut Généalogique Drouin.
  2. Labadie, Joseph-Augustin, # 14278, 18 Mai 1856. Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
  3. “Early Settlers of New York State, Their Ancestors and Descendants”, extracts from Vol. 2, No. 12 (June 1936) Akron, NY: Thomas Foley. Genealogical Research Library, comp. New York City, Marriages, 1600s-1800s [database on-line] (www.Ancestry.ca, accessed Feb. 27, 2016).

4. 1860, Buffalo Ward 10, Erie, New York; Roll: M653_748; Page: 729; Image: 157; Family History Library Film: 803748. Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2009. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

There are two errors in Ancestry.com’s transcription of this census entry: Lucy’s last name was transcribed Kene instead of Kaene, and her age was copied as 68 rather than 62 as the census taker had written it. The original census entry reads, Lucy Kaene, age 62, born Lower Canada.

  1. It is not clear whether Lucie’s mother’s name was Ruth or Lucy. I will write about her soon in another post on writinguptheancestors.blogspot.ca.
  2. Janice Hamilton, An Economic Emigrant, Writing Up the Ancestors, Oct. 16, 2013, http://writinguptheancestors.blogspot.ca/2013/10/an-economic-emigrant.html
  3. Janice Hamilton, The Mile End Tavern, Writing Up the Ancestors, Oct. 21, 2013, http://writinguptheancestors.blogspot.ca/2013/10/the-mile-end-tavern.html
  4. The History of Buffalo, New York, Index, http://www.buffaloah.com/h/histindex.html links to a variety of articles and images about individuals, businesses, politicians, the arts, the military and the Erie Canal. Buffalo Research.com, http://www.buffaloresearch.com/onlinedirectories.html, links to online city directories from 1828 to 1941. See also the virtual exhibit focusing on Buffalo in the year 1832: Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society. 175 Years Celebrating the Incorporation of the City of Buffalo. http://www.buffalohistory.org/Explore/Exhibits/virtual_exhibits/buffalo_anniversary/175th/index.htm
  5. 9. A Directory for the City of Buffalo containing the names and residence of heads of families and householders of the said city on the first of July, 1832. Buffalo: L.P. Chary. p. 84. http://nyheritage.nnyln.net/cdm/pageflip/collection/VHB011/id/5034/type/compoundobject/show/4911/cpdtype/document/pftype/image#page/1/mode/2up
  6. 1836-1837 Crary’s Buffalo City Directory, p. 94. http://nyheritage.nnyln.net/cdm/pageflip/collection/VHB011/id/8820/type/compoundobject/show/8679/cpdtype/document/pftype/image#page/74/mode/2up
  7. Ella was born Nov 19, 1836 according to her 1865 christening record: “New York Births and Christenings, 1640-1962,” [database] FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FDLB-NYM (accessed 27 February 2016), Ella La Fontaine, 19 Nov 1836; citing reference 2:112NCB1; FHL microfilm 1,378,628.

Ella was 29 years old in 1865 when she was christened at Grace Episcopal Church, Buffalo. Ella was not listed on the 1850 U.S. Federal Census, but she did appear with the rest of the family on the 1860 U.S. Federal Census and the 1865 State Census. Perhaps she was adopted.

  1. The 1850 census mentioned a daughter Johanna but I have not found any other mention of her. Also, the transcription of the 1850 census on Ancestry.ca incorrectly lists two other family members, Catherine and Fred. The census gatherer did not write down last names for these people, so they can be mistaken for family, however, Fred was identified as a labourer born in Ireland, while Catherine was born in Germany and may have been a domestic servant.
  2. “Public Member Trees,” [database] http://www.Ancestry.ca, Adams Family Tree, Stuart Lauters compiler (accessed 28 Feb. 2016), http://person.ancestry.ca/tree/16093254/person/341207597/facts. This is a well-sourced public member tree on Ancestry.ca for Lucie Bagg and her family.
  3. “John Cowing Revolutionary War Soldier” provided by Joe W. Cowing, 2002, submitted by Dolores Davidson, www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nychauta/Families/Jcowing.htm (accessed 1 March, 2016). Harrison Otis Cowing (1814-1839) is part of generation 7 in this family tree. His son Stanley Bagge Cowing, born 1844, may have been named after Lucie’s brother Stanley Bagg.
  4. Commercial Advertiser Directory for the City of Buffalo, embellished with a new and correct map. Jewett, Thomas & Co., publishers, 1850, p. 118. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015049262119;view=1up;seq=174

16. 1850, Buffalo Ward 5, Erie, New York; Roll: M432_502; p. 491B; Image: 486. Entry for William Kaene; digital image. Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.ca; accessed 28 Feb. 2016), 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Images reproduced by FamilySearch.

There is a transcription error on Ancestry: the family is indexed as Rane, rather than Kaene.

  1. “Public Member Trees,” [database] http://www.Ancestry.ca, Adams Family Tree, Stuart Lauters compiler (accessed 28 Feb. 2016), http://person.ancestry.ca/tree/16093254/person/762097336/facts.

18 New York, State Census, 1865 [database on-line]. Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.ca, accessed 28 Feb. 2016), Census of the state of New York, for 1865. Microfilm. New York State Archives, Albany, New York.

Note the census-taker erroneously spelled the family name Kane.

19 “Public Member Trees,” [database] http://www.Ancestry.ca, Adams Family Tree, Stuart Lauters compiler (accessed 28 Feb. 2016), http://person.ancestry.ca/tree/16093254/person/1077026843/facts.

Genealogy

The Thunderbird

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by Claire Lindell

Every year, even after all these years when the Feast of the Annunciation draws near, my memory is flooded with the events that transpired more than fifty years ago. Decisions that would change my life seem to come to the forefront of my mind.  I think back to that weekend.

Early on the bright spring Thursday morning of March 25th, 1965  the chauffeur driven car pulled up beside the convent. My father walked up to the front door and welcomed me with opened  arms. He had come to bring me home.

For almost six years Joan of Arc House had been my convent home. Taking the Holy Habit, becoming a bride of Christ,  two years in the Novitiate, studying theology, teaching Kindergarten, daily prayers and community living were the  way of life. Leaving  all this behind was not an easy decision.

We set out on the  long drive from Ottawa to Asbestos. We had much to talk about, but to this day I can not for the life of me remember any of our conversation. Heading in to the unknown can be rather daunting. There was a great deal to ponder.

Mom was waiting for us at home. The following day, Friday morning, she took me to the hairdresser to have my hair cut and permed. It was in dire need of something. I had worn a veil while a nun and “one’s crowning glory” was not a priority under a veil! I came away from there somewhat transformed and ready to face the challenges that lay ahead. That afternoon we  drove to Richmond where I signed a contract to begin teaching Grade One beginning the following Monday morning. Arrangements had been made earlier when a friend knew I was leaving the convent and they needed a teacher at her school.

The weekend flew by as I tried to come to grips with my new surroundings, not to say anything about a new look! Life was so different. No bells. No prayers. No meals in silence. No community time.

Monday morning arrived and my Dad suggested I use his  car to drive the fifteen miles to Richmond until I could buy my own. His  car was a 1962  white Ford Thunderbird convertible with bright red leather interior! It was a very snazzy sports car for an ex-nun to be driving. It was a perfect way to get back in to “the real world” and forge ahead on to the next chapter.

T-Bird

That Monday morning I could only chuckle to myself wondering what my new colleagues were thinking when they saw this “to die for car” pull in to  the parking lot and out I came, the new teacher, an ex-nun  who was the driver of the Thunderbird convertible! Can you imagine?

Since that day in 1965 life has been good and there have never been any regrets about the decisions made. Within two weeks I had my own car and I can assure you, it was nothing like that 1962 white Ford Thunderbird with the beautiful red leather interior!

Me and my Mom   on Holy Habit Day

April 30th, 1960

Genealogy

The German Presence in the Lower Laurentians

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This compilation looks at the towns and villages in the Lower Laurentian area, north of Montreal, where German-speaking immigrants settled, and lists the churches these people may have frequented. It also lists several books and articles that discuss these people and their communities. There is a list of repositories and addresses at the end of the compilation that will help you find records of births, marriages and deaths.

German Presence – Lower Laurentian Region of Quebecl Mar 19-1

Genealogy, Great Britain, Ireland

Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day

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Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.  We all love to be Irish for a day on March 17.  In my case, I treasure my Irish roots.  Today, I will raise a pint of Guinness and toast my ancestors.

Although my grandparents were Scottish, my great-great-grandparents, John McHugh and Mary Garret, were Irish.  They were both born around 1820 in Ireland.  They would have been young adults when the Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger and the Irish Potato Famine happened between 1845 and 1852, when potato blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europe.  Ireland was significantly affected and, as a result, one million Irish immigrated to other countries. We commonly hear about the Irish that moved to North America and Australia but a significant number of them immigrated to Scotland.1 John and Mary McHugh were among those who decided to go to Scotland.

At the beginning of the 19th century, it was already common for Irish agricultural workers to move to Scotland temporarily to work during the harvesting season.  By the 1840s, the number of these workers had increased from a few thousand per year to 25,000.  By 1851, the Irish-born population in Scotland had risen to 7.2% of the total population.2

The economic difficulties in Ireland, combined with the industrialization of Scotland that included the expansion of coal and iron ore mining, and the building of shipyards and railways, as well as the significant expansion of the textile industry in Scotland, made Scotland an attractive destination for the Irish.3

The Irish were ideally qualified to work in Scotland’s textile industry as many of them already had knowledge and experience in the textile and jute industry.  Linen and yarn production was already established in Ireland.4The economic conditions in the 1840s in both Ireland and Scotland provided John and Mary McHugh with the impetus to move to Scotland to work in the textile factories in Dundee. Not only John, but Mary also, would have been assured of a regular wage, as many of the textile workers were women. 5

While Scotland would have been a choice destination for John and Mary, it would have been a difficult adjustment.  Sadly, this is because of their religion.  They left communities in which everyone was Roman Catholic to go and live in Protestant Scotland. The Irish Roman Catholics did not have an easy time of it in Scotland. “Anti-Catholic Scots were active in the Scottish Reformation Society and sometimes caused riots.”6 These anti-Catholic sentiments probably encouraged the Irish Catholics to remain in their distinct communities and delayed their integration into Scottish communities.7 

The following quote illustrates that the Irish were victims of discrimination.

“As late as 1923, the Church of Scotland could still publish a pamphlet entitled ‘The Menace of the Irish Race to our Scottish Nationality’. The Irish were seen as drunken, idle, uncivilised and undermining the moral fibre of Scottish society. They were also seen as carriers of disease. Typhus, for example, was known as ‘Irish fever’.”8

Unlike the above quote, we know the Irish to be hard working, disciplined and adaptable.  I am proud to have Irish roots.

So, despite what would have been great adversity, John and Mary settled in Scotland, lived in a Roman Catholic community and had children and grandchildren who worked in the textile industry. The generations of McHughs working in the textile industry in Dundee came to an end when their grandson, my grandfather, Thomas McHugh, could no longer find regular work in the textile industry in Dundee and decided in 1912 to move to Canada.

A toast to the Irish!  I wish you all a very happy St. Patrick’s Day.

 

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

2 http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/Irish-immigration-to-Scotland.html

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution_in_Scotland

4 http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/Irish-immigration-to-Scotland.html

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Dundee

6 http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/Irish-immigration-to-Scotland.html

7 Idem.

8http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/higherscottishhistory/migrationandempire/experienceofimmigrants/irish.asp

Genealogy

John Buchan: Author, Pacifist, Canadian

People often wonder why no one tried to stop Hitler before 1939. One answer is the influence of pacifists, including John Buchan.

His desire to come up with some way to achieve peace in Europe led Buchan to hold secret meetings with Roosevelt on behalf of Chamberlain while serving as Canada’s Governor General, writes Kate Macdonald, in her book  “Reassessing John Buchan: Beyond the Thirty Nine Steps.”

The most obvious constructive outcome of Buchan’s partly secret, partly public approach was a series of high-level meetings and state visits involving Buchan and President Roosevelt during the late 1930s. From Washington, Roosevelt made active use of Buchan as an informal—but high-level—channel of communication with British political leaders in London, doing so, it seems, to circumvent the influence of the American State Department and British Foreign Office. Buchan, as focused as Roosevelt on the vital issue of peace in Europe, was only too happy to oblige the president by acting in this way, even though he should not (as governor-general) have engaged in this subterfuge.”[1]

Buchan’s public popularity made him invaluable as an go-between for British and American interests. The Scottish National’s novel The Thirty-Nine Steps had just become a mystery thriller movie by Alfred Hitcock and he was also he was voted Time Magazine’s man of the year when the The British Government appointed him Lord Tweedsmuir in 1935. The Lordship was a necessary step to allow him to be appointed Governor General of Canada on August 10 that same year.

His appointment as Governor General of Canada was meant to signal a new era. Leaders were buoyant that the depression would end and employment would rebound. The dust bowl storm of the previous spring was over and a new government had taken power. Unemployment was still high and many people were still struggling to feed themselves, but countries that had been closed to exports were opening up.

As Lord Tweedsmuir, Buchan outlined two international trade agreements in his speech from the throne which began Canada’s 18th parliamentary session on Thursday, February 6, 1936.

I am happy to be able to inform you that a trade agreement between Canada and the United States of America was concluded on Armistice Day, 1935, and that the trade dispute with Japan, which had seriously affected the trade of both countries, was adjusted before the end of the old year. The Canada-United States Trade Agreement will be submitted for your approval. You will also be forthwith advised of the basis on which normal trade relations between Canada and Japan have been restored.[2]

In addition to travelling throughout Canada, welcoming the new King and Queen, establishing the first proper library at Rideau Hall, and founding the Governor General’s Literary Awards, Buchan represented three different Kings during his five year reign. George V died in January 1935. Edward VIII abdicated eleven months later. George VI took office in May 1937.

He spent most of his time, however, supporting desperate Canadians and meeting with leaders to convince them not to go to war.

Their efforts to build a European peace failed.

On Thursday, September 7, Tweedsmuir made the following speech:

Honourable Members of the Senate:

Members of the House of Commons:

As you are only too well aware, all efforts to maintain the peace of Europe have failed. The United Kingdom, in honouring pledges given as a means of avoiding hostilities, has become engaged in war with Germany. You have been summoned at the earliest moment in order that the government may seek authority for the measures necessary for the defence of Canada, and for co-operation in the determined effort which is being made to resist further aggression, and to prevent the appeal to force instead of to pacific means in the settlement of international disputes.

Already the militia, the naval service and the air force have been placed on active service, and certain other provisions have been made for the defence of our coasts and our internal security under the War Measures Act and other existing authority.

Proposals for further effective action by Canada will be laid before you without delay.

Members of the House of Commons: You will be asked to consider estimates to provide for expenditure which has been or may be caused by the state of war which now exists.

Honourable Members of the Senate: Members of the House of Gommons: I need not speak of the extreme gravity of this hour. There can have been few, if any, more critical in the history of the world. The people of Canada are facing the crisis with the same fortitude that to-day supports the peoples of the United Kingdom and other of the nations of the British Commonwealth. My ministers are convinced that Canada is prepared to unite in a national effort to defend to the utmost liberties and institutions which are a common heritage.[3]

After both houses voted to support the plan, Canada went to war with Germany on September 9, 1939.

[1] Macdonald, Kate, Reassessing John Buchan: Beyond the Thirty Nine Steps, London: Pickering and Chatte, 2009, , 1851969985 p 113.

[2] Journals of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada, Session 1936, 18th Parliament of Canada, J.O. Patenaud I.S.O., February 6 to June 23rd, 1936, Thursday, February 6, 1936, p 12.

[3] Journals of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada, 5th Special War Session, 18th Parliament of Canada, J.O. Patenaud I.S.O., Thursday, September 7, 1939, p 1.

Genealogy, Germany, Quebec, Resources Outside of Montreal

The German Presence in the Eastern Townships, Central Quebec, the Richelieu River Valley and South-West Quebec

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As in other parts of Quebec, German-speaking immigrants, including some Loyalists with German roots, integrated well into life in the Eastern Townships and surrounding regions. This compilation describes the towns and villages where some of these people have lived from the late 1700s to the 20th century. It names the churches they attended and the cemeteries where they were buried, and it helps the researcher locate these records.

The German Presence in the Eastern Townships Final Mar 6

England, Genealogy, Great Britain, Writing

Plymouth Navy Days

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by Marian Bulford

Our group or ‘gang’ never went out with the local lads. Every Saturday night we went dancing at the NAAFI and met up with the young sailors from all over the British Isles who were stationed in Devonport. The NAAFI was a huge social club ….
It was always with the young sailors stationed in Devonport, from all over the British Isles that we met every Saturday night when we all went dancing at the NAAFI – the Navy Army Air Force Institute – a social club for all the services and service families situated in the centre of Plymouth and covered a whole city block. At one end, it was a hotel for service families and the other end was a restaurant three bars and a huge dance floor.

I was an excited 16 year old, with the whole world in front of me. Plymouth Devon, in the UK was my home town.

It was a naval port and had been for centuries. Who has not heard of Sir Frances Drake, the celebrated Tudor seafarer, famous for circumnavigating the world on the Golden Hind and fighting the Spanish Armada? Or the Mayflower, the tiny ship that transported the first English Separatists, known today as the Pilgrims, from Plymouth to the New World in 1620? [1]

Most of my family on both mother and father’s side, were Royal or Merchant Navy and had lived in or around the areas for centuries the same places I lived as a teenager.

Ships of all sizes were always in and out of Devonport, the area I lived in and when a ship arrived ‘home’ there was much celebration in the local pubs and dance halls. This was my town and I loved it.

It was also a very popular summer holiday area with lovely hotels and guest houses. This area of Devon was described as the ‘Riviera of the South’ we even had our own palm trees.

This poster shows ‘Plymouth Sound’ and ‘Drake’s Island ‘ in the background, the beautiful Tinside Art Deco Lido Pool and of course, the sailors. I could have been one of those girls in the poster……

Holiday Poster

Over the last year, my 16 year old school friends and I had built up a close group of boy sailors, ‘Matelot’s’ as we called them, the young 15 to 16 year old Navy boys learning their trades as apprentices on board various ships at the Devonport Dockyard, where many of my ancestors had worked over the centuries.

NAAAFI Building, Plymouth Devon c. 1961

The Plymouth NAAFI Club

We were all very excited in 1961 because the NATO [2] fleet arrived in Plymouth!
About 15 foreign ships would be arriving and the population would swell. The local population was pleased as money would be made and our group noticed a lot of ‘strangers’ in town when the fleet arrived. Lots of ‘ladies’ from London arrived, or ‘unfortunates’ as my Gran called them, and they stood out because of their accents.

Many foreign languages were also heard in the streets of Plymouth, some I was only hearing for the first time, and we tried to communicate with some of the sailors with lots of miming laughing and hand waving.

The biggest ship in town was a United States Aircraft carrier, USS Wasp, which caused great excitement: it was as big as a small town.

But imagine our reaction on the following Saturday, when we went to our usual dance at the NAAFI and saw our very first black men in the flesh AND they were doing the twist, the dance craze at the time!

We had never seen black people before, there were none in our part of England, and especially not ones doing the twist! Boy, they were ever good! Not a patch on us or the local sailors and we could not wait to copy them. But that is another story….

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower

[2] NATO Fleet: Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1952,
Greece and Turkey became members of the Alliance, joined later by West Germany.

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England, Genealogy

Dissenters and Poets

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john

Reverend John Forster. Published with the permission of the Primitive Methodist Ancestor Website.

Late in his life, Somebody Forster, my great-grandfather, awakened from his night’s sleep to ask his wife of many decades, ‘Woman, what are you doing in my bed?”  It was dementia.

Until lately, this serio-comic anecdote was the only thing I knew about my father’s mother’s father, other than that he was a Methodist Minister from the North of England. But, just last month, I accessed the 1901 UK Census, (for free, yea) and it took me about thirty minutes to find out all I could want about my great-grandfather Somebody.

First, I looked up my grandmother, Dorothy Forster, who I knew was born in 1895 in Middleton-on -Teesdale, County Durham, UK,  to see that her father was a Reverend John from Knockburn, Northumberland; her mother Emma, a former Cowen from Crook,  and, more importantly, that John was a Primitive Methodist Minister. (I checked. PM’s were dissenters; socialists and pacifists, apparently.) *1

Then, googling the keywords “John Forster” and “Primitive Methodist,”  I  landed on a webpage from a genealogy site, myprimitivemethodistancestors.org , with a short biography of Great-granddad John, with  grainy photos of him and wife Emma taken in 1914. 2 

Apparently, John Forster, a bookish, self-educated son of a farmer, was an accomplished essayist who penned over fifty articles for the Connexions Magazine of the Primitive Methodists on sundry weighty topics including “Heredity in Relation to Morals” and “Primitive Methodism and the Labour Question.”(He also served as a Temperance Committee; amusing, as his daughter, my Grandma Dorothy*, could really slug back the gin!)

I was most intrigued, though, to see that John had published a book of poetry, in 1923, shortly after my father, his grandson, was born at the European Hospital near Kuala Lumpur, Malaya. The author claims that Reverend John’s poems ‘contain lyrics of extraordinary charm and grace.’

(Well, I know the Wasteland was published in 1922, ushering in modernity, it is claimed, but no one said anything as nice about T.S. Eliot’s poem 😉

Curious, of course, about these verses, I contacted the Primitive Methodism Website’s administrator, asking for help. She immediately emailed me back a longer biographical article about John Forster, but no examples of his poems.  The volume in question, Pictures of Life in Verse seems to have gone missing from the church/museum library.

Quelle Bummer!

There’s good news, though. This longer article lists Reverend John’s assignments or ‘circuits’ in chronological order.  The Forster family moved often, it seems, around the area:  Thornley, Crook, Middleham, Bradford, Middleton-in-Teesdale, (a very pretty sheepy village) about six other towns, then, it said, “his present one (1912) being Helmsley.”

Bingo!  I know from the 1911 UK Census, that Helmsley is the hometown of my grandfather, Robert Nixon.  Clearly, alliances were made in that era that resulted  in the marriage of John and Emma’s second daughter, Dorothy, to Robert Nixon, son of a delver in the local Rievaulx quarry, although a Great War would delay official matrimony.

Dorothy would have been 17 in 1912 and fresh out of her co-ed Quaker boarding school and Robert Nixon just 22, and working in service as a footman.3

Perhaps Robert’s prospects weren’t good enough for the righteous Reverend John. In 1913, according to online records,4 Robert, travelled to Malaya to work as a labourer in a rubber plantation. During WWI, Dorothy worked as a land girl, leading enormous Clydesdales through the woods, a comical sight as she was only 5 foot tall.*5

The same records also reveal that Robert returned to England in 1916, now the plantation’s Assistant Manager. This trip home was very likely to secure a wife for real as rubber company officials insisted their employees return to the UK to find respectable British (see: white) wives.

Whatever transpired back in Helmsley, North Yorkshire in 1916,  on December, 1921, *6 Reverend John Forster, perhaps taking time off from penning one of his charming verses, sent his second daughter, Dorothy  off to  Selangor, Malaya. She’d become pregnant almost immediately upon arrival. I know because my father, Peter, was born on October 23, 1922.7


  1.  Checking into Emma Cowan’s parentage, I see that her ancestors belonged to this same church, Redwing Chapel, that has an online presence! United Congregation of Red Wing Chapel, Garrigill, and Low Chapel, Alston, Cumberland; http://www.fivenine.co.uk/family_history_notebook/source_extracts/parish_registers/cumberland/redwing_registers.htm
  2. Website: Myprimitivemethodistancestors.org
  3. UK Census 1911
  4. UK Immigration and Transportation Records http://www.familysearch.org
  5. Family Lore
  6. UK Immigration and Transportation Records. After WWI, there were many, many more unmarried women than men in England, so perhaps this had something to do with Dorothy’s decision to go to Malaya to marry Robert Nixon. They did not get married in the UK, or at least I can’t find any record of a marriage.
  7. Family lore, (my Aunt Denise, who died last month) said that Robert kept his Asian mistress after marriage. Dorothy eventually got her own boyfriend, a colonial lawyer who remained faithful to her until her death in 1971. Both Dorothy and Robert were interned at Changi Prison in Singapore during WWI. Dorothy was Women’s Camp Commandant for a term. I only met my grandmother once in 1967, when she came to visit. Robert  died while she was at our house in Montreal’s Snowdon district.  He fell off a ladder at his daughter’s, Denise, in Farnborough, Hants, UK.  I recall the telegram. I recall, also, that my grandmother managed to wipe a tear or two from her eyes. I’ve written about my Colonial Grandmother in a play Looking for Mrs. Peel, which makes it all the more amusing that my great-grandparents were named John and Emma.
Genealogy

German-speaking Quebecers in the Trois Rivières area

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German-speaking individuals and families have been immigrating to Quebec for almost 350 years. The first German-speaking family in New France was that of Hans Bernhardt, who arrived in 1663. A few more families settled in New France between 1668 and 1690 and the first small wave of emigration from the Palatinate (German Rheinpfalz) region to North America occurred in 1673.

Following the War of 1812-1814, some soldiers and officers of the Regiment of Watteville and the Regiment de Meuron, who had fought alongside the British against the Americans, settled in central Quebec, primarily in Drummond, Arthabaska, Wolfe and Bagot counties.

Between 1815 and the creation of Germany in 1871, people emigrated from various germanic principalities, dukedoms and electorates. These German-speaking families settled in Montreal, Quebec City, Western Quebec, the Eastern Townships, the Laurentian Region and the south shore region of Montreal.

Much of this information comes from Dictionnaire des souches allemandes et scandinaves au Québec, by Claude Kaufholtz-Couture & Claude Crégheur, published by Septentrion, 2013. This book includes 4,500 biographies of Germanic settlers, identifies where they came from in Continental Europe, notes their marriages in Quebec and the marriages of their children.

This link leads to a short compilation of information on the records of German-speaking Quebecers in the Trois Rivières area, northeast of Montreal:

The German Presence in the Trois Rivieres area

Earlier posts include:

The German Presence in the Montreal Region (Feb. 7, 2016) https://genealogyensemble.com/2016/02/07/the-german-presence-in-the-montreal-region/

the Germanic Presence in Quebec City (Jan. 24, 2016) https://genealogyensemble.com/2016/01/24/germanic-presence-in-quebec-city/

German Churches and Cemeteries in Western Quebec and the Upper Ottawa Valley (Jan. 17, 2016) https://genealogyensemble.com/2016/01/17/german-churches-and-cemeteries-of-western-quebec-and-the-upper-ottawa-valley/

There are three more compilations on Germanic records to come.

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