Social Media of the Day

When social media was in diapers I was a young 20 something and thought, "why would I want people knowing my business". The irony is that I was the target age group and I didn't start to engage with it until my late 20's and early 30's thinking "this is a great way to keep tabs on people but still being able to maintain my preferred level of introversion".

What does this have to do with family history?  Well one day we may all be memorialized by our online presence. Or, maybe, spreading our social goings on isn't new. Maybe in the past there was another medium besides the word of mouth that spread community news on a weekly basis. What on earth am I talking about?  I am talking about being wrote about in the "social pages". Old timey people were interested in what their neighbors where up to, who was visiting from out of town, why no one had seen ol' Mrs. so-in-so for a few days.

Exhibit 1:

As a researcher of family treasures these little tidbits, to me, are like uncovering a fine piece of silverware from a dusty attic trunk.  It's nice to have I suppose but if it's something you can't or aren't going to use, what's the point?  Indeed, what is the point of telling everyone who reads the newspaper about Fred and his brother visiting their niece and her husband? It's old timey FB, just less visual and no picture of their tea and cookies.

I'm sure these social page editors where not thinking "this will be great someday - their great grand children will really appreciate it!"

Some people made the paper more often then others. On my dad's side of the family it was often nice bits of news about visits and garden parties of the well-to-do.  On my mom's side (who lived in a neighbouring town) it wasn't as pleasant.

Poor Charlie Dadson.  He got picked on in the papers quite a bit and there was nothing flattering about the stories the newspaper chose to tell.

Exhibit 2:

The gist of the story is that my great grandfather was tossed onto the street with his belongs, wife, 3 year old and 1 year old daughter after the landlord claimed he'd not paid his rent.  Seems like a great story for the newspaper!! Why not tarnish a man's reputation on a slow news day - sheesh.  There were a few other mentions of Charlie in the newspaper in the late 30's including one where he lobbied to prevent kids from running around with guns on Sundays after church, as they were apparently want to do.

Not everything I have encountered has been so grim. Here are a few more that make me wonder about these people I will never know but whose blood I share.

(Above: football = soccer)

 

(With just a few more days to go, Merry Christmas to all)

It is interesting to think about the unintended legacy we might be leaving behind...

Sources:

http://news.ourontario.ca/WhitchurchStouffville/search 

http://www.pada.ca/newspapers/

Serving One's Country

Poppy from pintrest.com

As we roll into the fall season the leaves are dropping and the winds are changing.  A yearly remembrance is upon us forever symbolized with the red poppy.

We are moving further and further in time from the first and second world wars and inevitably we will have a diminished tangible grasp on the people who served their country during these two wars. As a child I used to recite the same tired joke my mom used (likely in her childhood as well) about my great grandfather having served in both the first and second wars...

"My great grandfather served...served food!! He was a cook."  While this got more eye rolls than laughs it doesn't seem to be something I am able to forgot. There is another family joke about my great grandfather having signed up for service after two days of marriage...

While g-grandfather Coombs was ruled out of overseas service due to a "split toe" he served at Niagara Falls feeding the troops before they were shipped out for service as he was a baker by trade. During the second world war he served as a cook to the R.C.A.F in Toronto (likely at Downsview not far from his home).

Until I began doing my family history I had never realized that there were several others in our tree that had served, particularly in the first war but some in the second.  Some of these men came home, some did not.

Have you checked you family tree for some tangible roots to the past?

Victorian Death Photography

I have been thinking of late that I have been pretty lucky to have my mitts on some historical treasures that have been passed down through the ages.  There are some stories, some physical objects and quite a fair number of pictures (or copies of pictures).  I have taken some of these pictures and lined my staircase with the portraits of people I have never met.  I enjoy thinking about the lives of my ancestors and wondering about the day the photographs were taken.

In my list of mysteries to solve there was a name-unknown child - a sibling of my Great Grandfather Coombs. Shortly after GG Coombs was born his mother died of complications and he was sent to be taken care of by his mother's sister.  He was raised by his aunt and uncle, who by all accounts treat him as their own, but as a result he knew very little about the child that came before him.  GG Coombs had three older sisters and three older brothers, one of the brothers died as a child.  The information that was passed down (along with a couple of pictures of the young family) was that the boy drowned in the Charles river - name unknown.

England has very detailed vital records but that catch is the records cost moola to access (indexes tend to be free but don't tell you very much). I did my best to find a Charles river in England...I did not find one.  I thought, maybe his name was Charles...I found no Charles Coombs born or died within the proper time frame. The little boy did not appear on the census records as he fell in between collection times - a lot can happen in a 10 year gap!! Eventually I narrowed down the birth records to two possibilities, Richard or Oliver.  I settled on Oliver since GG Coombs named one of his daughters Olive.  I had always thought Olive was a weird name for a little girl.

The picture.

I have this picture on my wall.  It took me about 400 days of seeing it, multiple times a day, to realize that it wasn't what I thought it was.

It's hard to tell from the grainy scan but...that little boy in the middle...ya, he's not alive. Suddenly one morning as I was leaving for work it all made sense. The father is holding the boy up, his eyes are closed, mouth agape, most of the kids are not amused. I have my very own Victorian death photograph - creepy!! The one oddity about the picture is that it was taken in what appears to be outdoors - if you search Victorian death photography you will see many many examples of indoor, stiff pose portraits.

Well, that's one mystery solved!

The Murder, the Lepards and the Black Sheep

The Lepards and the black sheep are not literal animals, but they still make for a great story.  The family Lepard, sometimes spelled Leppard or in German Lipphard/Lipphart etc., were black sheep (maybe).

When starting my family research I had some help from scraps of paper and some oral accounts but there seemed to have been some discrepancy about whether we were related to some folks named Lepard.  Thanks to the digitization of records I proved that we are descended from Lepards. My grandmother once asked her mother about the Lepards and her response was some vulgar adage to the effect that we were "no more related than two dogs [visiting] the same fence post". This however was untrue, so why would my great grandmother say such a thing?  Reason number one was that she may not have known that  her maternal grandmother was a Lepard. My great grandmother's mother, Annie Morris, died when my gg was only 3, so there may have been a disconnect from that branch of the family despite Annie's mother - Lavinia Lepard having lived until 1922 when my gg was about 21. The real reason I think for the comment was a distancing from the Lepards.

Why?
Murder.
That's why.

Tree for character reference:

Victim: Roseann Lepard/Leppard. 

Age: 23

Location: mother's house somewhere in Artemesia Township of Grey County (Ontario).

Cause: poison (strychnine)

Accused, tried and executed: Husband, Cook Teets, 52

Purported confessor to Crime: Mother, Roseanne O'Malley Lepard 

My discovery of this information was quite by accident.  When I find someone who has died "youngish", I've taken up the habit of looking at the cause of death.  This is when I came across:

When I discovered the "executed for murder" I went down the research rabbit hole trying to find all the information I could.  While I couldn't find much in the way of digitized newspapers I was able to find an interesting article in a magazine, Canada's History. It was with great delight my employer's library had the physical copy of this magazine and I was able to make a copy and read about the details of this family tragedy.

The cobbled together version I've read is that, Roseann ran away with Cook Teets to be married in Toronto. Her mother, an Irish - Catholic woman was not impressed at the age difference between the two nor impressed with the fact they were not married in a Catholic ceremony. Just 6 weeks after their return Roseann fell ill and died in her mother's house. Mr. Teets had left his bride at his mother's house the evening prior (after dinner) and she was well.  The story goes that he must have poisoned her since he was in possession of strychnine - a poison commonly used by farmers to poison rats. His motive was the life insurance that had been taken out on her shortly after the time of their marriage. Cook claimed the insurance purchase was at the behest of Roseann (she may have been pregnant and may have wanted to insure some money in the event of her death). Despite Cook being an "old" man who was blind in one eye - he was unable to convince the judge of his innocence and he became the first man hanged in Grey County on December 5th, 1884. He was the 9th and last man hanged that year in Canada.

To complicate the story further the media reported many years later that Roseann's mother later confessed to the crime. It would seem that her mother was a troubled woman.  She was once arrested in the 1890's for attempting (or succeeding) in burning down a neighbour's barn.  The consequence was a sentencing to an insane asylum (historical term, not mine). In 1901 she is reported as an inmate in Toronto and in 1911 she is in a facility in Coburg.  She 1918 she dies at the facility in Orillia (the now infamous Huronia Regional Centre than ran from 1859 until it was closed in 2004).  She was buried in the institution cemetery.

It is a sad end to a sad story. A proud person may not want to share this story and would possibly deny any relation to those involved in such nefarious circumstances. To me it feels like my own personal episode of "who do you think you are".




Sources:
Argyle, Ron. "Reasonable Doubts". Canada's History December 2010 - January 2011, pg 35-39

COOK TEETS HANGED. (1884, Dec 06). The Globe (1844-1936) Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/1532182620?accountid=9894  

 

Paper Trail Existance

In contrast to the story about the secrets of great grandmother Gertrude - there is the paper trail of great grandmother Mary Francis Hutton.  My mom remembers her as a stern and unloving figure. I know her for the trail of records that illustrate the adventures of a woman living in a pre-enfranchisement era.

Mary Francis was born into the middle class of the 1880's in northern England.  Her father was a baker, her maternal grandfather a confectioner rumored to have had his own candy factory. A more fanciful rumor about this branch of the family is that they descend from the same family as the Scottish Poet Robert Burns. I've yet to substantiate this but Robert Burns did have several siblings - so maybe someday I will solve this particular mystery.

What amazes me about MF is the difference in the life she led in comparison to her contemporaries (in my family tree) that were living the rural life in Canada.  1911 I have one great grandmother getting married, having babies (see the post about secrets...) and in England I have another great grandmother living with her sisters, no parents and working as a restaurant waitress.  This may not sound like a big deal but there were four unmarried women holding their own - all working - making their own way in the world.

The family lore that comes with this story is that MF (and likely her sisters) did not like their step-mother.  Their mother Annie had died in 1907 and their father had remarried a few years later in 1909 to a woman much younger than himself.  There was such an age difference in fact, his new bride was only 3 years older than his oldest child. I can see how some young ladies would be annoyed that their step mother is closer to their age than that of their father.  I see this as one reason they may have struck out of their father's home to live their own lives, in a time where women usually went from father's home to husband's home.

These women were also on the adventurous side. On June 29, 1912, just over two months after the sinking of the Titanic, Mary Frances and her sister Margaret set out for Cape Town, South Africa.  Over the next 10 years (all) the girls would travel back and forth from Cape Town to England. They usually traveled two at a time, and sometimes was it one sister accompanied by the eldest child and brother, John Robert Hutton.

The story (I have no facts other than the passenger lists) is that Mary Francis and her sister had a tea room in Cape Town.  The period of time the Huttons were there seems to have been an uneventful one (in terms of the history of South Africa).  The Boer war had been over a decade prior and the Aparthied far off in the future.  In any case, Mary Frances returned to England in the midst the beginning of WWI, arriving in April of 1916 only to ship herself off to Canada in November of the same year. There are no hand me down stories of why she left Cape Town or why she decided to come to Toronto on the verge of winter.

Life in Canada "slowed" her down.  She never traveled back to England or South Africa - unlike her siblings who continued to travel. Within a year of her arrival she was married to a baker who was also English and trying to make his way in the metropolis.  At the time of their marriage in 1917 they were living together - how progressive - but with parents on another continent who is to stop them! By 1920 the children began to arrive, 6 in total over the next 8 years. Maybe her stern and unloving demeanor (at least my mother's perception of it) was a result of some sort of caged bird feeling but I will never know.

Secrets...Part 2

In Part 1, I was writing about my Great Grandmother, Gertrude (Gertie) whom I discovered was an illegitimate child born to Mary Ann Robinson.  Gertie and Mary Ann were raised as sisters, along with 9 other "siblings" (in actuality aunts and uncles).  There is another child (George) in this mix that may belong to Mary Ann or possibly one of the other sisters - but there are no official records to support this - only speculation since Sabina would have been 43 at the time of his birth.

Back to Gertie. Gertie had another secret...which may not have been very well hidden secret.  Gertrude's first child, a daughter came into the world on the 16th of December in 1911. Her new baby daughter was born at her new husband's family farm house...3 months into the marriage.  This may not be shocking to our 21st century social etiquette but it is shocking for 1911!

Gertrude and her new husband were married in September of 1911. Not by their local clergy but away, in Toronto.  While not a particularly far distance from their home town, in 1911, without an automobile, a 45km trip was either by horse or train.  From this record I gleam that Gertrude was up to 6 months pregnant at the time. There is no family lore that this daughter was born early or was premature in any way.  This would have been a tad scandalous if I'm to believe what social historians tell us - okay I mean Downton Abbey.  As if a impending child wasn't reason enough, I have other reasons to believe this was perhaps a marriage not blessed by the presence of close friends and family (ie. parents and siblings):

The witnesses. Witness number 1 for the groom is Charles' cousin Clifford Fawthrop. On the face of it this does not seem strange, many cousins are as close as siblings.  Clifford however is a cousin of Charles who grew up in eastern Ontario, far from the immediate family in the town that bears their name. Clifford, in 1911, was a young man of 19 bearing witness to his elder cousin's wedding.  While 19 is young, the second witness was MUCH younger.

Witness number 2, for Gertrude, was Inez Dalby.  Inez would have been known to Gertrude as her niece since Gertrude was raised as a sister to Inez' mother (although in truth Gertrude and Inez were actually first cousins). With large farming families it wasn't uncommon for the eldest child of a family to marry and begin having children while his/her mother may still be bearing children - resulting in aunts and uncles younger than their own nieces and nephews; these children would have been raised together more like siblings/cousins being of about the same age. So, it may not have been weird for Gertrude and Inez to be good friends - but at the time of Gertrude's wedding, Inez was but 16 years old.

So, we have 16 year old niece/cousin witness, long distance cousin witness, possibly 6 months pregnant bride, and wedding in a far-enough-away city.  Seems scandalous enough to me for a Tuesday in 1911. By all accounts these two lived on to have a happy life with many children, grandchildren and lived to see many great grandchildren. It makes me wonder what the whole story was...

The Secrets and Secrets...part 1

As the name was meant to suggest, part of this blog was meant to touch on the things I have found while doing my extensive family research.  The time has come to share some of the secrets I have found.  Some stories get passed through the generations - some do not - and some become legend or rumor.  In my research I have proved rumors and furthered some into further mystery but I have also uncovered secrets. Unknown secrets.  I've begun to piece together fictional stories of the lives of ancestors from the bits of "truth" (ie. primary documents).

Let me share with you my Great-Grandmother.

What could be so scandalous about this handsome woman you ask? Gertrude Robinson grew up in a typical rural Ontario farming family until I discovered in fact it may not have been so typical. Another researcher who turned out to be a cousin of mine in some capacity (cousin's removed...I'll explain that to you later when you are bored and want to know) - she pointed me to a birth record for Gertrude when I told her she had the incorrect parents for Gertrude.  Birth record? What birth record...I hadn't found Gertrude's birth record yet.  My cousin's tree contained the birth record - I clicked on it and saw the secret.  Her parents were not Sabina Petty and Peter Robinson as we had all been told, not Sabina and Peter as listed on her marriage license, not Sabina and Peter at all. Secret number one. Gertrude was the illegitamte daughter of Mary Ann Robinson and one Robert Milroy.

This was a well kept secret. Sabina and Peter raised Gertrude as their own, with Mary Ann as her "sister" and she officially told her children (who told their children, who told me...) that Sabina and Peter were her parents.  Her mother (Mary Ann) died young, 43 - unmarried and of heart disease. The story whirling in my mind is that of a socially shunned woman who died of a a lonely heart. Mr. Milroy - my actual Great-Great-Grandfather, came from a notable local family, later married, had legitimate recognized children but he too died a bit young - only 57. Heart disease as well.




Gertrude may not have known of her own first secret but surely she did know about the upcoming secret...in part 2. Stay tuned.

To blink or not to blink

As you might expect "Don't Blink" is a cheesy name for a possibly equally cheesy horror movie. IMBD information right here!

It is also apparently something you will read in a university bathroom stall:

Don't Blink

Is it a warning? A suggestion? One of the reasons I think people write on stall walls is to get a reaction.  This scrawl is howling to have other things written in response to it...such as "why" or "because the boogie man is waiting for you".  Maybe someone was just feeling festive about the upcoming Halloween season.  On that note here is an interesting story I came across today about a "murder house" in Los Angeles, CA.  Enjoy!

Have You Wondered?

...Where do you get your set of values?

I'm sure many of us can point to family, religion, and our general up bringing as the harbinger of our web of values but I feel like I know that there is a great invisible hand which attempts to work its magic on us. What am I getting at?  Take a look at this bathroom graffiti:

"Books Before Boys B/C Boys Bring Babies!" and written below in a different colour although it is not evident, and presumably by another person is, "Love This! Education gives you choices!"

I've been debating sharing the toilet poetry, the profane and the profound scribbles I find for a while but this just pushed me over the edge.  It is this type of benevolent bathroom education that no one asks for but for better or worse given passively.  I have divided opinions about the piece because I've come to learn that life isn't always as clear as right and wrong or good and bad. Is this message bad? Perhaps. Is it misguided, most likely. The more I stare at the two statements the more I feel like these two people are on completely different pages. You can have boys and an education, you can have boys and no babies, you can have babies and education, you can have no boys, no babies and still no education, you can have books, no boys, no babies and no education...or, maybe, you can have everything you want.