Unpacking my research bag

                                                                           Inveraray Castle

Well, the research trip to Scotland turned into more of a sightseeing trip. There were a lot of sights to see. Most of them were historic. I now have a whole raft of new photos with which to illustrate my blog although I'm not sure many of my ancestors got to spend their time in any of the castles I toured, not even as humble servants in the kitchen.

I spent a lot of time in museums too. Museums tend to reflect the experiences of a wider swath of the public, perhaps giving insight into how family members lived in the past. I've started going through the photos I took. There are so many more of those since photo taking went digital. I also picked up a number of books on Scottish history which may shed some light on my families' story. I have particular hopes of a book called The Poor Had No Lawyers. It's about land ownership in Scotland and may give some insight on how and why my ancestors, particularly the Islay ones, were forced off the land. In the case of my Gilchrist ancestors they appear to have been moved off traditional farm land to make way for the development of the town of Port Ellen. I was able to trace how my Hunter relatives in Glenegedale were forced off in later years, first by the RAF, then by the development of the Islay airport. That information came through the valuation roles maybe there is something to show how the land was taken away from the earlier Gilchrist renters to create the town. 

Photos and books are not the only things I brought back. I did spend a bit of time doing some actual research. I'm not sure I turned up anything of value. I'll have to give my notes a closer look. 

Family stories

 

                              The Bridgend Hotel where I stayed when following my great aunt's research trail to Islay

My great aunt, Peggy, was the first person to research my family's history, her branch of it anyway. That was back when research was done by mail and it took ages to find information. I often wonder what she was able to find. Very little of what she uncovered has been passed down. An old picture of the hotel at Bridgend on Islay, brought forth the information that she had gone to that Scottish island to find out more about her family line. It was only a nugget of knowledge but one that prompted me to follow in her footsteps. I stayed in that hotel. The family line on Islay was also the one I started my research with.

Strangely, the information about that old picture came from my father. He was her nephew-in-law, if there is such a designation. But that is the power of story. He remembered some of what he had heard her talk about or maybe a story that someone had told about her trip. It was enough to create a memory so that he told me about her hobby and her trip when he saw the picture.

Sometimes the stories passed down are only the top of an iceberg. According to family lore, my maternal grandfather immigrated to Canada because he saw a poster advertising Canadian immigration in a railway station. It was a family fact I let sit for a long time. Further research brought forth a story which added so much to those bare facts. The information passed down had been stripped of the underlying impetus for his move; that all of his family had died one by one. Also not mentioned was the fact that he worked for the railway and probably saw that poster day after day.

It took me a while to dig for my grandfather's story, but at least I had a clue to give me a head start. It's the stories that are lost to time. The ones that weren't passed down, perhaps forgotten, likely hushed up in some cases; those are the hard tales to get a hold of. But if scandalous enough, there may be clues in the public record. That's what I found when I came across the tale of the two Thomas Arments, father and son. Their criminal records brought forth reams of information about their trial, both on the Old Bailey site and in the newspapers. The records also led me to a clue about where the elder Thomas had come from before ending up in London. So, besides finding an interesting story, the search led me further back on this family line. 

My hope is that, if I look deep enough, I'll find hidden stories on other family lines if I delve into the social history of where they were living. Finding out more about events of the times may turn up their names, if I'm lucky. If not, then I'll have a better idea of the town or village where they lived to add social context to their lives. 

Search strategies with limited clues

 

                                                   Over the bridge to Skye. Were my McPhersons also from this isle?

It probably goes against the tenets of wisdom when it comes to genealogical searches but I'm about to take my McPherson search back to the old country. I know I probably haven't exhausted all the possibilities to locate records of them in Ontario but I'll be on the ground in Scotland. I want to see what I can find there.

Margaret Clark nee McPherson is the person I have the most information about although some of that is contradictory. The Canadian censuses were clear that her husband, Angus Clark, was born in Scotland. They weren't as consistent when it came to her birthplace. In 1881 there was just a dash written where the place of birth should have been, in 1871 Ontario was indicated and in 1861, PEI, if this was indeed Margaret. The name of the wife listed in the earliest census was hard to make out. I have a suspicion she may also have been born in Scotland.

What I do know from Alexander Matheson's letters is that Margaret was the daughter of Donald McPherson. It seems that when Alex was young and lived at home he had lots of contact with this Donald McPherson. Also, from the context of the letter, it seemed that the sister Alex was writing to would know the man too. In the 1851 census for Puslinch, Wellington County, Alex, his sisters, brother and father were listed as living next to a clan of McPhersons. Among them was a Donald McPherson, a widower aged 72. I have a feeling that may be Margaret's father. Unfortunately, his place of birth is listed as Scotland and nothing more.

It looks to be a daunting task to find out more about this Donald McPherson back in Scotland. Without a specific place named where do I start? Perhaps the 1851 census has more to tell me as there are other McPhersons listed surrounding Donald. Before him was Duncan McPherson age 30 with his wife and daughter. After Donald McPherson came John McPherson age 39 with his wife. Then came Alexander McPherson age 27, his wife and son. All of these McPhersons look like they are related. Searching Scottish records for Donald McPherson and sons of the right age might get me further ahead. Who knows, I might find the birth of Margaret McPherson while I am looking.

Sources:

Ancestry.ca census searches from Canadian census collection

Letters of Alexander Matheson, 1895 – 1920, personal family papers

Getting ready for on the road research

 

                                                                  Some of the research results from a previous trip

Oh, to be better organized. I start off with good intentions. Now that I'm trying to get ready for a genealogy hunt I can see the results of my on the road research leave much to be desired. I love to take copies of entries showing my ancestors but they are on full pages of data. Which was the relevant entry and how did it fit into my family tree?

I need to come up with a better system when I research do in-person research. There are tech options out there but I prefer to use paper and pencil. Many of the research notebooks I have are a jumble of research for different family lines. That's especially true of the research I've done in Salt Lake City. At least the books I've written in when I go to particular family areas concentrate on certain branches of my family tree.

Paper records are only one part of the problem. Tech development over the years also resulted in a proliferation of thumb drives. It's time to unearth the ones related to my upcoming research trip. Of course, I've left everything until the last minute so I better start organizing. I want to find new information while I'm away not duplicates of what I already have. Who knows, if I concentrate on organizing I might find some unremembered gems in the family information I already have!

Learning more about the US Civil War

 

                                                             In front of Lincoln's Tomb

The American Civil War is of interest to many. Covering divisive and pivotal years in the history of the United States, the events of the war are commemorated in the various places where they occurred. Visitors flock to museums and other sites of historic interest related to the conflict. Many family historians in the US can trace their lines back to a civil war soldier. It was a surprise to me, a genealogist living in Canada, to find two civil war soldiers in my own family.

I've written about Alexander Matheson before. Luckily in his case, I was able to obtain his Civil War records which give details of his time in the Union Army. I do not have any records for his brother Angus. It helped to know where Alex was living before he signed up. Angus had been living in Ontario, as far as I know. That doesn't help to pinpoint where to look for his records and there are a few Angus Mathesons in the indexes. There was nothing to tell me which was the right one although some clues found in the family memories recorded when Minnie Henry was interviewed in 1931 might help. But that's for another time. The information I have so far concentrates on Alexander Matheson.

In my search for information about Alex, I went even further afield. Part of the reason I signed up for a Chicago conference about my Irish family many years ago, a family line that had nothing to do with the Mathesons, was so that I could explore Illinois further. Chicago was interesting but I went further south to find out more. I took a train to Springfield. Not only did my trip include a visit to Lincoln's Tomb but I visited most of the museums in the area. The main theme of their exhibits was the Civil War.

The history of the various battles, weapons and fighting strategies was interesting. I enjoyed those exhibits but I was more impressed by the displays that showed the developments that were an offshoot of the war. An exhibit which I believe was at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, was about Civil War Medicine. With so many wounded men, new forms of treatment were developed. From the description of his wounds in his pension records, Alexander Matheson was lucky to keep his leg after he was wounded as the preferred method of treating fractures was amputation. Or maybe it was a lucky break and not a compound fracture, the most likely break to require the loss of a limb. My bookshelves have yielded a book about Civil War medicine which can help me explore this further. 

It's not the only book I have about the Civil War, of course. I've begun a slow read of my collection starting with Battle Cry of Freedom. I'm just in the opening chapters of the book now. I'm impressed with the strands of history that have been brought in to create a comprehensive background to the start of the Civil War. It has given me a better understanding of the forces at play as well as the lives of American peoples during the pre-war time period.

Sources:

Battlefield Medicine - https://www.civilwarfamily.us › battlefield-medicine

McPherson, James M.  Battle Cry of Freedom Oxford University Press, New York, 1988

Wilbur, M.D., C. Keith Civil War Medicine 1861-1865 The Globe Pequot Press, Guildford, Connecticut, 1998

Years of changing travel

 

                                                                      A postcard of the Empress of Ireland

Travel changed recently. It wasn't an alteration in the means of travel but an easing of restrictions so that travel was again possible. People are now taking off for different climes, something they'd been leery of until just recently. This change may be recent but it's also a reminder that the frequency of travel and ways of getting from place to place are by no means static; not now and not in the past. This was true for short journeys as well as epic immigrations.

My family's migrations are a case in point. They illustrate the changing means of transport as well as the altering length of journeys. I don't know much about the voyage of the first family immigrant. John Tripp made his way from Horkstow, Lincolnshire to Boston in the 1630s. Travel to North America from Britain was in its infancy. The ships were relatively small and the voyage itself was long. I have no idea what port he left from or where he landed. Was his travel all by ship or did he need to find a way to a faraway dock to catch an ocean going vessel? Once on a ship, travel times varied widely depending on wind and weather. 

My knowledge of the first three immigrations in my family is sketchy. Travelling as early as he did, John Tripp would have come by sailing ship. The next two, the Mathesons and the Gilchrists came to North America in the 1840s and 1850s when steamships were being developed but they most likely still sailed across the Atlantic. Their ships would probably have been larger and faster than the one that came in the 1600s. I have been unable to find the two families who immigrated in the 1800s on any passenger lists. 

That was not the case for the next immigrating family member. In 1911, H.S. Chambers was listed as sailing to St. John, New Brunswick on the Empress of Ireland. He travelled second class, no doubt in more luxurious surroundings than the two families of immigrants who had made the voyages decades earlier. I need to research his trip more thoroughly but, at least at this point, there is information to be sifted through.

You would think that record keeping would have improved as the years went by. But that was not the case. Yes, ships kept much better records of their passengers as time went on but that didn't transfer over to air travel. As you can see by the immigration table above, the last of my immigrating families came by plane rather than ship. No searchable records were kept of their arrival in Canada. So, from a research point of view it looks like things have gone full circle but thankfully travel time didn't go in the same direction.

Sources:

Campey, Lucille H. “Fast Sailing and Copper-Bottomed: Aberdeen Sailing Ships and the Emigrant Scots They Carried to Canada 1774-1855” Natural Heritage Books, Toronto, 2002

Douglas, Althea. Time Traveller’s Handbook: A Guide to the Past Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2011

 

Images:

Postcard – Empress of Ireland - by Unknown - Sjöhistoriska museet, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42989236

Learning about Scottish land records

 

                                                            Glenegedale, Islay is now the site of the Islay airport

My Scottish genealogy research has centred on the islands of Islay and Skye although, according to the ethnicity maps at Living DNA, my Scottish lines may also come from other places in the country. So far, I have only been able to follow the lives of specific family members back to those two Scottish islands and that is where I have concentrated my research.

I began my research by looking for Islay records back before I know what I was doing. I amassed a lot of information, like copies of documents taken from microfilms. Unfortunately, many of those records have no references about the sources they came from written on them although I probably kept a research log at the time. That's the problem with keeping research logs separate from the results.

Another problem is knowing the correct terminology to refer to these documents. Scottish land records were the hardest to wrap my head around. Through the years I've been researching there had been times when I'd run across different terms for Scottish land records, like sasines. I had no idea what they were and, as my lot didn't own land, I thought that none of my relatives would have been involved with those strange sounding documents.

Fast forward to the present and the Pharos course, Scotland 1750-1850: Beyond the Old Parish Registers. Lesson four is about land records so I'm finally going to try to understand the Scottish system of land holding which was a lot different from the system to the south. From what I had gathered through my research, there were a few landlords with large holdings and most people were renters. When looking for Islay records I was lucky. Early on I'd purchased The Day Book of Daniel Campbell of Shawfield 1767 with relevant papers concerning the Estate of Islay. The hope was that I would be able to find my ancestors somewhere in there. I did. In the book, I found some of them in the lists of rentals living in Glenegedale.

Further digging back then, this time in LDS microfilms, netted me more records related to the land. I was surprised to  learn that tenancies were inheritable, but when you think about that it makes sense. Land usually does pass to the next generation. I was just not aware that there would be legal records related to those inheritances, like this one that I transcribed:

From what I've read in the Pharo's lesson on land records so far, this would be a record of a sasine or at least the indication that there was one. I'm still not sure what an actual sasine is but now I know that there was at least one sasine attached to my family's history. So the term used in Scottish land holdings that I had initially dismissed because I was sure it wouldn't apply to my family, was something I needed to know more about. The record above references a rental bequeathed in a will. It's a good thing that this record exists because I've been unable to find the will itself and I fear that it was lost.

Islay's published land records make them accessible but Skye seems to be another story. I'm not sure if I will be able to find similar land records for my family on that island. I'll have to read on further in the Pharo's lesson to see if there are hints on where to look.

Sources:

LDS film (number unrecorded) containing rental records for various places in Islay

Ramsay, Freda The Day Book of Daniel Campbell of Shawfield 1767 with relevant papers concerning the Estate of Islay Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen 1991