Searching for family treasure in paperwork stacks

 

                                                       An intriguing hand drawn map found in the paper stack

On my trip to Ontario, I had a chance to stay with my brother and his wife as they live near to Paris, Ontario where I had attended the writers retreat. On a day's outing, I had my first ever look at Niagara Falls, quite an impressive sight.

Not all of our time was spent catching up or sightseeing. My brother brought a stash of our father's papers up from his basement. My visit seemed to be the inspiration for weeding through what was there. Of course, I was madly snapping pictures of records of interest. It was strange to see family history information I had sent to my father that I had found while digging into our family's past. There were other intriguing items like photos of people we couldn't identify although they were clearly of importance and copies of letters with references to events in the larger family that left something to the imagination.

Once the stack of papers had been examined, photographic slides came up from the basement repository. Remember those? As we peered through a handheld viewer, we tried to make out the figures in the images. Some were hard to see and most of them weren't labeled with people's names which would have made identification easier. Surprisingly, there were slides of images from the '50s. They must have been photographs that had been converted to slides, the latest technology at the time.

While going through the papers, I captured so many images on my phone that I'll have to make time to study them in depth. At least in the era that photographic slides were the done thing there weren't as many of them to go through as there are in these days of point and shoot with a phone that is constantly in reach. That brevity must have pleased the audiences pinned down in their seats by good manners as they were subjected to slideshows back in the day. 

Report on a family history writing retreat

 

                                                       My illustration of the presenter's family history story

It's strange to say but our research into the past to find out about our ancestors is constantly changing. The past may stay the same but our ways of accessing it continue to evolve. It pays to keep up with the latest trends so I'm constantly learning and seeking new opportunities for education. In my case, since I want to write about my ancestors that also means learning more about composing compelling narratives that are faithful to the historic facts.

I recently attended a Writers Retreat put on by Lynn Palermo of the Family History Writing Studio. There have been a few online writers retreats but this year two in-person events were to be held; one in Paris, Ontario and the other in Maple Ridge, BC. I attended the one in Ontario.

Over the last few years, I've been meeting up with my fellow writers at the studio by zoom. Seeing people I'd known as talking heads online was a bit odd at first but knowing each other even that little bit helped to break the ice. We learned a lot over the two days of instruction which made me rethink how I have been portraying the main character in my story. We didn't spend all of our time listening though. On the last day we were given the task to illustrate a story that Lynn had related from her own family's history. Let loose with paper and plenty of art supplies, I got in touch with my artistic side and fell in love with the watercolor brush pens I was using. I need some of those!

Aside from artistic endeavours, I learned a lot over the short time of the retreat and enjoyed meeting my fellow students in person. We spent time together but I also found time to explore the town of Paris. It was nice to have fellow writers to share meals and conversation with. And, as part of the entertainment, many of the fledgling writers shared excerpts from ongoing projects after our evening meals. There were a lot of interesting lives captured in their words, inspiration for the work I am creating about my own ancestor. 

Moving and family keepsakes

 

                                                      A view of the immigrant ship Jeannie Johnson in Dublin

Packing, I've gotten used to it over the years. As I remember it, I started packing for myself at the age of 6. My family travelled a lot and I continued to travel over the years. But it's one thing to pack and know that you are coming back home. What if home is moving with you?

Travel changes us but none so much as that which changes our surroundings permanently. I almost wrote "for good" and had to alter that wording because some of those moves weren't travel towards something new they were looking forward to. Rather they were looking for sanctuary after being evicted from their homes. How would you pack for a journey like that?

The temptation would be to take important family keepsakes with you, if you still had them. Only there would be limited ability to take furniture, especially things that were heavy and bulky. That was certainly true in early days with people crammed below decks on immigrant ships. At later dates, movement of household goods was more easily managed if you had the means to pay. I think that our family furniture followed by ship when we immigrated to Canada from England. We came by airplane, a far cry from those earlier immigration treks across the ocean. Not as easy as in this day and age though as there were no jets in those days.

It's interesting to think of the dynamics of our ancestors moving from place to place particularly when it involved immigration. Nice to think that some may have been able to take family keepsakes with them. And really, those were the lucky ones who weren't displaced by war or evacuation due to natural disasters. After those events, I suppose, choosing what to take with you may have been made easier because time was of the essence or perhaps there was little left to choose from. 

Plotting family on maps

 

                                                                 Google map of the United States of America

In Canada, we are used to the large land masses that make up our provinces and figuring out where places, like states, are in the US can be a challenge. The other day a friend asked me what the state under Alberta was. That one I knew, having once lived in Calgary. "It's Montana," I said having gleaned that knowledge from my time working in oil industry offices in downtown Calgary. Even though the name of the state came to me automatically, I wasn't sure if it was the only state directly under Alberta.

That's where maps, like the Google map of the United States above, can come in handy. It also helps when I try to figure out how far my ancestor, Alexander Matheson and his family moved as I work on his timeline. According to one of his letters, he and his wife moved about 800 miles since they were married. They started out in Freeport near Chicago then in May 1870 moved to Iowa. Looks like good timing as the Chicago Fire of 1871 probably caused a lot of disruption in the areas of Illinois surrounding the city. Later, in early April of 1883, Alexander and his family moved to South Dakota.

Until I looked at the map, I had no idea where Iowa or the Dakotas were. In my mind, I had conflated North and South Dakota with North and South Carolina which I was familiar with having traveled through them on my way from Montreal to Florida by car. My mental map had the Dakotas parallel to the Carolinas. Now, looking at the map, I can see they are much further north. That means that the farmland and crops would have been similar to those in Illinois. As a farmer, that would have made a difference to Alexander Matheson. Looking at a map really did enhance my understanding of his story.

 

Sources:

Google maps: map data ©2023 Google, INEGI

Letter 6 from Alexander Matheson to his sister, Margaret Thomson

 

Did historic events actually affect your family?

 

                                               This is just a portion of the magazines stashed at my place

Just as I threatened to, I've finally gotten around to going through my stash of magazines. The thing is that I've discovered other caches of them on the different floors of my living space. But I spent good money for these publications so I'm giving them a once over if they look interesting and most of them do. My tastes haven't changed that much.

An article in an old issue of Harper's made me think. It was the June 2014 edition which isn't that old considering that I still have barely touched magazines with bonus CDs attached. Remember those? But I digress, the Harper's article was an account from their archive which had been written 70 years prior, in August 1944. Their correspondent, Vernon Bartlett, had written about the non-event that D Day had been from the point of view of someone on the ground just getting on with their daily tasks with the, by then, accustomed complications that being in England in the middle of the war added. 

In a way the feeling the article conveyed was similar to the text I received from someone in Nova Scotia asking me if the wild fires in BC were affecting me. In return, I asked her if she had been flooded out by the torrential rains in Halifax in July. The answer was no in both cases. Because that's the thing, when something momentous happens, the immediate thought is that it is widespread affecting everybody in the area. But that is not always the case. 

It's nice to include historic events in our ancestor's stories but are they as all-encompassing as we think? Unless there is written proof, perhaps it is best to look at the people known to have been affected and see if there is any link with our past relatives. It could be that nothing changed for them after the event so maybe that piece of history was not noteworthy in their lives. 

Sources:

“Invasion Diary” by Vernon Bartlett. Harper’s Magazine. Harper’s Magazine Foundation, New York, New York, June 2014. 

Letters and family history

 

                                                                     Family letters can fill in some of the gaps

Letters can be a wonderful window into ancestor's lives. I'm lucky enough to have access to two collections of correspondence; one from my maternal grandparents and one from a 3 x great uncle, also one of my mother's relatives. Both sets of letters were one sided though. There were no copies kept of the answering letters. Still, there was enough information to fill in some blanks about their lives.

Placing them in context can make their actions more understandable. It can also lend depth to the narrative of their stories. My current task being, of course, getting one correspondent's tale down on paper. Readers of this blog will know I'm working on Alexander Matheson's story. He was my 3 x great uncle and led an interesting life. He outlined some of it to his sister, Margaret, after he finally discovered where she was living after 40 years. She must have kept those letters that he wrote.

He started writing to his sister in 1895 but I know from his correspondence that his use of the postal system started much earlier than that. In his letters to her, he mentioned the different post masters he had written to in Canada seeking news of the family he had lost. He was in a different country because, when he couldn't find his family, he moved across the border to the US in the late 1850s. 

But, although we now take postal service for granted, even call it disparagingly "snail mail", back in the 1850s it wasn't the same as it is now. So, as part of the research for Alexander's story, I decided to find out more about the postal system while Alex was using it. Not only was that the US postal system but also the postal system in Canada as well.

In Canada, new post offices tended to pop up where the rail lines went. It took a while for the railways to head west. The US had other events that opened up their postal system. According to a book that I read about that country's postal system, it really expanded with the California Gold Rush, followed a few years later by the US Civil War. Apparently, many soldiers kept up regular correspondence. Which makes me wonder who Alex wrote to while he was fighting in the Union Army. That correspondence would be an interesting find if it still exists. 

Sources:

Correspondence of Alexander Matheson – 1895-1920

Gendreau, Bianca; Willis, John; Brousseau, Francine, Special Delivery: Canada’s Postal Heritage, Goose Lane Editions, Fredericton, N.B., 2000

Henkin, David M., The Postal Age: The Emergence of Modern Communications in Nineteenth-Century America, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2006 

Researching ancestors lives and other subjects

 

                             Interior of Dr Williams Library in London where I researched my Congregational minister

In depth research into an ancestor can take you a lot of places. For some, there is the need to find out about the places where they lived and/or the occupations that they had. That information can inform the researcher about the reasons for some of their actions and, in turn, provide a better understanding of what they lived through. As someone who loves history, I enjoy trying to picture my ancestors in time and place. I've even been lucky enough to find information written about particular ancestors.

In the case of my ancestor, Thomas Strange, who lived from 1723 to 1784, I was even more fortunate to find something that he had written. He was a nonconformist minister in Kilsby, Northamptonshire, so a learned man. I was lucky enough to find information about him at Dr. Williams Library in London which included some of the sermons he had written. They were long! I wouldn't have wanted to sit through one especially as, according to one of the accounts written about him, he had a speech impediment.

The Reverend Thomas Strange would be an interesting ancestor to write about. At the moment, I'm focusing on another relative. One closer in time. Alexander Matheson, who fought in the US Civil War. There has been a lot written about that war, so the main problem with finding out information is weeding through all that is out there.

There was another aspect to Alexander's story besides the war, however. That was his search for his family, his father and siblings. It was a search that took place from another country because he had last seen them in Canada. It meant that he had to search by mail. Can you imagine? Only, it wasn't quite the mail service we know today. Which leads me to more research, this time about the postal service in two countries during the time of his 40 year search. It's strange the places that family history can take a researcher.