Week 11: Brick Wall

 BRICK WALL

Like most genealogists, I have many brick walls.  Some may be simply that I have not yet dedicated sufficient time to break through the wall.  Or the individual is from a time or place that I do not have ready access via internet.  I do realize that only a small percentage of information is available online, but time and money has, so far, prevented me from research trips.  I just move on to another individual in my vast tree.  The benefits (?) of large farming families for multiple generations.

For a number of years, the ancestors that immediately comes to mind when thinking of brick walls are my great-great grandparents Robert Allen and Mary Ann Widdis.  In at least one record, a middle initial of H has been attributed to Robert.  Just recently I set aside my current genealogy research to start a mini Do-Over, concentrating on just them. 

Although I have not been able to Family Bible with my own eyes, I have accepted my aunt's statement that the bible included the statement:

William Allen left Ireland an sailed from Liverpool England with his wife and family on May 28th     1831.  Landed in Quebec Canada on July 17th 1831.

Age 68 in August 1892 - Robert Allen

William Allen married a Buchannan and his son Robert Allen married Mary Anna Widdis and their son William Allen married Mary Jane Woodland.

Did the entry "Age 68 in August 1892" indicate Robert's death date?  Many online trees have used that date (or at least 1892) as his death.  Even if this is an indication of his death, it does not give a place of death.  Some online trees list Grey County, Ontario (or simply Ontario), but some list British Columbia as the place of death.  When checked, none of the online trees cite a source.  And of course it only takes one tree to give false information and it is copied by many others, spreading the misinformation to the point it is accepted as the truth.

Given the time period and place he lived in Canada, it should be an easy matter of finding Ontario records on Ancestry or FamilySearch.  Although I had previously searched those databases for his records, during my recent mini Do Over, I revisited the online images in case I had missed something.  I also re-researched his 11 children and their families in case Robert and his wife Mary Ann may have moved into their households (which I have found was quite commonplace with my ancestors).

Marriage: From the book Robertson's Landmarks of Toronto [1898 reprint]:

Allen to Widdis.  Toronto, 31st August, 1848.  This day were married by license, Robert Allen, of the township of Chinguacousy, bachelor, and Mary Anne Widdis, of the same place, spinster, by me, Richard Mitchell, B.A.

The 1851 Census of Canada West (enumerated in January 1852) lists Robert Allen as a shoemaker in Chinguacousy Township with his wife Mary Ann and two children (William and Jane).  A James Widdis, 19 year old apprentice is also listed - maybe as a member of the household, or maybe living alone and was a neighbour.  Households are not clearly defined in the census.  The family listed just before Robert Allen is Jas. & Jane Widdis and a number of children.  This would be Mary Anne's parents & siblings and apprentice James would be a brother.  

The 1861 Census of Canada West lists the Robert and Mary Ann Allen household in Garafraxa Township, Wellington County.  Their 3 eldest children are listed with them.  But on the next page of the census, as non-family members of the William and Francis Armstrong household are 3 more younger Allen children (Sarah, Robert and Adam) as well as 3 Widdis adults.  Although Mary Ann had a sister Francis, she would not have been William Armstrong's wife.  I have not yet been able to determine a family relationship between William Armstrong and Robert Allen or the Widdises.  But my research has found that it has been a common practice for family members to live with extended family.

The 1871 Census of Canada lists Robert and Mary Ann Allen in Mono Township, Simcoe County, Ontario.  Robert is still listed as a shoemaker and all 11 children are living in the household.  There does not appear to be any extended family members living nearby.  

The 1881 Census of Canada lists Robert and Mary Ann Allen still in Mono Township, but no occupation is listed for Robert.  Only the 7 youngest children are in the household as the older ones are married and living elsewhere.  Neighbours did include some of Robert's siblings and their families.

The 1891 Census of Canada lists Robert and Mary Ann Allen listed in Euphrasia Township, Grey County in Ontario, with only 4 adult sons in the household.  Robert and his sons are listed as farmers.    At first I had overlooked the entry for their mentally challenged daughter Matilda, but then I realized that the image showed pages 23 and 25.  Scrolling through the images, I found page 24 in the image with page 20!  Matilda was listed as the first entry of page 24, with the rest of the household having been listed at the bottom of page 23.  That mystery solved.  Daughter Mary Ann Ferguson and her family were neighbours, but other married children were elsewhere in Ontario.

I have not been able to locate either Robert or Mary Ann Allen in the 1901 census.  If Robert did in indeed die in 1892, that would not be surprising.  But what about Mary Ann?  I did find a death certificate for a Mary Allen in Keppel Township, Grey County, Ontario dated April 8, 1900.  Unfortunately, at that point in time, the Ontario death records were a one line entry in a ledger.  The informant was a doctor, so accuracy of information could be more questionable than if the informant had been a family member.  I suspect this is not my great-great grandmother, however this has been the "closest" I have found for a death certificate for her.

During my mini Do Over, I also rechecked the 1901 census entries for the children and grandchildren of Robert and Mary Ann.  Neither Robert or Mary Ann were living with any of their children or grandchildren.  One son, Adam, was already deceased and his wife Sarah remarried.  By the 1911 census, this widow was raising a grand-niece of Adam so it would not have been out of the realm of possibility that Sarah had taken in one or both of her in-laws.  But no indication in censuses of this having happened.

I have also searched Ontario death records on Ancestry and FamilySearch for Robert Allen in 1892.  I have not been able to find a record.  I also expanded the search for other years, but Robert Allen is a very common name and I have not been able to narrow it down to my Robert.  

I have also tried searching on the various cemetery online records, FindMyGrave, BillionsGrave, Canadian Gravemarkers, etc.  Again no entry, but I know that these sites do not include every single burial in the cemeteries.  And what cemetery?  Some online trees have the burial recorded as Markdale Cemetery in Grey County.  But I have not yet been able to prove that myself.

A few online trees list the place of Robert's death as British Columbia instead of Ontario.  None of my research, or family lore, ever indicated that Robert had ever travelled to the west coast, let alone relocated there.  One of his sons, Robert James and his family did migrate to British Columbia at some point after the 1901 census.  So if Robert died in 1892 in British Columbia, it would not be because he was living or visiting son Robert James.  Robert James died in 1937, so it is not a case that people mixed up the two Roberts with a 1892 death in British Columbia.  Some of the grandchildren of Robert and Mary Ann eventually settled in the Canadian prairies, but not until after 1900.  So I have discounted Robert or Mary Ann living with them at the time of death.

Over the years, I have done a fair bit of researching on OurOntario.ca which is a database of many historical Ontario newspapers.  I have been fortunate that the newspapers from Barrie Ontario are included, many issues having been digitized.  These newspapers include the social columns from the various small communities and would quite often include condolences to a resident of that community on the death of a family member.  I have yet to find any such entry regarding Robert or Mary Ann.  But not everything has been transcribed, let alone digitized. 

Knowing that many public libraries offer vital statistics and/or obituaries and burial records on their websites, I have tried that route as well for libraries in the relevant area.  No luck.

Despite my mini Do-Over, my great-great-grandparents Robert Allen and Mary Ann Widdis remain to be one of my most frustrating brick walls.  Given their geographical location and time frame, the death records should be available.  Unfortunately, errors do happen with digitization with pages being overlooked, or original pages damaged, etc.  As well as issues with transcriptions.  I will continue doing mini Do-Overs every so often in the hopes that documents were redigitized or missing pages discovered and digitized.



 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 22: Reunion

Image
 REUNION I have been fortunate to have grown up in a family that valued family gatherings.  As a child, I did resent having to travel 4 hours (each way) every holiday weekend back to my grandparents.  However, as my interest in genealogy and family history developed, I appreciate having grown up knowing not just my aunts, uncles and first cousins, but the aunts, uncles and first cousins of both of my parents.  My parents were from the same small community in Simcoe County, Ontario and both families lived in that area for several generations.   Before my time, the Allens (my fathers side) had started an annual family reunion at a provincial park near Barrie Ontario.  It was established as the descendants of my great-grandparents: William Daisley Allen and Mary Jane Woodland.  My grandfather, Henry "Harry" Woodland Allen was the youngest of 12, so there were many many descendants as Harry as well as many of his siblings had large families themselves....
Read more

Week 10: Siblings

Image
 SIBLINGS My interest in genealogy stems from the closeness I witnessed all my life of my father and his siblings.  As I got older, I realized that that closeness would have been a result of the closeness their father had with his siblings. My grandfather, Henry "Harry" Woodland Allen (born June 27, 1897) was the youngest of 12 children of William Daisley Allen and Mary Jane Woodland.  On the occasion of their 60th wedding anniversary, the large extended families of William and Mary Jane gathered to celebrate the milestone at a local public park.  I do not know if that was the start of the family reunion or not, but the children of that couple established an annual Allen Family Reunion, held at a Provincial Park near Barrie Ontario.  These reunions have fizzled out, but I do remember attending some during my childhood in the 1960s.  The reunions were scheduled for the last Saturday in August.  We travelled from Kingston to Brentwood every holiday weeke...
Read more

Week 24: Artistic

Image
 ARTISTIC I have made mention before of the needlework crafts done by my mother, Eveleen "Sis" Allen (nee Schell).  As a young girl she learned the usual knitting and crotchet as well as tatting from relatives.  Unfortunately, I cannot remember if it was her paternal grandmother, Mary Schell (nee Deadman), who lived with them (the woman was quite ill her last few years of life) or one of her many aunts that frequently visited.  Some of the lessons may have come from her mother, Irene Schell (nee Bates) but for most of my mother's childhood her mother was busy helping on the family farm as well as providing room and board for one of the local teachers.  Mom used to say that she and her sister Lena were rarely given cooking lessons by their mother as the woman would be rushing to get the meal done and did not have time to teach her daughters.  So I suspect there was similar limited time for teaching needlework. Growing up, I would see my mother knitting and c...
Read more