October Ancestors

For the sake of brief entries, I am not footnoting the facts in this ongoing memorial. Sources have been noted either in other blog posts or in my family history books.

1 October 1721 Jean Weir was baptized in West Calder parish, Midlothian, Scotland, her father named as James Weir. Her mother's name was not recorded, as was the custom of some clerks in some parish registers of the era. This is the earliest date I have for an ancestor and it's very tentative at that. The likely ancestral connection seems to be that a Jean Weir was later recorded as the mother of Thomas Dougall baptized in 1755 in the same place, wife of a John Dougall (their marriage not located). Thomas can be more confidently placed as the father of my Canadian emigrant ancestor John Dougall (1781-1867). The shadowy, elusive Jean is probably my paternal 4^th great-grandmother.

4 October 1960 Hector Fraser Dougall died near Kenora, Ontario, on a drive from Port Arthur (Thunder Bay) to Winnipeg. He was 64 years old. He left a family he started later in life and I regret never knowing him as a younger man. I wrote about some of his prior life here. Much more detail about his POW experience will be featured in an upcoming book, Faces of Holzminden (www.facesofholzminden.com). HFD was my father.

5 October 1884 [Old Style] Victor Carl Freiberg was born on Koneni farm, Kastrane, Marzingshof estate, Riga District, Latvia. His name was recorded in the Mālpils Lutheran parish register as Victor Karls Freibergs at his baptism two months later. Although the Russian Empire (including Latvia at the time) followed the Julian calendar until well after his birth and also after his emigration to Canada, I believe his birthday was celebrated or remembered as 17 October 1884. Victor was my maternal grandfather.

9 October 1920 Latvia-born Victor Freibergs officially became a Canadian citizen according to documents in Library and Archives Canada's Russian Consular files. After emigrating in 1906, he spent time in northern Ontario towns, Blind River and Port Arthur. He was settled permanently in Port Arthur when he became naturalized. In those days it seems his wife would also have become a citizen, by default of marriage.

19 October 1908 Marija Jurikas, single woman, arrived at Quebec from Liverpool on the ship SS Dominion. The ship's manifest recorded her as age 32, a domestic, born in Switzerland. Clearly there was inadvertent confusion between her place of birth and her previous country of residence. Not so inadvertent was the slicing of four years off her age! Latvian ex-pats, including her brothers in Canada, were keen to see her stop flitting around and be properly married off, which happened four years later. There's more about her here. Marija was my grandmother.

27 October 1868 [Old Style] Ivan Georgiyev Jurikas of Krumin on the Ladenhof estate married Jekaterina Feodorova Tukkum of Jurin on the Roperbeck estate—in Livland, Latvia. Because the service was in the Russian Orthodox church at Lemsal, the entry conforms to that style. So, the Latvian equivalents of the Russian/German mixture (with excuses for my spelling, tense and diacritical failures) are Janis son of Juris Jurikas, Krūmini, Lade; Katrina daughter of Feodor Tukums, Jurin, Roperbecki; Livland is Livonija; Lemsal is Limbaži. This couple were my maternal great-grandparents.