Hands On Latvia: Kalna Ķonēni

Like many Canadians, I have more than one ancestral home. I've been fortunate to visit several. Confession: Depending on the advance research I did, and/or the resources available when I got there, it seems I rarely got answers to the unknowns. In fact, I know now I did not always ask the right questions at the moment I was there or even make the best use of my time in terms of information-gathering.

Left: The revered oak tree of family memory

So be it. There is much to be said for soaking up environ-ment―all sensual sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, sentimental triggers―and the special effects of new people.

It was a happy day to meet for the first time many maternal relatives; my family members shared the enthusiastic greetings and enjoyed their hospitality. Who does not have a mother / aunt / cousin who says "You must eat everything on the table"?! So Rasma and granddaughter Zane and others welcomed us at the farm where generations of Freibergs and Lindes have persevered agriculturally, through oppression, resistance fighting, military battles, deportation, and struggles—that we in North America can hardly begin to imagine. And that was just the twentieth-century! Two revolutions and two World Wars in your backyard. Epic hardship that made small periods of peace and happiness that much sweeter.  

The table was laden with special treats. We had an orgy of photo-graph reviewing (and eating) with memories and mutual story exchanges facilitated by Madara and Zane. We are humbled that they are fluent in English while we have only mastered a few Latvian words. Last year's mid-summer dried wreathes of oak leaves hang above us, bestowing good vibrations from the traditionally-revered tree. 

Our mutual ancestor Ansis Freibergs came to Kalna Ķonēni by about 1840 with dairy farming experience. His gift for gardening is vivid in the family memory. In spite of all the intervening disruption and terror, his great-great-grandson Normands operates a dairy farm today. The extended family gathers several times a year to help with seasonal chores.

Mālpils Lutheran Church

   

Mālpils Cemetery

Our hosts took us on a marvellous countryside tour relevant to all the places I mentioned in My Latvian Ancestors (gleaned from all those parish registers and other Raduraksti sources¹), truly a hands-on visit. The ruins of the Vatrāne estate community; the Taurupe Manor owned by the same landlord; Keipene, Madliena, Suntaži, and finally Mālpils, location of the Lutheran church where historical family sacraments took place, and the cemetery. Some of the "seasonal chores" for the entire family include caring for the family burial plots where Ansis lies with his wife Truhte, son Otto and wife Ilze, and more.

Zane shows us the ruins of Madliena school-house, now being restored; most probable execution site of reform leader Otto Freibergs in 1906. 

The young people in this family are aware of their history through long family ties to the same community. But they are forward-looking, cosmopolitan, optimistic ... endearing.

When I read of the hard-won Latvia independence being shattered in the 1940s; when I hear the stories of Kalna Ķonēni farmhouse being spared from the torch in order to treat wounded soldiers; when I see the fruition of labours begun almost two centuries ago; absorbing the sentient heritage around me continues to thrill, that this tiny nationality survives with such spirit.

These are very strong people I come from.

1. Latvia State Historical Archives, Raduraksti (http://www.lvva-raduraksti.lv/en.html) online historical resources.

[Second of four "Hands On Latvia"]
Photographs: BDM, CDM, CBM, April 2013 (thank you!)

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Cemeteries Part 16: Bergen-Belsen

Visiting a Holocaust memorial site is a painful experience.

It's very quiet, few people are observable as we walk the 50 hectares. None of us feels like speaking much. We read information on the stark obelisks placed on the now-grassy fields and woods where thousands of humans once suffered indescribably. A few foundations of the wretched camp huts still remain.

  

Bergen-Belsen was first a Wehrmacht-run POW camp for Russian soldiers; 20,000 of them are buried in an adjacent cemetery. Only later in 1943 was it turned into a concentration camp by the SS. Both German administrations treated the inmates criminally. The bare obelisks and flat concrete markers, at specific sites, reveal the hair-raising story of overcrowding and malicious neglect through lack of adequate shelter, food, water, and sanitation. At least 52,000 men, women, and children died, Jews being the vast majority. Thousands more died after liberation, weakened from starvation and disease. Mass graves are everywhere:

Along the entrance way, sound recordings and interviews with survivors can be heard. I did not go to view the photographs and historical footage. Many years ago I had seen film made by the camp liberators. Once is enough to never, ever forget. The arriving British and Canadians were stunned by the walking skeletons and heaps of unburied corpses. The crematorium had broken down in the last days.

Many nationalities are represented on the main memorial wall: French, Belgian, Dutch, Russians, Hungarians, Italians, Poles, and so on. The French dedication to their nationals says they "committed no crime other than love for France and not complying with the invaders' ideas." An individual stone can be seen here and there to memorialize a lone person.

The small Jewish cemetery has stone markers for some who died here, erected by family survivors or their descendants. The brief commemorations are poignantly touching and sad. They include Anne Frank and her sister Margot.

But to my horror, the first stone I saw was defaced. The Hebrew inscription can be seen at the edge of the gouges.

                     What evil spirit lingers here??

 

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Hands on Latvia: Riga

Like my "Hands on Scotland" series (see alphabetical sidebar of topics on right), this four-part series is on recent travels in the country of Latvia. Specific key family points. Not intended to be a travelogue ... more like setting the scene; providing a few memory triggers; atmosphere leading to the warm personal embraces. Information overload is still upon me.

This is the iconic view of part of the Old Town from the tower of St. Peter's Church, on an overcast and chilly day.

Who said the past is a foreign country? It is indeed, as all dedicated family historians know. In this case, the research had been pushed about as far as it could go—although, admittedly, some vital details of the past are still missing. The travel venture was primarily geared to the present and to meeting with live family relatives. That in itself was a foreign country—geography, language, and culture. Mission accomplished, glad to say, a pastiche of past, present, and future.

Typical side street

"Big Christopher" protects the city from a glass box on the Daugava river bank

Riga. The entire Old Town (VECRĪGA) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I love that designation every time I see it in my travels. Here: walking the cobblestone footsteps of former ancestral unknowns, absorbing the sights, sounds, customs, stories, and let's not forget the food! Vecrīga is not a large area, very walkable in its 800-year-old footprint. This was my second visit to the city, with more time now to explore side streets, inspect "public art," poke at street markets, and linger on café terraces.

Riga will be the European Capital of Culture in 2014. The city is renowned continent-wide for its examples of Art Nouveau architecture as well as cultural institutions. On the down side: preparation for the 2014 event meant temporary closures of some museums. On the plus side: we were ahead of the general tourist season and shared the city mainly with spring-happy locals.

Most striking are the streets of restored mediaeval building facades that survived centuries of war and destruction, even during the bleak Soviet occupation. Times are not sufficiently prosperous yet to restore many interiors to the same degree. Churches often burned down from fire and were painstakingly rebuilt to original specifications, some more than once. Inside St Peter's, neglected stone monuments sadly need attention.  

The entrance to our hotel faced this odd conjunction of buildings!

Our hotel (Hotel Justus) was chosen for its offbeat charm, abutting a wall of the Dom cathedral complex. Each room was differently shaped and furnished. The decor was a mixture of heavy and whimsy (OK, so I'm no furniture expert):

Part of the lobby/bar

One of my goals was the Latvia War Museum located partly in the ancient Powder Tower (Pulvertornis) but disappointingly it yielded no information about the resistance fighters of the 1905 Revolution—what I needed was one of the closed museums!

We were not into the Latvian Black Balsam liquor yet!

The family history highlight in Riga was dinner at a delightful restaurant with the Linde cousins, descendants of our mutual Freibergs ancestors. What a thrill to meet and jabber excitedly after years of email contact! I say "jabber" because we relied heavily on Madara and Ieva, fluently bilingual, to translate for us and their mother Jolanta. The questions and answers were flying as we got to know each other. We almost forgot to eat. 

And we finalized our plan for a day trip to the family farm!

For Facebook friends, many more photos to be seen there :-)

[First of three Hands On Latvia]

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Historical Toronto: The Battle of York

Illustration from Benson J. Lossing in 

The Pictorial Field-Book of the War of 1812

Regretfully I cannot be among the interested parties who will witness a sunrise ceremony on Toronto's western waterfront on April 27th. Travel plans waive my participation and a blog posting that day, but I will be there in spirit. It's a memorial gathering for the day two hundred years ago when the invading fleet sat poised at dawn to take our town. Then "Walking in their Footsteps" will subsequently trace the American advance from their landing to the garrison.

As Admiral Chauncey's fourteen ships approached Gibraltar Point from the east the day before, they would have had a view like this.

Robert Irvine’s "View of York" painted ca.1816 (Art Gallery of Ontario, ID 2946; a gift from descendants of the late Mrs Stephen Heward).[1]

And here is a closeup from that painting to show the old embankment at the garrison they were about to attack

By no means have I read all the excellent books about the War of 1812 and the Battle of York but I'd highly recommend Robert Malcolmson's Capital in Flames: The American Attack on York, 1813 (Montreal: Robin Brass Studio, 2008). Apparently a paperback edition is in the works. And the newsletter of the Friends of Fort York, The Fife and Drum, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 2013) is crammed full of bicentennial details. I am SO going to miss "There's a Great Day Coming"!

In every war, and perhaps every battle, on both sides there are missteps, mistakes, miscalculations, fumbles and stumbles, besides the unpredictable outcome and human consequences. The little colonial town of York, even though it was the capital of Upper Canada, for various reasons was not best prepared for defence. It had never been designated a military post per se.

What would I blog about anyway, if I were here on April 27th? It's rather pointless to regurgitate what I think of as classroom history even if I pretended to be a historian. Truth is, I don't know if "history" is formally or otherwise taught anymore in elementary and higher public education. Its relegation in some provinces into social studies is disquieting ... "socials," as coined by the youngsters, who, by the age of fourteen, seem to know zip-all about the founding of this country or its geography.

History is near the top of any responsible genealogist's consciousness so it's heartening that many memorial events for the War of 1812 have been underway since last year. Therefore ... on yet another reading of that crucial four-day period in 1813, I feel compelled to mention some of the incidents, well-known or otherwise, that capture my imagination:

■ The British decision to blow up the grand magazine of some 30,000 lbs of ammunition at about 1:30 pm caused a massive shock felt all the way across Lake Ontario, shaking buildings in Niagara. An estimated thirty-nine American troops were killed and over two hundred combatants dreadfully wounded.

■ Not long after this disaster, under orders from retreating General Sir Roger Sheaffe, Col. William Chewett and Major William Allen of the 3rd regiment, York Militia, with Rev. John Strachan, presented themselves to Col. Cromwell Pearce for the surrender of York.

■ Doctors―Baldwin, Beaumont, Aspinwall, and others—worked non-stop at the garrison with the ghastly casualties; some of the injured from both sides were billeted in town homes and lodgings.

■ General Zebulon Pike soon died of his injuries. Malcomson says his remains were preserved in a cask of liquor for a return trip to Sackets Harbor; in days gone by this was not an unusual way to transport a corpse.

■ When the Americans seized correspondence and personal effects left behind by hastily retreating British military officers, General Dearborn took great pleasure in using Sheaffe's musical snuff box.

■ Despite property protection in the terms of capitulation, shops and houses were ransacked at will, some repetitively; no-one stopped the ransacking and general madness for three days until American commanders finally acknowledged the pleas of town officials.

■ I have never been able to determine if the stolen fire engine still exists in an American museum, or if the story is apochryphal.

■ Some "fraternization" with the enemy occurred due to many cross-border family and commercial bonds; some Canadians benefited from hauling off wharfside swag, all of which the Americans could not load onto their ships.

■ Some militiamen who had not participated at the battle came to the garrison to obtain parole in the belief it would exempt them from future duty; the Americans duly recorded them.

■ Ultimately, most of the garrison and the parliament buildings were torched.

■ A human scalp had been on display next to the ceremonial mace in the parliament buildings; it was sent along with other trophies to the U.S. naval department. The mace was given back to Ontario by President Roosevelt in 1934.

■ While some Upper Canada government loot was eventually returned, the U.S. navy still possesses the large carved wooden lion that decorated the speaker's chair in the Legislative Assembly. Truly a face to ponder!

Original at the United States Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis, Maryland; the image itself is from the website of the Canadian War Museum which appears to be exhibiting a facsimile.

Photograph BDM, March 2013

The War of 1812 memorial at Victoria Square in Toronto sits in the old military burial ground at Wellington and Portland Streets. Few grave markers survive from the early days of York. The fallen soldiers and militiamen are represented by the figure known as the "Old Soldier."

[1] Stephen Otto, "The Thomsons: Early Builders at Fort York," The Fife and Drum [Newsletter of The Friends of Fort York] (http://www.fortyork.ca/resources/newsletter-archive.html : accessed 11 December 2012) vol. 14, no. 2, July 2010.

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Cemeteries Part 15: Christians and Pagans

... stretching the cemeteries concept a bit ...

Sousse medina

Artifacts in the Kasbah Museum in the town of Sousse, Tunisia, had me gaping in astonishment. Sousse is one of Tunisia's Mediterranean coastal towns existing since eons BC. It became a thriving Phoenician (aka Carthaginian) trading post and then an indispensable port into the Roman province of "Africa." It was attacked by Vandals and Berbers and occupied by the Byzantines before the 9th century Arab conquest. The mediaeval walls of the Sousse medina, a World Heritage site, were built for protection against further waves of attack by Normans, Ottomans, Spaniards, and French. Today they enclose a vibrant life that seems little changed since then. The only minor damage sustained in five hundred years occurred during a sea bombardment during the Second World War.

Sousse was home to early Christians whom the Romans originally oppressed and persecuted. As in other parts of the empire, Christians resorted to burying their dead in underground catacombs away from the eyes of authority. They were by no means the first to employ this practice; remains and items of the Carthaginians preceded them, and probably others. Outside the walls are fifteen kilometres of catacomb tunnels with something like 15,000 burials. Rediscovered in the 19th century, only a tiny portion has been excavated and restored.

Sousse medina, kasbah wall

The splendid museum is located in the kasbah, high in a strategic corner of the medina walls befitting its first function as a military fortress. The kasbah itself is beautifully designed and proportioned, and the museum architecturally complements it to dramatic effect. Highlights are the spectacular mosaics created as floor decorations in the Roman homes of Sousse, then called Hadrumetum. They are displayed vertically for best (overwhelming, actually) effect, many of them room-size, some in fragments. Greek and Roman mythology are the main artistic themes, with occasional scenes of hunting, fishing, and daily life.  

A poor shot of a smaller masterpiece

Roman baptismal font

Most stunning of all: what looks like a typical Roman communal bath, with incredibly beautiful mosaics, is a 6th-century Christian immersion baptismal font. The Latin inscribed around the edge is Gloria in excelsis deo, et in terra pax [h]ominibus bone, bolum[itatus l]audamus te (glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of good will, we praise Thee).

But to the point: the museum also exhibits a number of fascinating funerary and burial-related objects from the catacombs. Viewing marble epitaphs for Byzantine Christians of the 4th century was awesome enough but some of the pagan Roman stelae date back to the 1st century AD. Most of them commend the departed to the household gods (dis manibus sacrum - DSM) so containers and food for a meal were deposited with them. A stela usually gives the person's name, age, parents, status, and name of the person who erected the stone. The date of death does not seem to be the norm!

This one for Felicita is explained:

In this one for Demetrius, we can see a dedication to the goddess Aphrodite:

What amazed me was the antiquity of the stones and that the inscriptions could have survived so long―we are accustomed to most cemetery markers being worn away by weather elements after a few hundred years. Being "stored" underground likely helped preserve them. Time at the Kasbah Museum was priceless, worth getting lost trying to find it through the twisting medina alleys and steep climbs!

All photographs BDM November 2012

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman   

McFadyens Part 17: Realigning Roderick

~ A portion of ongoing revisions for Ancestors and Descendants of Donald McFadyen and Flory McLean from the Isle of Coll, Scotland to River Denys, Nova Scotia ~

Roderick McFadyen was a son of my Donald "the pensioned soldier" McFadyen and Flory McLean, born when his parents were at Toraston on the Isle of Coll, Scotland. There is no baptismal entry for him in the Coll parish records.[1] Only five of Donald and Flory's eight children were baptized, which left the birth order partially tentative.

For some time I believed Roderick was the third child and third son of this couple. His year of birth ranged from ca.1798-1799[2] to ca.1806.[3] Roderick (or Rory, the usual nickname) has not been found through the use of 1841 census indexing.[4] Because ships' passenger lists could be even less accurate for age than the 1851 census, for the time being I will go with the earlier birth theory. As yet I don't have a copy of his full death certificate wherein his age would have been noted―another piece of secondary information.

The recorded baptisms of two of his brothers (Lachlan, 30 November 1798 and Angus, 16 May 1801) make it possible that Roderick was born between August 1799 and August 1800—assuming normal pregnancy terms and the customary infant baptisms soon after birth.

Highland naming patterns come into play here (second son named for the mother's father; Roderick followed this in naming his own children). Previously I had placed Angus in the second child position. That meant looking for an Angus McLean as the potential father of our Flory McLean. Did such a man exist in the 1776 Catechist's List for Coll?[5] He would have to be an adult because Flory was born just a couple of years later ca.1778. Yes and no. At Sorisdale is an Angus, son of Peter McLean and Margaret McDonald. I have grave reservations about this as a hypothesis:

1) Angus is the first child of this couple and the only one of age for the catechism questions; several more children are all under the age of seven years old; it's likely Angus is between seven and ten years old, therefore not an adult.

2) Peter and Margaret are not "family names."

Placing Roderick as the couple's second son alters the earlier generation theory. Roderick McLean (not Angus McLean) would be the likely name of the child's maternal grandfather. I find two adult Roderick McLeans in the 1776 census of Coll. One is married to Flora Morrison with no others in their household, i.e. childless; the supposition would be they are either elderly or recently married, preferably the latter! They are at Arnabost "enumerated" only three households away from Donald-the-soldier's parents. While this Roderick McLean and Flora Morrison seem the best candidates as my Flory's parents, the Coll parish register has no baptisms for any children of this couple.

The other Roderick McLean heads a family at Triallain, married to Christian Campbell, with two small children (John, Ann) and a servant. Well ... Christian and John are not "family names" for what it's worth, about all I can muster to argue against this choice. As luck would have it, there is no recorded birth of a Flory/Flora McLean ca.1778 to a father called either Roderick or Angus McLean.

We know a little more about Roderick later in life. He married Marion McDonald of Grishipol, Coll, in 1826.[6] Marion was recorded as Sarah in most subsequent records; the two names are known to be used interchangeably despite their dissimilar sounds. In 1828 Roderick's parents and his younger siblings departed for Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, on the ship Saint Lawrence.[7] The young married couple chose to stay on Coll even though living and agricultural conditions were steadily worsening.

Roderick and Sarah had nine children born on Coll from 1827 to 1847, father eking a cottar's existence variously at Grishipol, Arivorich, and Torandeich. Notations on the 1851 census show that the children then living at home were being subsidized by the Highland Destitution Commission—like many others on Coll. Finally, together with Sarah's parents, they set off for Australia in 1856 on the ship Lloyds.[8] Their destination was the Hunter River Valley of New South Wales, about 200 km north of Sydney.

Panorama of Morpeth, 16th October 1865, M2120,
Cultural Collections, University of Newcastle, flickriver.com

Emigrants from Coll had reached Morpeth and the Hunter Valley as early as 1838, starting a classic migration chain.[9] Roderick's son John preceded him there, perhaps before 1851. The Roderick McFadyen who died at Morpeth in 1870 is identified as the son of Donald and Flora McFadyen.[10] Australian descendants have successfully traced their roots back to Roderick. His son John settled at farm no. 3, Narrowgut, on the river west of Morpeth.[11]

[1] Coll Kirk Session Minutes, 1776-1813; National Archives of Scotland (NAS), CH2/70/1. (The minutes include baptisms and marriages in this period, later copied into a separate parish register.)

[2] "1851 Census Scotland," database, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 1 October 2008), entry for Roderick McFadyen, Argyllshire, Coll & Tyree, Enumeration District 3, p. 10; citing General Register Office for Scotland, CSSCT1851_115, roll 904.

[3] "New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896," database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 February 2010); Roderick McFayden, Lloyds, 1856.

[4] Searches at FamilySearch.org, Ancestry.com, and ScotlandsPeople were negative.

[5] "List of the Inhabitants in the Island of Coll Decr 2nd 1776," in Coll Kirk Session Minutes 1776-1813; NAS, CH2/70/1. The list is also transcribed at Isle of Coll Genealogy, www.collgenealogy.com.

[6] "Isle of Coll Marriages 1821-1855," database, Isle of Coll Genealogy (www.collgenealogy.com : accessed 27 February 2010), McFadden-McDonald marriage, 29 August 1826, parish register 2, p. 8.

[7] Saint Lawrence passenger list (1828); Nova Scotia Archives (NSA), MG 1, Vol. 227. NSA states the list is faithfully reproduced in J.L. MacDougall, History of Inverness County, Nova Scotia (1922; reprint, Belleville, ON: Mika Publishing, 1972), 128.

[8] "New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896," database, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 28 February 2010); Roderick McFayden, Lloyds, 1856.

[9] Rootsweb.com, SCT-ARL-TIREE Mail List (http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/index/SCT-ARL-TIREE/2010-01) January-February 2010.

[10] Deaths search, database, NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages (www.bdm.nsw.gov.au/ : accessed 12 January 2009), Roderick McFadyen, Morpeth District, death registration no. 4529/1870.

[11] Correspondence Michael McFadyen to Brenda Merriman, 2 August 2012.

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Blogiversary

Six years. It's been a road trip. Sometimes it seems like it's been forever, because genealogical problem-solving is endless. But each new problem is fresh and stimulating. The vehicle is more or less familiar now but the scenery and adventures never fail to compel. The detours are just as challenging and rewarding as the main highway. I'm grateful for readers and my followers and the support of the Geneabloggers group.

My blog is not solely focused on my historical families or even on a particular resource area. I've become comfortable with cherry-picking from a sometimes-distracting variety of ancestry-related interests; "eclectic" works for me. Though I moved the camels to anotherfamdamily, there will still be some travel posts here that involve genealogy.

A recent post on the APG-List [Association of Professional Genealogists] aired frustrations with clients who don't appreciate (or understand) the sheer hard work and time their problems normally require. It really struck a nerve with me. In thirty-five years as a genealogist for hire, the overwhelmingly-frequent attitude I met, and still meet, among the basically uninformed―including inexperienced clients―is how far back can you go? That is the measure the general public perceives as "success"―the length of the pedigree chart or the bushiness of the "tree."

It also made me realize that quite often I try to write here about the research process. The details of evidence discussion and negative findings may not always feature in a standard-format family history, and are unwanted on popular genealogy TV programs, but they suit the blogging medium. Even using my own mistakes to illustration a lesson is of benefit to me if no-one else.

Like most Geneabloggers, I regularly read a favourite slew of blogs. Some are for community news; others involve problem-solving methodology and the finer points of analyzing evidence. The Internet has spawned an amazing library of good writers—genealogical and otherwise―who inform and inspire. The only drawback is keeping your reading list trimmed to a reasonable length!

Every blogger pines for comments and I'm no exception. Comments reflect a connection made or a spark shared, or might even generate a healthy dialogue. The slightest remark now and then can be enlightening or encouraging. This year I've had feedback that it's difficult to leave comments here, and I'm having trouble fixing the blogger.com settings to something satisfactory. If I open up my comment settings to "Anyone" I get a depressing daily pile of web-crawling spambot junk.

I used to get more comments a few years ago before Google started regularly changing its own footprints which made me fool around with my settings. Sigh―who remembers what setting they ticked a few years ago that might have worked for a short time and is no longer an option.

The choices blogger.com gives me for comment settings:

1. Anyone; includes Anonymous Users (that's the spammy one)

2. Registered User; includes Open ID (whatever that means; requiring a commenter to register with whom??)

3. User with Google Accounts (seems to eliminate non-Google people; I'm fairly sure Google does not own the universe yet)

4. Only members of this blog (I have "members"? when did that happen?)

Currently I'm trying out number three. Realistically speaking, there may be little or nothing to comment on so (cross my heart) I try not to have excessive expectations. No matter the quality or relevance or usefulness herein, blogging seems to be me.

It will always be a road trip.

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Hello, George (Stay a little longer next time)

He surfaced again for a moment in time. George Porter was alive in 1805!

Big deal, you say? Yes!—a big deal to find a man to whom I bade a conditional, frustrated farewell over a year ago. A man who disappeared from Upper Canada records by 1800; a man who left behind four young children in the town of York; whose abandoned wife by this time was bearing the child of another man.

In prior research, we knew George received a location ticket for lot 5 concession 3 "east of the Don [River]" in 1795.[1] With diligent labour thereon, a man could expect to receive the crown patent (title deed) for the property in due course. The Index to Land Patents showed unexpectedly that the crown patent issued to Parshall Terry on 2 August 1803, presumably because George had defaulted due to his disappearance.[2] York Township Papers pre-dating the crown patent shed no light on George.[3] To all intents and purposes, he completely vanished after 1799 when he was last recorded living in York.[4] A wide range of sources did not turn up a convincing "likely" George Porter in the following years.

However, a search of the York Township Abstract Index to Deeds—a chronological index to post-patent transactions―uncovered a surprising truth. The search would normally be considered useless because each piece of property only begins with the patent owner. But, turn out the patent did issue in George Porter's name on 10 July 1801 (not August 1803).[5] Furthermore, George Porter "late of York, carpenter" sold the land to Parshall Terry―a regular "bargain and sale" between two individuals―on 17 September 1805.[6] Alas, the document copy does not contain any information as to money or consideration George might have received. 

Nor does the conveyance state where George was residing at the time! What the document does tell us is that George employed a man called Samuel Heron as his attorney to enact the sale for him. Heron was a Scotsman known to be in the towns of Newark and York at the same time as George; their marriages took place about the same year.[7] Their properties north of York town were not far from each other. Heron stayed in York and vicinity to become a merchant and a miller; business reverses left him in debt by the time he died in the 18-teens. Wherever George had betaken himself, he trusted Heron to perform the transaction for him. Both Heron and Terry must have known where George was.

If I want to find out what eventually became of George Porter, the new information adds some possibilities from Samuel Heron's timeline. But the total lack of clues to George's nativity is very hampering. Heron's Scottish origins in Kirkcudbright are a non-starter because no George Porter was baptized in Dumfries.[8] It's barely possible they met during Heron's brief stay in New York City. It seems certain they would have known each other in the small town of Newark where Samuel joined his merchant brother Andrew Heron in 1793.

Parshall Terry was another York pioneer; a Loyalist with Butler's Rangers, he finally settled along the Don River. He would have been well acquainted with his neighbour George. But I don't think he's going to help me because he died in 1808 while crossing that same river.[9] Unlike George (apparently), Terry and Heron were ambitiously entrepreneurial and acquired large tracts of land—for better or worse at times.

A scene on the Don; University of Toronto's collaborative Don Valley Historical Mapping Project http://maps.library.utoronto.ca/dvhmp/

 Now we know that George did not mysteriously die around 1799. Had he gone east to Kingston or Montreal? To the Western District? South to the U.S.? Where will he show up next?—there has to be a next time!

[1] Ontario Land Records Index, Listing by Surname, George Porter, location ticket lot 5 concession 3 York Township, 1795; Archives of Ontario (AO) fiche sheet 39.

[2] Index to Ontario Land Patents 1790-1912, Vol. 1, folio 82, grantee George Porter, issued to Parshall Terry 2 August 1803; AO microfilm MS 1, reel 6.

[3] York Township Papers, Lot 5 Concession 3; AO microfilm MS 658 reel 534.

[4] Christine Mosser, ed., York, Upper Canada, Minutes of Town Meetings and Lists of Inhabitants, 1797-1823 (Toronto: Metropolitan Toronto Library Board, 1984), 13; George Porter, three males and two females, 1799.

[5] York Township Abstract Index to Deeds, Lot 5 Concession 3 from the Bay; AO microfilm GS 6443.

[6] Old York County Copybook of Deeds, Vol. 3 (1801-1806), no. 647, Porter to Terry; AO microfilm GS 5906.

[7] W.T. Ashbridge, The Ashbridge Book: relating to past and present Ashbridge families in America (Toronto: The Copp, Clark Company limited, 1912), digital image, Open Library (http://openlibrary.org/books/OL19342016M/The_Ashbridge_book : accessed 19 February 2013), 87. The Heron-Ashbridge marriage 14 December 1794 was recorded in an Ashbridge family Bible and thus was not a source for George Porter's marriage. George's first child was born in York, May 1794, according to unconfirmed sources.

[8] "Samuel Heron," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=2459 : accessed 18 February 2013).

[9] Edith G. Firth, ed., The Town of York, 1793-1815 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962), 186. 

© 2013 Brenda Dougall Merriman

"The Men"

How often do any of us read "academic" articles to supplement our family histories? It's hardly the first thing on our minds after we have a genealogical skeleton in place. After seeking (hopefully all) the available original sources, we go for the local and community histories, newspaper items, church histories, biographies of contemporaries, and other such published or compiled works. They are necessary to illuminate past context, and many even provide clues to individual names.

Last year I posed a question in a blog post and to Facebook friends regarding the “qualifications” of a turn-of-the-(19th)-century Presbyterian preacher. To elaborate, how credible is it that an illiterate man would know the Bible, would have the ability to exhort and inspire his community, and be acknowledged as a spiritual leader? The few respondents agreed the likelihood was plausible. None of us had what you’d call supporting evidence.

The individual behind my question was “Preacher” John Cameron (ca.1761-ca.1852) who lived in the seigniory of Argenteuil, Quebec, in the early 1800s. We think his birthplace was the Lochaber district of Scotland, likely Kilmallie (spelling varies) parish which covers a greal deal of the area. References to his avocation come only from derivative sources.[1] While his identity is not firmly attached to the John Cameron with eight known children, he seems to have no other “rival” of the same name and timing.[2] The man is documented several times as illiterate.[3]

Well ... first we remember that many, many common people in that time period were illiterate. Secondly, the Scots I speak of were generally unilingual; their language was Gaelic. Thirdly, ordained ministers usually did not arrive to reside in a pioneer new-world community until well after it was established. Presbyterians transplanted from Highland parishes where church practice was a strong element in their lives would naturally have a desire for any kind of continuity in the early years of settlement. So yes, the Preacher Cameron scenario seemed fairly plausible to me as well. But still, I wondered, how would such a man—even one gifted with oral skills—acquire his learning? Indeed, the necessary body of knowledge?

Reaching beyond the customary bevy of derivative sources when composing family narratives involves supplementary historical research. Typically, education in the Highlands--when this John Cameron was growing up and in early manhood (1760s and 1770s)--was largely dependent on the availability of teachers sponsored by the Scottish Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge (SSPCK). Their original attempts at schooling in English were greeted with general apathy. Translation of the New Testament into Gaelic (1767) meant it often served as the mainstay “textbook” in isolated parishes.

“A large number of the works by seventeenth century Puritan divines were also translated into Gaelic. For many years these were the only Gaelic literature in print, but as the majority were unable to read, it was the influence these books had on the preachers that was to be important. Amongst a non-literate people who were highly sensitive to poetry and oratory, the influence of preaching cannot be overestimated ....”.[4]

In 1791-92 the report of Mr. Alexander Fraser, by then the established minister for Kilmallie, gives minimal information about schooling.[5] The report was a generation following that of John Cameron’s youth, noting a parochial school in the town of Maryburgh (Fort William): “Here, the languages and mathematics are taught.”[6] Five SSPCK schools were within the extensive, rugged parish without mention of exactly where. And Kilmallie shared a catechist with neighbouring Kilmonivaig. Church and bible were the overriding influence on education.

More enlightenment! A Gaelic scholar in a publication I would never have thought of consulting opened a whole new understanding.[7] Thank goodness this particular article was in English! Her subject is the sacramaid (a five-day outdoor gathering for communion service), and in particular the ceist (dedicated to “self-examination, scriptural inquiry and commentary led by highly-esteemed biblical savants”). The ceist occurred on day two of the gathering, a Friday, a time when clergy and laymen alike would discuss a chosen passage of scripture. (You will recognize the evangelical “model” for later open-air revival meetings of other denominations.) By custom, well-spoken, godly laymen or elders predominated on this day and became known as “The Men” (na Doine).

The sacramaid tradition in the Highlands and Islands was a yearly highlight that included reunions for extended family and youthful courtship, but above all, religious enrichment. The Men became a great salutary influence, revered for their piety and testimonial preaching. Some would travel from one communion to another to lead prayers and the ceist. In fact, in Scotland, their dominance of “Friday Fellowship” meetings began to exclude clergy to the umbrage of the eighteenth-century church establishment. That coincides with Preacher John Cameron’s time in Scotland.

“Few were educated, and many of them could not read. Still, they were celebrated for their godliness, their oratorical gifts and their deep personal familiarity with the workings of grace.”[8] 

Who can argue that Preacher John Cameron was not of that ilk?

My post scarcely touches on the impact of the highly anticipated annual event—and of The Men—on the psyche of Highland Presbyterian adherents. As Stanley-Blackwell relates, the tradition migrated to and thrived in Cape Breton. Apparently immigrant Scots in Quebec’s Ottawa Valley did not plant similarly deep roots of Gaelic language and custom beyond a generation or so. Evidence of such gatherings in Quebec regions eludes me. Genealogists can guess at some influences that made the difference in the two nineteenth-century immigrant areas, but it’s really the domain of history scholars—worth the extra mile to seek out their works.  

Sources could be journals of historical societies, university departments, and learned societies. Doctoral theses and dissertations can be consulted, many online, by visiting individual university websites; look for those with history departments relevant to your region of interest. Footnotes and bibliographies also provide additional in-depth reading. 

My thanks to Nicholas Maclean Bristol for the tip. Coincidentally, Michael Hait of Planting the Seeds led me to Kassie Nelson’s Cedar Tree Genealogy blog where she aptly muses on the perspective-widening benefits of studying historiography.

[1] Rev. Dr. Paterson, “The Presbyterian Church, St. Andrews,” History of the Counties of Argenteuil, Quebec and Prescott, Ontario, Cyrus Thomas, compiler ( ), 104-107. Cameron descendants also preserve the story.  

[2] Cour supérieure, District judiciaire de Terrebonne, Répertoire du notaire Michel-Gaspard Thibaudière de LaRonde (Saint-André Avellin, Québec), document no. 3211, will of John Cameron, 20 September 1836; Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Quebec (BAnQ) at Montreal, CN606, S5.

[3] “Quebec Vital and Church Records, 1621-1967 (Drouin Collection), digital image, Ancestry.ca (www.ancestry.ca : accessed 5 March 2012), baptism Allan Cameron, 30 October 1807: “parents don't write”; citing St. Gabriel Street Presbyterian Church (Montreal, Quebec).

Cour supérieure, District judiciaire de Terrebonne, Répertoire du notaire Michel-Gaspard Thibaudière de LaRonde (Saint-André Avellin, Québec), document no. 3211, will of John Cameron, 20 September 1836: “... said Testator having persisted therein had made his mark having declared that he could not write his name”; BAnQ Montreal, CN606, S5.

District of Montreal, County of Two Mountains, notaries J.Geo. Lebel and F.H. Leclair of St. Hermas, document no. 944, donation inter vivos, John Cameron to sons Angus and Alexander, 20 January 1845: “The donees have signed and the donor declared that he could not write.” A transcription of the notarial document was provided by third-party Cameron researchers—the citation is incomplete until they provide details or unless I can see the original documents. 

[4] Nicholas Maclean Bristol, Hebridean Decade: Mull, Coll and Tiree 1761-1770 (Coll, Scotland: The Society of West Highland and Island Historical Research, 1982), 11.

[5] “Kilmalie, County of Inverness, Account of 1791-1799,” digital images, The Statistical Accounts of Scotland 1791-1845 (http://stat-acc-scot.edina.ac.uk/link/1791-99/Inverness/Kilmalie/ : accessed 8 February 2013), Vol. 8, no. XXIV, 407-447.

[6] Ibid., 434.

[7] Laurie Stanley-Blackwell, “God’s Ceilidh: Cape Breton’s Ceist Tradition,” Fifth Scottish Gaelic Research Conference, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, July 21-24, 2008, Kenneth E. Nilsen, ed. (Sydney, NS: Cape Breton University Press, 2010), 238-252.

[8] Ibid., 241.