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'Immigration to Upper Canada in the early years is very difficult to document. No passenger lists were kept, and no effort was made to record all arrivals. In addition, British subjects were not required to become naturalized, so even this method of tracing arrivals is denied those searching for an ancestor from the British Isles."
Doris Boume, Families, Nov. 1990, p. 231.
INTRODUCTION
This paper is intended as an aid to those seeking out individuals who immigrated to Upper Canada from the British Isles. The best overview on material related to immigration is Brenda Merriman's chapter on immigration in Genealogy in Ontario; Searching the Records. Although things have improved during the last five years, there are many difficulties associated with the search for records of early British immigrants. It is unrealistic to expect a simple, easy solution. I am not like Winston Churchill, promising blood, sweat, and tears, but I can predict a lot of frustration with the task.
There is bad news and good news! The bad news is that you may search for years and years before you find anything. My wife Ruth and I go to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City because it is a marvellous place to do research. On one occasion, a lady in a cubicle next to Ruth's suddenly burst into tears. My wife being a very kind-hearted, sympathetic person leaned over to see if she could be of some help. The lady exclaimed: "Oh, I'm not crying because I'm sad. I'm crying for joy. I've been looking for some information for 25 years. Now I've found it." My point is this, if you do not find what you need within the first 10 years of beginning your research, persevere. The second decade may be better.
A second bit of bad news is that when you do find information, be prepared that it may not be what you wanted or that it may be incorrect. I know of a lady who was considered an expert on Crowder family history; people flocked to her because she was "the authority". She spent many, many years looking for one tiny bit of information, and finally found it. What she found was that one of her male ancestors had married twice. The first wife was a Crowder, and the second wife was not. This Crowder historian came from the second wife. You can understand that finding this out was pretty heartbreaking for her! The good news is I have no more bad news.
Many of my examples will be from Ontario records, but the general principles in most cases apply to other records and regions. I do not claim that what I am giving you is anywhere near complete for every source that I can offer. I am sure others can think of many more.
The general structure of this paper will be as follows: Organized or Sponsored Groups; Individuals; Compilations; Special Studies on Specific Immigrant Groups; Local Histories; Some Alternative Techniques; Land Records; Other References; A Brief Summary; and A Case History to illustrate many aspects of this article.
GROUPS - ORGANIZED OR SPONSORED
The Loyalists were the first major organized group to immigrate to Canada, and this applies particularly to the Maritimes and Ontario and to a lesser extent to Quebec. We have a superabundance of information on the Loyalists, including muster rolls. There is an excellent book by Mary Fryer and Bill Smy called Rolls of the Provincial (Loyalist) Corps. Although it gives very few specific places of birth, it generally will give a country of origin which in most cases is America. However, yon do find a few that say England or Ireland and curiously some are annotated "NB", meaning North Britain or Scotland. There are books called Loyalist Lineages in most public libraries. They contain mini-genealogies of families with Loyalist origins and will often give you a specific place where an ancestor was born. Russ Waller in Kingston has produced an enormous series of records and books on the Loyalists.
An often overlooked, but very important source of information on Loyalists claims after the American Revolution is Alexander Fraser's Second Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario. This book has recently been republished by the Genealogical Publishing Company of Baltimore. The British Government entertained claims from Loyalists who suffered losses during the Revolution. Sometimes the text of the claim or at least the introduction of the claimant will tell you where he came from. For example, a typical annotation can be found on page 1097 which reads:- "John MacDonell from North Uist". If you are using the claims, look in the description of the claimant rather than in the text. Usually the text will simply say that he came from North Britain, Scotland.
In the National Archives, the Ward Chipman papers on the Nova Scotia Loyalists are available which also include an index. Shortly after the Loyalists arrived, a few small groups, mainly from Scotland, also came to Ontario. Two of these groups are mentioned in my book titled Early Ontario Settlers, and published by the Genealogical Publishing Company.
In the early 1800 's there were many new arrivals and huge masses of records. The major record is probably Colonial Office 384. This is enormous and has not been completely indexed. However, the National Archives does have a partial index for some years. The Colonial Office 384 records include the famous McCabe List. This is a list, mainly of the Irish who worked on the Rideau Canal, which was discovered by John McCabe and has been published in book form. It includes about 700 entries which give the place of birth. A copy of this list can be found in the National Archives near the genealogist's desk. It is also available in Families, the quarterly magazine published by the Ontario Genealogical Society (OGS), in five installments from August 1990 to August 1991.
The early 1800's also saw a number of military establishments created in Perth, Richmond and Glengarry. In many cases they were populated by disbanded British soldiers, but some civilians were also allowed to come and settle in the military establishments.
Scottish settlers came to Lanark County in droves and we have many useful references on them. The Kingston Branch of the OGS has published Ernie Miller's books Early Settlers to Bathurst District Arriving Prior to 1822 which is an example of the resources available on Scottish settlers in Lanark County. The Bathurst District is basically Lanark County, plus parts of Renfrew and Carleton Counties. Other materials he has authored are Scottish Settlers to the Bathurst Area, Early Settlers 1820-1822 and Colonel Marshall's 1834 Report on Conditions in Lanark County. The report in particular is very interesting because it was done about 12 years after people arrived. It gives a sad commentary on the land that many of the settlers received which was often swampy or stony and so bad that many of them just took off. Carol Bennett in her article titled "The Lanark Society Settlers ", published in the first issue of BIFHSGO's Anglo-Celtic Roots mentions about 3,000 settlers. There are many lists of Scottish people in passenger lists who went to the Maritimes. They are summarized with all the essential information in Donald Whyte's A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada Before Confederation.
Carol Bennett has produced a large number of publications and they are all useful. For Irish settlers, refer to her book Peter Robinson's Settlers which covers about 600 people in 1823 and about 2,000 in the 1825 who emigrated to the Peterborough area. This emigration was organized by Peter Robinson and was financed by the British Government. He went to Ireland, screened 50,000 applicants and eventually picked out ones who were recommended as being of good character, good workers, but impoverished. There is another account of the Peter Robinson Settlement around Peterborough by Bill LaBranche.
So far I have mentioned mostly Scottish and Irish groups. There are relatively few organized groups from England. One exception is the Petworth Emigration Scheme which brought probably 1,800 people from the south of England to Canada during the period from 1832 to 1837. There is a little booklet about the Petworth Emigration scheme located near the genealogists in the National Archives.
The last of the major organized groups, and this is really a whole series of groups, are the Home Children. The Home Children were boys and girls brought over to Canada from the British Isles who usually ranged in age range from 7 to 14 years old. They were transported to Canada and placed in a sort of foster care with Canadian families. I understand that many of the Home Children were orphans, many more had been abandoned, and the vast majority were given up by their families who could not afford to keep them. Some of the stories of these 100,000 or so children are relatively happy, but I believe the majority are pretty tragic. They were regarded as a form of cheap labour; something close to slave labour.
About six months ago I met some descendants of a Home Child. He had been reluctant to tell his family anything about his experiences, but eventually he did: The first family that took him in were really miserable. They expected him to do a full day of work, but would not let him in the house. Instead he lived and slept in the barn, even in the coldest weather. Needless to say he rebelled and complained to the Quarrier Society in Brockville, the agency which brought him to Canada. They placed him with another family who treated him quite decently. As a result of these experiences, he had conflicting memories of the treatment he received when he came to Canada. It has been estimated that as many as 11% of the people in Canada are descended from Home Children, and certainly at least a million people are descendants of Home Children. Dave Lorente in Renfrew is a son of a Home boy and is very knowledgeable on the subject. Dave has created his own data base and a kit for people who are interested in Home Children. I would recommend contacting him for further information. (Editor's note: Refer to information at www.ist.uwaterloo.ca/~marj/genealogy/homeadd.html and www.archives.ca/exec/naweb.dll?fs&020110&e&top&0).
INDIVIDUALS
Information on early immigrants who came individually to Canada and not with these organized groups can be found in various records. These include marriage, death, census, military or miscellaneous immigration records.
Marriage Records
Marriage records can be found in a number of places. In Ontario there are the Ontario Vital Records which are available on microfilm at the Family History Centre. They are very useful and include a good index. A lady wrote to me recently and said that her grandfather was an Englishman, named George Henry Barrett. He had married her grandmother, who was Phoebe Lucinda Crowder. She wondered if I could tell her anything about this George Henry Barrett, as for some reason nothing much was known about him. I went to the Family History Centre and found the record of the marriage. It said that George Henry Barrett was born in Croydon, England, the son of Frederick Barrett. This information gives her a substantial lead, if she wants to pursue that part of her family history.
You will frequently find references to the place of birth in church records or church registers. For example, in Renfrew at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church on the 10th of October 1877, Charles James Scott of Kitley married Jane Maitland Dickie, born in Elgin, Morayshire, Scotland. There are books that compile many marriage records, such as Reid's Marriage Notices of Ontario. There on page 110, appears Patrick Wright late of Aberdeen who marred Mary Anne Chapman.
You will find other references to marriages in newspaper indexes. My friends Les and Aldene Church in Renfrew have produced seven volumes of indexes to the Renfrew Mercury. Carol Bennett, always busy, has produced indexes to the Eganville newspapers. Iris Elliott has done the same for the Pembroke Observer. Consequently, Renfrew County is very well represented. For other places, see the 1987 Checklist of Indexes to Canadian Newspapers by the National Library's Gaudet and Sandy Burrows. (Editor's Note: Now online at: www.nlc-bnc.ca/services/checklist/intro-e.htm )
Death Records
Death records are usually better than marriage records, especially if you can find obituaries. Some of the Vital Records of deaths will show the birthplace, but many do not. Church records and some funeral home records are often quite helpful. Probably the best death records you will find are those found in cemetery records, and on the tombstone inscriptions or to use the British term, "monumental inscriptions". There are some records, particularly for Scottish settlers and to a lesser extent for Irish settlers. I have seen some magnificent ones in Williamstown for the Scottish settlers. I recall one that gave the parish where the man was born, when he was born, the name of the vessel on which he came to Canada; and almost his whole life history.
There are many books that combine and compile death notices. Don McKenzie of Ottawa has been particularly diligent. I think he is now up to about eight volumes and if I can quote from his Death Notices from The Canada Christian Advocate 1858-1872, on page 91, "Mrs. Martha Duke (was) born in County Leitrim, Ireland". Incidentally there is an excellent card index in the National Archives located near the genealogists which lists cemeteries in Ontario that have been recorded or transcribed. These are indexes of cemeteries, organized by township; they are not indexes of people in the cemetery. I will come back to that a little later.
Census Records
Usually Canadian census records will give the country of origin, such as England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, etc. The 1851 Census of Horton in Renfrew County is unique in that the enumerator was a Scotsman who was very diligent in two respects. First of all, he would determine in most cases precisely where people were born, particularly for Ireland and Scotland. An example of a typical entry might be "William Montgomery from Belfast". As a Scotsman, he knew that many women in Scotland continued to use their maiden names. Thus he was very diligent to enumerate the women, Scottish or not, using their maiden names. The 1851 census, if you have ancestors from Horton Township, could prove invaluable to you. Similarly, the 1851 census of Fitzroy Township provides many specific places of birth.
Military Records
A very important and under-utilized source of information are military records of British soldiers who settled in Canada. Let me explain a little bit of the complexity of British military records for the early 1800's. If a soldier died in action, it was too bad. All of his records were destroyed. If you have an ancestor in that category, "Good Luck!" If he was discharged without a pension, the same thing happened. However, if he was discharged with a pension, particularly in the period between 1800 to 1857 and settled in the colonies, you are in luck.
The pensions were recorded in registers in a series called War Office 120 (WO 120). The records are organized by regiment. One of the key things that you need to know to use British military records to locate an ancestor is the regiment in which the man served. Many settled "in the colonies". This is a funny term because some of the so-called colonies included places in Italy, France, and Belgium. However, the vast majority were located in Australia, British India, Canada, and South Africa. There are three microfilm reels covering three volumes of records which contain the names of British soldiers who settled in the colonies with a British military pension. These men are usually referred to as Chelsea pensioners because the pensions they received were administered by the Chelsea military hospital in England. You can work through the three rolls of microfilm looking for your man and find which regiment was his. However, there is an easier way.
I have compiled indexes to Volume 35, 69, and 70 of the Chelsea regimental registers WO 120. Copies have been given to the Ottawa Family History Centre, the National Archives and to the OGS, Ottawa Branch. The indexes are available with the microfilms of the three volumes. Once you know the regiment, you can go to WO 97 which includes the compiled service record of the man. The pension register (WO 120) usually tells you how much pension the man drew, in what regiment he served, in some cases it will give you where he was born, and occasionally it will say where he died.
WO 97 is a very complete record. It was compiled by the army from information obtained at the time a military man was discharged with a pension. For instance, Charles Scott whom I mentioned earlier, was married in Renfrew in 1877. He was the son of a Chelsea pensioner, also named Charles Scott, who by trade was a weaver, born in the parish of Midlothian, in or near the town of Midlothian in the county of Midlothian. In other words, he was born in Edinburgh. A complete condensed military record exists for Charles Scott, who in case you were wondering, just happens to be my great grandfather.
In February 1995, the Genealogical Publishing Company published my book entitled British Army Pensioners Abroad. It has close to 9,000 entries covering British Army pensioners basically between 1800 to 1857. It shows in many cases where they settled and at the very least it tells you the regiment in which the man was serving at the time he received his discharge.
Miscellaneous Immigration Records
The genealogists in the National Archives are very diligent and in their precious spare time, they keep working on additional helpful aids. One such aid is the Miscellaneous Immigration Records which were compiled from a variety of sources. These records include, among other things, British immigrants who came to Canada in 1817 by way of the United States. More details on this subject are provided in an article on the subject found in the November 1990 issue of Families. For example, it mentions James Bennett, native of Armagh, Ireland.
There are passenger lists, masses and masses of them, on microfilm in the National Archives. The passenger lists are on index cards in the filing cabinets near the genealogists. Unfortunately only the ones from 1865 to 1868 have been indexed. If you can find the person you are looking for in a passenger list, usually it will only show the country of origin. Most of them are split up rather curiously into England, Ireland, Scotland and foreigners. Foreigners took in all the Scandinavian countries, continental Europe, and so on. There are a few however that do show specific counties in Britain.
There is also a huge 15 volume set by Bill Filby and published by Gale Publishing Company: PILl (Passenger and Immigration Lists Index). Most of the major libraries have it including the Ottawa (Nepean) Library, the Ottawa Public Library, the National Library, and the National Archives (in the Reading Room). Every year a new volume comes out. Bill Filby has told me that he has a 10-year backlog for future issues.
There is a rather unusual list that is not particularly well known, which applies only to Ontario. Beginning in the 1870s, Ontario for a number of years had its own immigration department which tried to persuade people, especially from the British Isles, to come and settle in Ontario. One of the inducements they offered was that if you came to Ontario, settled here and stayed here for a certain minimum period of time, you would get a $6.00 bonus. Today $6.00 doesn't sound like very much, but when multiplied by maybe 20 or 30, you can see that it would be of interest to people in that time period and an incentive for settling here. The records are not here in Ottawa. They are on microfilm and available in Toronto at the Archives of Ontario. They are not indexed but they are organized alphabetically. If you so wish, you can get them here on loan through the Family History Centre.
COMPILATIONS
There are two outstanding compilations. The first is a two volume compilation on Nova Scotia immigrants which was completed by Leonard and Norma Smith. Volume 1 has thousands of entries for people who came into Nova Scotia and Volume 2 is a supplement with about 11,000 more. These volumes are in major public libraries and certainly in the National Library. I believe that the genealogists at the National Archives also have copies.
The other compilation, which is absolutely superb, and anybody working on Scottish ancestry should be aware of it, is Donald Whyte's A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada Before Confederation. The initial book, which came out a few years ago and was published by the Ontario Genealogical Society, has 12,000 entries and 30,000 names. Many entries contain the names of a wife and children, which is why there are 30,000 names. A second volume was published in 1995. There are similar books by David Dobson, who also covers Scottish ancestry.
SPECIAL STUDIES
Special Studies cover books which while not strictly genealogical in scope and which are not local histories, often do contain a lot of useful information and some names. The one most people are familiar with is Bruce Elliott's Irish Migrants in the Canadas, a study mainly of Irish people who came from Tipperary and settled in Ontario. There is another book equally valuable, by Dr. Marianne McLean of the National Archives entitled The People of Glengarry, covering Scots who came to Glengarry up to 1820. There are some fascinating stories in Marianne McLean's book and in many cases she describes an organized group and where they came from. Thirdly, there is Carolyn Heald's Irish Palatines in Ontario. For those of you who do not recognize the name Palatines, they are actually of German origin from the Palatinate of the Rhine. In 1709 a number of them managed to get to Britain and then went on to America. But quite a few were sent by the British Government to Ireland, settled into Ireland, and some years later many of them subsequently came to America. Those of you who have a mixed ancestry there may find Carolyn's book extremely useful.
LOCAL HISTORIES
In Ontario we are very fortunate because Barbara Aitken, a Queen's University librarian, has produced three volumes listing and describing local histories of Ontario: one volume for 1951 to 1977, another from 1977 to 1987 and a third from 1987 to 1997. You will also find such books as the following: Jean McGill's Pioneer History of the County of Lanark, which is also indexed in Donald Whyte's book on Scottish settlers; Bruce Elliott's excellent book titled, The City Beyond, referring to Nepean, Ontario; Glenn Lockwood's book on Beckwith Township, which deals with Irish, Scottish and some military settlers, and again in many cases gives you specifics as to where they came from; and Peter Hessel's McNab - The Township which has an excellent index (Editor's Note: The Global Heritage Press recent republication of The Story Of Renfrew by W. E. Smallfield and Rev. Robert Campbell, is also noteworthy. The new 318 page book comprises the full text of the original two volumes and a comprehensive name index by Norman Crowder (vol. 1) and Audrey Allison (vol 2). )
One of my gripes about works produced by professional historians, and Bruce Elliott is exempted from this criticism, is that they often produce a minimal index . Many authors do not include the names of the people referred to within the text, for instance individual settlers, in their index. Peter Hessel is an example of an author who has produced a very comprehensive index I looked up one name and found the same name in five different places, and four of these places were in lists and tables. Also, our friend Carol Bennett has produced many volumes of local history on places in Lanark and Counties.
ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUES
When you get frustrated and you are just about ready to pack it up, go at it sideways or take a detour. If you can trace some of your people down to the States likely they are Loyalists. Quite often you can then make the jump from say New York State over to Britain.
In my wife's case, she traced some of her father's people, Darrahs, Walkers, Goffes, Sumners, back to New England. The New England Historic Genealogical Society has done extensive work on the Great Immigration of 1630 to 1640.and my wife found that some ancestors went back to Bicester, Oxford, England. In the course of doing her research, she found that one of her Goffe ancestors had come under a bit of a cloud after Charles II returned to the throne. Charles I had lost his head so to speak, and this Goffe ancestor had signed the death warrant. On our living room wall, Ruth has a great big copy of the death warrant of Charles I with the signature of her ancestor, named Goffe.
Another approach, if you can't find anything on your specific ancestor, is to look for other individuals in the family. You may find a brother, sister, uncle or aunt, father or mother in something such as The Dictionary of Canadian Biography. This will then take you to the appropriate place for further research.
New York and New England have many colonial records. If you have New England ancestors, go to Boston and use the records in the New England Historic Genealogical Society. Take lots of money, particularly if you want to park your car nearby, but their records are absolutely fantastic. They have material there that is not available in Salt Lake City. On the other hand, each year the New England Historic Genealogical Society organizes a huge expedition to Salt Lake City for its members because Salt Lake City has materials they do not have.
LAND RECORDS
Land records are pretty cut and dried and contain surveyor's descriptions of the land, etc. but sometimes you will find they contain some real gems of information. The Ottawa Branch, OGS, publishes a bi-monthly newsletter, Ottawa Branch News, and the January-February 1995 issue has locations in Bathurst District 1823-1825. Bathurst District, as I mentioned previously, is basically Lanark County, with a little bit of Renfrew and Carleton Counties. The article includes location records with the place of birth, age, and the year of arrival. The March-April 1995 issue has similar records for Prescott and Russell Counties.
Incidentally, a location record is a record of a place where a settler was permitted to settle. It did not give him the absolute right to that piece of land but authorized him to settle there, build a house of certain dimensions, cultivate it, clear it and so on. After a certain number of years the individual could qualify for the title which is known as a land patent. A very unusual type of record associated with land records - The Canada Company Remittance Books 1843-47 has been compiled by Ruth Holt and Mary Williams. In the early days, the colonial governments did their own recruiting of setters. Eventually Ontario got the bright idea that maybe this was not the best way, so they had a company formed called the Canada Company and turned over all the vacant government-owned lands to the company.
The Canada Company got busy and recruited settlers. One of the inducements that they offered to people who would buy land through them was that "you may use our facilities to send money home". This does not sound like very much until you think that we are talking about the 1840's. Neighbourhood post offices where a person could buy a money order did not exist. The Canada Company had its own communication links with the British Isles. If a man came over from the British Isles and diligently pursued his work and put aside some money, he could send that money through the Canada Company back to his family, say in Ireland, in order to pay for their transportation to come and join him. There are 3 volumes of such information with entries such as "John Johnston of Smith Falls to his father in the townland of Agramush in County Cavan". You may find some excellent leads there.
The Upper and Lower Canada Land Petitions on microfilm in the National Archives usually say very little about the place of origin, but there are some exceptions. I found the most fascinating entries concerning a group of McLeods and some associated families which included a rather horrific description of the suffering they endured to get to Canada in 1793. They started out no less than 3 times. After running into shipwrecks and the like, they finally arrived in Prince Edward Island in the winter. They spent the winter in PEI with about a foot of ice on the decks of the ship and then came up the St. Lawrence the following spring. Incidentally Marianne McLean also recounts the story of how they made it to Canada in her book.
OTHER REFERENCES
Beyond the references I have mentioned, there are handbooks for every province, many regions, cities, and counties. Brenda Merriman's book is an outstanding example of one for Canada. These books often have useful information about where people came from. In the Family History Library Locality Catalogue look under "Emigation/Immigration" where you will find things like the Ontario $6.00 bonus records.
There's a huge set of book called PERSI (Periodical Source Index); the first 12 books cover the period 1845-1984 and among other things, they list family names that have been the subject of articles in American and Canadian genealogical journals. Every year since 1984 there has been an annual supplement. Very few libraries can afford the original 1845-1984 set but it is available in the National Library. The annual supplements you will find in most of the major public libraries. (Editor's Note: PERSI is now available in CD ROM format, and online through www.ancestry.com)
In the Family History Library Catalogue there is the Surnames Catalogue. A huge collection of family histories can be found in Salt Lake City in book form and you can access the collection using the Family History Centre computer You can do some very ingenious things using the catalogue because the principal names in these family histories have been indexed and are easily accessible by computer. For example if I am looking for a family history that tells of the marriage of James Crowder to Cornelia Dingman, I will look under Crowder and Dingman using the computer and it will quickly search thousands of books and identify which ones contain both the Dingman and Crowder names.
CONCLUDING NOTES
Let me try to wrap up with a few general comments. If you are working on Scottish ancestry, I will not say it is easy, but it is probably the least difficult because of the research contributions of people like Donald Whyte, Emie Miller, Carol Bennett, and many others. Irish research is difficult. However, it is steadily improving because of groups such as the Irish Research Group, OGS. Researching English and Welsh ancestry is a real problem. If anyone wanted to dedicate their lives to doing something about this, I am sure that there will be many that would bless them.
A Case Study
I am going to run rather quickly through a case history to illustrate what I am talking about. It involves a research assignment I agreed to take on some years ago.
I received a letter from Edwin Lawrence in Califomia who wanted to find out about his great grandfather. The story he had been given by some elderly relatives went as follows. His ancestor, William Lawrence, was a captain in the British Army. He retired in the middle of the 1800's, came to the Canadas, and was appointed Governor of a prison in Cayuga. While he was Governor of this prison, a couple of desperadoes named Yound managed to escape, but before doing so, they beat Governor Lawrence so badly that he had to retire from his job. He subsequently moved to Brantford.
The first thing that intrigued me about this story was that William Lawrence was a captain in the British Army. When searching for an ancestor, you usually have an excellent lead when that person was an officer in the British army. There are annual volumes called the Army List which lists all of the officers in different regiments and units, and more importantly, it has an excellent index. So I started my search by looking for a William Lawrence who was a Captain around 1850. I found one and pursued him though the indexes for about 40 years until I decided that he could not be the right William Lawrence because he never came to Canada This was very disappointing. My next step was to consider Cayuga.
My patron in Califomia had said that William Lawrence had been appointed Governor of a prison in Cayuga, a little town not far from Hamilton. I started by searching for his name in the 1851 Census. No, nothing there. I moved on to the 1861 Census and struck gold. Yes, a county jail had been built between 1851 and 1861 and retired Captain Lawrence was appointed the County Jailer. Note that it said County Jailer and not the Governor of a prison. People embellish things a little bit. My patron in California was delighted; I was making progress.
Then I asked myself "What about the story involving the Yound brothers who beat him up so badly?" I looked into the Guide for Ontario Archives and was delighted to find that the jail records for the Cayuga County Jail were stored in Toronto. I searched through them and found that in the 1870s, two people named "Young" had escaped from the Cayuga jail. This was close enough. I had the precise date that they had escaped, however it did not mention anything about a beating suffered by the Governor or County Jailer. I then searched through the Hamilton newspaper published for that date and Bingo! This pair of desperadoes, an uncle and a nephew, named Young (not brothers, but they were related) had escaped. They were not terribly intelligent. The authorities knew the old expression "Cherchez la femme!" and went looking for the girl friends of these men. They found the jail breakers hiding and working in the barn in the back yard of the girl friend's house. The authorities were able to recapture them without much difficulty. I also discovered that a little later, these two prisoners had for some reason been able to trap the county jailer, (Lawrence) and had savagely beaten him. As a result, Lawrence had had to retire and had moved to Brantford.
There was no explanation as to why such a savage beating took place until I heard from the public library in Cayuga. The dedicated staff of the Cayuga Public Library came through with a real dandy. (Public libraries are a genealogist's best friend whether you know it or not.) You may remember that about 15 years ago the CBC had a television series called "The Great Detective", the story of the exploits of one of the very early detectives in Upper Canada or Ontario. The Cayuga Public Library sent me the chapter from the book about the Great Detective which dealt with the Cayuga County Jail and then things really started to open up. This pair had been put in jail awaiting trial because they were suspected of having held up and murdered a man on the highway, however the evidence was not terribly strong. The authorities brought in the Great Detective and had him pose as another convict in the jail. The detective played a real tough guy and acted as if he did not want to waste time with the pair named Young, letting them know he considered them nincompoops. The older "Young" fellow decided he would try to impress the tough guy and reportedly said "Look we're not the nincompoops you think we are, we're real killers. We held up so and so on the public highway near Hamilton and we murdered the guy. So don't look down your nose at us." This kind of evidence would never stand up in court today but in those days it was good enough. The Great Detective was removed from the scene and the pair named Young continued in custody awaiting trial.
In those days the dangerous criminals were not just kept locked up in cells but they were also shackled. The practice was that every evening, County Jailer Lawrence would go into the cell while the prisoners remained shackled and close the window which had been opened during the day to provide air and ventilation. The older of the "Young" pair cleverly managed to pick the lock. One night when William Lawrence came in to close the window he was quickly overpowered. Because the convicts knew that Lawrence must have played a part in their set-up and admission of guilt to the Great Detective, they beat him savagely with the iron shackles. For a while it was doubtful whether he would live or not. He did live but Lawrence eventually had to retire.
My friend in California wanted more. We still had not worked out how William Lawrence was a Captain in the British Army since he was not on the British Army List. Eventually I had the brainstorm that if he died in Brantford, which he probably did, maybe he had left a will. Sure enough, the Archives of Ontario records produced a will. Genealogists dream of finding a will like this one; it was a real gem. It not only listed all of his children, all of his property, and all of his assets but it even showed where the children lived at the time of his death. Some of the girls were married and had moved to Chicago and elsewhere. But the most important thing for my purpose was there was an affidavit from somebody who was knowledgeable stating that William Lawrence died on or about such and such a date at such and such a place. With this date, I went back to the newspapers where I found the whole story of his death.
Lawrence was hit by a train while wearing his uniform as a Captain of the British Army. He was getting older and did not hear very well and was standing on a railway crossing when he was hit. He was badly injured and died a few days later. Next step in my research was to go back to the newspapers to look for an obituary. I found a very detailed obituary which told all about his life in Canada, how he suffered in the jail in Cayuga, but nothing about his early life. Then it occurred to me that Brantford possibly had two newspapers. Sure enough they did have two newspapers. The other one had an even better obituary which traced his life back to County Wexford in Ireland where as a boy he had been put into the British army. The obituary mentioned that when William Lawrence retired as a sergeant-major he was so highly regarded that his regiment made him an honorary captain. It also gave something of his army career. Then I could go into the WO 97 records, which I mentioned earlier, and find his service record, and find the places in which he had served. With this information I was able to wrap up my research assignment. This case illustrates the variety of records that you may have to search in order to find relevant facts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Note: [NL Call No. = National Library Call Number]
Aitken, Barbara B. Local Histories of Ontario Municipalities, 1951-1977: A Bibliography with Representative Trans-Canada Locations of Copies. Toronto, Ont.: Ontario Library Association, 1978, ix, 120 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks Z1392 05 A7 1978 fol.]
Aitken, Barbara B. Local Histories of Ontario Municipalities, 1977-1987: A Bibliography with Representative Cross-Canada Locations of Copies. Toronto, Ont.: Ontario Library Association, 1989. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection Z1392 05 A7 1989 fol.]
Aitken, Barbara B. Local Histories of Ontario Municipalities, 1987-1997: A Bibliography with Representative Cross-Canada Locations of Copies. Toronto, Ont.: Ontario Library Association, 1999. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection Z1392 O5 A7 1999 fol.]
Bennett, Carol. Peter Robinson's Settlers. Renfrew, Ont.: Juniper Books, 1987, 195 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks FC3100 I6 B46 1987 fol.]
Bennett, Carol. The Lanark Society Settlers, 1820-1821. Renfrew, Ont.: Juniper Books, 1991. 232 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3095 L37 Z7 1991 fol.]
Bennett [McCuaig], Carol. "The Lanark Society Settlers," Anglo-Celtic Roots, Winter 1995, Volume 1 (No. 1): 3-5.
Burrows, Sandra, and Franceen Gaudet. Checklist of Indexes to Canadian Newspapers. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1987, 148, 154 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks Z6293 B97 1987 fol.]
Church, Aldene, and Les Church. Births, Marriages & Deaths: Abstracts from the Renfrew Mercury 1919-1921. Renfrew, Ont.: A. and L. Church, 1991, 222 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3095 R4 Z484 1991]. See also, for the years 1916-1918 [NIL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3095 R4 Z483 1989]; 1911 - 1915 [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3095 R4 Z482 1988]; 1901-1910 [NL Call No.: NL Stacks FC3095 R4 Z482 1987]; 1871-1900 [NL Call No.: Newspapers FC3095 R4 Z48 1986]; 1925-1926 [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3095 R4 Z48 1999]
Crowder, Norman K. Early Ontario Settlers: A Source Book. Baltimore, MD; Genealogical Publishing Co., 1993. [NL Call No.: FC3071.1 A1 C75 1993]
Crowder, Norman K. British Army Pensioners Abroad, 1772-1899. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1995. [NL Call No.: UB445 G7 C76 1995]
Elliott, Bruce S. Irish Migration in the Canadas: A New Approach. Kingston, Ont.: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1988, xvii, 371 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks FC106 I6 E44 1988]
Elliott, Bruce S. The City Beyond: A History of Nepean, Birthplace of Canada's Capital. Nepean, Ont.: City of Nepean, 1991, xiv, 461 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3099 N4 E44 1991 fol]
Filby, P. William. Passenger and Immigration Lists Index: A Guide to Published Arrival Records of About 500,000 Passengers Who Came to Canada in the Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and Nineteenth Centuries. 1st ed., 1981. Detroit, MI.: Gale Research Co., 3 vol., xxxv, 2339 p. [NL Call No.: Reference CS68 P363 fol.]
Fraser, Alexander. Second Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario. [NL Call No. FC3070 L6 A58]
Fryer, Mary Beacock, and William A. Smy. Rolls of the Provincial (Loyalist) Corps, Canadian Command, American Revolutionary Period. Toronto, Ont.: Dundurn Press, 1981, 104 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks FC420 F79]
Heald, Carolyn A. The Irish Palatines in Ontario: Religion, Ethnicity, and Rural Migration. Gananoque, Ont.: Langdale Press, 1994, 195 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks FC3100 P37 H42 1994]
Hessel, Peter D.K McNab - The Township: A History of McNab Township in Renfrew County, Ontario From Earliest Beginnings to World War II. Arnprior, Ont: Kichesippi Books, 1988. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3095 M33 H47 1988]
Holt, Ruth, and Margaret Williams. Genealogical Extraction and Index to the Canada Company Remittance Books 1843-1847. Weston, Ont.: R. Holt, 1990. 3 vols. [NL Call No.: FC3100 I6 B46 1987 fol.]
LaBranche, Bill. The Peter Robinson Settlement of 1825: The Story of the Irish Immigration to the City and County of Peterborough, Ontario. Peterborough, Ont., 1975, 80 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3095 P47 Z7 1975]
Lockwood, Glenn J. Beckwith: Irish and Scottish Identities in a Canadian Community. Carleton Place, Ont.: Township of Beckwith, 1991, x, 633 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks FC3095 B42 L6 1991 fol.]
MeGill, Jean S. A Pioneer History of the County of Lanark. Toronto, Ont., 1968, ix, 262 p. [NL
Call No.: NL Stacks F5498 L36 M26]
McKenzie, Donald A. Death Notices from The Canada Christian Advocate, 1858-1872. Lambertville, N.J.: Hunterdon House, 1992, viii, 384 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC3072.1 A1 M35 1992]
McLean, Marianne. The People of Glengarry: Highlanders in Transition 1745-1820. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1991, xii, 285 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks jV7285 S3 M34 1991]
Merriman, Brenda Dougall. Genealogy in Ontario: Searching the Records. Toronto, Ont.: Ontario Genealogical Society, 1984. viii, 63 p~ [NL Call No.: NL Stacks CS88 06 M47 1984]. See also, 1988 edition xix, 168 p. [NL Call No.:Preservation Collection CS88 06 M47 1988].
Miller, J.R. Emest. Early Settlers to Bathurst District Arriving Prior to 1822. Kingston, Ont.: Kingston Branch, Ontario Genealogical Society, 1988, 52 p. [NL Call No.: NL Stacks FC3095 B375 Z48 1988]
Reid, William D. Marriage Notices of Ontario. Lambertville, N.J.: Hunterdon House, 1980. 550 p.
Smith, Leonard H., and Norma H. Smith. Nova Scotia Immigrants to 186Z Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1992, xiv, 546 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection CS88 N69 S65 1992]
Smith, Leonard H., and Norma H. Smith. Nova Scotia Immigrants to 1867. Volume II: From Non-Nova-Scotia Periodicals and from Published Diaries and Journals. Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1994, ix, 295 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection CS88 N69 S65 1994]
Whyte, Donald. A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada before Confederation. Toronto, Ont.: Ontario Genealogical Society, 1986, xvi, 443 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC106 S3 W49 1986]
Whyte, Donald. A Dictionary of Scottish Emigrants to Canada before Confederation. Toronto, Ont.: Ontario Genealogical Society, Vol. 2, 1995, 435 p. [NL Call No.: Preservation Collection FC106 S3 W49 1986]
CARD INDEXES
Three useful card indexes in the Reference Room: Passenger Lists Quebec 1865-1869; Miscellaneous Immigration Records (a combined index to MG 11 CO385 Emigrants from Edinburgh 1815, MG 24 I58 Emigrants from Londonderry 1833-36, RG 4 A1 Settlers from Scotland and England 1815, and RG 7 G 18 Montreal Emigrant Society Passage Book 1832); and a third one just below the Miscellaneous Immigration Records covering RG 5 A1 Immigration passes to Upper Canada and MG 15 T47 volumes 9, 10 and 12 English Emigration Lists 1774-75. ·
ADDITIONAL REFERENCE
For data on persons in the Military Settlements, principally in Lanark County, 1815 - 1828, see microform M-5505.
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