Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Genealogy Posters

I'm home for a change on a Saturday night so decided to participate in Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge at GeneaMusings!  Using www.memegenerator.net, I created the following poster, because we all know at least one genealogist who will copy hundreds of people from other family trees without citing sources or verifying the facts, and I love Lord of the Rings:

Canadian Citizenship - Part 1

Even if you never lived in a particular country, you could be a citizen under that nation's laws.  In April 2009, changes to Canada's Citizenship Act automatically granted citizenship to many individuals, including but not limited to, those who were born outside of Canada to a Canadian parent.  The changes also limited citizenship to only the first generation born outside of Canada to a Canadian parent.  Citizenship and Immigration Canada advertised this change in a cute Youtube video (also available in French).  As a result of the legal changes, on April 17, 2009, I "[woke] up Canadian."

I was born in the United States and have lived here my entire life.  My mother, however, grew up in Canada and was still a Canadian citizen at the time of my birth.  The changes in Canada's Citizenship Act therefore granted me Canadian citizenship.  Canada has since not only been my ancestors' country, but one of mine as well.  Knowing that I am a citizen gave me fresh meaning to my family history research.  I have a deeper connection to the research because I don't feel like so much of an outsider.  Any actual history I learn is MY history, not just my ancestors'.

The one snag in my new dual nationality status as both an American and Canadian citizen is my complete lack of PROOF of Canadian citizenship.  As far as border guards are concerned, I am an American only.  Citizenship and Immigration Canada provides all Canadian citizens with the opportunity to apply for a Citizenship Certificate, which serves as proof of your Canadian citizenship.  In August, I finally got around to gathering up all of the evidence I need to prove my Canadian citizenship and mailing it in to obtain a certificate.  Today, I finally received a letter from the CIC acknowledging receipt of my application.

If you or any of your relatives have close family ties to a country you weren't born in, look into that country's citizenship laws.  You may be a citizen and not even know it!

For information regarding Canada's citizenship laws and the Certificate of Citizenship, visit the CIC website.

Tombstone Tuesday - Odile Lessard

Photograph Copyright 2012.

Widow ODILE LESSARD

Died March 15, 1954

at the age of 78 years

A. L'HEUREUX

Odile Lessard was the sister-in-law of my second great-grandfather, Théophile L'Heureux, and the mother of Rosario L'Heureux from my earlier Tombstone Tuesday post.  She was born about 1876 to Louis Octave Lessard and Marie Odile Bilodeau, probably in Saint-Ferréol, Québec, Canada.  On November 3, 1896, she married Alfred L'Heureux (1867-1936), whose name appears on the bottom of this stone.  They had about 15 children together, but only about 5 of those children tops lived to reach 2 years of age.  The first to not die in his infancy was Rosario, who was their sixth child to my knowledge.  Odile Lessard, according to this headstone, died on March 15, 1954, probably in Saint-Ferréol-les-Neiges, where she is buried.

Tombstone Tuesday - Mary/Frances/Ellen Downey

Mary Downey was born on September 4, 1875 in Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts to John Francis Downey (1854-1885) and Mary E. Showler (1857-1914).  She died on July 17, 1876 in Springfield and was buried with her maternal grandparents in Saint Michael's Cemetery in Springfield.

Photograph Copyright 2012.

Mary is the given name of baby Downey on her headstone, as shown above.  However, her birth record in Springfield lists her as "Frances Downey," and her death record lists her as "Ellen Downey."  Baby Downey was a single not multiple birth.  Her death records lists her as 10 months and 13 days old as of the date of her death, which, if you count backwards, matches the date of birth on her birth record.  Mary/Frances/Ellen Downey is a prime example of the age-old "What's his/her name?!" problem in genenalogy.  I've personally favored Mary as her first name because I assume her headstone would be engraved with the name her family called her, even if it isn't her legal name.

Fall Plans

Okay, okay.  As much as I'm grasping onto what I can of summer, with tank tops and iced vanilla chais, I will finally admit that Fall is here.  I'm wearing long sleeves, occasionally day-dreaming about snow (it did come early last year in the northeast), and strongly considering trading in my summer Starbucks drink for a hot pumpkin spice latte.

It's also time to start planning my genealogy work for the next few months and set a few goals:

1. Completely rework my approach to my Québec genealogy.  I want to treat my French Canadian family history more like a drawing than my other half of the family.  I've generally been using the same approach in all of my family trees, and it just doesn't work for me when it comes to Québec.  Usually, I go generation by generation, making sure I have all of a direct ancestor's siblings and in-laws before I go back another generation.  This works just great in my Irish/English half because those ancestors didn't have nearly as many children as my dutiful Catholic French Canadian ones.  I found myself getting completely bogged down in infinite cousins and siblings who I don't really care about, unable to move back in time.  It was like I was playing oozeball and getting stuck in all this mud.  Instead, I want to treat my French Canadian genealogy more like a drawing; I want to start with a sketch and then come back and fill in the details later.  I want to trace as many lines as I can back to their immigration to Canada (since the Drouin collection and other sources makes doing so awfully easy if you can read enough French), and just stick to my direct ancestors.  When I've done all I can, then I will worry about every ancestor's 10 siblings, and each of their 10 children, and each of their ten children...I realize actually sketching out my tree will take much longer than a few months, but I want to get it started.
2. Take a trip to the State Archives.  I haven't gone to the Connecticut State Library since I was a child.  The problem with that is there are no Connecticut vital records available online for a good portion of the 19th century.  My genealogy research in Connecticut thus hits brick walls relatively early.  Sure, I have the work others have done and family knowledge to get me past it, but genealogy is about the hunt for me, and I've learned that even the most careful person can make errors.  I want to find some of this information myself.
3. Read a history book relevant to a direct ancestor.  When I was a kid, I read the history of the 27th Regiment of Connecticut during the Civil War.  I want to read more now that I "know" some of my ancestors, in order to learn what they went through and what their lives were like.  Recently I learned I have an ancestor whose family moved from England to Canada with the Royal Artillery and fought at Fort George during the War of 1812.  I'd like to read about his military service, or at least about this one battle, for instance.
4. Get a friend (a little) hooked on genealogy.  If anything, this is probably one of my loftier goals.  People who don't do genealogy just don't seem to get it!  My boyfriend at least admits that he unintentionally tunes out when I start on a genealogy-related ramble.  But, there's hope yet!  A few months ago I sent him the link to Find-A-Grave, and he found his grandfather on there.  Then I started asking questions, which led him to finding his great-grandparents' separate passenger list records.  He was (temporarily) hooked!  I want to help him out and see him get that excited at least one more time (I hope you're reading this-- you've been warned!).  I've brought it up a few times, but this may take the season to actually accomplish.  Admittedly, it's also a little self-serving; I don't have any ancestors of my own who came to the U.S. when the passenger lists were rich with information in the early 20th century, and I've never had the chance to work on Italian family history in particular.

So, I have some pretty big goals, but overall, I think they're doable.  What are your own goals or hopes for the coming months?

Wordless Wednesday - Ohio Woman in Black

Photograph Copyright 2012.

Photograph Copyright 2012.

Mystery Monday - Mabel Frances Downey - Part 2

Last Monday I wrote a post detailing my 2011 discovery of a mystery (presumed) relation and the brick wall I hit when trying to figure out who she was.  Aside from that one census record and the not-really-a-match directory record from the same year, I could find no trace of a Mabel Frances Downey.  You know the saying about how you only find something you're missing when you're not looking for it?  That proved to be the case here when I accidentally stumbled across Mabel again just a few weeks ago.

Here's a quick overview of the family involved: Mary Ann Keegan had a child, Mary E. Showler, by her first husband.  Mary Ann later married John Mullett.  Mary E. Showler married John Francis Downey.  After John Downey's death, Mary E. married George Tootill.

Ancestry.com

In September of this year, I was tracking George Tootill through the U.S. census records and picked up one record I hadn't seen before, 1910 (above).  I found a George Tootill, born in Connecticut, living in Springfield, Massachusetts with Carlton R. Merry, his wife Mabel F., and their children.  The name Mabel F. stuck out; maybe Mabel F. Downey from 1900 had gotten married and that's why I hadn't been able to find her!  The Merrys were listed in 1910 as being married for only 10 years, so Mabel F. Downey could have gotten married sometime after the 1900 census was taken.

Looking more closely at the record, other pieces fell into place (besides approximate ages).  Mabel F. Merry was born in Massachusetts, like Mabel F. Downey.  George Tootill's listed relationship to the head of household, Carlton R. Merry, was father-in-law.  If Mabel F. Downey was in fact one of Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey's children, George Tootill would have been her step-father and probably recorded in a census as the father-in-law of her husband if they were living together.

Furthermore, Mabel F. Merry's father was listed in 1910 as born in Maine, and her mother was listed as born in England.  As discussed in my previous post, John Francis Downey was born in New Brunswick, Canada, and Mary E. Showler was usually recorded with the birthplace England.  So the mother's birthplace matched.  Although Mabel Merry's father's place of birth was listed as Maine and not New Brunswick, a few things kept my hopes up that this was the mystery Mabel from 1900.  Census records are notoriously unreliable because only one person in the household provides all of the detail for everyone else.  So, there are often errors.  I normally wouldn't try to force a connection with such a glaring difference  in locations, but

FamilySearch.org

I had one other piece of critical information up my sleeve; the marriage record for Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey, who were married in Springfield (above), listed John Downey's residence at the time of the marriage as Portland, Maine.  I thus had a plausible explanation for that particular error in the 1910 census record.

Armed with this new find and feeling like this connection was more than a hunch, I added Mabel F. Downey to my family tree as the daughter of Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey, with Carlton R. Merry as her husband, noting that this was all still theory.  I still couldn't find any record of her birth or marriage on Ancestry or FamilySearch.  However, Ancestry started shaking a little green leaf at me, and for once, the hint it had for me cracked the case.  When I clicked the hint, I got a "California Death Index, 1940-1997" record for Mabel F. Merry.  California?!  Not likely.  I read the record anyway.  This Mabel's birthday was January 31, 1878, and her birthplace was Massachusetts.  Actually, this looked like my mystery Mabel so far.  This woman died on June 4, 1965 in Los Angeles.  Unlikely for my family, but there was one more line to the index record: "Mother's Maiden Name: Schoular."  Say "Showler" out loud; now say "Schoular" (with a little bit of a German twist on the "ou" part-- the marriage record indicates Mary E. was born in Bremen, Germany, not England).  BINGO!!  Not only was this my Mabel F. Downey, but I have my first piece of unambiguous evidence that she was in fact the previously unheard-of daughter of Mary E. Showler and John Francis Downey.

I can't answer why Mabel Frances Downey's siblings have Massachusetts birth records on FamilySearch while she doesn't.  I can't answer why she previously was unknown to my family (although later finding that she was already in Los Angeles in the 1930 U.S. Census as "Frances M. Merry" indicates she wasn't close to the rest of the family who stayed in southern Connecticut).  What I do know, however, is that her son's Massachusetts birth record says she was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, where one of her other siblings was born.  I also know that one of her sisters, Margaret Ann Downey, used the surname Downing in her own marriage record, which would explain finding "Mabel F. Downing" in the 1900 Springfield City Directory.  Lastly, there are just way too many connections for this to be a mistake.  After more than a year of wondering who this mystery Mabel was, I finally uncovered a new sibling, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew to my great-grandfather.  An entire branch of the family had moved away and been forgotten, and I found them.