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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Change of pace in PEI

While waiting for free time to start doing the manual research all over Ontario for my Dunn research, I've changed the pace and started researching the Ancestors of my sister in law.  She was able to provide me with the names of her grandfather, great grandFather and great great grandfather on her mother's McLeod side (including the first and Maiden names of their wives) She also told me they lived in PEI.  A lot of info to help get me started. 

This is my first research opportunity in PEI and has been a pretty good learning experience.  I started by putting in what I knew into a new Ancestry tree.  From that I was able to find record of the great grandparents (Joseph McLeod and Minnie Gas) in the the 1911, 1901 & 1891 census.  PEI was setup back then as "Lots" for subdistricts and they were in Lot 65.  From there I was able to get a list of most of their children (but not her grandfather Daniel who was probably born after 1911).  After some more research I was able to get the census records for the great great grandparents (George McLeod and Ann Henderson), they were over in lot 65 as well and had 9 children.  Since there is going to be limited info available due to privacy issues around the her grandfather and his siblings, I then started to go through and try to find as much info on her great great great uncles and aunts as possible.  I haven't got through them all but I do know that their eldest son and child Archibald McLeod was a carpenter and settled with his family in Massacheusetts in the early 1900s. 

Ancestry does not have any BMD details for PEI in their database so I started to do some google research.  I came across the PEI Public Archives site and discovered that PEI did not start keeping civil records until ~1906.  They do have a couple of good online databases and I was able to look up baptisms for Archibald and a few of his siblings including the great grandfather George.   I took a break from the McLeod side for a bit and looked at the great great grandmother Anne Henderson.  Using the online baptism search I was able to find what I believe to be her baptism entry for 1842 (she reported on most Census records that she was born 1843/44 but the month and day matched).  Now I have her parent's names (including maiden) and entered them into the Ancestry tree.  In doing that I was able to find her and her parents in the 1891 census and I'm now armed with the name of one of her siblings (Richard) and a widowed sister Jane (with 2 kids).  I also know from the 1891 census that Anne's parents were both born in PEI (1810 & 1820) and  grandfather on her mom's side was born in the US and her grandmother in Ireland.  Anne's grandparents on her dad's side were both born in Scotland.  I got a hit for another family tree on ancestry with Anne Henderson married to my George McLeod so I am reasonably sure that I am on the right track.  I haven't look further into the other person's tree and don't intend to unless it is a last resort.  I've been burned in the past and have learned not to trust someone else's work especially when sources are not cited... 

Armed with 6 names, I've come up with 43 of her ancestors in only a few hours woo hoo!

2 comments:

  1. FamilySearch.org Records search has the images online of baptisms, marriages, and deaths.
    http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#p=allCollections&r=0

    I found my whole Aylward family in the baptisms.
    Hope this helps.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, I will give it a try and see what turns up!

    ReplyDelete