Michael E. Vance, Imperial Immigrants
The best thing I’ve read about the Ottawa Valley in a long time is Michael E. Vance’s Imperial Immigrants: Scottish Settlers in the Upper Ottawa Valley, 1815-1840. Highly recommend.
Continue reading →Migration
A 9-year-old boy who died “of the disease of Irish emigrants”
This was posted on Facebook, by the Institut généalogique Drouin (but the screencap below is from ancestry.ca: Quebec, Vital and Church Records [Drouin Collection], 1621-1967). It is the burial record for a nine-year-old boy named Henry Gill, “décédé de la…
Continue reading →How many Home Children?
How many Home Children have I come across in the 1891 and 1901 Canadian census returns, while searching for my ancestors and their collateral relations? 10? 15? 20? I’ve lost count. Many more than I had expected to find when…
Continue reading →James Fitzpatrick: Home Child
Found in the household of John Rowan and his wife Emma Hogan (Emily Julia Hogan, daughter of John Hogan and Marcella Moran) in the 1891 census of Huntley township (Lanark North, Ontario): Jas. [James] Fitzpatrick, male, age 17, Dom. [Domestic],…
Continue reading →Parents of James Edward Sullivan?
James Edward Sullivan was born about 1866, apparently at or near Potsdam, St. Lawrence County, New York. He died in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada on 7 February 1931. His Ontario civil death record records his birthplace as Potsdam, NY, and lists…
Continue reading →Home Children: Open Secrets (Part 1)
“Could you look up Mary Hogan?” asked my dad’s cousin Aggie. “I think she may have been,” and this added sotto voce, as if, even after so many years, there might yet be something to hide, “a Home Girl.”1 A…
Continue reading →