Death records often supply interesting (and occasionally rather gruesome) details about an ancestor's cause of death. And while the information found in early Ontario civil death records is a bit scanty, once we get into the twentieth century, the records become much more detailed, and therefore much more valuable to the family historian. Resist the … Continue reading “Did an operation precede death”? (Ontario civil death records)
Returning to the French-Irish theme (see Strange Surname Spellings: Hohanlan for O'Hanlon) with respect to surname spellings, here are three surnames which sound somewhat similar, and which are often misspelled in the 19th-century records in ways that make them look even more alike: LAVALLEE is a French, and French-Canadian, surname. And just to complicate matters, … Continue reading Surname Confusion: Lavallee, Lavelle, Vallely
On 7 April 1885, Bridget Adeline Lavelle,[1. Daughter of James Lavelle and Margaret Boyle, and baptized (30 June 1861, Pembroke Mission, Renfrew Co.) Bridget Adelaide Lavelle.] wife of James McCann, gave birth to her second child, a daughter named Margaret Adeline McCann. Ten days later, Bridget Adeline Lavelle was buried at "the new Catholic Cemetery … Continue reading Cause of death: puerperal (childbed) fever?
[Note: I'm having trouble combining MT blog software with numbered footnote citations. For the moment, I'm inclined to take the easy way out: if there are more than one or two citations per blog entry, no numbered footnotes, just astericks, and references minimized, out of laziness and/or frustration. The census data, both English and Canadian, … Continue reading William Charles Burton: Home Child
Frances Lavelle was born in England about 1900. Lavelle was her adopted surname, I do not know her original. She is one of many Home Children I have come across in census records and church records while researching my Ottawa Valley ancestors. In the 1911 census for Hagarty township, Renfrew South, Ontario, she is found … Continue reading Frances Lavelle: Home Child
