If, as promised in December 2014, the National Library of Ireland launches a website with digitized images of its Roman Catholic parish register microfilms, this will be a game changer for Irish genealogy and family history research.1 As John Grenham…
Continue reading →Thomas Benton (1826-1890) was born in Cappawhite, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, the son of Thomas Benton and Catherine (“Kitty”) Dwyer. Of these facts I am now reasonably certain (which is to say, as certain as one can ever be when it…
Continue reading →In my previous entry, I noted that you are generally not going to find married women’s maiden names in the Canadian census returns. And even well into the twentieth century, you will occasionally find a census listing where a married…
Continue reading →As I mentioned in my previous post, there is now a huge amount of LAC (Library and Archives Canada) material at Canadiana.org’s Héritage website. This material includes 94 digitized microfilm reels of LAC’s Upper Canada Sundries (RG 5 A1), 1766-1841 series….
Continue reading →The following petition is found amongst the Upper Canada Land Petitions, though it concerns a property in Lower Canada (on Calumet Island/L’Île-du-Grand-Calumet, in Pontiac County, Quebec). Honourable Sir, I humbly beg leave to state that in the year 1835 I…
Continue reading →The family lore surrounding my 3x-great-grandparents James Moran and Margaret Jamieson is so romantic (and I have to say, so seemingly improbable) that I sometimes refer to the story of their elopement to Canada as “The Ballad of James and…
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