Illegitimate Children

While researching the Halls family that settled in Wellington County, I discovered that one of William Halls daughters had a child out of wedlock.

The scandal must have been terrible.

The mother's name was Agnes Halls, the child's name was William Thomas, and the father's name was "Illegitimate" (from the perspective of 140 years later I have to wonder what the father did not to have his name scandalized too).  William Thomas was born in on Nov 25th, 1876 somewhere near Eden Grove, in Brant township, Bruce county at the residence of his uncle Alexander Clark and aunt Eliza Clark (Agnes' sister). The birth was registered in Jun of 1877. The township registrar added the note, "Mother from the neighbourhood of Elora, Ontario.  Child born at Alexander Clarks".  In the 1881 Census of Canada, there is a four year old Thomas Halls living with Eliza and Alexander Clark.

As of the writing of this blog entry there is a gap in the records of 68 years.  I have been unable to find census records, marriage records, or anything else about the family Clark family, much less William Thomas Halls, though I know from other sources that the Clark family stayed in the area of Eden Grove.

Then, in 1949, a Statement of Birth was filed for a Thomas Clark, son of Alexander and Eliza Clark, born on Nov 25th, 1876.  The document was witnessed by Emma Clark Willoughby, who was born in 1880 at least three years after William Thomas was born.  The Statement of Birth also indicates that as of Aug 29th, 1949, only one of Alexander and Eliza's children were still alive (presumably Emma, above, who was the youngest).  The doctor who was present, wasn't.  The 1877 record indicates Dr McLaren Paisley was present, and the 1949 record indicates that Dr Baird was present.  The Statement was certified on May 15th, 1950.

As for Agnes Halls, she married John Allan in November of 1882 (a suitable length of time one supposes), in Elora, Ontario.  They had at least two children.  She died in 1926, and he died several years later in 1932.  They are buried together in the Elora Municipal Cemetery.

Another Halls Family from Devon

I recently decided that I should track another Halls family in Ontario that came from Devon.  I am not quite sure what part of Devon this family is from , or if they are related to my branch (though I suspect not).  This branch of the family settled in Wellington County, Ontario.  The start of this line is William Halls and Ann Hopgood, who were, along with some of their children, born in Devon, and died in Canada.

The main reason I decided to track it was to see if there were any connections in Canada between my branch, centered on Middlesex and Huron Counties, with this branch.  So far not, but much remains to be discovered.

World Historical Maps

I recently came across a link in the Geneanet newsletter to a site that has zoomable historical maps for a number of locations worldwide.  It is the Old Maps Online resource, and it allows one to search the maps of five different collection.  I have already spent some time looking at historic maps of Ontario, Canada, and Devon, England.  I highly recommend it.

Where are the Pictures

Once again Samuel Halls Jnr. is on my mind.

He is listed every year in the Chicago Blue Book between roughly 1890 and 1905.  His name and biography appear in Industrial Chicago published in 1891.  He regularly has classified ads in the Chicago Tribune listing houses he has for sale.  He was president of the Thistle Cycling Club for at least one year, and was involved in lobbying for a cycling track in another year.  He was involved in local politics.  He was arrested for fraud about 1912, and that story appeared in papers in both Chicago and California!!

So why can't I find any pictures?  Somewhere, someone, some court, or some newspaper archive, must have pictures.

And one day, I'll find them.

Thinking About the Cold

I started this post back in November, and only just got back to it today.  It is not terribly cold in London, Ontario today, only -3C, but they are expecting 10-15cm of snow over the next 48 hours.  Enjoy.

Winter has started to roll in.  This year is a bit later than most, but it is inching in.
My post from last summer about the heat got me to thinking about its opposite, the cold.  Both are dangerous, though in different ways.  Personally, my vote is that cold is more dangerous then heat.
My Canadian ancestors would have come from dealing with English "winter" to dealing with the winters of southern Ontario.  Frankly there is very little comparison.  Canadian winters are significantly colder, snowier, and longer.

For Thomas and his brothers, arriving in Canada would have been a race against time.  Even if they had left England in March, it would have taken at least a month, and possibly two, just to cross the Atlantic.  Then they would have had to get from where they landed to what is now Toronto.  Where would they have landed?  One of them appears to have come through New York.  That trip would have involved another boat trip along the rivers and canals of New York state to Lake Ontario, and then across the lake to Toronto.  Following the trip to Toronto comes the voyage on foot on the very poor roads to get to London.  The fastest any of the Halls family could have gotten to London, after leaving England at the beginning of March is the beginning of May.  More likely they would not have left until the end of March, and not arrived in the London area until the beginning of July.

Still they would be racing the cold.  They would want at least some food, which would mean clearing and planting at least a small area to grow root crops like turnip, carrot, or potato that would resist at least a light frost, and then they would need to build some shelter, most likely a log cabin with some sort of loft.  If they had sufficient money and had some horses, ox, or cows, they would also have had to build some sort of shelter for the animals.  Most likely the holes between the logs would have been chinked with moss, and then clay or mud depending on the land.

Once they had finished all the building and clearing, it would almost certainly have been the tail end of fall, with winter just around the corner.  Any additional time they might have had before the snow would have been spent clearing more land for pasture and crops for the following spring, or perhaps harvesting such root vegetable as they had been able to plant.  The women would have been busy too.  I suspect that they would have been the ones planting and tending the gardens after the men had cleared the land, not too mention harvesting the crops.  All while taking care of the children, cooking, cleaning, and dealing with all the other household chores that a pioneer wife would have needed to do.

As fall wound down the one major advantage that my Halls ancestors would have had was that the men were all skilled masons, and literate, so they could have found some work building houses, barns, stores, etc. during the winter, as well as that old Canadian winter standby, logging.  Whether or not they did, I do not know, but at least they would have had the choice to be able to earn cash over the winter to support themselves.

And then it would be winter.

Back on the Document Trail - Part II

So, the results are in and the winner is....  Nobody.

The birth record that I ordered from the GRO ended up being for the wrong William Halls.  This William was the son of John Avery Halls.  The will information that I ordered didn't have much more than was available on the website, evidently any copies of the will for Philip Halls have been lost over time.  Oh well, win a few lose a few.

Among other sources I used the indices created by the Devon Wills Project run by the Devon Family History Society.  You can find an excellent report on the project here on the Devon Family History Society website.

Facial Recognition and Unknown Ancestors

I just came across an article in New Scientist online about using facial ID software to determine if people in a picture are related.  Apparently the software was correct just over 70% of the time, which is marginally better than a person.  What the article didn't answer was how far back the software could determine relationships.  For example if I compared a picture of myself to my great grandfather, would it see a resemblance?  You can read the article here.