What's New - May 14, 2024
New Book Here - "A History of the Murray Canal"
The book was released April 4 and is available at book stores, libraries and online. See my main web site for details.
Around Town Project
The Around Town Project continues. Main Street was completed and a new tourist pamphlet will be issued by the municipality in June 2024 for a walking tour up Main Street. The work continues with Prince Edward Street, from Park Street to the railway, with hopefully, another walking tour for that part of town, when the work is done. Stay tuned.
Genealogy Stuff
Loveless in the County
An email contact asked about an issue with one of the many Loveless families in Ameliasburgh Township, Prince Edward County. This led to a major expansion of the information for this name, including lots of connections for Loveless people already in my data, going all the way back to the 1700s. A key couple in this process was Absalom Loveless and Harriet Roblin, married in Sophiasburgh Twp. in 1804. Branches from Hiram (Huram?), John and James led to a lot more complete trees for this group. Much more to come, but this is a really good improvement.
Bull, Lockhart, Bleecker
Susan Brose of Gosport is working on a comprehensive history of the cottages and cottagers at Presqu'ile Point and, in the process, sometimes asks me about names she encounters. That means people who are not yet in Treesbydan, but are known to have had a presence at Presqu'ile sometime during the early 1900s. In particular, these people are not from the Brighton area but we would like to add them to the database. My strict rule about no floaters comes into play here, so I have to study the family trees to see if I can come up with a connection. In the case of the family of George L. T. Bull, that process was successful. He was born in Trenton, part of a family group NOT connected to the large loyalist Bull family. He became a lawyer and, as Susan quotes, "George L.T. Bull, K.C., Criminal Law Specialist pasted August 23, 1949, age 75. A Criminal lawyer also acted as special Crown prosecutor, born in Trenton, lived in Toronto summered at Presqu'ile. Wife Rose Jean Lockhart, father of Mrs. B. Costello, Mrs. Peter Hayes, Mrs. Harry Harrison, Henry, Esmond, Ronald, Clyde, Gordon, Gerald, and Frank." It turns out that the connection is through his second wife, Rose Jane Lockhart. This lady was born in Brighton, and married first J.S. Campbell, a doctor, and then William Adam Bleecker of Trenton. She married her third husband, George Bull, in 1934 and, in this capacity was known as part of the cottager community at Presqu'ile. It is through the large Bleecker family that I am able to add this Bull family to treesbydan. We can't always make a connection with folks from outside the area, but the process of trying often adds good info to the system. In any case, we keep trying.
The Dentist Who Recommended Presqu'ile to John Atkins
One of the fascinating stories about Presqu'ile Point is how the Atkins family came to establish their summer holidays there. John Atkins (1870-1933) was an accountant from Paddington, England who was transferred to his company's office in New York City in 1896. In New York, the Atkins family had a dentist who came from Brighton, Ontario, and he talked glowingly of Presqu'ile Point as an ideal summer holiday destination. Mr. Atkins decided to try it out and, well the rest is history. The Atkins family had a farm where the Calf Pasture is today on the bay shore, and owned some of the last parcels of land that were expropriated for the park in the 1960s. Recently, Susan Brose provided me with the name of the dentist from Brighton who had influenced Mr. Atkins. His name was Edward Sanford, full name Edward Alexander Sanford. He was born in Rochester, NY in 1870, a son of John Edward Sanford and Mary Thayer. John was a son of William Hawley Sanford and Adeline Proctor, so a part of the large Sanford clan in Brighton. He had been born in Brighton in 1846, but move to Rochester as early as 1868 to practice as a dentist. His brother, Frederick Sanford did exactly the same thing, also in Rochester. John's son, Edward would follow along in the family business of dentistry, moving to New York City soon after marrying Minnie Beach in 1895. Both the dentist and the accountant would move out to the burbs, ending up in New Rochelle. So, that explains the dentist connection between New York City and Presqu'ile Point.
William Burr
An email contact provided information about William Burr (1806-1877) of Hillier Township, Prince Edward County. The meagre data that was there now has lots of company. This name was in my database due to his wife being Sophia Redner and one of his daughters marrying into the Fraleigh family, a group I did lots of work on early in my genealogy life. His kids also provide connections to Hearns, Saylor and Valleau, all important names in area history. However, it was the earlier generations that turned my crank. William Burr's father was Noahdiah Burr, an unusual name that experiences a lot of different spellings, but I expect this is the right form. He was originally from Connecticut before the war, but settled in Brownville, Jefferson Co., New York after the war, a small town a little north west of Watertown, NY. Young William Burr was a good worker and was able to marry very well, to Sophia Redner. Their two daughters married into the Spencer and Snider families. There is confusion re timing and exact steps, but it looks like William Burr's father died in 1814, and his mother, Joanna Mary Whitney, married Watertown widower Philip Ainsworth. They moved to Demorestville in Sophiasburgh Township where Philip acquired land and did business. Philip's family is important in this area, as we see the name a lot. I had a field day linking people already in my data to their proper families. Good stuff! In the process of looking at Burr data, I was able to improve on the earlier links that connect to the Gould family of Salem. That early settler family in Cramahe Township has a huge family tree and one link is to the Brown family of Salem, by which The History Guy is connected. My dad's sister, Bernice, married Bill Brown, a descendant of the Brown/Gould families. The large and very early cemetery there at Salem is a delight for us cemetery surfers.
Fixing a Goheen Problem
You may have noticed that I have not mentioned DNA in any of my genealogy work. That's because I have avoided it. Instead, I have watched with interest and scepticism as the situation has evolved over the last few decades. It was obvious that this would come up in my work at some point. One example is a problem that was fixed recently in the very large Goheen family tree. The problem appeared in the records for the early years of the marriage of John Goheen (1808-1894) and Ophelia Hogeboom (1810-1869). Ophelia's birth date has seen a variety of numbers, but should be 1810. She and John were married in 1828. She had no other husband before John, as has been suggested in various trees. Nelson Goheen (1828-1912) was their first child and then Emily who married Abraham Prince. And so it goes. Thanks to DNA reports by an interested party, this structure is more certain today. Thanks for the info!
Murphy and Goodmurphy
If there is anything that throws a monkey wrench into family tree research, it is a change in the form of the surname. A good example of this came to light recently when a researcher from the Goodmurphy family of Prince Edward County provided some information on his family's history. John Good Murphy (1780-1845) was from Wexford, Ireland and brought his large family to Canada in 1822, settling in Hillier Township. His father was Lawrence Murphy and his mother Jane Good, thus his middle name. However, most of his children made the decision to combine the two names and use the surname Goodmurphy. The change did not happen for all the kids, however, as Thomas Good Murphy was a well-known farmer in Cramahe Township, ending up with significant land holdings in Brighton. He owned the land where the funeral home is today on Main Street in Brighton. In Prince Edward County, the surname Goodmurphy is well known and we can follow the records, including memorials, to see how it was adopted by subsequent generations of the family. Anything to make the work more difficult for researchers!
Eben Wright
A researcher recently drew my attention to the name Eben Wright (1800-1886) who we might say was a temporary settler in Haldimand Township, Northumberland County for a few years in the 1830s and 1840s. He moved on to Michigan but left a legacy of connections in our area, including daughters married into the Mallory and Gaffield families. Here is a good example of the many folks who kept moving west in those days, looking for greener pastures. It is easy to exclude this kind of family from our local history, but it is a mistake to ignore them. Each one leaves some kind of legacy and can be seen as part of the large, complex puzzle that makes up our history. Let's not forget the folks who moved on.