Holes of Montreal: Greene Avenue, 1977

So here is another set of images of holes of Montreal.   As the description above states it was on Greene Avenue, and again it was an pipe laid by the family firm of Laurin and Leitch.  I would say that seventy years underground was a bit beyond its intended life, so yeah, it broke.

When I am in Montreal and I see a hole in the ground, I ponder at whether the pipe they are replacing is a family pipe.  After all a lot of the city’s infrastructure still dates from the golden time when my great-grandfather was in business.

 

Mysterious family connection to Norma Shearer, 2012

Family Rumours, and What to Think?

I am sure I have mentioned this a couple of times, but when I talked to my father about the family’s history, he wasn’t always the most truthful.  Do I think that he was being cruel by lying about things?  No, often he wanted me to have a story about the family, but didn’t actually have one on hand, so he made one up.  So I have often had to go through my recollections of his stories and measured them about things I do know, and see if they were true, or if they could be true.

 

Such is the case with his stories about Norma Shearer.  Dad had mentioned many times that his mother had been very good friends with Norma Shearer, the Oscar winning actress.  One of his more interesting stories was that when my grandmother married that Norma was to be her maid of honour, but could not attend because of filming commitments.  Okay.  So what to make of this story?

 

First off Norma Shearer was fromMontreal, like my grandmother, and actually was raised not more than a couple of blocks away from where my grandmother lived.  They were also born about the same time.  Grandmother was born in 1898, and Norma was born in 1902.  The difference is only four years.  However, they could not have gone to the same schools as Norma was Anglican and my grandmother was Catholic.

 

From this alone I am still a bit of a sceptic.  But fortunately there is a bit more to examine.  Dad wasn’t the only one to say that they were friends.  My dad’s cousins N and M both have also said that Irene and Norma were friends.

 

I think though my most interesting clue lies in the story that Norma was to be her maid of honour.  I have since hearing this story, read the marriage notice for Irene and my grandfather Hugh Leitch (which I have posted previously on WordPress) and it gets interesting.  It is a beautiful bit of society reporting, which states to the minutest detail of who wore what, who was there, etc.  Grandfather was attended by his brother Clair, and the bride was “Unattended,” although her sister seems to have dressed quite extravagantly in hopes to be her bridesmaid, she actually was only a guest.  Could it be that she was unattended because the one she wanted to attend her couldn’t?

 

And this is all I can know.  Norma Shearer passed away in 1983, and I have no idea what has happened to her children, if they had her papers, if there were letters, or the like.  My dad did not keep any of his mother’s papers, photos or other kinds of mementos which would provide more evidence.

Using Oral History in your Family History

Using Oral History in your Family History

 

Oral history is a very important part of doing family history, after all the stories are the cornerstone of the history itself, and are most often the starting point we as historians use to go back further in the family’s background.  We probe, we prod, we unmercifully ask all our relatives questions about family members in order to find out more about the family.  It is therefore important to go about asking questions in a systematic and traceable way.

 

First of all I recommend that you pester yourself first.  Start learning about your family’s history and the techniques of oral history by asking the questions of yourself first.  You can do this by just taking the questions you intend to ask your older relatives, and ask them of yourself. You can just write your answers, or even better record them.  You will get a better appreciation for the time answering such personal questions takes, and the process of actually remembering.  You might also gain an appreciation on what should and shouldn’t be asked, or how to ask the questions without ticking off the person you are talking to.

 

And for more fun, transcribe your interview before you start interviewing others.  You learn more about the better placement of the microphone and the need not to mumble questions.  If you are video taping the interview you will also get a better feel for where to place the cameras for a more flattering angle and good sound.

 

Always have a plan.  A list of questions that you intend to ask your subject is a must.  But make sure that the list is not that long.  Planning is great, but also remember they may not have the same plan as you.  Your interests are yours, and the person you are interviewing may have a whole different agenda.  I remember interviewing a cousin about her grandfather, and she kept going off on a talk about her other grandfather.  And while it was slightly interesting, he wasn’t related to me.  But I couldn’t stop her talking about him.  You might run out of tape before your list is exhausted (especially if it is long).

 

People lie.  They sometimes don’t do it on purpose, sometimes they do.  My dad hated not knowing the answer to a question.  Rather than saying, I am sorry, I don’t know, he would make something up.  He did this often when I had questions about the family.  Sometimes they soften the truth so that you are not disappointed.  When questioning a cousin about my grandmother, she would say that she was a wonderful person.  When pressed to talk about her being kicked out of school for bad behaviour (a story told by several sources) she said, ‘oh no, your grandmother was not like that, she was lovely.’ She told me what she thought I wanted to hear.

 

I have also found that you should transcribe the interviews right away.  I say this because I have about two hours of interviews with my mother on tape, and I have yet to listen to them.  It is too hard.  She has been gone over ten years, and I find it difficult to hear her voice.  I wish I had transcribed it, so I could at least have her words. The black and white of the printed word is less fraught with emotions.

 

A note from a person who has transcribed many interviews- please don’t eat when you interview someone.  The sound of cutlery makes the recording hard to hear, and hard to understand. If there is coffee or other drinks around, make sure the microphone is not nearby.

 

Interview as many people as possible.  Don’t wait for them to be the oldest or the last member of their generation before you get their stories.  And have fun, these are your families’ stories.

Digging up Information on Your Ancestors: Cemeteries as Sources

Digging up information on your ancestors:  Cemeteries as sources

By

Gillian Leitch

I love visiting cemeteries.  I know that this statement will make me sound particularly odd, but bear with me.  Cemeteries are the most amazing places to understand the lives of our dearly departed, and more importantly the lives of those they left behind.  You only have to read the inscriptions, the symbols on them, the statuary around them, and then also look at the size, material and placement of them to get what powerful things are being said.  They are an excellent source of information for the historian, family or otherwise.

There are a number of considerations you should make when researching the grave of someone.  The first is the cemetery itself.  Look into the history of the cemetery, does it tell you something about the deceased?  Is it attached to a specific church or congregation?  If so, it is clear that this place might have had meaning to the deceased, particularly if there were other burial options available.  Is it an expensive cemetery- posh?  It might indicate that the person buried there was a part of the elite, or of good financial standing.

Check the cemetery records to see if there were choices in where the person could be buried within the cemetery itself.  Were they offering lots in certain sections at certain times, or was the entire field available from day one.  For example I was curious to find out why certain members of my family were buried close to one another, I thought  that this was an indication that the family members wanted to be buried close to one another, but not close to their father, who was buried in another section of the cemetery. (see Matthew Hicks burial posted 1/19/2010; Wright family plot posted on 3/8/2010; and Corley burial posted 2/28/2010)

Cuddy Monument, Montreal

This wasn’t exactly the case.  The portion of the cemetery where he was buried was no longer available, and all new sales for the period they purchased were in the same section.  And further checking of the dates indicated no pre-planning for this, as they bought their family plots on the death of the first burial in the plots.  They were close together, which might indicate a bit of choice, but as they were limited in their options, it was most likely random.

Was the plot pre-purchased, or was it, as I saw in the case I mentioned above, a matter of buying as needed?  Pre-planning shows that the deceased were concerned with where they were buried.  It would show that it was the deceased doing the planning and not the survivors.

How big is the plot?  Did the purchaser intend to bury just themselves there, or was it a family plot?  This is indicative of a desire to keep the family together, and perhaps a bit of establishing a family presence somewhere.  In the end, how many family members actually are buried there?  Is the plot full, or did other members choose to be interred elsewhere?  For example, one person I researched, Michael Morley, purchased a huge plot at Notre Dame des Neiges in Montreal. (see the blog on the Morley Crypt, posted 4/18/2010)  On the site he built a pretty substantial mausoleum, with the family name engraved on the top.  Only three people are there, although he and his wife had a fairly large family.  What does that say about the person who bought the plot, and the people who came after?

How is the grave or plot marked?  Did the family or deceased choose a showy headstone, a mausoleum or a plain marker?  This says a lot about the people who made these decisions.  Are the materials expensive, luxurious, do they stand apart from other graves in the cemetery?  Did they choose to decorate the area with any statuary?  Are the decorations especially religious?

How are the names placed on the marker?  Are certain names more prominent than others?  Were titles or jobs placed within the information on the marker?  What about national origins, dates and places of birth?  Did they mention parents or siblings not interred there?  Are some people buried there missing from the monument?

There is this one family plot at Notre Dame des Neiges in Montreal which is most illustrative of the ideas of name, title, decoration and placement.  It is a double plot situated beside the Monument des Patriotes.  It is the plot for the family of Sir Lomer Gouin (B66).  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lomer_Gouin ]  It is an impressive monument that is a semi circle of columns in the classical Greek Style with a bust of Lomer in the centre.  The plot is full of his family but the main monument is to him.  The others interred there are listed on a step leading to the main monument just off the path.  So what does this say about the family?  About Lomer?  It says in many ways that the important one is Lomer, and even successive generations have not tampered with the monument itself, instead choosing to honour the rest of the family in a noticeably more modest manner with just their names and dates of birth and death inscribed on a flat stone.  Even placed beside the Monument for the Patriotes which is tall and quite imposing, the Gouin monument makes a mark.  A serious contrast to it is the family plot of the Corley family, which lies just off to the side and behind one row.  There is a simple flat marker for the husband and wife Timothy and Margaret Corley, and to the side one for Hugh and Virginia Leitch, but little else.  There are eleven people in this plot.

By asking yourself these questions you can get some interesting information about the families and the lives of the people the monuments honour.  They tell a story, and with a little digging into the circumstances or context of the burial, you can have a clearer picture of these people buried in a cemetery.  Not so creepy after all?

War Diaries as a Source for Social and Family History, 2012

War Diaries as a Source for Social and Family History

 

2nd Canadian General Hospital- Matron's Diary, LAC, Mikan #2005097

War Diaries are a great source for the historian.  They are essentially the day to day record of a base or unit in the armed forces.  That means that whoever was responsible for them, wrote out what had happened in their environs on a daily basis.  I repeat, a daily basis. 

 

Now of course these are great sources of information for the military historian who is interested in how policies are implemented on the ground, for accounts of battles and the like.   But I would like to point out to others who really don’t care much for information about wars and such that these are of great value for other reasons.

 

Of course it all depends.  Just like any routinely generated sources, it depends on who filled them out.  The diary was created to keep track of events on the base so as to know what happened, and how.  But what information was actually recorded depended on the person doing the entry.  Some diaries are rather dry, with one or two sentence descriptions, saying perhaps nothing happened of note, or all is well and the like.  Then there are dairies that went into the most amazing detail.  Some will note marriages that took place, visits of dignitaries, sports events, theatrical events, weather, etc.  And many diaries include photographs, newspaper clippings and other ephemera. 

 

For the social historian this kind of information is brilliant.  When the diaries include information about the social life of the base, and its interaction with its surrounding community, it demonstrates the creation of community on the base.  People interacted.  When not doing their military obligations, these people organised social events- theatrical entertainments, sports teams, clubs, etc.  They went out of the base and went to events in the local community; they competed against other bases in sporting events, or with local teams.  They created a wide network which constituted a larger community. This is an aspect of the military that is overlooked by non-military historians.

 

For those searching their family history, these diaries could be of great use.  Again, as stated before, the content of the diaries depend on who wrote it, but I urge you to consult the diary for information.  The best chances that your ancestor will appear in the diary are if: they died while in the military, they were absolutely amazing at their jobs, or they were absolutely awful at their jobs.  Then they are more likely to be mentioned in the diaries.  If your ancestor was good at their job, but did nothing to make them noticed, then the chances are less.  However, there are diaries that talk about sporting and other activities, so if you ancestor participated in anything; they could be mentioned, or even in a photograph.  Even if your ancestor does not get mentioned by name in the diaries, they provide a glimpse into the experience of living in the military.

 

2nd Army War Diary, LAC Mikan #2006044

I urge you to go out now and read a war diary!

‘The Confetti Trap’ and the Uses of Material History in Genealogy

 By Gillian Leitch

 

There are many objects that litter our home that we hold dear because of their connection to members of our family, many of whom have since passed on.  These objects hold value to us because of their association with our memories of their owners, the situations where they were present.  As a historian, it is important to catalogue these values along with the other characteristics of these items in order to preserve their historical value.  

 

I thought I would use an example to illustrate the recording of the value of an item of historical interest.  

 

Behold: the hat!

Pink Hat, 2012 c. GLeitch

 

 

Any evaluation of a historical item must begin with a description of the item’s physical characteristics.  As you can see, it is a pink flowered hat, which dates from the 1960s.  When worn, the hat covers the entire head and much of the wearer’s hair.  It is made of pink and white silk, cut into flower petal shapes and a few green silk leaves.  

Close-up of pink flowered hat, 2012. c. GLeitch

 

 

 

From the inside of the hat is clear that these silk flowers were sewn onto a pink nylon mesh.  The hat has the label of the famous Canadian high end store “Holt Renfrew.” The hat is in good condition, and is relatively clean. 

 

Interior of pink hat, 2012. c. GLeitch

This hat belonged to my mother.  She bought it at Holt Renfrew for her ‘going away’ outfit for her wedding in 1966.  She affectionately called it her ‘Confetti trap’ because she found that the construction of the hat made it very good at keeping in the confetti from her wedding long after the fact.  She once said that even years after the wedding she was still shaking out the confetti from its depths.  She loved this hat, and wore it long after it was fashionable.   The last time she wore it was at my cousin’s wedding in 1977.

 

Going on the honeymoon in pink hat, 1966. c. Leitch family.

Looking at the pictures of Mom wearing the hat, it is clear that the hat, when worn does not have to cover all of the hair, and it was worn back from her forehead and fringe.  

 

Family at A's wedding, 1977. c. Leitch Family

 

 

 

 

The hat then has many values.  The first is as a piece of material history, a hat which was popular, and worn in the 1960s.  Its good condition, or excellent state of preservation is valuable to clothing historians who study the history of the construction and appearance of fashions over time.  The label indicates that it was an expensive item when originally purchased, and was also likely made by Holt Renfrew, inCanada.  This then stands as an example of a time long past when Canadian women could purchase fashionable accessories that were domestically produced. It likely also possesses a monetary value, as it is in excellent condition and there are a number of collectors of vintage clothing pieces, who seek out this kind of item for themselves.

 

From its history of a piece of clothing owned by my mother, the item represents how such a piece of clothing was worn.  While purchased for a specific event in her life, and a quite significant one at that, her wedding, the hat was not relegated to the heap after its use.  It was kept and re-worn at other special occasions, such as family weddings.  It was well kept during her lifetime, and treasured.  It also speaks to the traditions of wearing hats to weddings, and the need for this kind of formality in culture at specific occasions.

 

For me, the current owner of the hat, it too holds value.  I don’t wear it, as quite honestly I can think of no occasion where it would work.  This makes me sad, but realistic.  I have a lot of other hats myself, so Mom’s hat is a treasured piece in my collection.  I have distinct memories of her wearing the hat, happy occasions, and I do remember the odd piece of confetti falling out of it.  Sadly all the confetti is now gone, like my mother. But the hat is on display in my home as a testament to the happy memories I have of her, and of her wearing the hat.

 

The hat then is a piece of my family’s history, by virtue of it having belonged to my mother, who loved it, and by virtue of my keeping it and displaying it.

 

By taking into account of the various streams of history attached to an item, and by recording its specifities down, the genealogist, or family historian makes their family’s stories richer, and gives context to items valued by its members.

Using Google Maps to discover more about how your ancestors lived, 2012

Using Google Maps to discover more about how your ancestors lived

 

If you are fortunate enough to have an address for where an ancestor once lived, and yet again fortunate in that the place of residence is still standing, then you will find that Google Maps, and its streetscape setting is an excellent tool for genealogical research. 

I thought that I would use an example of this by using this database to search out a house that my grandfather and his family lived in, in 1907.  22 Britannia Road, Ilford, Greater London.  The first picture you see is a long view of the road and a map which places it on a map of London. 

Image from Google Maps.

This is where you start to investigate the neighbourhood, and see what traces lie there from 1907, when the family lived at that house.  Looking at the street it is clear that these are late Victorian, row houses, and therefore the house at 22 is the same house that the family lived in.  The neighbourhood was therefore rather new when the family moved in.  The houses are all the same size, and features.  The house itself is white painted brick, but its neighbour at 24 probably reveals what it would have looked like when it was constructed, as its brick is not painted, and the lintels and cornices are also unpainted.    The front door at 22 is recessed and there is a paved brick walk, with a lovely little garden in front.  The house seems to have two rooms on the top front so there were probably around four bedrooms in the home.  This is good, because they had five children, four who must have still lived with them when they lived here.

If you travel along the road a bit, you hit a high street (Ilford Lane), which features now a number of shops, and no doubt had similar kinds of retail in the early twentieth century as the buildings seem to date from about the same period. 

If you flick back onto the map of Ilford, you will see where the local school is, on Cleveland Road, not that far a walk for the kids.  I know from consulting the school’s archives at the Ilford Library that my grandfather and great aunt both went there.

 

From jiggling around between streetscapes and map I cannot find an Anglican Church nearby.  So I am not sure where they worshiped (if they were attending Church regularly).  I also am unsure where my great grandfather worked, but it would most likely not have been in the immediate area, as the area appears mostly residential. 

So what happens when the house they lived in no longer exists, and the neighbourhood?  This is a problem I faced when I had to deal with the place where my great-great grandparents first lived when they had their first child and got married (circa 1860).  Their address was 18 Granby Terrace, Hampstead.  Well the street is still there, but the house is not.  Instead it made way mostly for the train tracks running into Euston Station. 

So instead I found a feature listed on the map and went from there.  First since I knew it was close to Euston I googled that, then I saw that even closer, there is a place called Stalbridge House, so I googled that, and that is when I started on my virtual walk in the neighbourhood.

Stalbridge House is on Hampstead Road, and is actually a mid to late Victorian apartment block.  It was clearly built after my family lived around here.  It is surrounded by 1970s concrete masterpieces, which must have clearly altered the nature of the neighbourhood.  Walking down Hampstead Road I am faced with even more ugly concrete and an overpass.  Turning right, I find myself on Granby Terrace.  To the right is a wall, and on the other side of it are the train tracks leading to Euston.  To the left is a pink apartment building, which dates probably from the 1970s, behind it are lower level blocks that are older, but still 20^th Century.   The street indicates nothing from its earlier past. 

So I return to Hampstead Road and go down it further from Granby Terrace.  One road up, Morning Crescent shows a much more interesting pattern of construction, which looks like it could date from earlier in the nineteenth century.   It is typical terraced row housing.  I went online then to google the name of the street, thinking that there was some architectural merit, or perhaps protection afforded to these houses.  I was right. According to Wikipedia, it was built in the 1820s, so it would have been standing at the time of my great-grandparents’ living in the neighbourhood.  Now according to Wikipedia, which honestly is not the most reliable source of information, when these houses were built, the neighbourhood was surrounded by green fields and open country, but was still close to town.  Later in the Victorian era (which is not a clear date for my purposes) the houses were split into flats and housed artists and artisans.  According to the article, there was a school at Granby Terrace, Wellington House Academy, where Charles Dickens went to school.  (Before the time, therefore of my family’s occupation).  

So while the neighbourhood is mostly changed, I can still use the visual images and the streetscape to ferret out some information on the neighbourhood, and then take my research further.

Walking virtually down the street then, provides the genealogist a way to connect in some manner to the lives that their ancestors lived.  What is even better, the person does not have to live in the same area to find things out.  It is a useful tool, and with a bit of imagination and creativity, can be made to assist your research endeavours further.

Using the idea of territory in genealogy

Every one has a territory, it centres on the area in which we live and radiates outwards to include places where we work, eat, socialise, etc.  It is useful to think about this idea when you are doing your family history. 

Once you know where your ancestor lived from birth certificates, marriage certificates, wills, census, etc., you should try and find out as much as you can about that place.  First think of the actual building where they lived.  If you are lucky that building might still be standing, if not, there are histories usually of areas in towns which provide some basic information about the neighbourhoods.  Are they the only ones to live in this dwelling?  Who are their neighbours?  Keep in mind these will be the people that your ancestors saw most everyday, they may not have liked them, but they certainly knew them.

Did their home have a garden?  Were they able to raise their own food, or did they have to rely completely on the markets?  Did they have indoor or outdoor plumbing?  Was there a well or a river nearby for their daily water needs?

Did they work from home or did they have to travel to work?  If they worked away from home how far did they have to travel?  Were they able to access public transportation to get to work? (After 1850 or so) 

How close were the shops, were they close to the High Street, the market?  How far did they have to go to get their daily rations?

Where was the nearest church of their denomination?  Did they have to travel far to go there?  Remember that religion was an important part of many’s lives and that their principle socialisation would have occured on their one day off, Sunday.  This was their social sphere. 

Where was the local school?  It might have been the Sunday school at the church, or a distinct purpose built school.  Not everyone went to school, and it was not compulsory for most until late in the nineteenth century.  The closeness of the school to your ancestors home might have seriously determined if your ancestor received even a rudimentary education.

Where were their nearest relatives?  After all, the family was and is important, and knowing that the grandparents or a sibling lived nearby, or not could greatly effect the way that your ancestor lived.  Family was a social safety net, and another location for socialisation. 

Distance to certain places determined how people lived, their quality of life, and their type of social life.  These are important considerations in genealogy.  After all it is not just about determining when people lived and died, but how they lived.  Their lives were full and interesting, and worth knowing about.