My Life's Work and Life's Necessities

I wrote this article in October of 2014. It is now April of 2016 and we no longer live in the Ottawa Valley, but in Gander, Newfoundland. I completed the work for a certificate in Medical Transcription in December of 2014 and received my certificate a couple of months later.

It’s a drizzly day in October and I am sitting at my desk wondering what I should write about. I should have finished working on the Timberline over a week ago. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, my schedule for the last two weeks seemed to fly out of the window.

This year has been an extremely busy for me and it is not quite finished. Since January, I have been working on a certificate in Medical Transcription and I will be finished in December. I have been working online at home for all of the courses, nine in all. The reason that I have been doing this is that Veterans Affairs decided last year that it was time for me to prepare to return to full employment outside of my home. Since they are providing an income for me and were willing to pay for the education upgrading, I was obliged to cooperate.  Thus far, it had not interfered with the publication of the Timberline. I do not anticipate any other problems with working on the Timberline.

Other people have had to do similar. It’s just disappointing that I do not have the credentials to be able to work in the genealogy field. Maybe, someday I will have those credentials. It will take time, money and effort on my part in order to accomplish this. Right now, I have the interest in doing this but I don’t feel that this is the right time. I have said before that everything happens for a reason. I don’t presently know why I was to prepare for employment in the medical field. However, I know that when the time is right, I will know the reason. It might be as simple as eventually being able obtain a position with an online company and working from home. It could just as well be that there is someone out there somewhere that I will be able to either help, or influence in a positive way and this is the route that I need to take in order to do this.

My time in the Ottawa Valley is not finished yet. It may be that there is still work that I need to do here. It is my firm belief that I will be here until the right time comes that we are to move, whether it is because my husband needs to be in another location, or I have completed the work that I was to do.

I believe that family history is a major part of the reason why we came to the Ottawa Valley in the first place. If I had been in the Niagara Region when I retired from the Military, I may not have learned what health problems that I have. I may not have been at home as long as I have been. Being here has given me the opportunity to start to learn how to research thoroughly for my ancestors. It has also given me the opportunity to visit Lanark County looking for records on the family that four years ago I knew next to nothing about. I have also learned that I have a rich French Canadian heritage that I have just begun to research. Come the new year, I will need to learn to fit family history around the future employment schedule that I will have.

I still want to do the day trips to find the records that I need, but I will need to take my future employment into consideration. I will also need to learn to balance employment, family history responsibilities, church responsibilities, and personal downtime in a manner that allows me the most flexibility.

I enjoy working on my family history. It is refreshing to me that when my brother asks whether I have found anything new, I can say, “Yes”, and then be able to let him know what it is that I have found. It is my life’s work that I am doing when I work on family history. The employment will give me the financial ability to do so.

In this article, I mentioned about the purpose of our time in the Ottawa Valley. I would like to emphasis that EVERYTHING happens for a reason. We may not know what the reason was until much later in life. Sometimes, things happen for a number of reasons. For example, our move to Newfoundland was for more than one reason. There are records in St John’s that I need to access for my family history. I have a number of mariners in my family history and these records will explain things that happened. 

The second reason was that my husband needed to go to a job that was not as demanding as his job was before we left the Ottawa Valley.

The third reason was that my husband and I both have a number of years of experience as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and that we have skills that we have already put to use here. It was as if the Lord had said that He would give us Newfoundland so that I could do my research and in return, we would assist in the teaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so thankful that I have already had the opportunity of doing some research in St John’s and I know that I will be able to go again. 

Winters of 1817 and 2014

I originally wrote this in February 2014.

The winter of 2014 was a colder winter in Petawawa than it had been for the previous couple of years.  Yes, in previous winters, there were a few days of minus 30 degree or lower temperatures in January.  In 2014, the colder temperatures started in December over the Christmas holidays.  My husband and I were in the Niagara Region for the holidays and came home to find that the battery in the vehicle left behind was frozen solid.

This year was our first winter in Gander. I had been told to expect warmer winter temperatures than Petawawa, but the winter was longer, there was much more snow, and the summer shorter and cooler than what I had experienced in the upper Ottawa Valley.

2014’s cold weather has made me think about how my ancestors may have coped with similar weather. 

My fourth-great-grandfather, Edward Farrell, arrived in Canada and received his land assignment in August of 1817.  He had to build a cabin before winter.  He was fortunate that he had two sons with him as well as his wife.  They also had to be sure of their fuel supply.  Edward had been in the British Army for at least the previous 10 years and spent time on mainland Europe involved with the Napoleonic wars.  I haven’t looked for his military records yet or the regiment’s records, but I am relatively sure that he would have been involved with scrounging for necessities.

Another fourth-great-grandfather, Joseph Armstrong, had a different situation in 1817.  Joseph was a farmer in Cumberland, England, and had been on the same land for over twenty years and all of his children had been born there.  The Napoleonic Wars were over and the British economy had taken a down turn.  Farmers could not sell their crops and, therefore, some of them could not meet their financial obligations.  Joseph was one of them.  He did not lose his farm until 1819, but things would have been tight except for any help the older children could give.

I think of Edward and his family in a cabin that they built themselves, which may have had a lot of drafts and not enough fuel.  I also think of Joseph and his wife, Mary, and the children not old enough to be on their own, facing the cold winters of the Borderlands, with not enough money to be certain of keeping their relatively comfortable home.  Edward’s situation did nothing but improve, while Joseph’s degraded to loss of his farm.  My ancestors did survive the cold winters.  So can I.

Researching The Perth Military Settlement

In 2013, I did a presentation on The Perth Military Settlement covering the years 1816 to 1823.  This presentation covers why the military settlements were established, where they were generally located, who this action involved, what the expectations were, the kinds of records that we can hope to find, and where we can find the records.

There were a number of reasons why the military settlements were established.  This was a period of time that Britain had a lot on its plate.  The war in North America was over, the Napoleonic Wars were winding down, there was an economic downturn.

 

War is an expensive proposition.  Once the war is over, there are soldiers who are no longer needed to fight battles and the economy has to change from providing military supplies and food to a peace time economy.  Every country goes through this after a war.  Towards the end of the War of 1812, some of the regiments from the European theatre could be released to go to the aid of Upper and Lower Canada.  Prior to that time, there were regular force regiments in Canada.  They, along with the militia forces were able to fight a more defensive war.  Once they were joined with more regiments from Europe, they were able to become more aggressive.  To thank the participants, both regular force and militia, everyone who fought on the side of the British were entitled to land grants, the amount of acreage depending on the rank.

In 1815, soldiers in the British army regiments that did not go to Canada were being released from their military service.  Many of them became Chelsea pensioners.  Because of this, it was costing the government a lot of money and these soldiers needed jobs which were non-existent. It actually gave the government significant savings to pay for passage to Canada for a former soldier and his family, providing them with food, tools, and land.  In return, Britain had a next to ready-made loyal army in the event of another incursion from the United States. During the war of 1812, some of the loyalists were not so loyal.

The Military Settlements were established in 3 main areas, along the St Lawrence River, around Kingston and the Bay of Quinte, and in the Niagara Peninsula.  A 4th area was considered.  This was around Detroit, but the land ended up being turned over to the Americans.  As I have alluded to earlier, the veterans from the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic War were provided with necessities.  Civilians also moved into the area at the time, but they were provided with land at a price for 100 acres.  Some purchased land from the soldiers who had filled their obligations and found that they did not want to continue either because of the work involved or the land was not good land.

From this point onwards, my remarks will pertain to the military settlement at Perth.

The first military settlers in Perth arrived approximately 1816.  My 4x great-grandfather Jean Baptiste Fournier and his family arrived at this time.  His son, Jean Baptiste Jr was also entitled to a land grant and he got the other 100 acres of the lot that his father was assigned.

As I said before, the amount of land depended on the rank the veteran had.  Officers received anywhere from 100 acres up to 400 acres, the higher the rank, the more acreage the veteran got.  Sergeants received 200 acres and any rank under sergeant received 100 acres.  Everyone received food for a year, and implements for clearing the land and growing a crop.

The settlers were expected to do 4 things before the grant was finalized.  They had to live on the land for 3 years, they had to build a cabin to live in, they had to clear a specified amount of land in that 3 years and they had to start growing crops.  They were also expected to keep up their military training and report for military duty in times of threats of invasions.

How did I become interested in the Perth Military Settlement?  Well, last spring, I was finding that the information about my family was not exactly how my mother told me.  She said that either her grandfather or her great-grandfather came out from Ireland.  Through the census records, I found that her great-grandfather was actually born in Canada.  This is a pedigree chart of my Farrell line starting with my great-grandfather.

Last spring, I found a book that headed me in the direction that I am now travelling with this family.  

I did not pay a lot for this book, under $2.00.  I did not know why I needed this book until I came to this page.  

I have not found a copy of the book entitled "Upper Canada Located Settlers" yet, but the appendix has given me a lot of information.  This first part of the appendix is an index to make it easier to find the information on your family.  It is arranged alphabetically and gives you the page number and the line number that your information is on.  By turning to the page number and finding the line number, you find more information.  It gives the Regiment that your ancestor was part of, the number and sex of persons in the family, the location of the grant, and the authority that entitles the grant.

Now, as you can see, Edward Farrell was a member of the 4th Royal Irish Dragoons.

There was 1 adult woman and two males over 12 that accompanied him.  From his burial record, from St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church, we learn that his wife's name was Elizabeth Leonard.  

From one son's marriage record, we know that the son's name was George and he married Bridget O'Keefe in Montreal Basilica in 1822.

We strongly suspect that the other son's name was Bernard, but we have not yet been able to confirm it.

As you see, I had to go outside the Perth area to find the information.  The same situation arises with Jean Baptiste Jr.

He married Frances Lalonde in February of 1817 by the Rev. Wm. Smart.  I found their marriage information in a book listing Brockville marriages.  The Rev Smart was not a Roman Catholic and neglected to pass the information onto the Roman Catholic church.  Because of this, when Father John McDonald moved to Perth in 1823 to become the first parish priest, he had no record of their marriage and insisted that they be married again.  So, Jean Baptiste Jr and Frances were married twice.

There are a number of things that you need to know when searching for records for Perth between 1816 and 1823.  The first thing that you need to know is that there was no clergy in Perth until 1823.  Circuit clergy from the different churches took turns and were to note what church that the family belonged to.  They then performed any necessary ordinances, such as baptisms, marriages, and burials.  When they arrived back at their home church, they were to inform any other churches of the work that was performed on their behalf.  The other thing is that if somewhere seems to be to far away for the record to be, check anyway.  I saved myself a lot of heartache when I was Algonquin College.  I had asked for any information on Perth prior to 1823.  The librarian was going to take away a book on the Brockville marriages, but I asked to keep it.  That's when I found Jean Baptiste Jr's and Frances' marriage information.

One thing that I have not made mention of yet is the Johnstown papers.   These are yearly census records for each township from 1816 to 1823 and a couple more years before 1841 when the federal census started.  Not all of the census records have survived.  The 1817 census is a nominal census and most of the rest are head of household or agricultural census records.

I have a list of places that you can look for records for this time period:

• ·       Lanark County Genealogical Society Library - I did not find much personally, but you might find more than I did

·       Archives Lanark for some wills, and land records - I have to go back there, one day was not enough for me.
·       Algonquin College, Perth Campus - They have a good section on local and family history.  Again, I need to go back, I haven't looked at a quarter of their holdings.
·       Local churches
·       Roman Catholic Archives in Kingston, Montreal, Brockville, Ottawa, etc.
·       Anglican Archives in Ottawa - they are only open on Mondays and Tuesdays.  You need to call ahead.
·       Anglican Archives in Kingston, Montreal, Toronto
·       Local libraries in the small towns where your ancestors lived
·       Library and Archives Canada - you can use their website first to determine what you want to look at.  Some things are online through their website
·       Ontario Archives - Again, you have to prepare for your trip by visiting their website.  A lot of their information is online or on microfilm that you can order via Inter-Library Loan to a local public library

Again, I want to thank you for this opportunity to share the information that I have found thus far regarding the Perth military settlement.

The following is a picture of the original cabin built by Edward Farrell and his sons.