Notes of Thanks for 2012

Just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year who has been reading my blog, has visited it, or has contributed to it in any way. Thank you so much for your support. My Descent into Descent has been a great tool for focusing my understanding of my family history research, as well as to share the stories of my ancestors with others. I believe that the sharing part is so important. I have loved how writing this blog and doing my family history work in general has connected me with family and friends who are close, more distant, and previously unknown to me.

I have done the bulk of my family history work in the past year, as I only began it in August 2011. The highlights of the past year include connecting with cousins in England and Australia to work collaboratively on our Sanderson and Saunders lines. My relationships with my new-found cousins Shirley, Ann, Bert, and Julie have been bright spots of my year, as have my connections with those on my father’s lines in the United States and Canada, such as those with Sarah and Deb sorting out the Bosomworths and the Marlows. I am also thankful for all the materials, documents, and photos which have come my way. I have appreciated the support and contributions of all those who have connected with me over genealogy this year, including my mother, brother, sisters, uncles, and cousins. It has been a wonderful way to stay in touch with people over a topic of mutual interest. I have to add that I am also grateful to my colleagues at work, who are not related to me, for showing genuine interest in every exciting new discovery I am bursting to share. I wonder how they keep track of it all. I also would like to share my gratitude to my fellow members in the B.C. Genealogical Society, such as Diane Rogers, to the volunteers at the Bellingham Family History Center (thank you, Tamara and Peg), and to the local Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, including the very knowledgeable Lil.

I would also like to thank Lisa Louise Cooke for sharing my email about my blog on the premium version of her Genealogy Gems podcast, and for her excellent instructions on how to create a blog on her Family History Made Easy podcast. My thanks also go out to Thomas MacEntee for inspiring me with his  Geneabloggers podcast, and for featuring my blog on a recent Geneabloggers.com  blogpost. This resulted in my blog coming to the attention of Elizabeth Lapointe, who mentioned it in her Genealogy Canada blog. Thank you, too, Elizabeth.

I would also like to thank my son for the inspiration of his own blog (not family history-related), and for encouraging me to write. In this vein, I would also like to thank the women of my writing group, The Champagne Club, Darlene, Sheryl, Anne, Michelle and Jill, for their support of my writing all these years. They are finally getting to see some of it.

Much of my work this year has focused on two of my great grandfathers, Herbert Charles Saunders and Melvin J. Hart. What I knew about Herbert led to so many unanswered questions, such as what were the circumstances of his being sent to Canada as a British Home Child, who were his family in England, what was his experience in the Royal North West Mounted Police, and what happened in World War One? All the records that came my way this year, as well as information from family sources, helped to answer these questions. I promised myself that when I had received all the documents about him that I would start my blog, which I did. Melvin and his lines fascinate me. This whole dimension of having deep American roots is enthralling, particularly as I have always been interested in American history and politics. I always knew that Melvin had fought in the Civil War, but I didn’t know very much else about him. I remember when I was a child my father bringing back Confederate bills from the farm in Alberta for us to play with. Little did I know that Melvin’s roots on both his lines went back to the earliest times of Colonial America, including, it appears, the Mayflower. In fact, the impetus for starting my family history research came from mentioning to my husband that I wondered if anyone in my family had fought in the Revolutionary War, and him offering to give me a subscription to Ancestry for my birthday. I now know of at least five direct ancestors who were Revolutionary War patriots. Thank you, my darling husband.

Nevertheless, writing this blog, particularly my series about those who came to Canada, has brought home to me how Canadian I really am. I was thinking that I was mainly British and American due to the depth of my roots in both lands, but when it really comes down to it, all of my great grandparents were either born in Canada (Susan Monk) or came to Canada. Four of my great great grandparents on both sides came to Canada (Jacob Monk, Jane Crawford, William Cook, and Emma Green), and at least three of my three times great grandparents also came here (Johannes Jacob Monk, John Crawford and Margaret Ann Diamond). All of this immigration to the Great White North started in about the 1830’s or 1840’s and ended in 1922. That is a long time ago in the history of a young country. Not only that, but there is family history to discover all across Canada, (except for the Maritimes), including Quebec, Ontario, all of the prairie provinces, and British Columbia. My Descent into Descent truly fits into the category of a Canadian family history blog.

Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my grandparents, some of them no longer with us, for sharing their knowledge of their family histories with me throughout my life and piquing my interest. I think I may now have captured most of the stories told to me by my grandparents, Alice Saunders and William Sanderson, which I did not want to be lost. I would also like to thank all my ancestors who are probably helping me behind the scenes in the world beyond. I, like virtually every other family historian, have had the sense that the departed are providing such assistance. I believe they may be behind those moments of “genealogical serendipity”. (You know who you are, Maud Marlow).

Tomorrow, I will be sharing some of my plans for this blog in the New Year. In the meantime, Happy New Year everyone!

John Crawford and Margaret Ann Diamond

My three times great grandparents, John Crawford and Margaret Ann Diamond, grandparents of Susan Monk Hart, came to Canada from Ireland between 1845 and 1847 during the height of the potato famine. I know nothing of their parentage, which means they are both “brick walls” for me on my tree. I am given to understand, however, that due to a scarcity of records for Ireland, that one cannot expect to go further back than the early 1800’s in Irish research. We shall see. I’m not giving up yet. It appears that John was born in Ireland on October 8, 1803, but there are unsourced reports that he was born on Isle of Man. The “John Crauford” baptised in 1803 on the Isle of Man in www.familysearch.org, was baptised in April, so if the October birthdate is correct, then this cannot be our John. His wife, Margaret Ann Diamond, was born in 1803 or 1804, also in Ireland. There are unsourced reports on Ancestry that Margaret, and the children born in Ireland, were born in Belfast, Antrim. The one clue that seems to fit is that their daughter, Margaret Ann Crawford, appears to have baptised on the Isle of Man in the old “Kirk” in Braddan on January 8, 1837. She is named, “Margaret Ann Crawford Diamond”, and is the daughter of “John Crawford” and “Ann Diamond”. There seem to be a number of Crawfords on the Isle of Man at this time, but not many Diamonds. To complicate matters, some of their census records and those of their children indicate that they were born in “England” and “Scotland” as well as “Ireland”. Because the bulk of the evidence comes down on Ireland, I think we are safe for now to say that that is where they were born.

Margaret and John were married in 1824 in Ireland, and unsourced reports say that this was in Larne, Antrim. They had about nine or ten children, between 1822 and 1847, with the last child, Sarah, being the only one born in Canada. Their children were also Jane, possibly David, Susan, John, Elizabeth, Henry, Margaret Ann, Mary Ann, and Charlotte. Between 1845 and 1847, they came to Canada, and settled in Ontario. In 1851, they were living in Oxford County. The whole family is Methodist. Between 1852 and 1856, the family emigrated to Decorah, Winneshiek, Iowa. On June 3, 1856, John was granted homestead land in Madison, Winneshiek, where it appears that both John and Margaret lived for the rest of their days. It is beginning to look like I should be ordering some homestead records, not only for John Crawford, but also for Jacob Monk, Melvin Hart, and my homesteaders in Illinois. The U.S. records are said to contain much useful genealogical data. I will keep you posted, gentle reader.

John died on April 2, 1871 at the age of sixty-seven. In 1880, Margaret Ann is living with her son Henry and his family, and in 1885, she is living with her daughter Sarah. Margaret Ann died  on June 4, 1889 at the age of eighty-six. She is buried with her husband John in Phelps Cemetery in Decorah, Winneshiek, Iowa.

Jacob Monk and Jane Crawford

My great great grandparents, Jacob Monk and Jane Crawford, the parents of Susan Monk Hart, were among the earliest of my direct ancestors to arrive in Canada. That I don’t say that they were the earliest is because I’m not yet sure who was. Jacob’s father, Jacob Sr., also came to Canada, but I am not certain which of the two men came first, or whether they came together. I do know that Jacob Sr. stayed in Canada, but that Jacob and Jane did not. Although others have done quite a bit of work on the Monk family, I am still sorting it out for myself. It is a bit complicated. In fact, Susan Monk’s lines are among the most challenging ones on my tree for me, probably because they are the most exotic to me as they involve German and Irish genealogy, which as yet do not know as much about.

Jacob Monk was born in New York between 1806 and 1821, the son of Jacob Monk Sr. and likely Margaretha Gress, both of German descent. At present, Jacob’s grandfather appears to have been Johannes Carl Muenck, a Hessian soldier brought over by the British to fight on their behalf during the American Revolution, who changed sides and remained in America. It appears that the family surname was originally “Muenck” but the Hessian grandfather appears to have anglicised the name to “Monk”, possibly to avoid being identified as a German. By 1849, Jacob was living in Ontario, Canada, and marrying Jane Crawford. The first record we have of his father living in Ontario is in the 1861 Canada census. However, there is a gap in the records of which I am sure, so they may have come to Canada together or separately, Jacob at any time after his birth, and Jacob Sr. any time after 1830. I am guessing that they came together since many families, and this family in particular, tended to emigrate together and live close to each other. Interestingly, Jacob Sr.'s half-brother, Nicholas, is living in the same county, Oxford, in Ontario, in the 1851 Canada Census, and remains there until his death in 1862. Also of interest is that the Hessian grandfather’s brother, Henrich Wilhelm, appears also to have been a Hessian, but who remained loyal to the British cause, and lived in Canada from about 1811 to 1819. (I am grateful to C. K. Monk for his work on Henrich and other family members). I admit that my own work on the Monks is definitely still a work in progress.

Jane Crawford was born September 19, 1822 in Ireland, likely the north, to John Crawford and Margaret Ann Diamond, who were Methodists. She was sometimes described as “Scottish”, so it is possible that the family was what is referred to as “Scots Irish”, that is, Irish of Scottish descent.  Her parents were married in Larne, Antrim, Ireland, so this may be where her mother was from, and where the family was living when Jane was born. I have more research to do in this area. She appears to have been the eldest of a family of nine, the other children being Susan, John W., Elizabeth, Henry, Margaret Ann, Mary Ann, Charlotte and Sarah. Her family came to Canada between 1845 and 1847, and by 1851 were residing in Oxford County, Ontario, Canada. She married Jacob Monk in Brock, Ontario on April 16, 1849. Between 1852 and 1855, she and Jacob moved to Decorah, Winneshiek, Iowa, as had her parents and siblings. She and Jacob were to remain in Iowa until their deaths.

Jacob and Jane Monk had seven children, Henry, Susan, John, George, James E., Alexander Washington, and Daniel, the first three having been born in Canada, and the last four in Iowa. They first lived in Decorah and Madison in Winneshiek county in Iowa, and then by 1880 were living in Bridgewater, Clay, Iowa. He had been granted homestead lands in Clay county on September 25, 1878. Jacob died on October 9, 1883 at the age of seventy-eight. In 1900 Jane is living with her unmarried son, George, on his farm in Freeman, Clay Iowa. Nearby is  the farm of her son John. In 1910, she is living next door to her son James and his family in Ruthven, Clay, Iowa, and she died there at the age of ninety-three. Jacob and Jane are both buried in Dickens Cemetery in Dickens, Clay, Iowa.

Susan Monk: The First to be Born in Canada

My great grandmother, Susan (a.k.a. “Susanah”) Monk, was born on August 1, 1851 in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada. This makes her the first of my direct ancestors to be born in Canada. She was the daughter of  Jacob Monk, an American of German descent, and Jane Crawford, who had come to Canada with her parents from the north of Ireland. She was the second eldest of a family of seven children, which also included Henry, John, George, James E., Alexander Washington, and Daniel. Between the ages of one and four, she moved to Decorah, Iowa from Ontario with her parents and brothers Henry and John. By 1860, they were living in Madison, Winneshiek, Iowa, where they were still living in 1870, when Susan was nineteen.

On February 24, 1872, she married farmer and Civil War veteran, Melvin J. Hart in Bridgewater, Clay, Iowa. It was the first marriage for both, and they were married by Rev. Lewis S. Ely. They had five children while living in Iowa: Alva M., Flora Jane, George Leslie, Dell M., and Charlotte, known as “Lottie”. The family lived and farmed in Freeman, Clay, Iowa until about 1898, when they moved to Rock Island, Texas. They were back living in Clay County Iowa by 1905, from where they all, except for Dell, emigrated to Lougheed, Alberta, Canada, Susan's native land.(Please see my blogposts on Melvin J. Hart for a more in depth discussion of their experience coming to Canada). They were among the first homesteaders in the area, and first built a log house, and then later a brick house, on their property.

There are two stories told about Susan Hart in two of the local history books about Lougheed, one in Verdant Valleys In and Around Lougheed, and the other in Cambridge School District Memories. In Verdant Valleys, (p. 293), Elsie Renshaw Cookson tells how she and her family used to pick “wild saskatoons, cranberries and raspberries” with their neighbours, Mrs. Hart and her daughter Lottie. She said that once they had done picking the berries, they had to “wash jars, make syrup, and process the berries in a wash boiler”. In Cambridge School District Memories, (p. 184), Bernice White Tillmar describes how they used to visit “Gramma Hart’s” old log house for “Sunday suppers”. She states that the house had a second floor with “real stairs”, and a “big supply of magazines and pictures”. She also reports that they would visit the house after school, and that Gramma Hart would have “such big, beautiful loaves of fresh bread” waiting for them, and that she had “a pretty little flower garden” by the house. She says that Susan had to carry her water from a well “away down the hill”.

Susan Hart passed away on December 28, 1932 at her home, after being ill for about a year, during which her daughter Flora Jane attended to her. According to her obituary, “she never complained”, and that she “kept a clear mind almost to the last”. She had been a “great worker all her life”, and left behind “a host of friends” to mourn her loss.

Alice May Saunders 1912 - 1997

Alice Sanderson, about 80

My maternal grandmother, Alice May Sanderson, nee Saunders, was always a big part of Christmas for me growing up and into my adult years, so I am paying tribute to her here. Here are just some broad strokes today about her life. She, like my grandfather, William Sanderson, was the source for many of the family stories I heard growing up. They both intrigued me with their accounts of life in bye gone years.  I always wanted to know more. Now I get to share a little something about her. She was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on November 16, 1912, the second daughter of Herbert Charles Saunders and Faith Cook (see my blogposts on both of them). She spent her childhood, and most of the rest of her life after World War One, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She was bright and precocious. She told the story of how she went repeatedly to the principal of the elementary school when she was five, and pleaded to be allowed to start school. She said, “I taught my sister Clara her ABC’s, and she’s going to school. Why can’t I?” She eventually wore him down, and was allowed into Grade One.

She married my grandfather on February 23, 1928, at the age of fifteen. He was twenty-five. They had six children, two girls and four boys. She never got over the loss of her eldest daughter, Velma, to blood poisoning from stepping on a rusty nail, who was nearly three when she died. Alice also lost a son prematurely, Kenneth “Kenny”, who was hit by a car at the age of twenty-one. After the loss of Velma in a hospital, she had most of her other children at home. My grandmother was known in the family for her psychic abilities, and as you have already read, she had a first cousin who achieved recognition as a psychic. She told the story of what happened subsequent to the complicated birth of her second eldest son. She apparently died in the hospital, and my great grandmother was informed that they had lost her. My grandmother’s experience was that she felt the bed lifting up, and she found herself in a beautiful garden where she felt such peace and happiness. She remembered then having the thought, “What about my children? Who will take care of them?” She then felt the bed drifting down, and she came back to life. She always said that she lost her fear of death from then on.

She raised her family during the years of the depression and World War Two, and became adept at “making do” with very little. She did things like buying sweaters at rummage sales and undoing the wool, and knitting items for her family. She would also buy men’s suits and other adult clothes and make clothing for the children out of them. She, like her mother and grandmother, was a seamstress. She always managed to put on the best Christmases she could for her children, and one Christmas, she managed to find skis for my uncles, and also for a friend of theirs. She also helped make our Christmases merry and bright. She and my grandfather helped my mother tremendously when we were growing up. I still miss her, especially at this time of year.

My mother remembers how Alice would often “go above and beyond” for her as a mother. My mother had to attend a formal function as a young adult, and needed a ball gown. My grandmother used her ingenuity, and went to the costume department of “Theatre Under the Stars”, and managed to borrow a beautiful and appropriate gown for her. When Mom got engaged, one of my grandparents quipped, “I guess you’ll have to be in the society pages”. My mother, who was, and she will admit this, a bit of a “princess” at the time, did not think they were joking and expected that this would happen. The story goes that Gramma went down to the Vancouver Sun and convinced them to put my mother’s picture in the “society pages” announcing her engagement. (I will have to find the article someday). I guess Alice was part mother and part “fairy godmother”. She was an amazing woman, and a wonderful grandmother. Merry Christmas, Gramma.

Christmas with me all my grandparents:
Lena Sarah Weyman, William and
Alice Sanderson, and Tom Weyman

William Sanderson--The Early Years

Alice Saunders, William and Bert Sanderson
about 1926 in Vancouver

Since it is Christmas Eve, I am profiling someone who is part of my own Christmas memories, my maternal grandfather, William Sanderson. Today, I am just going to talk mostly about his early life in England, before he came to Canada with his whole family in 1922. Although I know more now about his life during this time, there are still some mysteries which I hope to solve. William, known as “Bill”, was born on January 16, 1903 in the town of March in Cambridgeshire, the son of Herbert Sanderson and Phoebe Green. He was the eldest of five children, the others being Tom, Bert, Olive and Leonard.

He used to say that his family was fairly poor growing up, despite his father having worked for the railroad. He shared that he and his siblings got oranges for Christmas which were kind of dried up. I also seem to recall him saying that the family typically ate goose and Christmas pudding at Christmas. The family pet was a springer spaniel. By the time William was eight in 1911, the family had moved to the coastal town of South Lynn, Kings Lynn, Norfolk. Their address was “7 Victoria Street”. (Interestingly, Captain George Vancouver was from King’s Lynn, and William and his family were to settle in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1926). The South Lynn Railway Station was located here, where William’s father, Herbert, likely worked. By his own report, William was a good student, but left school around the age of fourteen to go to work. He said that boys of that age would go from “short pants” to “long pants”, marking the shift from childhood to the working world and more adult expectations of them. He said that his first job was working in a “munitions factory”, as this would have been in 1917 during World War One. I have yet to identify which munitions factory this was. (If you, gentle reader, could help me out with this, I would be most grateful).

Before the family left for Canada in 1922, they were all living together at “2 Station Cottages, Broxbourne, Hertfordshire”. William’s father Herbert likely worked at the Broxbourne Railway Station nearby at the time. The nineteen-year-old William was working as a “chauffeur”. My best candidate so far for the estate where he worked is the Old Manor House at Wormley, Broxbourne, also known as the “Manor Farm”, which would not have been a long distance from the Broxbourne Railway Station. My grandfather told me that he worked in different capacities on the estate, which included working with the dogs and the gardens. I remember him as having a knack for dogs and gardening his whole life. I would like to isolate the estate where he worked and possibly see it someday.

William, his parents, siblings, and cousin George, came to Canada in 1922. George`s destination was farming in Saskatchewan, which is where the rest of the Sandersons may have also gone at first. All I know is that they worked their way across Canada, spending some time in the interior of British Columbia, before moving to Vancouver permanently. (George returned to England early on).

Walt Marlow and the World Hockey Association

I could not leave this current series on the Marlow family without talking about Walter Marlow, grandson of Joseph and Annabelle Marlow. Although it has only been about five years since he passed away, I decided to include him due to his accomplishments. I am only drawing upon information freely available on the internet and in books, and therefore I am not disclosing any personal data which is not already “out there”. I myself only found out about him through my research, and had never heard him discussed growing up, despite his having been my father’s first cousin.

Walter W. Marlow was the son and only child of William “Bill” Marlow and Olga Timmerick, and was born in 1926 in Alberta, Canada. (See Verdant Valleys In and Around Lougheed, http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=3517330). As a young man, he left Alberta, and married his wife Blanche, with whom he had three children. Starting at the age of sixteen, he worked as a journalist in Canada and in Michigan before he and his family eventually moved to California in 1958 to escape “the bitter winters”. There, he first worked for the Orange County Evening News, and then for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner as a sports writer for many years. He also worked in the field of public relations.

In 1971 he directed the men who were forming the fledgling World Hockey Association to contacts within Canadian Junior hockey, such as “Wild Bill” Hunter, and therefore helped the League to move into Canada. He then became the League’s publicist. (My source for this is The Complete Historical and Statistical Reference to the World Hockey Association 1972-1979, by Scott Surgent, page 3, available through Google Books).

In an article written in about 2003, Walter stated that he had “brought in four Canadian teams” to the W.H.A. “which ultimately merged with the N.H.L.”. (http://www.amd.org/our-newsletter/newsletter-archive/89-former-newsman-a-pioneer-in-medical-eye-research.html). These teams included the Edmonton Oilers. For an account of how the Oilers were brought in, I strongly suggest you read the article about “Wild Bill” Hunter written by Murray Greig of the Edmonton Sun, October 12, 2012, WHA Oilers Were Wild Bill Hunter’s baby (http://www.standard-freeholder.com/2012/10/09/wha-oilers-were-wild-bill-hunters-baby). In the article, Wild Bill is quoted as having agreed to meet with the two American founders of the W.H.A. and Walt Marlow on the strength of Walt’s recommendation. The writer states that “it took a couple of Albertans to transform the WHA into reality”.

Walter later came to the media’s attention in the 2000’s for being the first person in California and the third in North America to undergo a new procedure for addressing macular degeneration, a disease of the eye (see link above). He had a miniaturized telescopic lens implanted, which unfortunately did not appear to have had the hoped for results.