Surname Saturday – O’Neil

I have decided to choose my mother’s paternal ancestors for this week’s surname. I have recently found a marriage notice for Charles O’Neil and Mary Queen, my great-grandparents, in the archives which has incorrect information concerning Charles parentage. I haven’t been able to find the marriage record for them.

Charles O’Neil’s father was not Alexander O’Neil, he was the oldest son of William James O’Neil and Rosetta Holden.

Earline Bradt
websites: My Home Site – My Favourites Place
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Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Filed under: O'Neil, Queen, Surname Saturday

I Can’t Find Lany!

I am having a hard time finding any records for Lany Haines, my 2nd great-aunt. I have found that she was baptized at St. Mark’s Church in what is now Niagara-on-the-lake, but at the time it was Fort George.

My 2nd great-uncle, John Freisman, older brother of Sarah, was also baptized at Fort George. Is it a coincidence that his wife’s name was also Lany, or is this a case of siblings marrying siblings? I don’t think that Lany was a very common name and the population was sparse in Upper Canada so I am looking for any marriage and death records, probably in parish records at St. Mark’s Church. I will have to check next time I’m in the area.

Filed under: Brick Walls, Lany Haines

Busy With Life

Well I haven’t been doing much blogging lately, I’ve been a little preoccupied with other interests, most of which are finished for now. I did get a little research done, but now I’m ready to get back to my genealogy stuff on a regular basis again.

I do have a new toy, an early Christmas present, which will help me keep up, my Blackberry Torch. I love it! There aren’t nearly as many apps. as the IPhone, but there are a few good ones. I have the WordPress for Blackberry, which I am using right now, it is a lot better than what Blogger has to offer. It may just sway me into using my WordPress blog a lot more.

Filed under: Blogging

What I Do…

Today’s genealogists and family historians have a great number of tools with which to work that were not available for previous generations. Thomas McEntee at Geneabloggers  decided to create a meme in which we share the tools that we use everyday to do what we do to inform beginners and experienced researchers about what tools are available. Well here’s my list of what technology I use to do  
What I Do:

* Hardware: HP Pavilion desktop with 250 GB hard drive with XP SP 2; Lenova Notebook with 160 GB hard drive with Windows 7.

* External storage: 160 GB Maxtor Mini ext.HD, 1 TB Iomega ext. HD

* Online storage: Skydrive (25 GB), Springnote (@ 2 GB), Dropbox (2 GB)

* Online Image Storage: Picassa, Flickr, Facebook, Picnik on Facebook

* Image Editors: Windows Live Photo Gallery, Picassa, Facebook, Picnik on Facebook

* Backup: 16 GB Sansa backup USB flash drive(backup program), 8 GB Rally USB flash drive (Rootsmagic-to-go), DVDs, 160 GB Maxtor Mini ext. HD

* Online Blog backup: WordPress, Springnote

* Offline Blogging: Windows Live Writer, email and SMS

* Online Backup: McAfee Online Backup

* Firewall: McAfee Internet Security

* Virus protection:
McAfee Antivirus

* Spyware: Windows Defender

* File cleaner:: McAfee Internet Security

* Printer: Lexmark 1400 wireless printer, HP Photosmart Essentioal 3.5 wireless PSC.

* Phone: Blackberry Curve

* Mobile media: Lenova Notebook, Blackberry Curve

* Music player: Ipod Nano

* Car audio: Kenwood

* eBook Reader: Adobe
Reader 9.1

* Browser: Mozilla Firefox

* Blog: Blogger, WordPress, Viviti

* RSS: Google Reader

* FTP: Filezilla

* Text editor: Notepad, Wordpad, Open Office, Office Live

* Graphics: Windows Live Photo Gallery, Picassa, Paint

* Screen capture: Win 7 Snipping tool

* Social media: Facebook, Twitter, Genealogywise, Google Buzz, Windows Live Messenger

* Office suite: Open Office

* E-mail: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail

* Calendar: Google Calendar, Reminderfox, Blackberry calendar

* PDF generator: Adobe Reader 9.1

* File Conversion: Paint, Irfranview,  

* Genealogy database: Rootsmagic 4, Rootsmagic-to-go

* Genealogy tools: Rootsmagic 4 tools (reports, charts, books etc.)

* Online Family Tree Sites: Ancestry.com, Tribal Pages, Bravenet

* Other gadgets:

• Win 7 Speech Recognition
• Win 7 Magnifier
• Win 7 Sticky Notes
• Blackberry to-do lists
• Blackberry memos
• m.Google (Notebooks, Maps, Reader, Photos, Calendar etc.)
• Tom Tom (for directions to cemeteries, libraries etc.)
• digital cameras
• WiseStamp 

I didn’t realise how many tools I use for my research until I created this list!

Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Filed under: What I Do...meme

Sentimental Sunday – Cemetery Ceremony

My husband and I went to the renaming  of the Steele Cemetery to the Doan Cemetery yesterday on our way home and unveiling of the plaque presented by the Heritage Port Colborne Committee.

There is an article about it here: Welland Tribune.

Here is a video of the unveiling of the plaque by the mayor of Port Colborne, Vance Badaway. He spoke of the history of Port Colborne and Humberstone Township and the Doan family’s mark on the community. The hospital in Port Colborne is on land originally owned by Joseph Doan Sr., Aaron Doan’s father.

A recent article: Port Cemeterey Designated as Historic
 
I apologize in advance for the poor quality of the video, it is my first one and I don’t know what happened but the audio didn’t get recorded.

The  ceremony was continued at Aaron Doan’s grave site with four people receiving their UEL certificates , some family members spoke about the life of Aaron Doan and family history and members of the Doan family placed roses on his grave. The ceremony was closed with the Loyalist’s Prayer.

Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Filed under: Cemetery Ceremony, Sentimental Sunday

I am just sitting here outside the tent with my coffee thinking about going fishing. I haven't done any researching this week, just waiting for the weekend to get back at it again.

We decided to go to the UEL cemetery renaming on Saturday afternoon, but we are going to stay in the area and visit Fort Erie afterward instead of going to St. Catherines to check out the Friends of the Loyalists Collection, we'll go in August instead, we'll have more time.

We are going to the Doan family reunion Sunday, I want to talk to the family historian and find out more about my great-grandmother's family and correct a few errors. First error I would like corrected will be that Harriet was not Polly and Isaac Doan's daughter, as it shows in the Doan Family book.

There was a transcription error, the will of Isaac Doan lists a daughter, Ha____(illegible) Fernetta and it was assumed that this was Harriet Fernetta. Since Isaac Doan's will was proved in 1850, a few years before Harriet Fernetta Doan's birth it is likely that it might be Hannah Fernetta named in the will. I also have Harriet's death record which states her parents were William and Rachel Doan. They may have come from Ohio, I can't wait to see what information there is about this family and their connection to the Isaac Doan family.

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Filed under: Uncategorized

Being Canadian

I was born in Canada, live in Canada and I imagine I will most likely die in Canada, and I wouldn't want it any other way. But being born here doesn't make me any more Canadian than anyone else that has chosen Canada as their future home.
Being Canadian, one of the youngest countries in the world, is the pride that can't be put into words, pride in our ancestors achievements and pride in our nation's acceptance of people from different cultural backgrounds since the vast majority of the population of this country was created by immigrants.
This is what seperates Canada from other couintries, our multiculturalism. Where the United States is a "melting pot" where individuals from different cultures are supposed to assimilate and become "American", we in Canada take pride in the celebration of people's different cultures, heritage and customs.

Sent on the TELUS Mobility network with BlackBerry

Filed under: Uncategorized

Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – Government Resources

Library and Archives Canada is one of many government sites for researching your loyalist ancestor. The LAC has many original documents on microfilms that can be ordered. You can browse the topics alphabetically or search the archives. There are land records, military records, censuses and several collections as well that can be ordered on microfilm. The censuses on-line don’t have much data about loyalist families, but they can be used to determine where the descendants of the  family settled or migrated or if they returned to the United States later on as many did.

Provincial Archives have a lot of information as well, Archives of Ontario has vital statistics, land records, wills and estate records, court records, war records etc.

Search for your loyalist ancestors in records in the states where your ancestors lived prior to the Revolutionary war, the provinces where they lived afterward and the national archives as well. My ancestors lived in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania before 1776 so I search in those state files as well as the US National Archives site.

Municipal sites may have historical information about the people who settled the area, historic events, etc. that may be of some help to you as well.

related posts:
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors -Ancestry.com Resources
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors -UELAC
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors -Internet Archive

Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Filed under: Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors.Government Resources

Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – Internet Archive

I have found that e-books that are downloadable and  for reading at leisure can be very helpful. Internet Archive has several books available about the United Empire Loyalists and the Revolutionary War that I have found invaluable. I have downloaded several and saved to read offline. The pdf books are searchable and the text can be easily copied and pasted. They are available in several formats for easy reading.

To get the most results I decided to try different keywords, I entered United Empire Loyalists and got 16 hits. Then I chose the keyword loyalists and got over 280 hits. When I entered Revolutionary War I got 1760 hits and American Revolution I got 2,757 hits. I tried different places, I entered Upper Canada and I got 1001 hits.  Tryon County only produced 12 hits while New York History yielded 38,161 hits.

There is also a collection of Genealogy books available. To get to this collection you have to select texts from the top menu. Under the top menu will appear tabs for different libraries and a tab for Additional Collections. Here you will find the Genealogy Collection with almost 30,000 items available.

My next post will be about loyalist resources within the government archives. 

related articles:
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – Ancestry.com
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – UELAC
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – Government Resources

Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Filed under: E-Books, Internet Archive, researching Your Loyalist Ancestors-Ancestry.com

Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – UELAC

One of the first sites I went to when I started to research my loyalist ancestors was the United Empire Loyalists Association of Canada or UELAC website. I learned a bit more about who the loyalists were. I also checked the Loyalist Directory on the site, where there is a list of all known loyalists and more names are being added all the time. I found my ancestors Joseph Haines, Sr. and Nathaniel Haines listed in the directory and found that Joseph Haines,Sr. had proven descendants but Nathaniel Haines didn’t have any proven descendants, yet.

The Loyalist Trails Archives on the site are listed with the topics of each weekly issue outlined. There are loyalist family histories, research tips, events, queries, obituaries, etc. There is a lot of valuable information about the loyalists, where they came from, how they came, where they settled, who they associated with, what their daily lives were like, their different cultures and customs.

There is also several links for further loyalist research resources, such as the On-line Institute For Advanced Loyalist Studies and Olive Tree Genealogy.

related articles:
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – Ancestry.com
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – Internet Archive
Researching Your Loyalist Ancestors – Government Resources

Ancestral Notes by Earline Hines Bradt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License.

Filed under: free resources, researching Your Loyalist Ancestors-Ancestry.com