Tag: Canada

52W Mark II – Week 47: This Ancestor Stayed Home

Stayed home??? This is not the  52 Ancestors theme for me! My ancestors never stayed anywhere for very long! Even before moving to North America, my ancestors moved around a lot.

I follow in that tradition, having lived all over western Canada. By the time I moved away from home for university, I had lived in Lethbridge AB (two places), Regina SK, Medicine Hat AB, Creighton SK (on the Manitoba border), Duncan BC, Chemainus BC, Terrace BC, North Battleford SK (two houses), Terrace BC (again – and two houses!). The longest we ever lived in one house was the second place we lived in North Battleford. I was always the new kid in the class.

We lived in one of these houses in the first year of my life. I need to ask my mother if this was the first or second place we lived in Lethbridge. The other place we lived was in an apartment on the north side of the city. Decades later, one of my sisters lived in the same apartment complex when she began university.
(For the life of me, I cannot figure out why images no longer centre!)

Even after I moved away from home I didn’t stop moving. While I lived in two different residences during undergrad, I spent the summers in Terrace, Coquitlam, and Vancouver, respectively. After graduation, I lived in North Vancouver for a short time until I relocated to Victoria BC for a six-month legislative internship (where I stayed at two different addresses). I then relocated to Vancouver for a few months until embarking on a seven-week trip to Europe. On my return, I stayed at my folks, who by then had moved to Williams Lake BC (with several moves still yet to come for them). I moved back to North Vancouver, followed by longer residencies in Vancouver, Burnaby, and Richmond BC.

By my count, to date I have lived at 25 different addresses since I was born. The longest was 13 years, a record I set in the 90s. I would be very happy to beat that record. Our children, on the other hand, have only moved once in their lives, and have attended the same elementary school for every grade. I can’t even imagine what that’s like!

I feel like I lived a Johnny Cash song.

The 1931 Canadian Census is Out!

Last week, on June 1, 2023, the Library and Archives Canada released the 1931 Canadian census. The site was overwhelmed at first, but now it seems to be operating without any problems. As of now, the LAC only has the raw images, in that they are not indexed. You can search the images by Province, District, and Sub-District. Fortunately, I knew where to look for many of my ancestors and found them without any problem.

The Library and Archives Canada page for the 1931 Canadian Census on June 1, 2023

Yesterday, Ancestry Canada went live with a searchable indexed version of the 1931 census. It enabled me to find some of my more elusive family members, particularly some of those in urban areas for whose sub-districts I could not quite identify.

Both the LAC and Ancestry.ca allow you to download census records in jpg format. The LAC also allows you to download entire sub-district files in pdf format. What I’ve done is download both versions. For the pdf version, I’ve used the “print to pdf” function to create a file for the single page I am interested in.

I save the single page with my family members with a unique file name, using the system I established for myself many years ago.

The LAC website seems to be better set up for those who are searching in French, looking for francophone ancestors. For now, Ancestry recommends searching first in English and then again in French if the initial search was unsuccessful.

So far, the biggest surprise was learning that my great aunt (who’s still alive) is a year older than I thought she was. The census was taken on June 1, 1931. Everything I had so far indicated that my aunt was born in October 1931, which was after the census was taken, so she shouldn’t have been there. However, the entry for my great grandparent’s family includes my great aunt, saying that she was 8 months old at the time. This means she would have been born in October 1930.

My mother’s maternal grandparents, and her mother Helen. My great grandparents separated later in life. I don’t have an exact date, but the fact they’re still together here is consistent with my theory that they separated around 1937. I guess I’ll have more evidence in 5 years, when the 1936 prairie census come out, and more in 10 years, when the 1941 census comes out.

This is the second census in which my maternal grandfather, Leo Burgess, appears. I see the enumerator was much more careful than his predecessor who prepared his entry for the 1921 census, which for some bizarre reason stated my grandfather was Dutch. Wrong grandfather.

This census includes my grandfather and all his siblings, other than his youngest brother Ralph, who was born in 1935. His youngest sister, Fon, (seen here as Hazel Fontella), was an avid genealogist. She missed being able to see herself her by 18 months.

One of the most interesting things about the 1931 census was that it asked whether the household owned a radio. It was no surprise to me that neither of my grandparents’ families owned a radio. However, I was surprised to see that another member of the extended family, who was very successful and well-off, did not. My suspicion was that he was not interested in such new-fangled things like radios.

More Than a Full Deck

Here’s the deal…

Three years in a row, I signed up for Amy Johnson Crow’s “52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks“. The first two times, that was as far as I got. Hopefully, third time’s the charm. Hence this blog, only a quarter century behind the times. As someone who enjoys games as much as genealogy, I naturally associated the number of weeks of the challenge with the number of cards in a deck.

I’d love to figure out how to centre this image – and justify this caption. [Edit: I figured it out!]

Despite the association with a deck of cards, I’ve identified more than 52 ancestors. In fact, I’ve managed to identify 55 out of my 64 great great great grandparents. So it seems I am playing with more than a full deck.

My interest in genealogy began when I was about eight years old. It was prompted along the way by questions I had as a child that, to me, had odd answers. When I was in elementary school, I asked my mom why my school principal always asked if I was Belgian. She said, “because you have a Dutch last name”. At the time, I thought Belgium was an entirely French-speaking country, so that answer made no sense. In grade eight, I switched from taking French to German. One day while visiting my great grandmother, my mother said, “Grandma, Sean is taking German in school.” I was bewildered why a woman who I thought was of English origin would care. I was even more surprised when she started speaking to me in fluent German.

Literally my first genealogy book, which I bought when I was 8 or 9.

My father’s side of the family is Dutch, going back generations, mostly from the part of the Netherlands that is now the provinces of North Holland and South Holland. However, several weeks ago I discovered connections to the Achterhoek, the easternmost part of the province of Gelderland that pokes into Germany. I have also recently been investigating a branch of the family that originates in Zeeland and what is now Oost-Vlaanderen (East Flanders). Sometime in the early 19th century, one of those Zeelanders ended up in the northernmost part of North Holland. His daughter, my third great grandmother, married into a family that has deep roots on the island of Texel.

My mother’s side is much more of a mix. Her mother’s side of the family are what is known as Germans from Russia. One branch came to Canada by way of Texas, the other branch came directly to Canada. My mother’s paternal side has roots in the United States, several branches of which go back to colonial times, including the Mayflower and Salem. My maternal grandfather’s direct paternal line goes back to a Hessian mercenary who initially fought for the British in the American Revolution, but later switched sides. That branch of the family were also some of the original members of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). They joined the church in its infancy, moving from New York to Ohio to Illinois. They were also part of the migration along the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake City.

I’ve also done a lot of work on my wife’s side of the family. At present, my intention with this blog is to focus on my side of the family. However, I will probably delve into my wife’s side from time to time because there are some fairly interesting stories there. Our eldest child, who shares my love of genealogy, is fascinated with a branch of his mother’s family that has deep roots on the island of Jersey. To be honest, I find it fascinating as well.