Children

Left: Helen Moore, my great-grandmother’s sister, died at age 4

Another Randy Seaver/Genea-musings exercise! “Thinking about your direct ancestors back through 2nd great-grandparents – in other words, ancestors #2 to #31 on your pedigree chart – how many children did they have? How many lived long enough to marry? How many died before age 10?” So here’s mine:

• #2-3: R. Wells and M. Wilson – 3 sons, 1 daughter (3 married), 0 died before age 10
• #4-5: Edward Lee Wells (1905-1955) and Velma Irene Belknap (1913-1999) – 4 sons, 4 daughters (7 married), 0 died before age 10
• #6-7: Charles Thompson Wilson (1907-1989) and Helen Dorothy Oakes (1912-1988) – 1 son, 2 daughters (3 married), 0 died before age 10
• #8-9: Robert Luke Wells (1881-1919) and Nannie Jane Clark (1880-1969) – 4 sons, 1 daughter (5 married), 0 died before age 10
• #10-11: Earl E. Belknap (1895-1960) and Florence E. Bost (1896-1961) – 9 daughters, 1 son (9 married), 0 died before age 10
• #12-13: John A. Wilson (1874-1930) and Mary A. Thompson (1872-1940) – 7 sons, 3 daughters (7 married), 1 died before age 10
• #14-15: William Oakes (1888-1928) and Mae D. Moore (1892-1971) – 1 daughter (1 married), 0 died before age 10
• #16-17: James H. Wells (1840-1904) and Mary Ann Clark (1839-1894) – 5 daughters, 4 sons (8 married?), 0 died before age 10
• #18-19: Willis Clark (1834-?) and Sarah E. Wells (1838-1923) – 4 sons, 3 daughters
• #20-21: Arthur F. Belknap (1869-1955) and Martha Gisel (1869-1925) – 1 daughter, 4 sons (5 married), 0 died before age 10
• #22-23: William S. Bost (1859-1932) and Mary E. McCracken (1862-1911) – 4 daughters, 3 sons (5 married), 2 died before age 10
• #24-25: John Alford Wilson/Rustad (1833-1889) and Mary Ann Gibson (1837-1923) – 5 daughters, 3 sons (4 married?), 3 died before age 10
• #26-27: Archibald Thompson (1838-1931) and Elizabeth Dunning (1837-1912) – 9 sons, 2 daughters (6 married?), 3 died before age 10
• #28-29: Henry Ochs/Oakes (1846-1922) and Minnie Schroeder (1857-1936) – 2 sons, 2 daughters (4 married), 0 died before age 10
• #30-31: Fred L. Moore (1863-1924) and Mina Adell Bolt (1865-1942) – 3 daughters, 2 sons (3 married), 2 died before age 10

#40 Farmers in my Tree

For Week 40 of #52Ancestors, the theme is “Harvest.” I decided to look and see how many of my great-great grandfathers (you have 8) were listed in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census/1881 Canadian Census with an occupation of “Farmer.”  Here we go:

1. James Wells – Farmer, aged 40, Horsepasture District, Henry Co., Virginia
2. Willis Clark – Dead
3. Arthur Belknap – aged 11 – his dad was a laborer in Dover, Fulton Co., Ohio
4. William Bost – Farm Laborer, aged 20, Marion Twp., Henry Co., Ohio
5. John Wilson – Farmer, aged 48, Howe Island, Frontenac, Ontario, Canada
6. Archibald Thompson – Sailor, aged 43, Amherst Island, Lennox & Addington, Ontario, Canada
7. Henry Ochs – Farmer, aged 34, Taylor, Wayne Co., Michigan
8. Fred Moore – Farm Laborer, aged 17, living with his grandmother in Stafford, Genesee Co., New York

So 1 of my g-g grandfathers was dead by 1880, 1 was only 11, 1 was a sailor, and the rest were farmers or farm laborers. Interesting stuff!

Archie Thompson, year unknown

#25 Earliest Photos

I saw this idea from Amy’s review of Week 25: “Debi shared the earliest photos of various ancestors. (I like how she broke them down by maternal and paternal sides).” So I’m going to give it a try!

Maternal

My 3rd Great-Grandfather, William Dillon Bolt (1835-1901)

My 3rd Great-Grandmother, Mary J. (Everitt) Bolt (1837-1918)

 

My 2nd Great-Grandmother, Mina Adell (Bolt) Moore Thompson, (1866-1942)

My 2nd Great-Grandfather, Archibald Thompson (1838-1931)

My great-grandfather, John A. Wilson (1874-1930)

My great-grandmother, Mary (Thompson) Wilson (1872-1940)

My great-grandmother, Mae Dillon (Moore) Oakes Smiechowski Johnson (1892-1971)

My grandfather, Charles Wilson (1907-1989)

My grandmother, Helen Oakes (1912-1988) on her mother Mae’s lap

My mother

Paternal

My 3rd Great-Grandmother, Margaret (Rhost) Gisel (1848-1939)

My 2nd Great-Grandfather, Arthur Belknap (1869-1955)

My 2nd Great-Grandmother, Martha (Gisel) Belknap (1869-1925)

My 2nd Great-Grandfather, William S. Bost (1859-1932)

My Great-Grandmother, Nannie Jane (Clark) Wells (1880-1969)

My Great-Grandfather, Earl E. Belknap (1895-1960)

My Great-Grandmother, Florence E. Bost (1896-1961)

My grandfather, Edward L. Wells (1905-1955)

My grandmother, Velma Belknap (1913-1999)

My father

Week 25 (June 17-23): Earliest

#24 Rural Diary Archive

I stumbled upon this website, Rural Diary Archive, because I was researching my Wilson/Thompson/Gibson line on Amherst Island, Ontario. The founder of the project, Dr. Catharine Anne Wilson (maybe a relative, maybe not!), wrote a book called A New Lease on Life: Landlords, Tenants and Immigrants in Ireland and Canada, which explores landlord-tenant relationships on Amherst Island especially tenant families that migrated from the Ards Peninsula in County Down to Amherst Island between 1820 and 1860.

https://ruraldiaries.lib.uoguelph.ca/

Anyway, the Rural Diary Archive “showcases over 150 Ontario diarists from 1800 to 1960.” The diaries come from museums and archives across Ontario. You can search transcribed diaries, as well as browse by county, occupation, ethnicity/nationality, and religion. I did find one diary from Amherst Island, written in 1872-1879 by George Wright. That is part of the time period the Wilson’s and Thompson’s lived on the island, but I haven’t a chance to read it yet. Hopefully, it will give me some insight on daily life.

The Archive also has a Twitter account (@RuralDiaries) that tweets diary entries in an “On this Day” format.

Week 24 (June 10-16): Dear Diary

#23 Middle Names

I love learning family members’ middle names. Sometimes they are unusual or passed down in the family. But sometimes they are the mother’s or grandmother’s maiden names. So if a relative has a middle name that sounds an awful lot like a surname, you may have hit on a female relative’s maiden name.

My grandfather and two of his siblings have the maiden names of their mother and both grandmothers as middle names:

• Charles Thompson Wilson, born May 1907 – Thompson was his mother Mary’s maiden name
• William Gibson Wilson, born September 1908 – Gibson was his paternal grandmother Mary Ann’s maiden name
• Theresa Dunning Wilson, born December 1909 – Dunning was her maternal grandmother Elizabeth’s maiden name

Charles (far left), William (far right), and Theresa (little girl in middle)

Week 23 (June 3-9): Namesake

#45 Archibald Thompson

In looking through my photos on my Ancestry tree, I noticed I don’t have very many photographs of bearded ancestors. Most are clean-shaven or have mustaches.  However, I have this great image of my great-great grandfather Archibald Thompson.

Archibald Thompson was born in either 1838 or 1841 in either Ireland or Scotland. He arrived in Canada in about 1857 and lived on Amherst Island, Ontario. He married Elizabeth Dunning in about 1860. He was a sailor, then a farmer. Archie and Elizabeth had 11 children, including my great-grandmother Mary. In the mid-1890s, the family moved to Deseronto, Hastings, Ontario. Elizabeth died in 1912 and Archibald died on 24 Feb 1931 at the age of 93 (if the DOB on his death certificate is accurate).

Citations:
“Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JNSZ-YHC : 8 March 2018), Archibald Thompson, 24 Feb 1931; citing Frontenac, Pittsburg, Ontario, 108, Registrar General. Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 2,296,529.

52 Ancestors Week 45: Bearded (Nov. 5-11)

#24 Mary Agnes Thompson

This small tablecloth, with the initials, M.T. and the year 1892, was embroidered by my great-grandmother Mary Agnes (Thompson) Wilson when she was about 20 years old. She was born on March 10, 1872 on Amherst Island, Ontario. On the Canadian census of April 1891, she was living on Amherst Island with her parents Archibald and Elizabeth and her siblings Charles, William, Hugh, Agnes, and Cecil. Mary married my great-grandfather John A. Wilson on November 1, 1898 in Deseronto, Ontario. They had 10 children between 1900 and 1916, including my grandfather, Charles Thompson Wilson.

52 Ancestors #24 – Heirloom

#5 – John Alfred “Jack” Wilson

From left: Cecil, Jack, and Hugh (1905)

John Alfred Wilson was born March 25, 1905 in Pittsburg Township, Ontario in Frontenac County.  He was the fourth child and third son of John and Mary (Thompson) Wilson.  In 1911, Jack was aged 6 and living with his parents John (37) and Mary (38), his brothers Hugh (9), Cecil (8), Charles (4 – my grandpa), William (3), his sisters Marjorie (5), Theresa (1), and his grandmother Mary (Gibson) Wilson (74).  He is listed as Swedish because his grandfather, John Wilson, came to Canada from Sweden.

From left: Charles, Cecil, Marjorie, Theresa, Hugh, Jack (seated), and William (about 1915)

In 1921, Jack was 16 and living with his parents John (47) and Mary (49), his brothers Cecil (18), Charles (14), William (12), his sisters Marjorie (15), Theresa (11), and his grandmother Mary Wilson (84).

At age 24, in April 1929, Jack passed through Detroit on his way to Dearborn to join his brother Hugh who was living on Park Street.  In the 1930 census, Hugh was rooming on Park Street and was a salesman at a creamery.  My grandfather Charles had arrived in 1928 and in 1930 was living on Columbia Street in Dearborn and was a truck driver at a creamery.  Jack, in the 1930 census, was employed as a crane operator at a foundry.  He was living with Fred and Mary Curtis on W. Lafayette in Detroit.

On September 2, 1930, Jack married Bessie Winnifred Eastwood (her mother’s maiden name was Curtis).  In the 1940 census taken on April 11th, Jack and Winnie were living on Military Street in Detroit and he was a crane operator at a brass factory.  According to this census, Jack had completed 8th grade while Winnie had completed 2 years of high school.  In 1935, they had been living in the same place.

Jack and Winnie’s Wedding, September 2, 1930

On April 29, 1940, Jack’s mother died at the farm in Pittsburg Township. On May 16, 1940, Winnie gave birth to a son in Detroit.  The family moved back to Canada soon after to run the farm.  On September 23, 1945, they had a daughter.  According to William J. Patterson’s Lilacs and Limestone: An Illustrated History of Pittsburgh Township, 1787-1987, Jack won Farmer of the Year in 1963 from the Frontenac Soil and Crop Improvement Association.  Jack died June 11, 1987 and Winnie died in February 2001.

52 Ancestors #5 – Plowing Through

Sunday’s Obituary – Mary Thompson Wilson

Since we’re talking about Mary Thompson Wilson, here is her obituary from 1940.  It’s presumably from a Kingston (Ont.) newspaper, but I don’t know for sure.

Daily Blogging Prompt: Sunday’s Obituary

Treasure Chest Thursday : A Tiny Tablecloth

This small table covering was embroidered by Mary Thompson, my great-grandmother.  In the center are the cursive initials M.T. and below them is the year 1892.  Below is a picture of Mary from 1898, the year she married John Wilson of Amherst Island, Ontario.

See also this earlier post.

Daily Blogging Prompt: Treasure Chest Thursday