For families that lived during a time of no vital records or when there are missing vital records, genealogists often do not have dates of birth. In some cases, it may even be difficult to estimate years of birth if records are not available.

In cases such as these, make certain that you indicate the birth order is either a guess or inferred from the order of children in a Will or another document. If children married, years of birth could be estimated from the marriage dates.  A death certificate may also have clues as to the date of birth.

When you cannot find a record of birth for an ancestor, research their siblings.   Finding the dates of births for siblings can perhaps provide enough evidence to prove an estimated date of birth for the sibling where you cannot find a record for a date of birth or baptism.

An example of this is my own Sullivan family.    There is no proof of birth or baptism for my direct ancestor, Patrick Sullivan, because the first name is missing from the vital record for the assumed year of birth or baptism which has been found in other records.  But by providing the dates of birth for his siblings, I can with some certainly say that Patrick Sullivan is the child with the missing first name.

There are baptism records in the records of the Notre Dame Roman Catholic Cathedral in St. John’s, Newfoundland digitized by FamilySearch.org for the following children with the same parents:

• Margaret Sullivan – 1815
• John Sullivan – 1817
• ????  Sullivan – 1819
• Thomas Sullivan – 1820
• Catherine Sullivan – 1824
• Michael Sullivan – 1827
• Bridget Sullivan – 1830

Checking the various census records, Patrick Sullivan is found with his siblings with an estimated age that would fit with the birth order.   So, from those secondary sources, it can be safely assumed that Patrick Sullivan would be the correct name for the 1819 birth showing no first name.

Ask ask yourself, would any of my conclusions change without the birth records  and census returns for Patrick’s siblings? Most times they wouldn’t, but you never know.

Unfortunately there is no death record or a date of birth on Patrick Sullivan’s marriage record, so this remains one of my brick wall research projects.

Genealogy is a puzzle, but sometimes you have to really work to make the puzzle pieces fit, don’t you?

One of the main goals for genealogists is finding birth, marriage, and death (BMD) information about their ancestors.

Over the past few decades, thanks to volunteers, librarians and archivists (as well as the largest of them all – FamilySearch), a great number of indexes to birth, marriage, and death collections have been provided for free online.  These searchable indexes provide specific BMD information, and often scanned images of the actual birth, marriage, and death certificates themselves. These free online collections have hundreds of millions of records in them in total.

The Ancestor Hunt has compiled a list of all 145 record collections as well as links to three documents that may help you find those records you just can’t find:

• 27 Ways to Find Ancestor Birth Information
• 22 Ways to Find Ancestors Marriage Information
• 21 Ways to Find Ancestors Death Information

Good luck with your research.

Do you have ancestors that were in Canada pre-Confederation?  One way to track your ancestors’ movements is through land grants.

Land patents are issued by the Crown to grant or confirm title to a portion of land. They represent the first title to land and serve as proof that the land no longer belongs to the Crown.

Rebecca Murray of Library & Archives Canada has posted a blog with information about land patents that will explain  pre-Confederation land patents and how to conduct your research to find  these grants.

As these are extremely valuable resources, you may want to not only read, but also bookmark the pre-Confederation Land Patents blog page.

If you have an ancestor who fought in a war or was a member of the military, an obvious place to search for genealogy information is military records.

Searching military records will provide information on your ancestor’s time of service, but will also provide personal information, including the basics such as age, height, weight, visible scars, next of kin, as well as other personal information.

You may think that is all you will find, but there is so much more information to be mined from the records.   I was researching a Canadian soldier in W.W. 2 and found those little extras that really make the search interesting.   His job prior to enlisting in the military was with the Manitoba Provincial Police.  His next of kin was listed as his mother, including her full name and address.   However, later on he changed his next of kin to whom I would assume was a close personal friend (i.e. girlfriend) from his hometown.   Aha, that is interesting.   But, reading further, his next of kin became a woman in England.   Now I was really interested.    Which one of the two did he marry or did he marry at all?

As genealogists, curious minds always want to know, so on conducting further research I finally found a marriage certificate and, yes, he married the woman from England.  I also found that after the war he returned to his job with the Manitoba Provincial Police force.  This police force was amalgamated into the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and he was grandfathered into the RCMP.  Through RCMP records I found his employment information, retirement date and the cemetery where he was buried, along with his wife’s grave.

All this from military records!

At a recent general meeting of our Society Steve Cowan of the BC-Yukon Branch of the Heraldic Society spoke about researching military history for genealogy purposes.   He provided a list of research sites for several countries which has now been posted on our website at https://www.qbfhs.ca/genealogy-resources/military-genealogy-research-sites/.  You may find this list helpful while conducting your own research on military ancestors.

Good luck with your research.

If you are researching ancestors in Ontario, Cindi Foreman’s well-researched tutorial containing a four-part series of step-by-step illustrated instructions are a must-read series.

Part I: Historical Books: First Registration Book: Where genealogists can find their ancestors.  This post, is about the First Registration books which contain a list of first registrations from registry to land titles (e.g. Crown Patent or Crown plan).

Part II: Historical Books: Abstract/Parcel Register Book: Where genealogists can find all the entries of every transaction on their ancestor’s land from the date the Crown Patent was issued (all instruments recorded) up to January 30, 1981.

Part III: OnLand Records: Historical Books: General Register Index, genealogists learn why their ancestor’s will can be found in the Ontario Land Registry Office, and not in the Court records. The General Register Index contains a Registry System index of all non-land-specific documents maintained by each Land Registry Office, including wills, letters probate, and letters patent.  In this part of the tutorial  Ms. Foreman demonstrates how she found information for her 4th great-grandfather Matthew Moynahan’s (1770-1860) will.

 Part IV: Historical Books: Canada Lands Index is about the Canada Lands Index that contains plans of public lands under the Canada Lands Surveys Act. In this blog post, genealogists learn how to find information about public lands under the Canada Lands Surveys Act, Navigable Waters Protection Act, Transfers of Jurisdiction and Control, Indian Reserves, and National Parks.  Ms. Foreman explains that this is an “index of sorts” to the 53 Land Registry Offices in Ontario. She indicates if they even have a Canada Lands Index book online and summarizes all of the historical books that are available online in this new resource.

In addition to the instructions, Ms. Foreman provides a glossary and links to online resources for finding your ancestors’ land records.

Going through these tutorials and using the techniques can be time consuming, but it is well worth the effort to find more information on your ancestors’ lives.

Now that a new year has started, you probably have made and broken several genealogy resolutions.  At this point you may be feeling at a loss as to where to research for more information on your elusive ancestors.

One important avenue for research is newspapers, and not just one newspaper in the local community.   As an example, several years ago I was researching the railway accident that killed my grandfather.  Using newspapers.com (a subscription website), I filled in the date of the accident and the  name of the nearest newspaper in the area of the accident.  There were several articles from two local newspapers.  This was in a small town in Ontario but, to my surprise, there was also an article in an upstate New York newspaper giving details of the accident.   And the moral of that story is to widen your search criteria and to not stop your research with just one newspaper.

If you have an unusual or uncommon surname, searching for one person  by surname only may also provide useful links to other people in your family.

There are several subscription sites for newspaper research, but one free site that has links to several newspapers, both in Canada and the United States is The Ancestor Hunt.

Don’t just stop with researching the newspapers.   As is stated on their page, “to research historical newspapers and be successful, it helps to be educated about the characteristics of these important genealogy resources; where to find them, and how to best search for the articles that you are seeking.  You will find the lessons page at http://www.theancestorhunt.com/newspapers.html

Good luck with your ancestor hunt!