Research Trip

We are just back from an interesting family reunion (Schultz) and a Research Trip. My blog has been intermittent this past year. I have just been so busy that I haven't had time to write to it daily. I must make that my New Year's Resolution in 2011 to write to it daily once again.

My husband had found his Abbs line (great great grandmother married to John Link) at Queensville and we traveled to Queensville after the Schultz Reunion to have a look at the burial stone for Martha (Chapman) Abbs who was buried at Queensville in 1852. Her husband William is mentioned on the stone but he is not buried there apparently. Beside Martha's stone is the stone for her daughter in Law who had died in 1851 during childbirth. They were the only Abbs stones in the cemetery. This is a very old cemetery (by Canadian standards) and has been reset with all the stones lying on the ground. The ground is slightly raised with one stone on each side of the raised portion. There are eight rows of stones and enclosed within a cement footing that runs entirely around the graveyard. This is the original graveyard but it would appear that the stones have been centralized. Only two are still standing upright - two large stones. There is a plaque there to commemorate the "Selby Burying Ground."

We also saw the Sharon Temple of God which is a very large building - all glass windows at first sight and set back slightly from the road. They were repairing it at the moment and it was closed for the season. The Abbs family were Church of England. We then drove on to Baysville up in the Muskokas to see the graveyard where James C Allen was buried in 1898. He was the father of my husband's maternal grandmother. His grave marker had been a wooden cross long since gone but on the cross had been a marker with his name. There were about 30 of these markers that had been placed in a glass case in the middle of the graveyard and my husband was able to take a picture of the one for him and for his son Joseph Allen. All in all a very successful research trip - we found everything we were looking for and had an idea of the location of the farms for these families. This was a short stopping stop for the Allen family as they moved on to Saskatchewan and some further to Alberta where they homesteaded. My husband's mother was born at Carievale Saskatchewan.

The next day we went to the Archives of Ontario in Toronto for a five hour marathon of searching. I was intent on finding the original entry for a marriage in our son in law's family and my husband had other pursuits which he will write up in his Kipp blog. I also wanted to look at three books which had been written about the areas where our son in law's families had lived. I was successful on all counts including making copies of one small book printed in the late 1800s. It will make an interesting read later as it is all in French and discusses Sturgeon Falls.

Now I am back to transcribing Andover Parish Registers and working on 1643. I plan to work away at this register fairly constantly over this next winter. It will be a project of several years duration but will let me separate out all of my family lines there along with the registers for Abbotts Ann, Upper Clatford, etc. in that area. Once completed I shall take all the files and make one large file for sorting (of course keeping the original transcription file for each parish separate as well) and then I can easily put together the various family lines. Just sitting and reading the registers doesn't do that for me. I need a transcription of them as I can miss then as I am reading along.