More Clues than I Imagined

You will recall in my post of August 31, 2013, I shared a letter written by John McDougall to his brother Hugh.  That letter has since led me to things I never imagined.

I had the good fortune of visiting Scotland during the month of October.  A trip I could not take without visiting the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh.  To my regret, I had the equivalent of only one day there, but it provided many new pieces of information, only one that I will elaborate today.

ScotlandsPeople Centre – Photo by DenaP

 

The two areas you can head to when you arrive at the Centre include either the Search Rooms or you can go upstairs to the archives Research Room.  I knew my time was limited, and I had spent time searching ScotlandsPeople on-line, so I was heading upstairs.  First things first, you need to stow your gear in the locker room.  I was shown the way by a very busy Security guard, saying she would come back later to get me.

While in the locker room, I began a conversation with a clearly practiced researcher.  I asked him how often he came and what he was researching.  His name was Bruce Bishop and he was a regular.  He offered to take me upstairs and show me the way.  I explained a bit about my search for Angus McInnis and said correspondence and family lore suggested Angus might have been a piper.  My search for Angus born in 1746 was "modern history" for Bruce, his wife's area of expertise.  Nevertheless, he said "there is fellow who comes everyday, don't know his name, but he studies pipers".  I thanked him and went in pursuit of my Researcher's Ticket.  Bruce went off to his studies, or so I thought.

I must have been settled into my searching a good half hour, quite immersed and who should interrupt me, but Bruce.  He had in tow the Piping Historian, Keith Sanger.  Keith very attentively listened to my story of Angus and his family and how we had reached a dead end.  He asked probing questions and suggested some areas to look and that I send him some additional information including the transcript of the letter from John McDougal.

Over the next few days, Keith and I exchanged information.  He kindly researched his records and could not find reference to an Angus McInnis, piper.  He found a Paul McInnis, piper a little younger who came from the same area.  He provided me with a great deal of contextual history and many leads to pursue.  His help was invaluable.

Most interesting was,  that Keith immediately observed there must be an error in the transcription of the letter. 

This is how the end of the letter read:

“I am so
Your most affectionate Brother
John McDougald

(outside)
Mr Hugh McDougald Arive
To the care of Mr Rob Maxwell
Island of Mull
Argyleshire - No Britain”[i]

Keith said:
"The Selkirk letter is interesting, did you transcribe it yourself? The Maxwell’s were the Duke of Argyles factors on Mull and I notice that the last part of the address uses the description that was pushed during the Napoleonic Wars of calling Scotland ‘North Britain’, (the expansion of No Britain). ‘Arive’ does not ring any bells as a place name and I wonder if it was a miss reading for Aros which sits on the Sound of Mull facing across to Morvern? "[ii]

I had not paid attention to the address at the bottom.  Could it be, we found a specific location?  I went back and found my copy of the letter I had transcribed from the archives.  I did transcribe it absolutely correctly.  

I queried the history of the Selkirk papers and confirmed that what is in Library and Archives Canada is not microfiche of the original papers, rather of a transcription.  The originals were destroyed in a fire in at St. Mary’s Isle in Kirkcudbright were destroyed in a fire in 1940. Fortunately, some of the papers had been transcribed Public Archives of Canada in about 1900.[iii]  These copies are what I viewed at Library and Archives Canada. 

The transcription was incorrect!

Out came the maps and I found Aros - directly across from Morvern.   The reputed birthplace of our Angus.  Only a few miles as the crow flies!

 By GoogleMaps 2013

Keith’s observation unlocked a wonderful clue, one that we were able to explore further when we visited the Isle of Mull a week later...but that is for another post.

                                       

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[i] Copy of the Letter sent by John MacDougald of Baldoon to his brother Hugh MacDougald in Mull, dated April 29, 1806, LAC microfilm C-14 14739-40, Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa

[ii] Email sent by Keith Sanger to DenaP October 9, 2013

[iii] "Lady Selkirk and the Fur Trade" "Manitoba History" Number 38, Autumn/Winter 1999-2000 (http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/mb_history/38/ladyselkirk.shtml 6 November 2013)

Portage Shore Old Pioneer Cemetery: Where might they be?

 One of the ways of finding our ancestors is finding their resting place.  Sometimes the only record left is the tombstone monument with their name and date of death. If one is lucky, the exact date of birth and death are engraved on the stone, with the spouse and children on the same stone, or in the adjacent plot.  

In Prince Edward Island, simple red Island sandstone markers, engraved with initials, mark many of the early settlers graves.  The sandstone is soft, time and the elements wearing away clues as to who lies beneath.

Prior heading out on our family history trip, I had ordered all the cemetery transcripts for the Protestant cemeteries located on the Lots where I knew we had family.  Amazingly, the Portage Shore Old Pioneer Cemetery was right on the property that used to belong to old Angus.

We knew that the cemetery was overgrown, without any family stones, but decided to venture out there, anyway.

When the Scottish settlers first arrived, they did not waste their energy building large, fine homes.  They learned from others, that the original selection of site and direction was not useful in the long run. So the original houses they built were "about 12 feet square" and "roofs should be covered with boards since, shingles are expensive for the first beginning, requiring many nails." The first house was probably built close to the shore, because the land was covered in forest and travel was by boat.[i]

This would also explain why the cemetery is close to the shore.  Access to the cemetery is now on private property, where the old farm was located.  The existing farmhouse on the property also originally belonged to the McInnis family and then the Robinsons.  Built about 1860, it was likely the second or third family home.  

We walked through a path in the bush and trudged through high grain fields, perhaps juncea canola, mosquitos buzzing all around our heads. If you did not know the cemetery was there, you would not be able to find it.  It is overgrown, with only a few stones left.

We know Angus' son Donald and his family are buried in the St John's Presbyterian Church cemetery in Belfast, but we cannot find where the rest our ancestors who came on The Rambler are buried.  It's very likely that Angus and his family are buried here at the Portage Shore Old Pioneer Cemetery

While there are a number of stones with initials, there are only four stones left where the names are legible. None of those included our family names.

In spite of the lack of clear proof, it was special to walk were our ancestors first walked and where they were likely buried.  To imagine what the land must have been like, covered in forest and that it was our folks’ hard work that cleared those fields.  What it must have been like, in moments of peace, standing by the water, missing the home they had left across the ocean.  Or, perhaps, they were just too busy from dawn to dusk, surviving, to take in the stars on a clear night.

A few days after our visit to the cemetery, we were to learn more, when we met a cousin who grew up on the property. When he was young, he recalled, there were about 15 -20 markers in the cemetery.

He believed the last people buried there were people from Wheatly River.  He remembered an older gentleman and his son would come every fall to clean it up.  There were many trees and the Blue Herons would roost in the trees.  Eventually the Blue Heron’s roosting killed off the trees.

He also remembered when he was a child, with his father; they would work the field around the cemetery.  When they came across fieldstones, they piled the stones up against the edge of the cemetery.  

He recalled that his great-uncle, Cleve Robinson had told him a story of when he was a teenager.  (Per the 1901 census, Cleveland Robinson was born in 1892 and lived on Lot 33 with his parents. Following this post, I learned that he was actually born February 16, 1882.)  Cleve said that a fellow from Charlottetown, who was to go to Boston to medical school, was obliged to take a skeleton for his studies.  Presented with this challenge, he took a skeleton from the cemetery, cleaning the bones on the train as he travelled.

He also shared rumours that some of the lost souls of the 1851 Yankee Gale are buried in the cemetery.  This was a terrible storm where many boats floundered against the north shore of Prince Edward Island.  The Island Register has a compendium of information on ships and lives lost in that storm. [ii]

Stan recalled that his father told him lives were lost at sea, with many buried at Stanhope.  The bodies were found along the beach after the storm. They had collected them, taking them to Collin McClure’s barn where they laid them out for identification.   This is not improbable as the cemetery is only 158 feet from the shore. Meacham's shows the McClure's right at the point, with the unmarked cemetery not far away.

Screen shot close up of Meacham's 1880 Map of Prince Edward Island, Lot 33 from Island Imagined

Sometime in the 1960's, the local Women’s Institute, looking for a useful project, decided they would clean up the cemetery.  They hired two men to clean it up.  The men came in with bulldozers and cut out the stumps.  They moved all the sandstone markers and fieldstones, cleared the cemetery clean, seeded grass.  Once it was nice and clean, they returned the markers and the sand stones, and likely the field stones that had been along the fence.  They lined up the stones, in a nice neat east-west, north-south, square and diagonal arrangement. 

Our cousin was certain one of the Ross stones was not put back in its original place.  That Sadie was reset with the “S” backwards and the “9” is a “P."   It is such a shame that we can no longer see the exact place where they lie.

After hearing these stories, I revisited the cemetery transcripts, together with my list of "missing ancestors".  The list of those ancestors for whom  I have yet to find a grave.

As my cousin Fred says, "old Angus is probably the first one buried there".  This is because Angus was 60 years old when he immigrated from Scotland.

We are missing:

McInnis, Angus (b 1746 -?)

Wife Margaret (b 1754)

McInnis, Hector (b. 1776 -?)

Wife McDougall, Mary (b. 1778 -?)

McInnis, Allan (b. 1781 –?)

Wife Catherine McKinaly

Charles McInnis (b. between 1806 -184)

Wife Ann McEwen (b. about 1820)

Wife Elizabeth Clark (b.?)

Flora McInnis (b. 1781)

Isabella McInnis (b 1790)

Mary McInnis (b. 1794)

Sarah McInnis (b. 1798)  - could this be Sadie McInnis?

Janet McInnis (b. 1800)

John McInnis (b. 1805)

Catherine (b.?  - d. 1848)

James McInnis  (son of Allan) (b. 1822)

Looking at the protestant family names adjacent to the area, one can see there were many with the name Ross, Robinson, McKenzie and Matheson.  None had the last name beginning with an "I".  So, I suspect that the initials "M-I" stand for McInnis.   

With this in mind, I matched up the following stones with our names:

Row 1.                         A-M-I (Angus or Allan McInnis?)

                                    F.M-I D.G. – 70 (Flora McInnis & D.G.?)

                                    J-M-M-I  (Janet or John or James McInnis?)

                                   

Row 2.                        J-H-M-I (Janet or John or James McInnis?)

                                    ZADI – M-C-I-J (Sadie aka Sarah McInnis?)

Row 6.                         J-M-I (Janet or John or James McInnis?)[iii]

In the end, it does not matter, because the stones are not placed on their graves.  What counts is we saw and felt the place.

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[i] Campey, Lucille H., The Silver Chief : Lord Selkirk and the Scottish Pioneers of Belfast, Baldoon and Red River (Toronto : Natural Heritage Books, 2003) p. 36

[ii] The Island Register. « The Yankee Gale of 1851 » (http://www.islandregister.com/yankeegale.html 7 September 2013)

[iii] P.E.I. Genealogical Society, Cemetery Transcript, Ch. Of Scotland Portage Road Old Pioneer Cemetery Lot 33-6 (Charlottetown: The P.E.I. Genealogical Society, Updated 2000)

Following the trail of Donald McInnes

24 August 2013

My hope, with this my first attempt at blogging, I'll eventually attract an interested, distant family member who will stumble upon the story of our search and help us put more pieces together.

It is just over a year ago, the genealogy bug bit.  In the intervening year, I have learned a tremendous amount about my ancestors on both sides of the family, but most particularly about my maternal grandfather's family.

David Charles MacInnis, or Charlie as he was called, left us a few clues in his files.  It is unknown whether they were written by him, or provided by someone else, but we had the bare bones in a typed, Xeroxed family tree that took us back to his grandfather.  There were handwritten annotations, one in particular that had us in search of the Scottish ancestor who immigrated to Prince Edward Island.  The note said, the father of my great-great-grandfather was Charles McInnis, the ancestor who had immigrated.

A story for another day, is the search for Charles McInnis, but in the end we discovered, it was in fact Angus McInnis who emigrated from Scotland on the ship The Rambler in 1806.  He brought with him, his wife, three sons and their families.  In all, there were seventeen McInnis family members who arrived in Prince Edward Island in June 1806.  We are tremendously fortunate, the ship's list exists, allowing us to find our "McInnis" ancestors. They did not leave many other traces of who they were, where in Scotland they were from, why they left and how they lived. 

This summer, in pursuit of those elusive ancestors, my aunt and I travelled to Prince Edward Island for a week long immersion in family history.  We had a tremendous trip, learned so much and have a mountain of documents to transcribe, organize and analyze.

We found Donald!  Donald was the eldest son of our Angus and he was not anywhere to be found on Lot 33 or Lot 24 where the rest of the extended family appeared to have initially settled. He is a little piece of the puzzle we are putting together.  In genealogical terms, we are employing the FAN principle, looking for clues in our Friends, Associates and Neighbours.

Donald McInnes, Angus' eldest son, was buried in the St John's Presbyterian Church cemetery.  How did we know it was him?  Well his name, approximate year of birth and his wife's name all matched the information in the Ship's List for The Rambler  It was a lead, that required more evidence.

 In Memory of 

DONALD McINNES

March 10, 1845

Aged 74 years

ALSO BELOVED WIFE

MARGARET McDONALD

Now why is this so important? Well in a year of searching and as it turns out, many years of searching by a distant cousin, we have not been able to find a trace of Angus or his family in Scotland.  Finding Donald and the clues he left behind are helping us to develop theories on where our clan came from and why they left Scotland.

St John's Presbyterian Church and Cemetery, Belfast, Prince Edward Island

We also know where Donald lived on Lot 58, his former property is now called McInnis Point.  There is a road to his old property called McInnis Point Road. 

How do we know this is our Donald?  I admit some of it may seem a bit circumstantial, but given the population of the Island at the time, it is unlikely there were any other protestant men living in Prince Edward Island, named Donald McInnis, who were born about 1768.  In addition, we know that both his brothers, Hector and Allan, baptised their children at St John Presbyterian Church.   This information is found in the reference cards at the Prince Edward Island, Public Archives and Records Office as well as in the transcription on The Island Register.  Therefore, it was not improbable that Donald would also worship at St John's.  From there, we found the record of Donald's purchase  of his property from Thomas Earl of Selkirk.  Selkirk of all people, left an enormous legacy and has left us additional clues.

The description of the property is very specific and matches with the current location of McInnis point, as well as the historical maps of the property on Island Imaged.  An undated map of the area shows that Donald deeded 80 acres to his son Angus in 1834, while his grandson Allan occupied the adjacent 80 acres in 1857.  If we doubted before whether this was our Donald, once we saw the map, there was no question.  His son Angus was a passenger on The Rambler and having a grandson named after his brother made sense.

On November 5, 1811, Selkirk settlers in Belfast Prince Edward Island, wrote a letter in support of Dr. Angus Macaulay.  Donald McInnes was included in that list of individuals who signed his name on the letter.  While I haven't seen the original letter, his name is included in the various transcriptions I have seen and on the Island Register, the transcript indicates that Donald signed his name, he did not mark his "X".  This tells us he was literate.  Directly underneath his name, is that of Angus McDonald.

What  a surprise, Donald was one of the Selkirk Pioneers!

This didn't make sense. The Selkirk Pioneers arrived in August 1803 and our McInnis family group came in 1806.

Memorial at Belfast, commemorating the 800 Highlanders who arrived in August 1803 with Thomas Earl of Selkirk.

At this point, I must pause to thank Lucille Campey  Ms. Campey is a leading historian on Scottish Settlers to Canada.  I heard her speak at the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa  September 2012 conference.  Ms. Campey's talk on Lord Selkirk, together with her two books were like a compass pointing us in the right direction.  A Very Fine Class of Immigrants - Prince Edward Island's Scottish Pioneers 1770-1850 presented the history of Scottish immigration to the Island, while The Silver Chief - Lord Selkirk and the Scottish Pioneers of Belfast, Baldoon and Red River provided detailed insights to the arrival of the 1803 Selkirk Pioneers.  Careful reading of these two books gave the essential historical context to assess the documents I would later see, as well as gave me suggestions on further references to explore.

What I believe, is that Donald did come with Selkirk and then returned home to bring his family.  Why would he go ahead by himself?  Selkirk recruited families, not individual men.

The clue lies in the Lord Selkirk Fonds in Library and Archives Canada.  I still have to go and visit the archives, but the clue is in the description of the Lord Selkirk fonds:

Angus MacDonald of Lot 58,  was granted 330 acres with Donald McInnes, "Settled 1806" and "Have been settled since the Earl of Selkirk was in the Island".

But who was Angus MacDonald?  Donald's wife was Margaret McDonald.  A little Googling has pointed me to details on the family of Findlay MacDonald.  Findlay was Margaret's father, Angus was her brother.  This MacDonald family came from the Isle of Mull.  I must of course do some more thorough research so that I have evidence that this is true, it's enough for now to let me work through the story.

So Donald did come with Selkirk in 1803, but settled in 1807 as indicated in the deed.  He came with his father-in-law and partnered with his brother-in-law Angus.  Then he went back to Scotland and returned with his McInnis family.  When they returned in 1806 they must have spent that first winter in Pinnette with the MacDonald's, looking for property on which to settle. In 1807, my great-great-great-grandfather Angus McInnis, purchased property on Lot 33 where he settled with his two other sons Hector and Allan.

This is another delightful tidbit, that keeps the compass pointing toward Mull. 

Donald has left us more clues to follow that might lead us to his place of birth.  A visit to Library and Archives Canada is in order so we can see the reference to our Donald in the fonds of Lord Selkirk.

I also intend on reviewing the Lord Selkirk papers from early August 1803 until he returned to Britain.  I am hoping he may reference either Donald McInnes or Angus MacDonald in his notes.

I must also find evidence to support the information I found regarding Findlay MacDonald and his children, so that I may confirm that Donald did indeed marry the daughter of Findlay.  If this is true, then I may be able to confirm that Findlay MacDonald did come from the Isle of Mull.  If Findlay came from Mull, then it is very probably that Donald came from Mull, providing an area of focus for finding the roots of our Ancestors.

I would be delighted to hear your comments.  Please do connect if you are researching the same family lines.

Dena