I am happy to report that I have entered data from 279 of my collected files, meaning that I have 1140 left to do. I have entered data 12 separate sittings in the 5 days since I posted about the problem.
The most interesting thing I have entered is a transcription from pages of my grandmother’s family bible. I do not have the bible, but a cousin was kind enough to scan the pages and send them to me. It is partly written in German, and partly in English. After I consulted with a friend who can read the German part, I realized that the English was mainly a translation of the German writing, probably done for me, or people like me that can’t read the German.
William Kaiser (1837-1909) and Elizabeth Long (1834-1921) of Huron County, Ontario, and Cadillac, Michigan were my 2nd great-grandparents. When I first constructed a family tree, more than 40 years ago, I knew of seven children in the family:
Mary Ann, 1860-1939
William, 1862-1940 my great-grandfather
Elizabeth 1864-1938
Annie, 1871-1941
Austin, 1872-1962
Lucy, 1876-1914
Amelia “Millie” 1878-1963
About ten years ago, I threw a tent in my car trunk and headed off to Canada to find out more about my Kaiser and Johnston families that resided in Huron County. It was not that simple, I did a little investigation in advance. What kind of investigation? I took every photo out of my grandmother’ photo album and wrote down the city and photographer. The photographers names didn’t help me as much as I had hoped, but putting marks on a map on all the cities told me that I needed to go to Huron County. I didn’t know that before I looked at the photos closely.
The handy dandy internet told me what libraries and archives were located in my area of interest and off I went. Careful investigation in the library and archives sent me on a journey to several cemeteries. At the Knox Presbyterian Church Cemetery, I added children to the Kaiser family:
Joseph, 1857-1876
Cecelia, 1867-1867
Sarah, 1870-1871
Sadly, I was able to find death registrations for all three when I returned to the library. Now, William and Elizabeth had 10 children.
When I received the pages to the bible, I had another surprise, the page clearly listed Maud, born 28 April 1877 and died 28 August 1877. Hmmm. If you have ever looked at the Ontario vital records, either on film or on Ancestry.com, you know the records are scrambled and hard to find. I finally found Maud’s birth, registration # 11196 / No. 39, born 1 May 1877 Maude, female, father Wm Keser, farmer, Grey, mother Elizabeth Long, name of accoucheur: none, recorded 4th June 1877, signature of registrar: illegible. I have not been able to find a death registration for Maud/Maude yet, and I have not found her burial place.
Now my family, with birth years, looks like this:
1857 Joseph
1860 Mary Ann
1862 William
1864 Elizabeth
1867 Cecelia
1870 Sarah
1871 Annie
1872 Austin
1876 Lucy
1877 Maud
1878 Millie
I see a large gap between Joseph and Mary Ann, and another between Elizabeth and Cecelia. I believe that Joseph, Mary Ann, William and Elizabeth may have been born in Vaughan township, York County before the Kaisers moved west to Huron County. More investigation is required to determine if I have really found all the children.
First, I am working to whittle down the unentered data.
