I recently learned an important lesson about diversifying my genealogical research. Databases all have their own particular quirks and transcriptions of microfilms can vary widely. For instance, errors made while transcribing documents, as well as the widespread practice of misspelling the foreign sounding names of newly arrived immigrants in North America have resulted in variations in the spelling of certain family names. My great grandfather's name varied from census to census: Angerbauer (1880, USA), Angarbanr (1900, USA) and Angerbaur (1916, Canada).
I had been using Ancestry.com for the last couple of months and felt like I had reached a standstill. I decided to try FamilySearch, which is affiliated to the Mormon Church. Unlike Ancestry.com, which requires a paid subscription, the FamilySearch site gives free access to transcriptions of the many Canadian records on microfilm.
Surprisingly enough, when I queried their database, it was able to make the phonetic link between Angerbauer and Angesbower, bringing up a birth record in 1897 for a “child Angesbower” in New Jersey. As the date matched that of Frances, the eldest of his daughters, I knew it was a positive match. As censuses only list the head of the household’s family name, I had not previously known the maiden name of my great grandmother. All I knew was that she was born in Canada in 1871, and that she was of Scotch descent. Giving recourse to another genealogy portal proved to be a sound decision. One phonetic association provided me with a vital piece in the puzzle. Mary Angerbauer was born as Mary I. McKay.
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McKay - Scottish and northern Irish: Anglicized form of Gaelic Mac Aodha ‘son of Aodh’, an ancient personal name meaning ‘fire’. Etymologically, this is the same name as McCoy. (Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press) — Ancestry.com |
I had previously wondered why Mary Angerbauer had moved to Kincardine from New Jersey without her husband, before settling with him in Winnipeg, Manitoba five years later according to the 1916 Canada Census? Her maiden name partly explained why she was listed in the 1911 Fifth Census of Canada for the Bruce North along with her five daughters: Francis, Ruth, Muriel, Catherine and Keneena. It could be that her parents, who were born in Scotland, were one of the McKay families of the Lewis settlement in Bruce County, Ontario. Whole populations of the Scottish Highlands were expulsed from their lands in the 18th and 19th centuries in what was known as the Highland Clearances. (Wikipedia).
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| Kincardine was once known as Penetangore from the serpentine river of the same name. Robertson explains that it stems from the Indian name Na-Benem-fan-gaugh, which means ‘the river with the sand on one side”. (p. 429) |
A. R. MacKinnon explains how there was a strong concentration of Gaelic speakers from the Isle of Tiree (Scotland’s Inner Hebrides) in Kincardine, but that the largest group of Gaelic speakers was the Lewis Settlement in the neighbouring township of Huron ("Gaelic in the Bruce", 1967). This settlement consisted of families that were evicted from their crofts on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland in the mid 19th century and who immigrated to Canada because they were offered free passage in return for their land. Two shiploads left Stornoway on May 30, 1851 and arrived in Montreal in August 1851. A year later, 109 families settled in the township of Huron in Bruce County according to the Bruce County Genealogical Society.
In The history of the county of Bruce and of the minor municipalities therein (1906), Norman Robertson paints a picture of the hardships that the settlers were confronted with in a new country as Gaelic speakers:
As is elsewhere pointed out, the settlers who first peopled the county of Bruce were, as a whole, of numerous and varied vocations, and in regard to nationality they were pretty thoroughly mixed up. This heterogeneity served a good purpose in the making of the county. Huron Township received at one time, in the fall of 1852, a large group of settlers, sufficient if so allocated to have taken up every lot on three concessions, who differed in every respect from the fore- going. This was the Lewis settlement. It consisted of one hundred and nine families who took up land in the centre of the township. These were all from the Island of Lewis, and had been evicted from their croftings by their landlord, Sir James Matheson. Laboring under the disadvantage of being able to speak English but imperfectly Gaelic being their mother tongue, many, indeed, could speak no other and whose calling was that of sailors or fishermen, they were utterly ignorant of how to set to work to clear up a bush farm, and lacked also the necessary experience how to work it after it had been cleared. In addition to this, being settled close together they had consequently no opportunity to study the object lesson which a native Canadian backwoodsman in his daily task of chopping, logging and ploughing would have set before them. Is it any wonder, then, when all these circumstances are considered, that the progress of the Lewis settlement was at the first slow.
Robertson includes the McKay family name in a list of early Lewis settlers: Angus McKay and John McKay settled on the 5th concessions, while Malcolm McKay, John McKay, Norman McKay, John MacKay, Angus McKay and Murdoch McKay settled on the 6th concessions. He also mentions a McKay along with other Highland Scotch settlers in the chapter on the Kinkardine township, but he does not go into detail safe to mention a Hector McKay who entered the ministry in the Presbyterian Church. So far, my research has brought up hundreds of Mary McKay’s in Canada alone, which has made the search for her exact birthplace quite difficult.
“There the fact is revealed that of all the townships in the county, Kincardine alone had a smaller population in 1901 than it had in 1861, and 1,651 less than in 1881. “Where has the population gone?” is but a natural question. Ask the Western States and our own Western Provinces. There, in numerous prominent positions, as well as on ranches, farms and mines, are to be found the “Old Boys” of Kincardine Township, with a warm, warm place in their hearts for the place of their birth.” (p.438)
This passage stood out for me thinking back of the westward migrations in my own family history.
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