Tracing Immigrant Origins - Historical Immigration & Naturalization Records with DearMYRT

For those of you who know or are familiar with "DearMYRTLE, your friend in genealogy," you'll know that she is responsible for a veritable stream of genealogical education broadcasts during the course of every week. Monday at noon eastern time, there's "Mondays with MYRT" a one and a half hour of a group of genealogists from around the world get together and discuss a wide variety of genealogical subjects.

Wednesdays have been the Google Hangout equivalent of classroom education at noon and "Wacky Wednesday" at 9 pm eastern. Both cover specific subjects, with "Wacky" being a little bit more fun and light hearted.

Occasionally, DearMYRT will host other specific subjects on Fridays at noon and once a month is "Genealogy Game Night" on a Saturday evening. "Game Night" is a modern twist of the old "What's My Line" TV program.

The Hangouts can be viewed by anyone. Simply ask to be added as a member of DearMYRTLE's G+ Community by clicking here and making the request. You will be able to watch the program live or, once you "get the hang of it," you may be interested in joining the panel. Panelist are active participants who appear live to the international broadcast.

Wednesday's class is the 3rd of 5 sessions on "Tracing Immigrant Origins - Historical Immigration & Naturalization Records." And the panelists won't just be watching, there's homework for us!! Here's my assignment: To post a document referencing an immigration or naturalization event in an ancestor's history. And below are the documents I'll be talking about on Wednesday, 4 November 2015 at noon eastern. Tune in!

This was my grandfather's 1919 "Declaration of Intention" to naturalize. There is a bounty of genealogical information here. He was single at the time and in spite of the filing, he never went through the final process. The document is only valid for 7 years so...

...he had to file again, this time in 1933. By now, he was married with 2 children. He lists Hazel, my grandmother, Beatrice my mother and Clement Jr, my uncle.

Once again, he never complete the process and died in Westfield, Massachusetts, a Canadian citizen in 1955 and veteran of "The Great War" having served in the Canadian Expeditionary Forces.

1921 Census of Canada is Now Available! So That's Where Daniel Dickson Lived!

This morning I discovered on GOOGLE+ that the Canada census for 1921 has been made available.  I know it's indexed on Ancestry.com but I haven't yet checked any of the other"standby's" for delving into census records.

But here's the surprise for me.  I have always had trouble tracking down my maternal great grandfather.  His name was Daniel Alexander Dickson.  I know his father, James Dickson, and his mother, Mary Jane Clement, were both born in Scotland.   They came to Ontario sometime in the mid-19th century.  Daniel married Margaret Meagher whose father was born in Ireland, her mother in Ontario.



I searched for quite some time to find birth and death records for Daniel to no avail.  The first clue to Daniel's fate came when the 1930 US census was released in 2002.  I found Daniel's son, my grandfather right where he should be, living next door to where I lived for the first 7 years of my life.  There I found Clement, my grandfather, his wife, Hazel, my mother, Beatrice and my uncle, Clement, Jr.  at 34 Tyler Street, Springfield, Massachusetts.

Here's the surprise: Included in his household was his mother, Margaret!  She just happened to be visiting her son at the time the census was being enumerated.  Not only did I now know about when she was born, but I learned that her husband, the elusive Daniel, had died before 1930.  She declared herself a widow which may have something to do with why she was spending some time in Springfield with her son's family.  Her occupation was listed as "Gentlewoman"!

So here comes the 1921 Canada census.  The first person I looked for was Margaret as I knew she was alive in 1921.  But Margaret was the head of household.  Did her husband die before 1921? Possibly.  But I still took a shot at finding Daniel.  For reasons unknown to me so far, Daniel was enumerated in Quebec in the household of his son-in-law, John D Hobus.  John's wife was Frances, the third "Frances" born to Daniel and Margaret.  The first 2 died within a year of their birth.  Classic case of a "necronym".  The best guess I have for Daniel's date of death is sometime between 1921 when he was certainly alive and 1930 when Margaret declared herself a widow.  More research.

So now I've got a bug to get more information.  Sadly, anyone who may know has died.  Thus my urging of this generation to INTERVIEW YOUR FAMILY!!  "nuff" said about that!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The first-ever commercial radio station, WBZA, originally broadcast from Springfield, Massachusetts in 1921. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption]

Lest We Forget

This will be a series of blogs that I should have started January 1st. By sheer luck, I happen to have the diary that my maternal grandfather kept while he worked for the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad. He made an entry every day during the year 1913. That's right; the diary is exactly 100 years old. It was written in pencil as a bottle of ink for an ink pen would have frozen in a heartbeat in Northwest Canada in the winter! What follows is as close to an accurate transcription that I can produce, warts and all!

His handwriting leaves a great deal to be desired, but it’s function rather than form here that's important to me. Truthfully, the entries are, by and large, extremely boring. But every once in a while, something is written that piques my interest. I’ll let you be the judge.

Clement Alexis Dickson was born in Williamstown, Glengarry County, Ontario in 1888. As a young man, he went off to help build the Grand Truck Pacific Railroad. It is reputed to have been the most expensive section of a railroad ever built in North America at $112,000 per mile which roughly converts to $2,600,000 in today’s dollars. It was built from 2 directions: Winnipeg, Manitoba west and Prince Rupert, British Columbia east.

To get us up to date, here’s 01 JAN 1913 through 06 JAN 1913:

Wednesday January 1, 1913
This being the first day of the new year. We went into Edmonton Cullerne, Steve and I. Had dinner at the Royal George then took in a show at the Empire. Mr Cullerne bought the three tickets. Then had the pleasure to walk home two miles after the show. The weather was very mild.

Thursday January 2, 1913
We went out to work at 1030 A.M. to get plus (sic) of the oil house. In the afternoon, L. St V. went to town about 1.30. About 4.30 I went in on the train to have a skate that night. I got in about 5.30 went to the rink and had my skates sharpen (sic). I found out that there was a bunch of the caps going out to prac(tice) at 6.30 so I went out with them and had some time with them. Got home about 130 A.M.

Friday, January 3, 1913
This morning we had to get up a (sic) 6 oclock much against our will. We went over town to run levels on a drain for Jan is on over at Strathcona. We had to work till 1.30 took dinner at Strathcona came over to the city. Alvin Cullerne let us do as we like on $2.00 but we got ( ) and he will know the rent. We came home on the 10 oclock train. Cullerne stayed in town with a cold.

Saturday, January 4, 1913
Got up at 10 oclock this morning, went over to Johns to breakfast, then came back and had a little sleep till 1 oclock then went over to dinner and the same thing this afternoon. Mr Cullerne still in town with a cold.

Sunday, January 5, 1913
Got up at 9 oclock had breakfast. The first thing on sunday is washing day had a big washing stang (sic) out side door on 7 spot in the afternoon 20 below. After super (sic) we stayed in the car at north yards all evening. I wrote three letters one home the other two L. J. A. D.

Monday, January 6, 1913
The weather is about the same maybe a little colder. We did nothing but stayed in the 7 spot. About 4.30 I got the train and went to Edmonton for a skate had a little workout with Esk. From 630 to 7.30. Then met Cullerne and we got all the instruments and came out to the north yard at 10 oclock