Saturday, October 24, 2015

Can't Go Anywhere Without a Map


...especially when following the tracks of those missing ancestors!

In researching those hard-to-find ancestors—especially those living in places with which we're not personally familiar—it's inconceivable (to me, at least) that the search can be mounted without tools as basic as a map. Perhaps because I have this need to know everything possible about an ancestor's background before I feel sufficiently equipped to do a thorough search, I feel like I'm operating blind without guidance like maps, history books and other local resources.

So, in receiving that helpful suggestion a few days ago—about a possible candidate to satisfactorily answer the question, "What became of Margaret Tully," my husband's great grandfather's sister—I couldn't respond outright. I had to do a little background search first.

The suggestion had been made by "Intense Guy" that, possibly, Margaret Tully had indeed married, and moved about seventy miles distance from her adopted home town in Paris, Ontario. While we can cover that seventy miles a lot quicker today than she might have in the late 1800s, it is still within the realm of possibility. But first, I wanted to look at a map to see for myself.

Because I have copies of a number of old photographs from the extended family—including some obviously taken in Ontario and mailed to the family, once they settled in Chicago—I had an idea where any family left behind might have settled in Canada. The main hint was pointing to a city called Hamilton, nestled up against the western portion of Lake Ontario. From the perspective of Paris residents, that would be a trip of about thirty miles—roughly half the distance (and in the opposite direction) from Paris to the burial of the possible Margaret Tully.

Despite that, I still held out hope that this might be a possibility. The main reason was that I know one other branch of the Tully family moved first to Detroit before making the jump to join the family in Chicago. A good look at the map shows a convenient route west of Paris—and somewhat dropping to the southwest—leads a traveler from Paris to Detroit. If the possible married Margaret Tully were to the west of Paris—but along this route—it would certainly make sense.

Once I looked at the map and realized not only the distances but the directions, I lost my enthusiasm for that possibility. While the route to Detroit heads southwest, the route to the cemetery in question would be to the northwest. Of course, it is still possible, and I won't dismiss it entirely, yet. A few more variables need to be checked as well—primarily to revisit those maternal-line Flannery cousins (remember "Ed-blot"?) who had also settled in Paris, then moved onward. How close might some of them have been to this Margaret Tully's cemetery?

The possible Margaret Tully had married a man named Robert Fortune. Buried in the Catholic cemetery in Saint Columban in Huron County, Ontario, this Margaret Tully died in 1879 at the age of thirty three—at least, according to the couple's significant monument. There is likely a poignant story embedded in the dash on that stone.

In this Margaret's early demise, she left behind her husband, Robert, who apparently never remarried, and a son named after his father. The younger Robert also died in his thirties, causing me to wonder about any inherited health problems—rather than simply a case of his mother's death during childbirth as so often is the assumption during that era.

While it is tempting to think this might be our missing Margaret, we can't really yield to the temptation. While we can wink at the two year discrepancy in dates of birth—ours arriving in County Tipperary in early September, 1844, while this Margaret was estimated to have been born in 1846—we simply don't know enough about this Margaret to assure us that she was indeed our missing family member.

Still, Iggy, it's an impressive find. Search capabilities on Find A Grave outside burials in the United States are rather cumbersome, at best. It would be nice to be able to manipulate the search to hone results down to the level of provinces, at the very least, for our neighbors to the north.



Above: Map showing various routes from Paris, Ontario, to Saint Columban in neighboring Huron County. To the left, at the west shore of Lake Ontario, is the city of Hamilton, another possible area where Tully descendants might have settled. Map courtesy Google Maps.

10 comments:

  1. Good point about maps. I've ruled data pertinent or probably not, due to seeing the distances and routs in question.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It certainly helps, Ellie. I don't know whether that rings more true for visual people, but it makes sense to check a map for hunches about whether certain distances would be believable, given the time frame and other parameters. I just feel better seeing it diagrammed out in map form.

      Delete
  2. I like looking at maps too for the Forgottens:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's interesting, Far Side, since I always assume those photos you find are from the area where you live. You would know your own turf, but someone like me would have to consult a map!

      Delete
  3. Several months ago, I found a post in the Find-A-Grave forums that explains how to search by Canadian province or by county, by tweaking the url with the numbers that represent the province or county. (I used this to find all cemeteries in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, where I have ancestors.)

    I just revisited the post to confirm the source and noticed that another Find-A-Grave user has created a "front end" for searching Canadian cemeteries, and it uses a map! You're going to love this. Check out http://www.craigmyle.ca/fag/, click Ontario, then click on Huron and there you go - a list of cemeteries in Huron County, Ontario, Canada.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This is a god-send, Elizabeth. Thank you so much for sharing that resource!

      One thing I noticed: when following your instructions to click on "Ontario," I took that literally, and scrolled to the bottom of the page where each province's name was hyperlinked. That simply brought me to a listing, by province, of all the Canadian cemeteries. Still, that's nice...but a bit overwhelming at over 5,000 cemeteries for Ontario alone.

      However, by hovering my cursor over the map itself, in what I thought might be the approximate area where my Tullys once lived in the province of Ontario, by then clicking, it brought up the local area with a different listing: this time of the county, names. Much more manageable!

      This is going to be one of those websites at the top of my "favorites" list!

      Delete
    2. Sorry my instructions were unclear - when I said to click on Ontario, I meant to click on the map. Glad you figured it out ;-)

      Delete
    3. No problem, Elizabeth. I think most websites now try to use a two-ways-to-get-there design that is also intuitive to people who understand directions differently than others :)

      I'm just having a wonderful time playing around with all the possibilities, thanks to your sharing that web address. I have more Canadian ancestors to research, not just in Ontario, but across many provinces, so this will be a tool used for many months to come! My never-ending thanks to you for your help!

      Delete
  4. Apparently this Margaret Tully was the daughter of a Micheal and Mary Tully. I found mention of a wedding document but can no longer find it (Google can be fickle sometimes).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iggy, I think I may have found it! I ran across something like that while preparing for my upcoming posts. I'll share it in a couple days, but yes...you are right. It doesn't look like our Margaret.

      Still, thank you for mentioning it! What it afforded me was a process that allowed me to review the situation and look at it from a few more angles. I may still not solve it, but those new ideas for questions are popping up in my mind, and I may as well run with them!

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...