Fresh Eyes On: George McDonald of 265 Victoria Drive, Vancouver

Sometimes I like to revisit "cold cases" in hopes of finding new leads. Records are added to online databases everyday, and repositories are continually scanning and digitizing their collections. I decided to have another look at one of my posts from 2012.  Below is the original blog post.  Please have a read through and I'll pick up where I left off almost four years ago.

Somewhat a Shame Wednesday: Geo McDonald, Glasgow, Scotland and Vancouver, BC, 1890s
Aug 1, 2012

This chromotype carte de visite features an older man with an amazing white beard, taken at the J. Whyte Studio in Glasgow, Scotland.  On the reverse we have an handwritten inscription:

The problem here is the "Mrs." in front of Geo McDonald.  Clearly the subject is not a Mrs, so we aren't sure if Mrs. Geo McDonald is the man's wife, a recipient of the photo or if, perhaps, a mistake was made with the Mrs. part.  The reason I include the latter possibility is because I have a photograph taken at the same studio, probably at the same time, of an older woman.  These photos were found together and this photo of the woman has a similar inscription in the same hand on the back:

Notice that this one doesn't have the Mrs. part.  Could the inscriber have mixed up the labelling on these?
This second back also provides an additional clue. There is a studio stamp on the back "The Convex Art & Novelty [Company]."  On David Mattison's Camera Workers site, he shows that this studio was owned by T. Elf, a photographer who operated out of 3 - 319 W. Pender St., Vancouver, BC in 1911.  The address, "265 Victoria Drive" is also a Vancouver address.  I could only find one match for a George McDonald at this address in the year 1911 (Henderson's Greater Vancouver Directory):

George McDonald, emp. P. Burns & Co. Ltd.  h.265 Victoria Dr. 

The images look to be of mid-1890s vintage, and J. Whyte was in business at 75 Jamaica Street from 1893 to 1897.

So, are the images of a Mr & Mrs. George McDonald?  Are they the recipients?  Is G. McDonald simply making copies of the original J. Whyte cdvs at the Convex Art & Novelty Company? I suspect (but have no proof) that George MacDonald may be a son or son-in-law to the man in the photo.  If George McDonald  is employed in 1911, then George is not the man in the photo.  If the original image was taken in 1895, and we guess the man's age to be 75 at the time the photo was taken, the gentleman would be 91 years old in 1911.

What are your thoughts?

May 22, 2016

I had a look at the problem with fresh eyes and decided to spend some more time looking into the residents of 265 Victoria Drive, Vancouver. I don't know why I didn't find this in my earlier search, but this time I located the 1916 WW1 Attestation Paper for a 40-year-old George McDonald whose residence is listed as 265 Victoria Drive, Vancouver, BC¹. George was signing up for the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Force and lists his wife, Margaret, as his next-of-kin. According to his answers on the attestation, George was born in Dornoch, Sutherlandshire, Scotland on the 21st March 1876.

I could not find a George McDonald in the 1881 Scotland Census who matched perfectly with the birthdate George provided in his attestation paper.  I'm unsure of Canada's age limit for enlistment  prior to conscription in 1917. In Britain, the upper limit was 40 years of age. After conscription began, Canadian soldiers had to be between the ages of 18 and 45. Perhaps George was attempting to look younger on paper. I did find the following family, and I believe our George is the seven-year-old scholar².

In the 1881 census, the M[a]cDonald household in Shepherd's House, Dornoch, Sutherland, Scotland was comprised of:

Simon Macdonald, 40, Shepherd
Isabella Macdonald, 41, Shepherd's wife
Christina Macdonald, 14, Shepherd's daughter
Jane Macdonald, 11, Scholar
George Macdonald, 7, Scholar
Donald Macdonald, 5, Shepherd's son
Isabella Macdonald, 2, Shepherd's daughter

On Familysearch.org, I found George Mcdonald's birth transcription with a birthdate of 20 Mar 1874³. George died in train accident in 1951.  The birthdate on the official death record, with information provided by his son, is 21 March 1874⁴.

So, what do we know?  We can guess that these two photographs were in the possession of Mr. & Mrs. Geo McDonald of 265 Victoria Drive. We still don't know who the two photographed individuals are. We are in a better position to speculate, though.  It could be a portrait of George's parents:  Simon McDonald and Isabella Grant McDonald.  Or they could be Margaret's parents.  Margaret's father's name, as listed on her death record in 1920, was Peter McLaughlin⁵.  Margaret was almost a decade older than her husband George. I think the dates work out more in favour of the man in the image to be her father, Peter. But of course, that's a wild guess.

I tried to find out more about Margaret's family, so I could see if someone has posted portraits online of Peter McLaughlin and his wife, but was unable to follow the trail for Margaret with any positive result. Maybe a kind reader can help with this mystery.

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1 Canada, Soldiers of the First World War, 1914-1918, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 May 2016), British Columbia, Vancouver, 158th (Overseas) Btln., George McDonald entry, dated 1 March 1916; citing Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4930 - 35. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa.^↩
2 “1881 Scotland Census,” database, Ancestry.com (htpp://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 May 2016), entry for George Macdonald [b.] abt 1874, Dornoch, Sutherland, Scotland.^↩
3 "Scotland Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FQRF-R68 : accessed 23 May 2016), George Mcdonald, 20 Mar 1874; citing DORNOCH,SUTHERLAND,SCOTLAND, reference ; FHL microfilm 6,035,516.^↩
4 "British Columbia Death Registrations, 1872-1986; 1992-1993", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FLRR-HJ5 : accessed 23 May 2016), George Mcdonald, 1951.^↩
5 "British Columbia Death Registrations, 1872-1986; 1992-1993", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FLKN-6BJ : accessed 23 May 2016), Margaret Mcdonald, 1920.^↩

How Are Your Detective Skills? Grandfather Deachman and Eliza Pappa Deachman, circa 1860s, Perth, Ontario

Grandmother and Grandfather Deachman, circa 1869, Perth, Ontario, Canada

I find albums difficult to pass by. The one that held this image, especially so. While it was filled with some post-1910 images vaguely identified, there were a number of photographs such as the one above, that were labelled with detailed and extremely helpful explanations.

On the back of this carte de visite photograph, someone had made the following notes:  "My Dad's parents. Grandfather and Grandmother Deachman whose maiden name was Eliza Pappa. She passed away & left a young family of 4 sons and 1 daughter. Grandfather married again to a widow Mary Ellis who had 2 daughters Maggie & Isabella at that time. Then was born Jim, Isaac & Lizzie who married Jack Kerr."

So how are the other images labelled?  Here is a break-down of the most helpful images:

1) A cdv, circa 1865 of a young woman in her 20s, no photographer's imprint. On the reverse it is written, "Grandma Woods, Grandfather Woods' second wife. Her maiden name was Katie Stewart. A wonderful person (Catherine Stewart)." (Isn't it a lovely touch that the writer thought to tell future generations that Katie was a wonderful individual?)

2) A tintype of "mother with white collar. Mrs. Bingley her cousin to her right."

3) A tintype "This might be my Dad's Brother Bill Deachman."

4) A small snapshot of a log cabin. "Isaac's cabin on the homestead." Photograph was developed at Jerrett's Photo Art-Studio in Melfort, Saskatchewan.

5) Small snapshot of "Dr. Wilson T[?] Deachman he has hair if it is white." Circa 1920s?

6) A small snapshot of "Grandpa & Grandma Harper & Aunt Elizabeth."

and the clincher:

7)  A small snapshot of  "Mother (Florence Deachman) probably around 1912."

So, with this information, are you able to sort out who might have owned this album and their relationships to the other people in the album? I wonder how such a family treasure ended up in a Victoria, BC antique shop.

This was a fun one to research--I hope you have a good time looking into the Deachman family.

The Robert Pollock Whyte Family of Stratford, Ontario, 1900

The details on this image might be skimpy, but it's such a lovely family portrait I have to attempt to figure out who they are.  The portrait was taken at the W. I. Becker & Co. studio in Stratford, Ontario, which was in operation between 1888-1900, according to the book, "The Ontario Photographers List: 1851-1900, Vol. 1" by Glen C. Phillips. The "& Co." portion of the imprint was only used after 1895. However, because the scope of the book ends with the year 1900, I am unsure how long the studio existed past that time, as I don't have a copy of the second volume in this series. 

There is a faint pencil notation on the back of the portrait, "Mr[s?]. R. P. Whyte, C--- ---alt & Church, Stratford." I believe the missing part of the inscription is "Corner Galt & Church [St], Stratford." R.P. Whyte did have a house on Church Street in 1905-1906¹. In the same publication I was able to find W. I. Becker & Co., still in business at 11 Market Street.

In 1901, 33-year-old Robert P. Whyte was a butcher². He and his wife, Annie had two children: a two-year-old daughter named Leila and a son, Fred, aged four. Also living with the family is a boarder named Charlott Smith, who was born in the same year as Robert and Annie, in 1867.  If the photograph is a portrait of this family, it's likely that it was taken around the same time as the census was recorded, or perhaps just a bit later, around 1902-03.

Robert's full name appears to be Robert Pollock Whyte³. The family has moved to Vancouver, BC by the time of son Frederick's WW1 enlistment in May of 1918 and they are residing at 2915 Ontario Street.
Robert Pollock Whyte died in 20 Feb 1956, in Vancouver⁴.

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1 Vernon's City of Stratford Directory, 1905-1906 (Hamilton, Ont. : 1906), page 93, entry for "Whyte, R.P.," digital image, Toronto Public Library (http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDMDC-37131055373187D&R=DC-37131055373187D) : accessed 06 Mar 2016).^↩
2 1901 census of Canada, Stratford, Perth, Ontario, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 104, subdistrict # G6, p.8 (penned), dwelling 68, family 68, Robert P. Whyte family; digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 1Mar 2016); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm T-6428 through T-6556.^↩
3 Canada, Soldiers of the First World War, 1914-1918, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 3 Mar 2016), British Columbia, Victoria, 2nd Depot Btln., Frederick Whyte entry, dated 6 May 1918; citing Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 4930 - 35. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa..^↩
4 "British Columbia Death Registrations, 1872-1986; 1992-1993", database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FLR6-H4B : accessed 8 March 2016), Robert Pollock Whyte, 1956.^↩

Funeral Card: Mary Jane Boyle, Grey, Ontario, Canada, 1915

 

I found this funeral card at an antique store in Victoria, BC a few years ago. These little cards are genealogy gems. As a tangible artifact from the last event of a person's time here on earth they sometimes contain a wealth of genealogical information, and other times, just a few details.  This one is somewhere in-between. It says:

Died
In Grey Township, on Monday, May 3rd,
1915
Mary Jane Boyle
Relict of the late Robert Robertson
Aged 66 Years, 10 Months and 22 Days

Funeral
After a short service at the home, Lot 6,
Con. 12, on Wednesday, 5th Inst., at 1.30
o'clock, the remains will be conveyed
to the Presbyterian Church, Cranbrook,
where service will be held at 2.30.

Interment in Cranbrook Cemetery.

I'm a huge fan of Find-a-Grave, and that's where I headed first when I decided to look into the life of Mary Jane Boyle. Lucky us, Mary Jane's gravestone has been photographed. Not only that, but someone has provided a few extra details about Mary Jane's life.

Of course, when you find information on a site like Find-a-Grave, or in an Ancestry public tree, you should ALWAYS confirm what you find there with proper documentation. In this case, I went in search of Mary Jane's death record. There, I found a discrepancy regarding her birth date. It says that she was 66 Years, 10 months and 12 days old when she died. So, according to these two sources, her birthdate is either the 11th or 21st of June 1848. The record states that she was born in Ontario and her father's name was John Boyle. The death record also tells us that her late husband, Robert, was a farmer¹.

Robert Robertson was 73 years and 28[?] days old at the time of his death from pneumonia in 1902 which calculates out to a birthdate of 31 May 1829². He was born in Paisley, Scotland.

Mary Jane and Robert raised their four children in Huron County, Ontario: Robert John (b.1873), William George (b.1877), Florence L. (b.1881) and Samuel R. (b.1887)^{3 4}

Mary Jane Boyle married Robert Robertson in Elma, Ontario on the 19th of March 1872⁵. Her parents were John and Mary Ann Boyle which should help in tracking down her birth record. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to locate it.

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1 "Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JDZ8-VNG : accessed 21 February 2016), Mary Jane Robertson, 03 May 1915; citing Grey, Huron, Ontario, yr 1915 cn 15966, Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 1,862,267.^↩
2 "Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:J6CW-826 : accessed 21 February 2016), Robert Robertson, 28 Jun 1902; citing Grey, Huron, Ontario, yr 1902 cn 12072, Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 1,854,184.^↩
3 “1881 Census of Canada,” digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca: accessed 19 Feb 2016), entry for Robert Robertson household, Grey, Huron Centre, Ontario, District 174, p. 80 (penned); citing LAC microfilm C_13273.^↩
4 1891 census of Canada, Grey, Huron East, Ontario, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 76, subdistrict C, p.28 (penned), family 150, Robert Robertson household; digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca : accessed 19 Feb 2016); citing Library and Archives Canada microfilm T-6344.^↩
5 "Ontario, Canada Marriages, 1801-1928," online database, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca), Mary Jane Boyle and Robert Robertson, Marriages 1872, Perth, Ontario, 19 Mar 1872; citing original data at Archives of Ontario; citing microfilm MS932, reel 8.^↩

Who was Kate Keller, 1860-1882, Uxbridge, Ontario, Canada?

 

A notation is scribbled on the back of this carte de visite image: "Kate Keller, Died 1882, Age 22." I purchased this photograph last week from an antique dealer here on Vancouver Island thinking that, along with this information and the photographer's imprint, I could learn a little bit about the life of this young woman. The photographer was W. McFadden, who worked out of studio in Uxbridge, Ontario.

I located a death certificate for Kate Emma Keller first.¹ According the death certificate, Kate died on the 3rd of December 1882 in Uxbridge, Ontario of a "liver complaint" that lasted roughly twelve weeks.  She was born in 1860 in Whitby, Ontario County [now Durham Co.], Ontario. This information matches the data from the inscription on the reverse of the photograph. Kate Keller's parents were Francis and Mary Keller. I located this image of Francis Keller, along with a short biography of his life provided by the Whitby Public Library on the "Our Ontario" website. ² Francis was a postmaster in Whitby for a couple of years, then moved to Uxbridge and became involved in the publishing business.

Kate appears to have had two siblings: Mary J. (born 1864) and William H. (born 1865). William was following in his father's footsteps as he was working as a printer at the time of the 1881 census³. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to learn much about Kate in the time I allotted to this search. Perhaps there are documents out there, such as an obituary, that might help round out her history beyond the basic dates and places.

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1 "Ontario Deaths, 1869-1937 and Overseas Deaths, 1939-1947," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JDB1-VXS : accessed 17 February 2016), Kate Emma Keller, 03 Dec 1882; citing Uxbridge, Ontario, Ontario, yr 1882 cn 13117, Archives of Ontario, Toronto; FHL microfilm 1,853,237.^↩
2 http://images.ourontario.ca/whitby/51073/data^↩
3 “1881 Census of Canada,” digital image, Ancestry.ca (http://www.ancestry.ca: accessed 3 Feb 2016), entry for household of Francis Keller, Uxbridge, Ontario North, Ontario, District 133, p. 63 (penned); citing LAC microfilm C-13245.^↩

Do the Facts Fit? Frances E. McLauchlan, Clapton, London, England, Circa 1903?

Albert Hester photographed this child at his St. Kildas Studio in Clapton, London. According to the PhotoLondon website, Hester operated his studio at  St. Kildas Terrace in Clapton from 1897 - May 9 1898¹. And, I am somewhat troubled by that.

On the reverse of this carte de visite photograph, the child is identified as "Frances E. McLauchlan, 15 months"  In the 1911 England Census I found a Frances Emily McLauchlan, 9 years old, born in Clapton, now living at No. 4, Mount Zion, Castle Lane, Hadleigh, Essex². Which, at this point, makes her birth year sometime around 1902.

I see a few potential problems here. First, is the child above a girl or boy? I've found a number of Frances McLauchlans in the census who are male. Secondly, the Frances E. McLauchlan of the 1911 Census would have been 15 months old in 1903, at which time Albert Hester would have been at his studio at 31 Upper Clapton Road, Hackney (1898 - 1919). She appears in the FreeBMD Index as having been born in the second quarter of 1902³.

This could be Frances Emily, and it is very possible that Albert Hester is simply using up his old carte de visite stock after moving to a new location. This was a common practice, but is it reasonable to think he'd still be doing so five years after moving? What are your thoughts?

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1 http://www.photolondon.org.uk/pages/details.asp?pid=3757^↩
2 "England and Wales Census, 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XWNS-JML : accessed 5 February 2016), Frances Emily Ma Lauchlan, Hadleigh, Hadleigh, Essex, England; from "1911 England and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 14, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.^↩
3 "England and Wales Birth Registration Index, 1837-2008," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2F8C-HNW : accessed 5 February 2016), Frances Emily Mclauchlan, 1902; from "England & Wales Births, 1837-2006," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing Birth Registration, Hackney, London, England, citing General Register Office, Southport, England.^↩

Who is John Bull of Hillcrest Mill, Duncan, BC?

I acquired this image in a Victoria, BC antique shop about five years ago. The photographer's imprint on the front reads, "A. Savard, Vancouver, B.C," probably Alphonse Savard, a Vancouver photographer who operated out of his studio at 225 Carrall Street from 1896-1899, and after that at 4 Cordova Street East, until about 1916¹.

On the reverse, there is a notation written in pencil: 
"Mr. John Bull
Hillcrest Mill
Duncan, BC"

There is also the photographer's negative number stamped on the back: 934543.

Duncan, BC is located on Vancouver Island, a couple of hours away via ferry from Vancouver. The research I've done into John Bull hasn't provided any worthwhile leads. There are a number of John Bulls in various censuses and vital statistic records, but without more specific information, I can't really narrow it down to which one it might be.

Perhaps the best course of action would be to look into the Hillcrest Mill history. I believe the mill was located at a place called Sahtlam.

To read a brief history of the Hillcrest Lumber Mill at Sahtlam, click here.

And that's all. So. The big question is, does "Mr. John Bull" represent the identity of one of the subjects of the photograph or does it refer to the recipient of the photo?

Can anyone help identify these two men?

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1 Camera Workers 1858-1950 Website by David Mattison, http://cameraworkers.davidmattison.com/getperson.php?personID=I49&tree=cw18581950^↩

Wilbur Fisk Gile, 1832 - 1888, Lawrence, Massachusetts

It's been a while, but you may remember the posts I wrote regarding the Mary E. Harrison photo album I found a few years ago. Mary was born in Maccan, Nova Scotia and moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. In 1886, she was given the album as a Christmas present from Mr. W. F. Gile, of Lawrence, and accordingly, Mary saved the first page of her new album for Mr. Gile. The image appears above.

I did a little digging into the life of Mr. Wilbur Fisk Gile, and was pleased to see that a record of his life appears in a number of places.  According to his Mason Membership card, he was born on the 4th of January 1832 in Groveland, Massachusetts. The card also provided a death date of 5 February 1888, which matches the inscription in Mary's photograph album¹. His occupation is listed as Attorney and Teacher. With that information, I easily found his birth information on Familysearch.org, which provided the names of his parents:  Thomas W. and Judith Gile².

A plain old Google search turned up a book entry for  Wilbur's second wife Sarah France Norris. They were married in 1867³. The book entry confirmed much of the information I have already found. It also provided two little words, which made me sigh just a little: "No Children."⁴ It would seem Mr. Gile did not leave any descendants, or at least Sarah, did not.  I searched out his first marriage, and found that he married S. Kate Poor on September 17, 1857⁵. There does not appear to be any children from that marriage in the 1860 census⁶. Nor did I find children in any of the subsequent censuses in which Mr. Gile appears.

The gift Mr. Gile so generously gave Mary still exists, and hopefully, someday it can be reunited with one of her family members.

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1 Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Mason Membership Cards, 1733-1990; entry for Wilbur Fiske Gile [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. ^↩
2 Massachusetts Births and Christenings, 1639-1915," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FCKS-HLM : accessed 5 February 2016), Wilbur Fiske Gile, 04 Jan 1832; citing BRADFORD,ESSEX,MASSACHUSETTS, ; FHL microfilm 0599732 IT 1.^↩
3 Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N4NF-9YH : accessed 5 February 2016), W. Fisk Gile and S. Frank Norris, 20 Jun 1867; citing 205, Lawrence, Essex, Massachusetts, State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 1,433,025.^↩
4 Morrison, Leonard Allison. "Lineage and Biographies of the Norris Families in America," Damrell and Upham: Boston, 1892, p.93 ^↩
5 "Massachusetts Marriages, 1841-1915," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NW19-81W : accessed 5 February 2016), W Fisk Gile and S Kate Poor, 17 Sep 1857; citing 227, Lawrence, Massachusetts, State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 1,433,015^↩
6 Ancestry.com. 1860 United States Federal Census [database on-line].Year: 1860; Census Place: Lawrence Ward 6, Essex, Massachusetts; Roll: M653_498; Page: 441; Image: 446; Family History Library Film: 803498^↩

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