Hitting Pay Dirt

Lake Huron

The Great Lakes waterway was not only an important transportation route for my ancestors but it also supplied them with a valuable source of food and livelihood. Many of my earlier ancestors came from Quebec to this area as a result of the fur trade. They were voyageurs and interpreters. Some settled in the fertile lands surrounding the Great Lakes especially those areas around Lake Erie, Lake St. Clair and Lake Huron. It was in these areas they found land that would provide them food and a living. To this day many of their descendants are still working the land.

The Great Lakes were generous not only in providing fertile land. They provided a plentiful source of fresh water fish like bass, perch and pickerel. The water attracted larger game animals like deer and bear. Smaller game animals like muskrat and jackrabbits along with the all important beaver were plentiful. The rich diversity of the marshlands along the waterways provided a plentiful source of water fowl. While bear no longer roam the area today except in the northern Great Lakes region, deer are still quite common as are most of the smaller game animals and water fowl.

I've been on a genealogy roll the past couple of days, working long into the night. I have a Deluxe membership on Ancestry.com that I bought specifically for the Ontario Vital Statistics content. One rule I have about online genealogy research is I never, ever trust anyone's published family tree. I've seen too many errors, omissions, wrong relationships and just plain horrid stuff so I seldom if ever look at family trees. That removes a whole section that I don't use at Ancestry. What I focus on are those things like OVS when I can download and print the exact same image I would if I had printed the image from the microfilmed record. Being able to do this has saved me countless dollars and time. The closest Family History Centre is about forty minutes away and if it is busy you might not even be able to get onto a microfilm reader. There is a time limit of two hours, most of which is spent loading and unloading microfilm. Only one of their machines prints so they want you to confirm the record you are looking for is there on a non-printing machine first so as to not tie up the printing machine searching. Printing is 25¢ per sheet even though the quality is poor. They are only open three days a week, two of which are afternoons only so that really limits research time. I'm so pleased that I can access many of the microfilmed records using Ancestry, PRDH and National Archives online and certainly don't mind paying for the services!

Over the past couple of days I hit genealogy pay dirt. I decided to focus on one brick wall but instead of focusing directly on that one individual, I searched only OVS with just the last name and province. Sometimes you can get the necessary information by going through the records of relatives. Sometimes it will be the smallest tidbit of information that will give a clue where to start chipping away at the brick wall. In this case, the brick wall is my second great grandfather. Census records has him as born in the USA but one has him born in Canada. Nothing new here as that happens quite a bit. His death record shows him as born in Michigan and one US census record shows him living in Michigan but with the household members it is difficult to tell who's who but I think I have it somewhat figured out. OVS revealed more details especially critical dates and locations but I also notice one surname of a female that had married yet that same surname appeared in one of the census records as a nephew which means I may be able to get at my brick wall in a round about fashion. Checking the border crossing records led to another clue. I noticed that all individuals with the brick wall were visiting one of two basic areas. One was the known locations in Michigan but the other was Illinois, so again another clue!