Atlantic Roots

#4 I'd Like to Meet: Ruth Elizabeth Bentley

Lizzie Bentley at about 17, Halifax, Nova Scotia

There are a lot of reasons why Ruth Elizabeth (Lizzie) Bentley is at the top of my ancestors-I-wish-I-could-meet list. Here are a few of them.

1) Although born hearing, Lizzie became deaf after an undisclosed illness when she was three. The only deaf person in her family, she somehow figured things out until, at eleven, she was sent off to the Deaf and Dumb Institution in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Miles from home, she not only figured things out some more, she found a husband (Robert G. Tupper, who was born deaf).

2) Lizzie collected photographs. In 1872, her older sister Jane presented her with an album to keep them in.

3) Lizzie and Robert raised two wonderful children. I got to meet one: my great-grandmother Bertha Evelyn Tupper, who lived to be 98 years old. Here she is at threee, but when I knew Bertha she was almost one hundred years old--and smart as a whip and deaf as a post (according to my mother). 

Bertha apparently took a ballpoint pen to her mother's album.

4) Lizzie was nice. Her father-in-law wrote of her on 14 May 1889, "Lizie is very kind I think more of her ever day". Lizzie and Robert were living with and caring for Robert's parents (Samuel Tupper and Martha Howard) and by 1891 Samuel would have some painful digestive issues and Martha had some sort of dementia. It cannot have been easy, but she did it with grace.

The household. Samuel in a beard; Robert at right

5) She lived to be 99 years old. My father, who was her great-grandson and was four when she died, remembered her teaching him an old style of sign language, spelling words into his hand.

Lizzie in her late 90s with my dad's cousin

∞) But the main, undeniable reason I want to meet Lizzie is her album. I have become the guardian of that album and, because of her, I not only can see the faces of many these lovely people, but also own a stack of photography and fashion reference books that I can get lost in. Many of the pictures are on this site, as I try to analyze them as best I can. 

Precious books

So for all of Lizzie's grit and kindness (a great combination, honestly), I would be willing to travel in time if she would just tell me who the hell all these people are.

#3 Unusual Name: Jane Theodosia Sneeston

Other than the Jane part, little Jane Theodosia Sneeson--the first child of my third-great-grandparents--has an unquestionably unusual name. I've written before about Sneestons, and how my branch of that name's line comes to a clear end, so today we will concentrate on the Theodosia part, which might just have led us to more of our Sneestons in England.

Greek for "a gift from God", there are a couple of early Christian martyrs with the name Theodosia (google them if you want to read about two very gruesome deaths), and it pops up once in a rare while, but it's never been hugely popular. Pretty though. Lots of syllables. Cries out for a snappy nickname like...Theo. Thea. Dosie? :shrug:

My Jane Theodosia Sneeston was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, on 6 Aug 1855, "on monday tow [sic] oclock morning". Whoever recorded her birth in the Family Bible wrote Thedosia-with-one-o, actually, but the name is usually spelled TheOdosia, and that's how it is recorded elsewhere in the Bible, and in her baptismal record, so we will keep both os. Her parents were William Sneeston and Mary Grace Hiscox. William's birth date is the earliest date in the Bible, which says simply that he was born in "England" on 5 Feb 1805. A missed opportunity to be specific, for sure.

So far I haven't found any record of William's crossing from England to Prince Edward Island. I find going across the pond really hard.

Sneeston Bible Records

Anyway, when she was eight weeks old, Jane was baptized at St. Paul's Church in Charlottetown by the rector, Reverend C. Lloyd. Her mother was there and served as witness. The beautiful red sandstone structure that stands as St. Paul's now is actually relatively new: it replaced Jane's church late in the nineteenth century, and unfortunately I haven't discovered any images of the old church yet. 

Hey, they spelled her name right!

At two-year intervals, the family added two more little girls to the mix: Elizabeth Sarah in 1857 and Annie Caroline in 1859 (my 2nd great-grandmother). 

But sadly, little Jane did not live long; she died at only five and half years old. I saw online somewhere that she died of the croup, but I can't confirm that. The family Bible says simply "Jane Theodosia Sneeston Died on the 25th of February 1861 Aged 5 years and 6 months". She was buried two days later in the Old Protestant Cemetery in Charlottetown¹. No marker remains. Her mother was pregnant at the time.

Poor Jane's middle name does open up a very interesting possibility for her father, William. Family Search has indexed a christening for a William Sneaston that took place on 6 Mar 1805² in Newark-Upon-Trent, in Nottingham³, just one month after our William was born. And that William Sneaston's parents? Robert and Theodosia Sneaston! Obviously more research has to be done, but it's a great place to start, isn't it?

I know so little of Jane Theodosia Sneeston's life, but she is one little person in my big tree whom I never forget. Partly because of the sad story of her nuclear family, which would go on to lose another young child, and partly because Prince Edward Island is very dear to me. But it is unquestionably also because of her beautiful, unusual name.

1. Microtech Supply and Services; Burial, Pew Rent, Wardens Accounts, Minutes; Charlottetown; 1840-1918, 1933-63; Author: Prince Edward Island Public Archives; St. Paul Anglican Church of Canada (Charlottetown); FHL Roll: 1630132

2. "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975," database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NYL3-57Z : 11 February 2018, William Sneaston, 06 Mar 1805); citing , index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 503,796, 504,069, 504,524, 504,525.

3. Robin Hood's hood!

#2 Challenge: Who was the Father of Ida Frances Pike?

SUCH a challenge: who was the father of Ida Frances Pike? Ida did not know her father, but she had an opinion: her last name should have been Billard. Was she right?

Ida Frances Pike with her new husband

To get at any sort of an answer, let's start with Ida's mother, Louisa Pike.

Louisa was the first child of Timothy Pike, a fisherman, and Mary Magdalene Huelin. She was born a little too soon after their marriage, which took place on 26 April 1866, well into Magdalene’s pregnancy. Channel Anglican Marriages Louisa arrived in August 1866. Her parents promptly had her baptized on 2 Sep 1866 at St. James Anglican Church. Channel Anglican Baptisms You'll notice we are relying here on the work of many dedicated volunteer transcribers, to whom I am very grateful. Although unindexed records for Newfoundland are making their way online, this particular district isn't up yet.

 

 

Anyway, Louisa’s parents had a steady stream of children after her. Her brother James came along in 1868, followed by Adelaide in 1870, John in 1871, Catherine Jane in 1873, Edward in 1874, Timothy in 1876, and Thomas in 1878. The children were regularly baptized and sometimes confirmed at St James Anglican Church. 

 

The children did attend school in Channel. Louisa started at the age of seven (in about 1873) and continued until she was fourteen. Even several generations after Louisa, attending school until 12-16 years of age was the norm. 1945 Census of Newfoundland, Louisa Pike In 1864, about nine years before she started, one man in Channel was the designated school teacher, indicating they did have one school when she was small. Hutchinson’s Newfoundland Directory, 1864-1865 

 

In 1875, Louisa’s father became the lighthouse keeper for Channel Head. At first, only the light house itself was built on the island, and Louisa and her family continued to live in Channel on the mainland. This was concerning to the lighthouse inspector, John Neville, who quickly noticed that the lighthouse was “in a place very difficult to access, rendering it undesirable that the light should be operated by a resident on the other side of the gut”. Honestly, that "gut" is a narrow waterway: about 150 feet across judging from Google Maps. But it must certainly have been inconvenient, especially in winter. On at least one occasion, Timothy had been unable to reach the lighthouse due to poor weather, and the light had not been lit. Neville recommended that a small house be built adjacent to the lighthouse, and a dwelling was built in 1877. History of the Channel Head Lighthouse So, at about eleven, Louisa would have moved into the little house on the rock island, and started crossing the water each day to go to school.

 

The new Channel Head Lighthouse House

 

Then, starting at the age of sixteen, Louisa began to appear in the records as a witness to weddings. With her father, she attended the wedding of William Carter and Martha Chaffe on 23 Nov 1882. On 23 Dec 1885, at the age of 19, she attended the wedding of Philip Strickland and Jane Chaffy. The very next day, she went to another wedding, this time of John Pike (who might be her cousin) and Susan Stoodley. And at 21, she attended the wedding of John Buffett and Diana Patience Pike on 4 Jan 1888. Channel Anglican Marriages

 

So, she went to a lot of weddings. Then, when Louisa was 23, she attended the wedding of Ralph Gore and Susanna Pike at St James Anglican Church. The date was 7 Jan 1890. Also in attendance was a Peter Billard (gasp!), who would have been about thirty at the time.

167 Ralph Gore 28 bachelor Fisherman Burgeo father: Matthew Gore Store Keeper

Susanna Pike 21 spinster Channel father: Loyal Pike Mariner

7 January 1890 in Church of St James, Channel

Loyal Pike, Louisa Pike, Peter Billard [witnesses]

Just nine months and 25 days¹ after that wedding, on 1 Nov 1890, Louisa gave birth to a daughter. Louisa at 24 years old was still unmarried, and Ida Frances Pike was marked as illegitimate in the records. No father is listed. Little baby Ida was baptized on 21 Nov 1890. 

 

Note: Louisa wasn’t the witness to another wedding for another five years (the next one was that of her sister, Adelaide). I wonder how she was treated after having a baby out of wedlock. Just looking through the list of babies born, it doesn't seem to be a common occurrence. It was much more common to get pregnant, get married, and THEN have a baby. Like her own parents had done. Heh. (In case you are curious, Louisa did go on to marry thirteen years later. She moved away from Channel with her husband and went on to have more children, and I think she left young Ida living in the lighthouse. I've also written more about Ida Pike and her move to Nova Scotia.)

 

That's a thin thread, I admit, from Ida to Peter. So what do we know about Peter Billard?

 

Peter was baptized on 27 Aug 1860², the son of Martin and Harriett Billard. They lived in Grand Bruit, Newfoundland, about 40 miles (65 km) east of Channel. There are some interesting things about Peter Billard.

 

According to his entry on wikitree, Peter was married, had a daughter, and was widowed, all by the young age of twenty six. Poor Peter. He was widowed four years at the time he was witness to that wedding with Louisa. And no one has found any record of him after that last wedding he witnessed with Louisa in 1890. He just disappears.

 

Note: Grand Bruit has a good story as well. Like other small and remote fishing villages, it was only accessible by boat (or, in modern times, by helicopter), and its population had been in steady decline since the 1970s. Finally the last of Grand Bruit's inhabitants were resettled in 2010, abandoning the town entirely. It must have been tremendously sad. Fortunately, the artist Michael Fantuz spent the last inhabited week there and images of his paintings, still online at this time via Wayback Machine, are heartbreaking and absolutely beautiful. Worth a look.

 

And so it was the mystery of Ida, Louisa, and Peter that got me to spit in a tube for DNA testing. I used Ancestry.com, for what that's worth, and it's been a good experience: I regularly get matches popping up. Sadly, most of those matches do not have attached trees. Some people are only in it for the ethnicity estimates, I suppose, which are pretty cool after all. But just recently a few Billards have been in the mix! No trees with Peter in them yet, but with his father, Martin. And a couple of links at the generation that would contain Peter. I have messages out, requests have been made, fingers have been crossed.

 

It looks like Ida was right about that Billard name. But which Billard? The challenge continues.

 

1. That's 298 days. A pregnancy is usually calculated to be 280 days.

2. "Newfoundland Vital Statistics, 1753-1893," database with images, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK9Y-9DLB : 11 March 2018), Peter Billard, 27 Aug 1860; citing Baptism, Grand Bruit, Burgeo, Newfoundland, Canada, Provincial Archives, St. John's.

#1 First: Genealogy Love

My first genealogy love.

 

Looks pretty plain, doesn’t it? Back in the day, my father had corresponded with the authors and mailed off enough money to cover their photocopying fees. And as a kid I was completely enthralled with this pile of paper. Names, birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, locations, over and over: just the facts. There’s a tiny bit of context in there: a brief introduction, some land info, the occasional note; but mostly just those dry facts. Somehow it all struck me as fascinating reading material: inside is listed almost every descendent of Daniel Wier and Pheobe Mumford—my fifth-great grandparents— as they left far-away Rhode Island and travelled to my home province, Nova Scotia. They were original grantees at Rawdon, where they propagated Wiers like bunnies. And they were ALL related to ME. Over the years I read it from front to back many many times. 

 

One thing did irk me a little: I wasn’t in this publication at all. Our particular branch ended with my grandfather. Kids younger than me were in there—presumably more closely related to the authors—but my little nuclear family didn’t exist. So I wrote us in. I also wanted to know what else was missing. What were these people like? How did they live? Were they nice? Were any of them criminals?

 

This was a great way to connect with my father, who loved history and obsessed over his paternal line. He collected details of name origins and crests and even found a tartan. Finding me a willing assistant, we tromped through (my first) overgrown graveyards and read (my first) pale photocopies of wills from the Nova Scotia Archives. We even took a trip to Narragansett, Rhode Island, to see what remained of the colonial neighborhood. 

 

 

And that book, those romps, those photocopies, and most especially my father, made sure that first love stuck.