Illegitimate Walls

One of the challenges of genealogy is determining which children were born to which parents, particularly if names were reused often.  One of my great-grandfathers, for example, had an elder brother who'd named one of his sons with the same name, so it took me some time to sort out out the families.

The only thing worse than trying to untangle generations of children with the same name are identifying children who were born out of wedlock.  Having a "base-born" or "bastard" child was frowned upon by both society and the Church, and so families often went to great lengths to cover up such occurrences.

One of my earliest paternal ancestors was Joseph Seddon, born sometime around 1814.  His baptism record from St. Mary the Virgin Church in Eccles, Lancashire reads: "April 10 1814, Joseph, bastard son of Sarah Seddon of Monton".  No father is indicated, and with mandatory birth registration still 23 years away I knew it wouldn't be easy to get more facts.

A few quick searches told me that Sarah's parents were Joseph Seddon and Sarah Lansdale of Eccles.  So Sarah had an illegitimate child, named him for either her father or an elder brother, and assigned him her surname.  There's little to go on here.

Five years later, she married James Partington, a cotton weaver, at St. Mary the Virgin Church in Prestwich: "18 July 1819, James Partington and Sarah Seddon were Married in this Church, by Banns, by me J. J. Kirkbank". James Partington signed the document but Sarah only marked an X with her name being written in by the priest, clearly indicating that she was illiterate.  By the 1841 England Census, Sarah Partington is living on her own in Monton with a 15-year-old son.  Records determined that by this time, her firstborn son Joseph Seddon had two half-brothers with the name Partington.

Could James Partington have been Joseph Seddon's father?  On the marriage record, Sarah Seddon is mentioned to be from Outwood, Surrey even though her baptism and census information clearly show her to be from Monton, Eccles.  This discrepancy might have been an attempt to conceal that they'd already had a child together.  Or this could have been a research error on my part and the aforementioned marriage is a different couple with the same names, but I could find no other matching records at the time.

An obvious counter-indication is the length of time between the births of Joseph and his half-brothers.  Seven years is very long between births, particularly in the 1800s.  One would think that Joseph Seddon's father would've married Sarah quickly at the behest of the families rather than disappear.  Then again, we have these possible scenarios:
1. The father abandoned both Sarah and the child for some reason. 
2. Sarah herself kept the baby's father completely off the record to protect him from her family's wrath.
3. Sarah and the child's father were closely related and therefore couldn't legally register the child together.

In any case, I was still no further ahead so next I tried a different tack.  Sometimes, parents of illegitimate children went to court after they married to legitimize their offspring so the child could inherit.  However, there seems to be no such record that I could find for Joseph Seddon.  That made it more unlikely that the father could be James Partington.

Still, some information about the father had to exist.  According to the law at the time, if a marriage was not forthcoming, the other parent could be forced to enter into a bond to pay for the subsequent maintenance of the child.  This is known as a Bastardy Bond or Indemnity Bond.  The municipality of Salford (in which the community of Eccles is included) does have bastardy documents, but they aren't available online and I highly doubt they would allow overseas borrowing of microfilms.  Short of finding a researcher in the area who would look it up for me, it was a major roadblock.

I might never find out who my ancestor's real father was.  But I remain thankful that his name has carried down the generations to someone who cares enough about the family history to go looking.

Doing One's Best

My father passed away on March 31st.

One of my happiest childhood memories of him is bacon and eggs.  On Sunday mornings he was frequently the first out of bed and he would make bacon and fried eggs for the family. (One of the few meals he could cook well.)

A favourite TV character said that we might think we're the heroes in our own story but the reality is that there are no heroes or villains, just people doing the best they can.  Dad did the best he could with what he had.  He overcame a difficult childhood and applied himself to every decision and career move that he made.

He worked on the Saint Lawrence River Seaway, something he was always proud of despite the menial job that he occupied: cutting and threading steel rods for construction.  He joined the Air Force, but after three years he recognized his limitations and chose to become a teacher instead; a career at which he excelled.

Despite his success he never forgot the people around him.  Family and friends were important.  He went above and beyond for his students, many of whom would in later years describe him as their favourite teacher.

And he would push me to do my best as well.  When I was eleven years old he took me out to the back yard one day and "introduced" me to the lawnmower, giving me precise instructions on how to operate it and how I should care for the yard.  I took that to heart: I mowed the grass regularly right up until the day before I was married.

People who have the ability to bring out the best in others are rare.  My father was one such.  He will be missed dearly.

It's Who You Know

My father's stories of his youth in the small city of Cornwall Ontario had an undercurrent of his parents' savvy in how they dealt with people.  His mother was able to get him into a French school when normally it was against the rules, because she knew someone at the school board.  And she also got him a job working as a machinist for the company that built the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the mid-1950s.

Due to a shortage of trained workers, men were brought in from elsewhere and they stayed on site or at the homes of many local folks.  One of the men who boarded with my grandparents was Peter Gauthier, who ended up being Dad's boss on the job as well as a good friend.

Early in the construction phase, a large building was erected near the Moses-Saunders dam site for storage and maintenance of machinery, as well as the fabrication of steel rebar supports.  Dad was a member of a group who were responsible for measuring and threading the rebar supports to order.  He worked at this for one and a half years until construction was completed.

Afterwards Dad's father found him a job at the Cortaulds chemical plant where he worked, to do quality testing on cellophane at a new facility next door.  In this job there were four teams that worked six-hour rotating shifts: three on, one off.  The shift schedule wreaked havoc with a young man's social life - he was unable to pursue much of a relationship or hang out with his friends.  So after less than a year Dad decided to quit and join the Royal Canadian Air Force with hopes of becoming a pilot which would provide him a steady job and income.

For almost two years he trained on various aircraft at Centralia Ontario, Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, and Gimli Manitoba.  One summer he had some leave time, and offered to drive home with one of his fellow students who was Dutch and wanted to see some of Canada.  The man found it hard to believe that it would take three days to drive from Moose Jaw to Cornwall, but Dad gave him a tour that he wouldn't soon forget.

Despite Dad's best efforts he failed an advanced flying course on jets, which disqualified him from the pilots' program.  However he retained fond memories of the experience and later in his life he often spoke of the first plane he flew, which was a yellow DHC-1 Chipmunk.

After his stint in the Air Force he returned home to Cornwall and made plans to marry and settle down, but that is another story.

A Father's Youth

"After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world." -- Philip Pullman

I really enjoy my father's stories.  Too many people don't think to listen to what their elders have to say until it's too late, and wonderful memories can be forgotten.

Dad grew up in Cornwall, Ontario: a small city of about 46,000 and one of the first incorporated communities in Upper Canada.  Until the late 1990s the main industries were cotton processing and paper manufacturing.  He and his parents lived on a dead-end street in the east end; their house was the only one on the street with a telephone because the previous owner of the house had been a company executive and could afford to install a phone.  The residents of the street had a mixture of French and English names: Rowe, Boisvenue, Marlowe.

One of the clearest things that Dad remembers about his early childhood was staying with his 17-year-old sister Joy.  When he was five, his elder brother Billy was dying of leukemia (there was no treatment then).  To enable his parents to better care for Billy, Dad went to stay with Joy at her house in Toronto and he attended Kindergarten there for most of the school year.  One of his favourite activities while in Toronto was buying a ticket for the streetcar and riding all around the city by himself - something unheard of today.  After his brother passed away he returned to Cornwall for the remainder of Kindergarten.

By then the Second World War had broken out and making a living became difficult for some.  Fortunately Dad's father had a good job at the Cortaulds chemical plant.  However Dad's uncle Alfred, who worked a farm in what is now Surrey, British Columbia, was having trouble getting help because all of the able young men were serving in the military.  Dad and his mother went to the farm for the summer, where they helped grow and harvest strawberries, beans, and various other crops.  One day they went to a local fair, where Alfred purchased as a present for Dad a tiny totem pole carved out of bone that was made by a Native American artisan.  That totem remains on Dad's bureau to this day.

My grandparents made a smart decision to enroll Dad in a French school for Grade One.  At the time, the laws governing education were still based upon those that had been set down in the BNA Act of 1867.  French-speaking people had been given many freedoms under the Act, but education was limited to Grades 1 to 12 only.  Plus French-speaking people were only permitted to attend French schools, and the English speakers could only attend English schools.  However, my grandmother happened to know someone high up in the French school - there was only one in Cornwall, known as College Classique and run by clergy - and arranged for him to go to the French school until Grade 8.  As a result he became perfectly bilingual.

The stories continue.

*This is a re-post from the original Cinquefoil Heritage blog on Blogster which has been removed by the author.

The Bugle's Echo

It is the soldier, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who gives us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag. -- Father Dennis Edward O'Brien, USMC

I had a sense of my family's military history from when I was quite young. Summer visits to my maternal grandfather's house in New Brunswick always prompted me to ask questions about the various fascinating objects that I saw there.

Ernest Sansom was born into a family of millers and woodsmen. When he was a young man his father left to take a lucrative job in British Columbia and sent money back for the family to join him. However Ernest's mother refused to go, and his father never came back. To help support the family, he lied about his age to join the military. He saw action in both World Wars, ultimately becoming a high-ranking officer.

He was proud to serve but he never spoke openly about his experiences, and my mother told me to not ask because it upset him to remember. The one story he would tell me was a poem that he recited at bedtime to lull me to sleep:

It was a grey stormy night on the coast,
The brigands great and brigands small,
We gathered around our campfire.
"Alfonso," said our captain, "tell us a story."
And Alfonso began.
It was a grey stormy night on the coast... repeat ad infinitum.

Military memorabilia of all kinds was visible in his house, from a large portrait of him wearing his uniform that hung in the great room, to a collection of ribbons and patches in an unobtrusive brass box. Just about every item had a story attached to it. For example, a stiff piece of cloth embroidered with a crown set above a crossed sword and baton was his rank insignia. Or a table lamp created from a mortar shell casing was a gift from one of the regiments he had served with.

Over time I learned that many members of his family had also served, including two of his brothers. There is a display in the military museum in Fredericton that commemorates his grandfather, and the war memorial in his hometown of Stanley shows the names of several relatives. The family military tradition continues: my brother was active in the militia, and his youngest son has been following in his footsteps.

Today his medals, dress sword, and certificates of achievement are on display at my parents' house - proud examples as well as sad reminders of the courage and sacrifice that many people made for this country.
To most people around him, he was "the General". But to me he was just "Granddad".

*This is a re-post from the original Cinquefoil Heritage blog on Blogster which has been removed by the author.