I revisited the Simcoe County Archives to continue my search for the first owner of our house. This time, I brought the Land Registry records that I found last fall, which contain the lot number and the blurry name of what Kyle and I read as "John A. McDonald." You will recall from previous blog posts that we were a little sceptical that that was actually his name, but with nothing else to go on, I approached the lady at the front desk of the Archives and told her with as much fake confidence as I could muster that I was looking for information on John A. McDonald of Stayner. If she thought it was funny, she didn't show it, and took me directly into a back room where an old microfilm machine was located. She brought out the tax assessment microfilm for 1896 and loaded the machine for me. If you ever find yourself at the Archives, I hope that you have the pleasure of being assisted by this lady; she was so knowledgable and had this very gentle, primary school teacher way about her that made me feel like I could ask her for help with anything, even about how to find John A. McDonald. After the Archives lady gave me a refresher on the microfilm machine, she scrolled forward to the Stayner records and I got to work. I scanned through the names, paying close attention to the street names. Luckily, I did not have to go far at all on the reel before I found John A. McDonald! Our squinty-eyed judgment of the land registry document was right after all! I was so excited and surprised that I ended up going out to the desk to tell the lady that I had found my guy. She responded with equal enthusiasm, though I'm not sure if she was just humouring me. The tax assessments include information about a land owner's address, property size and value, the number of people living on the land, the owner's age, and his or her profession. Speaking of profession, I noticed, not surprisingly, that most owners in Stayner were farmers or labourers; however there were some funny professions too. Some men stated their profession as "Gentleman"-- what did that involve?!-- and the few women who were listed in the assessment were either "W" for Widow, or Spinster, which I find to be a little unkind. After locating John's name in the assessment, I learned that he was 22 years old when he took ownership at 212, which was called Lot D of North Sunnidale at that time. In 1896, you had to be 21 years old to be a landowner, so John A. McDonald was presumably very keen to be in control of his life and investments and sought his own property right away. The 212 property was worth $275.00 at that time, and had a dwelling on it but no barn. John's profession was Brick-maker. According to these records, he was not married and had no children. Before leaving the Archives, I looked at the 1901 microfilm, which could have told me if John A. McDonald would be in the 1901 census reports for 212. Unfortunately he was not, which means that he moved before the census was completed. My next place to look will be the online archives and census reports. I am still going to look at the 1901 census, but for information on the second owner of 212, which was Angus Buie. I know, from artifacts found during the renovations, that Angus had a family, so I am curious to learn more about them. It is crazy how old-school it is at the Simcoe County Archives. When I asked if there were plans to convert the old microfilm to online documents, the Archives lady said that, because of the low government funding of the museum and archiving, she doesn't foresee it happening for a long time.
While the messy, sometimes indecipherable writing on the microfilms require a magnifying glass and patience, I have to admit that it was kind of fun using such an archaic machine and means of research. Sometimes, there are perks to being forced to slow down and really take in the details. *NOTE: Check out the HISTORY/ RESEARCH page of my blog (click on the sub heading in the top right corner), for links to the Simcoe County Archives and other useful researching sites.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About MeKyle and I just became new homeowners. The house we purchased is not what one would classify as "move in ready"; in fact, it is quite the opposite. Built at the turn of the 20th century, our Victorian style house is both beautiful and terrifying in its ancient status and will be a project in renovation. This is a documentation of our triumphs and lessons learned, as we deconstruct and reconstruct this house. The end result? A space that we can proudly say we created. Archives
December 2016
Categories |