St Patrick's District 3 had some interesting little morsels in it, as well as too many people (see previous blog).
First, there was John Leballeter, a 37-year old painter from Jersey in the Channel Islands, his wife and five children who were living on Lippincott Street. Well, they were until Sunday 13 January 1861, the day of census night. There was a note on the form that their house burnt down that day. There was nothing to say that they were in temporary accommodation elsewhere. I hope they got out safely.
Then, I met Thomas Carfrae--again. I have occasionally been doing a spot of transcripion on the Toronto Trust Burials Project which is digitizing the records of a number of Toronto cemeteries including Potter's Field and The Necropolis. When Potter's Field opened in 1829 or 1830 the first person to bury a relative was Thomas Carfrae. Between then and 1834 he buried several more, possibly two wives, several children and his mother. I began to wish he had spent more on food and less on burials. Recently I found myself looking at the early days of the Necropolis in 1854. Mrs Carfrae was arranging for the family to be moved from the Potter's Field to the new cemetery! My census find was a boilermaker in his early 40s, born in Scotland, with a wife and three children aged between 14 and 9, living on Spadina. Was he a son of the original Thomas Carfrae, I wonder.
Then there was the household of Patrick Cummins, "sergeant-major of police" living in the police house on Queen Street West. The position of each member of the family was listed in the Occupations column. There was a wife, two little daughters, another woman of 52 whose position I couldn't quite read, and his police sergeant, David Smith. On the right-hand page was a note to say that Patrick Cummins and David Smith were actually absent and on duty the night of the census, and Annastasia Summers wasn't in the house either. She was a prisoner in custody at the police station. Has anyone been looking for Annastasia Summers?
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Monday, 1 February 2010
Counting St Patrick's People
The first three districts of St Patrick’s Ward have now been transcribed and I’ve spent the day verifying my counts of both people and households and sorting out errors, not all of which have been mine I am glad to say.
The enumeration districts within the ward are strips which stretch all the way from
As I transcribed District 3 I noticed families that I thought I had seen before and when I finished I decided to check just how many duplications there were. By sorting the families alphabetically I was able to spot 19 families totalling 95 people who had been enumerated twice. The households were not absolutely identical. There were variations in spelling and in age, but Mr McDole and Mr McFowl had wives and children with identical names and ages, and what district is going to hold two 40-year-old Caleb Butts, each with six children.
How could these people have been transcribed twice? Obviously the enumerator was not being careful. For the most part the streets were named on the forms, but all the houses on one street did not appear one after the other. It was a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and back again. Also, the enumerator had re-written a great many forms—the writing was consistent from one form to the next for about the last hundred or so households. Either the enumerator was being paid by the head and intentionally expanded the population in order to gain more for his work, or he forgot to throw away the originals when he decided a number of census forms needed rewriting.
All of the duplications have been noted as part of my transcription. But I would have preferred District 3 with only 395 houses containing 2023 people in the first place.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Hidden Worthies in St Patrick's Ward
The snow has cleared and I am gradually getting a better grip on the new computer. The transcribing progress on St Patrick's Ward has picked up. Not only have I been able to get to the FHC for the last three sessions, but Ancestry has finally made the ward available on their website. Some of the folios are so pale that it takes both their transcription and mine to make any sense out of what was originally written down.
I am now working on District 3, a huge area which starts at Spadina and progresses west. I haven't seen Hope Street (which turned into Manning Avenue), so either it is in District 4 or in the 150 folios of District 3 that I have yet to see. On the south-north axis, all the districts started at Queen Street West and stretched all the way up to Bloor, but there weren't many people living north of College Street.
While transcribing the other day I came across a civil engineer named William Armstrong. He had a wife and 7 children and 3 boarders. He lived on Queen Street and he had named his house Toronto Priory. I had come across the name of the house before in Caverhill's Directory, along with his business address at 46 King Street East. At that point bells began to ring. One of Mr Armstrong's boarders was D Beere, another civil engineer. Armstrong, Beere & Hime were the photographers who took the series of photographs from the roof of Rossin House (later the Prince George Hotel) in 1856.
The facts coming together from the census and both city directories (Mitchell placed Toronto Priory between Vanauley and Esther Streets) weren't enough for me. I had to find another reference to William Armstrong. Sadly, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography did not see fit to mention him, nor did Eric Arthur's book, Toronto, No Mean City. Time to do a search in Google where I found Greater Toronto Archives to have a special section on the firm at www.toronto.ca/archives/earliest_4_whowere.htm . I am still not clear about Armstrong and Beere's contributions to civil engineering, but their contribution to memorializing 19th century Toronto through photography was truly worthwhile.
I am now working on District 3, a huge area which starts at Spadina and progresses west. I haven't seen Hope Street (which turned into Manning Avenue), so either it is in District 4 or in the 150 folios of District 3 that I have yet to see. On the south-north axis, all the districts started at Queen Street West and stretched all the way up to Bloor, but there weren't many people living north of College Street.
While transcribing the other day I came across a civil engineer named William Armstrong. He had a wife and 7 children and 3 boarders. He lived on Queen Street and he had named his house Toronto Priory. I had come across the name of the house before in Caverhill's Directory, along with his business address at 46 King Street East. At that point bells began to ring. One of Mr Armstrong's boarders was D Beere, another civil engineer. Armstrong, Beere & Hime were the photographers who took the series of photographs from the roof of Rossin House (later the Prince George Hotel) in 1856.
The facts coming together from the census and both city directories (Mitchell placed Toronto Priory between Vanauley and Esther Streets) weren't enough for me. I had to find another reference to William Armstrong. Sadly, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography did not see fit to mention him, nor did Eric Arthur's book, Toronto, No Mean City. Time to do a search in Google where I found Greater Toronto Archives to have a special section on the firm at www.toronto.ca/archives/earliest_4_whowere.htm . I am still not clear about Armstrong and Beere's contributions to civil engineering, but their contribution to memorializing 19th century Toronto through photography was truly worthwhile.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
A New Year with Changes
I just caught a glance at my signature photo as I came to write this note.
The desk is the same, the sweater was the one I was wearing yesterday, but the lamp is gone and, the really big thing, the computer is different. For Christmas my son gave me a new huge machine which he put together himself. Two disk drives, two DVD drives, Windows 7, and masses of memory into which I can put the whole of the Toronto census and all the links to other information about the people I find there. The only thing it didn't come equipped with was more human brain empowerment to figure out how to move all my data and photographs from the old machine. Gradually I am figuring things out. Yesterday I managed to install the two extra buttons on my mouse, the ones titled "copy" and "paste" which are a vast improvement on ctrl+c and ctrl+v. The mouse is long out of date and finding the driver online took an age. Today the printer must get installed. . . .
You may have heard that the UK has been swaddled in snow. We didn't have a white Christmas (i.e., it didn't snow on Christmas Day), but we did have two big snowfalls in the week before and more since the New Year. It is snowing as I write and two lads off school because of it have just knocked on our door offering to clear our drive. They were armed with homemade snow shovels--not the garden spades that most of us use. The past week has also been very cold and only main roads are clear to drive on.
The transcribing of St Patrick's Ward has been limited by the weather. We have lost three sessions at LDS so far and the one tomorrow will probably be cancelled too. I hear a thaw is on the way for which I am thankful. With the cold weather outside and the powerful fans of the new computer blowing cold air through the keyhole of my desk, I have had to wrap my legs in a duvet.
The 1861 census was taken on the night of 13th January 1861, 149 years ago tonight. There were people living on the wharves at the bottom of St Lawrence Ward! I hope they managed to get a good fire going without burning their shanties down.
The desk is the same, the sweater was the one I was wearing yesterday, but the lamp is gone and, the really big thing, the computer is different. For Christmas my son gave me a new huge machine which he put together himself. Two disk drives, two DVD drives, Windows 7, and masses of memory into which I can put the whole of the Toronto census and all the links to other information about the people I find there. The only thing it didn't come equipped with was more human brain empowerment to figure out how to move all my data and photographs from the old machine. Gradually I am figuring things out. Yesterday I managed to install the two extra buttons on my mouse, the ones titled "copy" and "paste" which are a vast improvement on ctrl+c and ctrl+v. The mouse is long out of date and finding the driver online took an age. Today the printer must get installed. . . .
You may have heard that the UK has been swaddled in snow. We didn't have a white Christmas (i.e., it didn't snow on Christmas Day), but we did have two big snowfalls in the week before and more since the New Year. It is snowing as I write and two lads off school because of it have just knocked on our door offering to clear our drive. They were armed with homemade snow shovels--not the garden spades that most of us use. The past week has also been very cold and only main roads are clear to drive on.
The transcribing of St Patrick's Ward has been limited by the weather. We have lost three sessions at LDS so far and the one tomorrow will probably be cancelled too. I hear a thaw is on the way for which I am thankful. With the cold weather outside and the powerful fans of the new computer blowing cold air through the keyhole of my desk, I have had to wrap my legs in a duvet.
The 1861 census was taken on the night of 13th January 1861, 149 years ago tonight. There were people living on the wharves at the bottom of St Lawrence Ward! I hope they managed to get a good fire going without burning their shanties down.
Thursday, 24 December 2009
MC--HNY
The pudding is made, the stuffing is ready to put in the turkey, the presents are all wrapped, and I haven't done any census transcription since Monday. It's time to say
too.
MERRY CHRISTMAS
to everyone and a
HAPPY NEW YEAR
too.
Sunday, 13 December 2009
I can't read that
Invisible
UnreadableAs transcription goes on I have decided that the word "illegible" can often cover too wide a variety of problems. For this reason I find myself using one of four different words, each of which will describe the specific situation more distinctly.
Unreadable. This usually relates to the quality of the writing or the writing instrument or the paper which has made it impossible for the microfilming camera to pick up a smooth image. A copperplate nib might be responsible, so might ink thickened through lack of use, or paper exposed to damp before or after it has been written on.
Invisible. This infers that the writing is so pale that it is impossible to see anything at all. Occasionally one can pick up a given name or initial. This most often occurs in the Names and Occupation columns. Often the ages and sexes are visible, so that the transcriber can tell how many people will be missed and whether it was a straightforward family or a boarding house. These entries were probably made in pencil, although some are so bad that I wonder if a dirty nail was used instead. Did the enumerators of St John's and St Patrick's have an arrangement that they would rub out families' names if they were slipped 50 cents or a dollar? Many other families have had their entries crossed out and rewritten when there appears to be nothing wrong with the original.
Unrecognizable. This usually refers to birthplaces, particularly where the householder has written a specific place in Ireland, England or Scotland which I just can't make out. If he has messed up the initial letter there is no point in staring at a gazetteer to solve the problem.
Queried. I use this when I have made an attempt at reading a name but am not sure I am right. The word is scattered liberally over my transcription. Anyone is welcome to have another go.
Unreadable. This usually relates to the quality of the writing or the writing instrument or the paper which has made it impossible for the microfilming camera to pick up a smooth image. A copperplate nib might be responsible, so might ink thickened through lack of use, or paper exposed to damp before or after it has been written on.
Invisible. This infers that the writing is so pale that it is impossible to see anything at all. Occasionally one can pick up a given name or initial. This most often occurs in the Names and Occupation columns. Often the ages and sexes are visible, so that the transcriber can tell how many people will be missed and whether it was a straightforward family or a boarding house. These entries were probably made in pencil, although some are so bad that I wonder if a dirty nail was used instead. Did the enumerators of St John's and St Patrick's have an arrangement that they would rub out families' names if they were slipped 50 cents or a dollar? Many other families have had their entries crossed out and rewritten when there appears to be nothing wrong with the original.
Unrecognizable. This usually refers to birthplaces, particularly where the householder has written a specific place in Ireland, England or Scotland which I just can't make out. If he has messed up the initial letter there is no point in staring at a gazetteer to solve the problem.
Queried. I use this when I have made an attempt at reading a name but am not sure I am right. The word is scattered liberally over my transcription. Anyone is welcome to have another go.
Thursday, 10 December 2009
Planning Ahead
This afternoon, after raising my count of households photographed in St Patrick's to 130, I decided to inspect the two films borrowed from the LDS to see just what was covered by both of them.
The first film continues through St Patrick's for 979 folios or households. The last district is number four which has barely started at the end of the first film and continues on into the second film for a total of 164 folios. The whole ward comprises 1101 households.
The rest of the relatively small second film contains the various institutions in and around Toronto which had their own populations. These are not listed in households but on pages of 50 inhabitants, rather like the rural township census forms.
I have always been curious as to the actual institutions which formed this group. Here they are, together with the number of pages it took to list their "inmates". The inmates included everyone on the premises, even those in charge of the institution.
Trinity College, Queen Street West, St Patrick's Ward
Toronto University buildings, Queen's Park, St Patrick's Ward
Knox College, Grosvenor Street, St John's Ward
St Michael's College, St Joseph's Street, St John's Ward
House of Providence, Power Street, St David's Ward
House of Industry, Edward Street, St John's Ward
Orphan's Home, St Patrick's Ward
Boys' Home, King Street East, St James's Ward (The Girls' Home was listed in with St James's Ward itself.)
St Mary's Convent, St Joseph's Street, St John's Ward
The Peninsula or The Island, St George's Ward
Provincial Lunatic Asylum, part one, St Andrew's Ward
Provincial Lunatic Asylum, part two, St Andrew's Ward
Toronto General Hospital, St David's Ward
Toronto Jail
Toronto Garrison, St George's Ward
Old Fort York, St George's Ward
So, "The Pensinsula" was an "institution". Who would have thought it? It is a part of Toronto rather dear to my heart as I would have been included on its 1941 census, had that census happened. In 1861 the inhabitants included David Ward and his large family, members of the Hanlan family, and a few others.
A learning institution I was expecting to find but didn't was Upper Canada College. Some pupils were boarding with masters on the grounds in St George's Ward proper, but there were no dormitories such as those ususally described in 19th century private schools. I can only presume that the term had not started on January 14th and most pupils were still at home.
I was surprised that it took 10 pages to cover the Toronto Garrison. Admittedly this included all the families in married quarters, but that was still a lot of British soldiers stationed 3000 miles from home in what was to all extents peacetime (save for internal problems across the American border, of course).
I should finish St Patrick's District One next week, and there is still one more session available in the library before Christmas. I think I will work on some of the institutions that day rather than leave them all to the end.
The first film continues through St Patrick's for 979 folios or households. The last district is number four which has barely started at the end of the first film and continues on into the second film for a total of 164 folios. The whole ward comprises 1101 households.
The rest of the relatively small second film contains the various institutions in and around Toronto which had their own populations. These are not listed in households but on pages of 50 inhabitants, rather like the rural township census forms.
I have always been curious as to the actual institutions which formed this group. Here they are, together with the number of pages it took to list their "inmates". The inmates included everyone on the premises, even those in charge of the institution.
Trinity College, Queen Street West, St Patrick's Ward
Toronto University buildings, Queen's Park, St Patrick's Ward
Knox College, Grosvenor Street, St John's Ward
St Michael's College, St Joseph's Street, St John's Ward
House of Providence, Power Street, St David's Ward
House of Industry, Edward Street, St John's Ward
Orphan's Home, St Patrick's Ward
Boys' Home, King Street East, St James's Ward (The Girls' Home was listed in with St James's Ward itself.)
St Mary's Convent, St Joseph's Street, St John's Ward
The Peninsula or The Island, St George's Ward
Provincial Lunatic Asylum, part one, St Andrew's Ward
Provincial Lunatic Asylum, part two, St Andrew's Ward
Toronto General Hospital, St David's Ward
Toronto Jail
Toronto Garrison, St George's Ward
Old Fort York, St George's Ward
So, "The Pensinsula" was an "institution". Who would have thought it? It is a part of Toronto rather dear to my heart as I would have been included on its 1941 census, had that census happened. In 1861 the inhabitants included David Ward and his large family, members of the Hanlan family, and a few others.
A learning institution I was expecting to find but didn't was Upper Canada College. Some pupils were boarding with masters on the grounds in St George's Ward proper, but there were no dormitories such as those ususally described in 19th century private schools. I can only presume that the term had not started on January 14th and most pupils were still at home.
I was surprised that it took 10 pages to cover the Toronto Garrison. Admittedly this included all the families in married quarters, but that was still a lot of British soldiers stationed 3000 miles from home in what was to all extents peacetime (save for internal problems across the American border, of course).
I should finish St Patrick's District One next week, and there is still one more session available in the library before Christmas. I think I will work on some of the institutions that day rather than leave them all to the end.
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