Update -Cavan Ontario

I see that it’s not going to be easy to keep this blog updated.  After a long active day I’m really tired.  So I’ll post some photos with comments from yesterday and some from today.  I hope you enjoy them.  

Cavan is where William Preston Davis lived with the Tinney family.

St John’s Church is the local church in Ida, North of Cavan on the #10.

Grave marker for the Tinney family at St. John's Church.

Above is the St. John’s Anglican Church in the town of Ida.  It is located about 3 km from the Tinney house in Cavan.  Of course back then they would have traveled the dirt road in a horse and buggy, I'm sure it was the most stylish buggy with the best workmanship from my WM Tinney and Sons. Because WP lived with the Tinney family it is most likely he went to church and Sunday school here. 

Photo credit Millbrook and Cavan Historical Society. https://millbrookcavanhs.org/

This is a photo of the Tinney family that WP lived with.  William and Ann with their sons.  The photo is from a book called Tinney Tales by Glenda Tinney, 1998 and belongs to Margaret Tinney. 

Here is another photo of William and Ann Tinney.

This is the Tinney Carriage shop in the late 1800’s. WP worked here around this time. Sorry I can’t turn the photo.  Photo credit to Tinney Tales book.

This is the William Tinney house in Cavan as it looks today. WP lived there from 1899-1903.

This is the front of the house.

This house was built for Annie Tinney, daughter of William and Ann Tinney.  It is currently being renovated.

Across the street and a few houses down is another brick Tinney house  which is now an art studio and gallery.  This is where Margaret Tinney’s father was born.

You can see that they were a very prominent family in Cavan.

Across the street from Annie’s old home is an art gallery called Galerie Q http://www.galerie-q.com/ they have some beautiful art there.  I mention it because the staff person Christine was so very nice.  We talked about town history and family history.  Thanks for taking the time to chat with me.

Kitttycorner from Annie’s house is where the blacksmith shop was.  It’s now a gas station.

When I left Cavan I headed for Millbrook.

That post will have to wait till tomorrow.  I’m getting up early to go to church.  St. John’s in Ida, then over to Millbrook for church events.

Shout out to my friend Kathleen Barr who let me swim in her pool and relax in her hot tub after feeding me a great meal! 

Millbrook Ontario

Sometimes everything just falls into place.  That is what happened with my Millbrook research. I helped out Norma White Johnston with some of her family history back in 2013.  Her ancestor is also a British Home Child (BHC).  I saw her post on Facebook and noticed she said she came from Millbrook. Millbrook is where WP lived when he came to Canada as a BHC.He lived and worked for two families -Tinney and Campbell.Norma happened to know one of the descendants of the Tinney family, Margaret, and Thomas Campbell was Norma’s Godparent!It all fell into place.  We met at the Millbrook and Cavan Historical Society office in Millbrook: Norma and her friend Marilynne, Margaret Tinney, and Kim McLeod, the society archivist.There was lots of reminiscing and story telling as they all grew up in the area.  Janice with Kim, looking at a book of old photos.The group of us at the historical society.
Janice and Margaret Tinney with her Tinney Tales family history book.
Janice and Norma; glad to finally meet you in person!Tomorrow I will post some treasures that we dug up.  It was a very long and exciting day.

William Preston Davis-intro

Today I focused on my paternal grandfather William Preston Davis (WP).I’ll give you a bit of a background on him before posting about my day. 

He was born 13 April,1884 in Tibberton, Worcestershire, England to John Davis and Eliza Preston.  John died on WP’s 6th birthday 1890.  His mom had just had a baby and had 4 other boys to take care of.  Although her mother-in-law moved in to help, it was still too much.  Eventually WP was sent to the the Royal Albert Orphanage in Worcester.  He went in just before his 8th birthday and stayed until his 15th birthday when he was discharged to ‘emmegrate to Canada  on the SS Dominion under the care of Rev. Robert Wallace of Marchmount House, Belleville, Ontario.  Wallace operated under Dr. Bernardo’s British Home Child program which sent over 100,000 poor and orphaned children to Canada. September 28th has been declared at British Home Child Day in Canada.

Toronto Reference Library

Most of the day I spent at TRL.  I got a visitor library card which allowed me to order books from Stacks, have them delivered to the 5th floor viewing room, and use the computers.

 I had about 10 books including The Snedden Saga, This Green and Pleasant Land ( Cavan and Millbrook), 1938-42 city directories for Windsor, A walking tour of Millbrook. 

I was allowed to take photos of the pages as long as the flash didn’t go off.    

I didn’t find anything too exciting but took lots of photos for further investigation.  I’ll go back tomorrow for one more photo Millbrook main street from the late 1890’s.  Taken the same era when my grandpa may have walked down the street.

I’ll just point out one more friendly tidbit about TO.  I stopped at Starbucks for a PSL.  The staff there were more engaging than I’ve ever experienced.  They weren’t that busy so maybe they just had more time. They didn’t just say ‘hi how are you’ and not expect a reply they said ‘do anything exciting today so far?’ Then listened and commented.  It was a pleasure and set a nice time for my day.  

My Nephew Ryan and his lovely wife Monica and I enjoyed some good food and conversation at Trattoria Mercatto this evening.  Sorry I forgot to get a photo. 

All in all a good day.

UofT law school

This one is for you David.

TO transit

The bus driver was overly helpful.  He stopped and picked me up tonight mid-stop because I waved my ticket at him.  Then I didn’t have the correct ticket (Ryan you were right about that) but the driver said never mind.  Then he asked where I was going, wrote the street name down and dropped me off between stops, he waved after I got out and wished me a safe walk.  10 gold stars for Toronto transit!

A start at UCA

The archivists at the United Church Archives were very helpful.  The archive at 40 Oak street has a small viewing room in the basement.  The rest of the building was bubbling with activity.  They have a community garden, a flower garden with benches, and inside various programs including a free lunch program that is buzzing with people.  

Upstairs is a contrast to the quiet Archives in the basement.

When you get to the archive you sign in, state your research objective, and tuck your belongings in a locker.  The Archivest brought out some records that were not date restricted and some that we had to look at together because of privacy laws. I looked through the communion and other registries and found one interesting entry which I’m going to follow up on at the Reference Library on Yonge street.  We didn’t find anything in the restricted books but there were, in some cases, 10 years  of documents missing.  So the doc I’m looking for could just be in those missing years.  

Off to the reference library.

United Church Archives, Toronto

Beautiful morning

My Airbnb has a lovely back yard where I’m enjoying by breakfast.

Now off to the United Church Archives for a bit of research on church records.

Arrived in Toronto

Safe and sound, but a bit tired, in Toronto. My first impressions of the city are good.  I saw more old churches than Starbucks and cannabis shops, which would be the opposite in Vancouver.  

Since I didn’t get to my Airbnb until almost 5:30 and I hadn’t eaten much, I decided to go out for supper then head to the Toronto Public Reference Library.  

My BnB host recommended Harvest Kitchen; the food and quiet cozy atmosphere were just what I wanted.  The Southern North American Bowl was tasty and filling.   My sweet waitress, who took the time to listen about BHC, posed for a photo when I told her I was taking a pic for my blog.

Every person who engages with me is an opportunity to talk about British Home Children BHC.  I’m not surprised that only my BnB host had heard of BHC, we do a poor job of educating our children about history.  I was, however, surprised that the librarian who helped me had never heard of BHC.  Well, now she knows a bit.  

It’s very easy to get to the Toronto Public Reference Library from my BnB, just a 30 min walk on Bloor St. The library is a large multi-level building with an open floor plan. It’s  a bit intimidating and I asked for help several times.  It helped to start with ‘this is my first visit’.  The librarians were very helpful considering it was the end of the day. 

I had just enough time to order some books and have them delivered to the reading room before the library closed.  They will keep them there for me for 24 hrs, so I will be back tomorrow. 

Getting Ready for my Research Trip to Ontario

On Wednesday, September 18th, 2019, I’m headed to Ontario for a family history research trip.  My goal is to find more information about my grandparents’ life in Ontario as British Home Children (BHC).
Now, I'm working on making sure I have everything I need for a successful trip.

Don't know what a BHC is?  Take a look at this web page: https://www.britishhomechildren.com/
The British Home Children Advocacy & Research Association is Canada's leading organization for BHC in Canada.

William Preston Davis and Maggie Jane Kerr were my grandparents.  I'll call William WP in most posts.

Follow along and please say Hi in the comment section.