Month: January 2015

It’s hard enough to trace my husband’s Smith ancestors, without running into the likes of Margaret McPhee.

Margaret is my husband’s great-great grandmother and like many women, she first shows up in a genealogy search as the wife of the head of a household, in this case the wonderfully named John Duff Smith. Her maiden name of course doesn’t appear on the census – which is the first way that women get lost in history. I finally found her last name on her son’s marriage record – spelled “McFee,” which turned out to be incorrect. As I learned, there are at least three variations on the spelling of that name: McFee, McFie, and McPhee, not to mention the possibility of a Mac prefix, which doubles the fun. So just for starters, if you search for Margaret McFee in the Scotland Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950, you get 1,763 hits. How to find the correct Margaret?

I can trace her life in Canada quite easily, from 1861 to 1901 through her husband’s household on the census. But what about before she tied herself to John Duff and came to Canada?

Again, John Duff came to the rescue because by searching his name and her first name, I found their marriage record from 1854. She’s recorded as Mcfee this time, living in Kingarth Parish, County Bute. Thinking she might have grown up there, I narrowed my original search of the births and baptisms with this location, and got 425 hits.

I needed another way to home in on her, so returned to the census to see what other information she might have reported that would lead me to her. And I found the second way that women get lost in history: they lie about their age. Margaret’s birth year, based on her reported age on five Canadian census reports, ranged from 1828 to 1830. So add that to the variables Margaret/Margret/Margt and McFee/McFie /McPhee and I was starting to despair that I’d ever find the right Margaret in Scotland.

Other family trees on Ancestry were no help. Amateur genealogists are notorious for simply copying someone else’s sloppy research. I found one tree with two source records for her, census records that even at first glance were two completely different families.

Luckily the 1901 Canadian census asked for specific birth dates and she reported May 6, 1828. Figuring she would fudge the year but not likely the day, I searched the Scotland birth records again and found her. Margaret McPhee, born May 6, 1826. (Sorry, Margaret, for revealing your true age.)

Margaret grew up not in Kingarth, but in Saddell and Skipness Parish, in County Argyll, Scotland, which is on the east side of the Kintyre Peninsula, the place made famous by Paul McCartney’s “Mull of Kintyre.” By age 15 she was working as a domestic servant for a neighbour, but 10 years later was back at home and had taken up dressmaking. She and John Duff came to Canada sometime between their marriage in 1854 and the 1861 Canadian census. In 1861 they were in York (Toronto) where he worked as a porter, and she, as a married woman reported on the census, had an occupation of “none.” This is the third and probably most effective way that women’s lives get lost in history. Before marriage, they might have a recorded occupation, giving us a hint as to their abilities and opportunities. After marriage, they have “none” and so their personalities and contributions largely vanish.

Margaret McPhee Smith: Scottish immigrant, Muskoka pioneer, farmwoman for over three decades on a hardscrabble acreage on the Canadian Shield, ancestor. And like so many other women who lived full and sometimes fascinating lives, far more frustratingly unknown than any male.