TRACKING MARGARET McPHEE – OR: How Women Get Lost in History

ByLee Ann

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.

WHERE I BELONG

ByLee Ann

I just became a member of The Pennsylvania German Folklore Society of Ontario – Chapter of the Twenty. This very active group of historians and genealogists are the custodians of historical Mennonite records, including much from my Fretz and Honsberger ancestors.

This is not a culture I strongly identify with, since it comes from long-ago branches of my family tree. Still, it is certainly a group to which I belong, happily, if somewhat loosely.

I also recently found I have a connection to one of Niagara’s “royal” families. My five-times great-grandmother was the remarkable Mary Secord, sister of James Secord, whose son was the husband of the famous Laura, heroine of the War of 1812. A tenuous connection, but still. Another group to which I belong, and I’m delighted with this connection too.

Isn’t this a big part of genealogy research – finding where you belong, which people and what cultures you are part of? What these two recent discoveries have me thinking about – once again – is identity. What I’ve uncovered in my father’s family history has further cemented my already strong sense of myself as a Canadian: after all, we’ve been in the country since 1784! It’s also strengthened my sense of connection with Niagara. Not only did I grow up there, but so did about 11 generations of my father’s family, arriving as some of the first white settlers of the region.

Some of the discoveries we make as genealogists resonate more strongly than others. But even thin links to other cultures or family lines delight and enrich us.

WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?

ByLee Ann

My friend Lynn recently posted these questions triggered by one of her children’s school projects about family history. Are North Americans ever “from” here? How long do your ancestors have to have been from here before you can just say, “my mother’s relatives came from Canada”?

This got me thinking… and I think we self-identify largely by the place of our birth and upbringing. So, like Joe on the old beer commercial: I. am. Canadian.

But where are my people from? What are the cultures that influence my history? Let’s have a quick look at the lineage:

Parents:

  • Canada, USA

Grandparents:

  • Canada, Canada / USA, Hungary

Great-grandparents:

  • Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada
  • USA, USA, Hungary, Hungary

Great-great grandparents:

  • Germany, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada
  • USA, Germany, Ireland, England, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary, Hungary

If I stop here, I’m back to people who were born in the early 1800s. Even at this point in the ancestry, I’m fifth generation Canadian on my father’s side, with a dollop of German.

Maybe that’s why I identify so strongly as a Canadian, culturally and historically. Also, nothing from my mother’s side overshadows this. Her relatives came from Hungary and the USA for the most part, but my grandfather denied his Hungarian ancestry all his life, so there was no influence there. And although my childhood rang with my parents’ assertion that everything is better in the USA – maybe stemming from my mother’s citizenship and maybe from living in the border town of Niagara Falls – I never did buy into that idea.

I think cultural influences have to be actively “handed down”. You can’t feel an affinity with a country just because it’s on your ancestral chart. You need the food, the songs, the values to be part of your upbringing. Even then, some influences you absorb, and others (like my parents’ feelings about America) you choose not to adopt.

In my case, I feel less of an affinity to culture as defined by countries as I do with some of the values and inclinations of my ancestors themselves. Examples: I feel a stronger allegiance to the pacifist stance of my Mennonite ancestors than to any of my soldier ancestors who fought with distinction on the Plains of Abraham, with Niagara’s famous Butlers Rangers, in the war of 1812, and the two World Wars. And as I’ve asserted proudly before, I’m sure I’ve got dirt in my DNA, imprinted from generations of farmers in Niagara.

So: I say my father’s relatives came from Canada and my mother’s from the USA and Hungary.

And regardless of where my relatives came from, and how long ago they arrived, I. am. Canadian.

How about you?

THE INTERNET: Making Connections to the Past and the Present

ByLee Ann

Last week three family members contacted me about genealogy. My aunt from the Eckhardt side wrote a lovely note on a gorgeous card, thanking me for all the research I’ve been doing. “We have been very lacking in such information!” she said.

Then my cousin Tim – a Granger connection – sent a message via my website. He wanted to  alert me to a newly-translated book about a couple of Hungarian adventurers who rode motorcycles around the world during the ’20s and ’30s. I hear from Tim periodically since the time we met in 2004, after our mutual cousin Susan found me on an online genealogy forum during my research for Strength Within: The Granger Chronicles. Susan initiated the connection by sending me a message saying, “I think we may be cousins.”

Land petition (1795) by my 4-times great-grandfather Benjamin Wilcox, provided by my cousin Jim

Last week, a “new” cousin Jim contacted me via email. He had stumbled upon this blog and found that we are both researching the Wilcox family and that we are even further connected via the Eckhardt line. It’s always a delight to find someone in the family who’s as passionate as I am about all this! Of course Jim and I have each taken a slightly different tack on digging for the ancestors, and by sharing, we both gain new resources and insights.

One of the biggest thrills of genealogy research is making connections. Connections to ancestors, to past ways of life, to ancestral countries and cultures… and also to people in the family, some you know and some you get to “meet”, often thanks to online connections.

The internet: it’s much more than a genealogical tool for data collection! 

BLOG OUT LOUD at the Ottawa International Writers Festival

ByLee Ann

Blog Out Loud Ottawa (BOLO) is the brainchild of my friend, web designer, and fellow writer and blogger Lynn Jatania. For the past three years she’s invited me to sit on the judging panel for this event, which showcases the best of Ottawa’s blog posts and bloggers.

The first time I attended BOLO, about five years ago, I had just begun to write a blog and went out to see what I could learn about that new (to me) world. What I learned was that the best blog posts are like the very best of magazine feature articles: topics explored with a clear beginning, middle and end; a theme; and tight, evocative writing. There are as many topics as there are bloggers: parenting, mental health, travel, food and wine… if there’s an issue, there’s somebody blogging about it. And Ottawa has some of the most respected voices in the country.

This year, BOLO premiers as part of The Ottawa International Writers Festival. It’s a natural fit, with the Festival being a forward-thinking showcase of great writing and big ideas in all possible genres.

We had 61 entries for BOLO this year! Some agonizing choices had to be made to pare this down to 11 featured posts. Come out and hear them – for free! – on Tuesday, April 29, 6:30 p.m. at Knox Presbyterian Church, 120 Lisgar Street (at Elgin.)

DIRT IN MY DNA

ByLee Ann
Vineland Public School and gardens, c. 1895

I am convinced there is a farming gene and it forms part of my DNA. For me, almost nothing surpasses the pure joy of green vegetable seedlings in early spring. Unless its the pencil-to-paper planning of that garden next to a cup of coffee and a snowy window. The annual miracle of pink peony tips or ground-hugging sedum rosettes seems to bring me more delight every year.

I am unique in my immediate family for this; my parents didn’t garden, and in fact my father ordered the two peach trees on our Niagara Falls city lot hacked to the ground the first time he found a worm in the fruit. Neither of my siblings grow plants; my sister’s son once said, “any hole my mother digs for a plant is a grave.”

Yet the more I probe into the ancestral lines, the more gardeners and farmers I find. Certainly my maternal grandparents loved the flowers, particularly roses, they grew in their tiny St. Catharines yard. And on that side of the family, my Hungarian great-grandfather and at least two generations of men before him were peasant farm labourers.

On my father’s side, though, farming runs back over 10 generations in some of the lines. My historical map of the Niagara peninsula is dotted with the squares I’ve coloured in, representing the acreages owned by various branches of the family starting in 1785.

I know that DNA testing can reveal the origins of all kinds of traits, of parentage, of racial origins, of propensity to various diseases.

Today I’m thinking that somewhere on the twisted strand that makes me who I am, there’s a marker for a girl who likes her hands in the dirt, coaxing forth new life, fresh food and beauty.