research

I always begin researching an ancestor’s life with great optimism. Especially one born in Canada after Confederation, when we started to have all these formal records of who lived where and when: census records, city directories, voter lists, passenger lists. And much of this is searchable online. So how hard can it be to reconstruct someone’s life story?

The short answer: it’s not possible. Yawning gaps exist in the formal records and many times the records are missing altogether, or for unknown reasons ancestors don’t show up in records where they should.

Here is what I’ve found so far in the official records about my grandfather, Albert Eckhardt. First, the so-called “tombstone” data: he was born April 17, 1892 in Vineland, Ontario. He married my grandmother, Mabel Augusta Wilcox, April 12, 1922. He died at St. Catharines General Hospital August 9, 1950. An entire lifetime occurred between those dates; little is recorded “officially.”

His birth certificate states that Albert’s birth was attended by a physician. He was the third of six children born to Solomon Honsberger Eckhardt and Sarah Fretz Eckhardt, both German Mennonites with long family roots in that church. The 1873 City Directory places the family on Lot 1 Concession VI Louth, between Jordon and St. Catharines.

The 1901 census notes a nine-year old Albert attending school full time, and also gives this hint about the family: Albert’s father claims English as his first language. So it’s possible that the use of German was lost by Albert’s time, but that’s not a certainty; I’ve learned that people tell census-takers all kinds of lies.

None of them, not Sarah, not any of the six children, appear in either the 1911 or the 1921 census. I have no idea why this is; Albert and all of his siblings lived in the Niagara area their entire lives and most of them are buried in Vineland.

Albert and his brother Jesse next show up in militia pay records of 1913 and 1914. They were part of the Welland Canal Field Force, guarding the strategic canal with rifles and orders to “shoot to kill” any suspicious trespassers, as the war heated up in Europe. Albert spent 12 days in the force in 1913 and was paid $1.00 per day, about $20.00 in today’s currency. Both brothers went to Europe to fight. Albert sailed in the summer of 1918, got the mumps, and spent his wartime convalescing in General Hospital #12 (Bramshott) before being sent back home with one damaged testicle. His war records, which I have from Library and Archives Canada, include a sheet of paper where the nurses tracked his fevers – this was probably clipped to the end of his hospital bed.

After his marriage, Albert next appears in 1928 as the “Informant” for his mother’s death certificate. It’s not until 1935 that I find him again, this time in a group photo of the Culverhouse Cannery employees.

There are other possible sources, of course, but the point is this: we live our lives outside of what is written in the formal records. Knowing any ancestor takes much more than a search through the archives. I need memories, and these come either from personal diaries (which in Albert’s case do not exist) or from talking to people who knew him. The archival data gives me more questions than answers.

This is Fredrick Eckhardt, patriarch of the Canadian line of Eckhardts from Lincoln County (Niagara) and my great-great grandfather. I am determined to be the first to trace Fredrick back to his homeland, which seems to be the Alsace-Lorraine region of France.

Fredrick identified himself on various Canadian census forms as being born in France and being of German origin. This is a big clue that he came from what is commonly called Alsace-Lorraine, the area of France that is traditionally German-speaking. This region flipped back and forth between German and French control over the centuries; during the two decades leading up to Fredrick’s birth in 1818 and until 1870, it was part of France – all of which probably explains his census recordings.

Unfortunately, there are over a thousand communities in Alsace-Lorraine, and the records for the region are organized by community. Which one did he hail from? I could search through many microfilms (very little is available on-line) to try to find him… or maybe there’s a different tack. What about immigration records?

One of his obituaries says he came to Canada as a young boy with his parents. Hmm. How old is a “young boy”? Does twelve still qualify? Ten? Working back from his marriage date, which was probably in 1843 (assuming a marriage before 1844, the year his first child George was born), I am going to assume he immigrated somewhere between 1818 and say, 1830.

I don’t know his father’s name, who as head of the household, would be the main passenger to search for, but not a lot exists in terms of shipping records, anyway. To find his father’s name, I checked Fredrick’s death record, but parents’ names were not recorded in 1901, the year of his death. I also tried to hunt down his marriage record, but civil records did not begin in Upper Canada until years after his wedding and the Mennonite church – the church of his wife, Magdelana, where I assume they were married – does not keep marriage records.

He may have had a brother, George, who also appeared in Niagara around the same time as Fredrick, was just a little older and also from the Alsace region. What I’ve been able to trace so far on George has yielded no helpful clues.

So. I’m searching for the Eckhardt family in Alsace-Lorraine – a region of over a thousand communities – who had at least one child (Fredrick) born in 1818, parents’ names unknown. Port of departure unknown, probably sometime between 1818 and 1830, ship and route unknown. Arrival date in Upper Canada unknown and possibly via routing through some port in the United States; eventual settlement somewhere in the Niagara district.

I’m all for a good hunting expedition, but really, Fredrick.

How far do the influences of our ancestors reach? Do you have to have known family members in order to be shaped by them? Or do long-dead, distant relatives cast a long shadow into today?

After two years of research on my mother’s side, I knew enough about the “characters” in that part of my family and their “characters” to write this:

These are the influences on each generation stepping forward: values taught by and absorbed from parents, plus others assimilated from life experience. What imprints on us is what we teach our children. And so it goes.

I reached two generations back from my mother to highlight the strongest and best traits that I saw running down the direct line to me. This is what I found in many of the ancestors, and what I hope imprinted on me:

• Courage.
• A sense of humour.
• A strong work ethic.
• The ability to love fiercely and defiantly.

I’ve just realized that three branches of my family tree – one on my mother’s side, two on my father’s – originate in the Alsace region. (See the chart Alsace Lines.) What kind of imprint might come from this? Or the experience of being marked as “different”, whether Hungarian (on my mother’s side) or Mennonite (on my father’s). What about skills and aptitudes? On the Granger side, for example, we have what I think is a disproportionate number of aviators!

And if you don’t do research and identify ancestral traits and influences, do they still play out in your own life? I think they do.

What do you think?

First Mennonite Church, Vineland, Ontario

On my father’s side of the family, the paternal line runs back to 17^th century Bucks County, Pennsylvania and a small group of German Mennonites. In a pioneer story similar to the ones I wrote about in Muskoka’s Main Street, seven families made the trek in 1799 from Hilltown to the raw wilderness that dominated the Niagara peninsula at that time.

This is a 400 mile walk we’re talking about. Done four times by two of the men in the party; first during the summer on a “prospecting tour” when they bought 1100 acres of land, some on the Niagara escarpment and some lying near the shores of Lake Ontario. On the second trip, they brought seven families, each of whom had a four-horse team and a cow. My connection in the group is with John Honsberger, said to be a tailor; his 18-year-old son Christian would father my great-great grandmother Magdalena.

Unlike the pioneers of Muskoka, these folks at least had decent farmland to homestead. Still, the first winter was a severe one, with food shortages and inadequate shelter. At least one young child perished the first year.

Looking at the maternal line (my dad’s mother), the grand ancestor was “Weaver John” Fretz, also of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. His son, “Canada John” Fretz made the same trek to Niagara as the Honsbergers did, one year later in 1800. Canada John was 70 years old at the time, patriarch of 10 children, eight of whom travelled with him and his wife Mary Kolb Fretz, along with the sons- and daughters-in-law and grandchildren. Again a perilous journey in wagons and on foot, and again a tragic death – John and Mary’s three-year-old grandson, who was buried in a clearing along the trail.

These two groups of pioneers founded the first Mennonite church in Canada, still called First Mennonite in Vineland, which still exists on Rittenhouse Road, just down the street from where my father grew up. He knows the church well. Although he was not raised Mennonite, he attended summer bible school there, under the direction of Bishop S.F. Coffman, whom my dad says had the best bass voice he’s ever heard. When I contacted the current pastor Carol, she was stunned to be able to tell me that she lived in my father’s childhood farmhouse for 20 years and had just sold it the day before our conversation.

This is the best part of genealogy: finding connections! And mine run deep in Niagara. From a tiny band of half a dozen or so pacifist pioneers arriving in the early 1800s, comes many of names on the Niagara Atlas of 1876. Many of these names  still dominate in Vineland and Jordon, and two of these are my direct lines.