September 29 - Catching up and planning for Ottawa

I have been very busy with the geneology searches this past week. With regard to the Atherton side,  I have:
* connected with Liisa Taverner who is related to Willard Tovell, married to Margaret 'Teenie' Atherton, JJ's sister. She will pass on my information to another cousin who may know more about this interesting couple
* connected with Pat Atherton (Brother Gregory) about Teenie and Willard. Pat remembers that they travelled around a lot in their motor home and this does ring a bell although I also have travellers on the Kelly/O'Toole side, the Myers from Camrose.
* sent email to Pat's niece Nancy Moore who  lives in Ontario I believe and who may be the link to the great photo book I saw on 'promum's' website. There is also another sister Judy Baldwin who lives in Bolton and if I don't hear from Nancy, I will write to Judy or call her.
* visited the LAC site at the national archives and have rec'd my user card number (1751674) that we will use when visiting Ottawa in October.
* re-checked Murray's descendant list and added information to the Atherton tree on ancestry.ca. Will send him more info re. our family (birthdates etc.) when I return from Ottawa
* started a list  for Tony and Jay's visit

September 19 - Lost pics, good news and weekend family time

I heard from a geneology correspondent last week with a pic that I have seen numerous times but never in an electronic format.

It is the family photo of my mother's mother's family and includes:
Bottom row: Thomas O'Toole and Ann Langley
Top row: from Left to right - Peter, Margaret, Simon, Julia (my grandmother), Patrick, Mary and Thomas.

Will follow up with the correspondent (distant cousin?) and share with other O'Tooles.

Good news re. J. She is much better - new medical assessment, new meds - looks like she will be able to go home after all - amazing!

We spent Friday with family . Chris, Danielle & Harry,

Peter, Mary & Molly then dinner with Alice and Henry and Molly, Kate and Mary and Aaron. Love the kid time.

Great dinner with the Fran Sanagan's last evening - as always the food was terrific - and Paul baked his first pie.

September 15 - Time flying by

Camping with old friends last week then reminiscing with more old friends on the weekend. The past geneology seems to be giving way to the present family and friends.

But it's all good!

J. still not better and a diagnosis of irreversible dementia has been made. Very sad for all concerned.

Keep everyone close.

September 7 - Weekend with Molls - more current family stuff

Update on J. Still in hospital. Waiting on an MRI which scares the crap out of her and for which they continue to avoid talk of anesthetizing her - not sure why.

Weekend with M. a great success. Weather not so wonderful but we had a good time - and Bapa is definitely the top dog in her books (although Bamma sometimes gets the nod).

She is a beautiful little girl. I think I'll try to knit her a sweater for Christmas - she's still young enough to NOT be disappointed with clothing.

Started walk/running again last week, yesterday and today - going 4-5 K in about 37-52 minutes depending on how quickly I'm moving. Sore but feels good to move again.

Today we leave for a short camping trip with D&T to Tobermory area - celebrating our forty years as couples and 30 years as friends.

But back to the geneology journey. Over the next few weeks I hope to complete the family tree on ancestry then export it as a GEDCOM. I'm paying for ancestry.ca till September 14 so will get it done before then I hope.

Then I'll upgrade the Tribal Pages website which is a lot cheaper but which will hopefully link me with others doing the research.

In October I'll start to sort through photos for the family calendar plus meet up with T and hopefully J in Ottawa to look at Atherton pics. Hopefully get names for people in pics like this one.

September 1 - Closer family needs

While it is so much fun to find out about far flung family, closer family needs press on. J. was admitted to hospital yesterday with several physical and cognitive issues. No diagnosis yet but she is very confused and speaks mostly in a word salad.

She has always had many chronic illnesses but she has been a fun and loving sister for the most part. Right now she is frightened and so gets angry and lashes out at J. who is pretty exhausted.

Here's the sister that I want to remember right now.

J. I hope you get well!

August 30 - The US connections.

In the Kelly/O'Toole side of the family, I have met with two ardent family historians. Pat Smuck lives in Florida, but her grandmother Alice O'Toole Vetter lived with husband Lou in several spots including Vancouver.

It was here that they hosted the wedding of Hilda Mary (Lol) O'Toole and Bill Russ in 1948.

This was particularly interesting to me when I noticed Granny Atherton sitting beside Lol ( to her left) , and JJ's head peeking put of the crowd at the back. Beverly Kelly Scott sits in the front row on the far right side with Pat Smuck's mother beside her. Kathleen Myers Millman is in the same row sitting 2nd from the left as you look at the photo. Kathleen is Mary Daunais' mother. Alice Vetter is in the back row beside Grandpa Jim.

Interesting to think that the Athertons and Kellys mixed it up when my own family had absconded to Edmonton. Pat Smuck will get her mother to tell us who else is in the picture.

The other K/O association I have made is with Bobbie Campbell whose great -grandmother was Mary Kelly, Jim's sister. Bobbie's mother was a Moffet (?at) and she has been researching the Kellys etc. since 1979!

There remains some mysteries about the Kellys which I hope to address when Paul and I visit Bracebridge in October to get a hold on the family numbers and when they left to go to N. Dakota. It seems Grandpa's Jim's grandparents stayed behind as they are buried in Nottawasaga - while his parents, at least his father. went to ND as well.

Met and spoke at length last evening via Facebook with Murray Atherton, Cyril's son. Sent me the family tree he has developed and I sent him pics from the ancestry.ca website of the Wichmann and Joyce family - lots of pics especially of TC and Maud.

Also downloaded a family tree done by someone at that family tree that added some more information especially about Margaret Mary Atherton whose nickname was "Teenie". I remember visits from Teenie and Willard in Vancouver - the same???

Tomorrow I try to find Terry Atherton Fennessey.

August 29 - Who's out there?

To date I have connected with four distant relatives whom I found on ancestry.ca. They range from the quite close (3rd or 4th cousins) to those who are very distantly related but have lots of information about the family's origins.

Derek Atherton is one of the latter. He is from the UK and has been working on the Atherton One-Name Study for 2 years. I found him while trying to suss out information on Great Uncle William Joseph, the Montreal historian who was educated by Jesuits and wrote a 3 volume history of Montreal which we have currently but which is being returned to Tony.

Derek has over 10,000 names of Athertons going back a substantial time. Our family line goes back to a James Atherton born mid 1700's with 6 children of whom Aaron, born in 1801 in Lancashire is the next ancester.  Aaron's 6 children include William, who is born in 1924. Wiliam's son Joseph, born in 1847, is JJ's father and my great-grandfather.

I have connected with Derek on Facebook as well as on ancestry and his One-Name website. Murray Atherton (see below) and Lorne Atherton grandson of Peter have connected with Derek as well. Bill thinks he may have contacted him as well at some time.

A couple of puzzles this website has helped unravel include information about Dad's brother Ernie (Ernest John) The site shows no mention of wife but had three daughters (Patricia (Pat Hean?), Jean (Jean and Charlie Thompson?) and Beverly - whom I think are seen in the family puzzle picture - which means that the fellow beside JJ is probably Ernie - 14 years older than Dad.

Another puzzle for me was around TC Atherton (Great Uncle Ted) as the Kellys seemed to know him well and he is mentioned in dad's book. He married Maud and had 7 children - Cyril who died in 1991 - and whose son Murray is in touch with Tony through Facebook; Mary Evelyn who married Ernest Gagnon died in 1997  with no children (?); Theodore Bernard Atherton who died in 1983 and who had a son Ted; Rita Wilma (Reet) Atherton who married John Wichman and whose pics(including Great Uncle Ted)

are posted on ancestry.ca by daughter?; Leo Atherton who had 5 children - Dorothy, Mary, Cathy, Lindy and Edward - born 1959 and died in 2003; Peter born in 1923 who died in 1991 and who had 7 children: Gregory, Lawrence, Mark, Brian, Kevin, Jane and Jerome all born in the 50's and 60's. TC last child was Patrick on whom there is little information.

In 1907, it was probably to Ted and Maud's place in Calgary that Joseph and Sarah came when they emigrated to Canada with Nellie and her son Johnny, Margaret and Bessie. Ted himself emigrated in 1904/05 and came to Trout Lake to work with JJ. He was the 1st one to tell JJ about his drinking etc. then he left to go to Calgary.

Johnny later signed up and died in December of 1916 at the age of 18. His information and gravesite in France can be found at Canadian Veterans Virtual Memorial.

Next posting will be about the Kelly/O'Toole connections I have made.