Luxegen Genealogy and Family History » death

Success at Ancestry

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Years ago I subscribed to Ancestry and exhausted all the leads I could find there.

Yes, that sounds a bit impossible considering they have millions of records…but this was years ago.

I was researching in Quebec and New Brunswick and just wasn’t finding what I wanted in their database at the time. I was having more success with offline sources.

I then got busy with a new job and let my membership go for a time.

I recently re-subscribed through Ancestry’s free trial and WOW!

In the last few days I’ve been finding record after record. My genealogy friends on twitter are probably getting tired of hearing me crow about this!

Some records I had before and some I didn’t.

The New Records mean NEW LEADS!

Country of Origin and Residence

With regards to my gg-grandparents, James Kerr b. 1804 married to Jane Henderson b. 1810 Ireland I’ve found Canadian census records from the 1851 and 1861 census that state their birth was Ireland and places their residence as Sherbrooke County, Canada East (Quebec). This I had before.

Valuable Church Records

It was the Methodist church records of the rest of the family members I didn’t have. What a windfall!

I now have the following records:

Death and Burial Records Compton Methodist Church – James Kerr d. 1873(my gg-grandfather)

Marriage of William Kerr and Sarah Maria Ball 1873. (my g-grandparents)

Death record of William Kerr 1924. (my g-grandfather)
Birth, Marriage, death records of two of William and Maria Kerr’s children
Birth, Marriage and Death records of several of William’s siblings and their children.

Birth and Baptism of Homer Kerr 1881. Hatley (Church of England), Quebec (my grandfather).

Census Record of Homer Kerr and Elizabeth Wilson 1916 in Saskatchewan (my grandparents). Okay…there was an issue with earlier Quebec census records for Homer Kerr. He was called “Bomer” Yes, Bs and Hs are very similar. It doesn’t matter. Someone took the time to index all of those records and I am grateful. I found him!

I was accessing the BMD records through the Quebec Vital and Church Records (Drouin Collection) 1621-1967. According to their web page there over 14.5 million records now.

If you were like me and let your membership go, consider trying again. You can always cancel after the free trial if you aren’t finding what you want.

I’ve been having FUN, FUN, FUN finding these records. Normally you go for ages just finding a genealogy tidbit here and there. Genealogy friends can relate to the FUN I’m having

I’m thinking of upgrading from the Canadian collection to the World Deluxe Membership. I’ve linked to some of the census records below. Give them a try. Maybe you will have genealogy FUN too

[Note to my KERR first cousins reading this - drop me a line if you wish to have a copy of these records]

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Census links for Canada:

1851 Census of Canada East, Canada West, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia

1861 Census of Canada

1871 Census of Canada

1881 Census of Canada

1901 Census of Canada

1911 Census of Canada

Census links for US:
Search US Federal Census Records
Search the 1930 Census

Other countries I’m researching:
Ireland: 1841/1851 Census Abstracts (Northern Ireland)

Ireland: 1841/1851 Census Abstracts (Republic of Ireland)

1861 Scotland Census

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US free trial and Canadian free trial

Lest We Forget – Legion Magazine’s Last Post

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month…

….We Remember and Honour our Canadian Soldiers who valiantly fought for us so that we can live in freedom.

Legion Magazine, since 1928, has honoured those Canadians who have served their country by publishing in print short death notices for Royal Canadian Legion members with military backgrounds, Canadian war veterans and Legion members with police service.

These notices are found in the “Last Post” section of the print magazine.

Legion Magazine have available a free online searchable historical archive from the Last Post database that goes back to January 1989. It currently contains over 161,302 names, but this number will rise as further entries are published in print and added to the collection twice a year.

You can search by a variety of criteria, including the deceased’s military unit, theatre of service and the publication issue.

Click here to access the Last Post Database (Canadian Solders 1989 to present).

[Editor - For information on Canadian Soldiers from the First War go here. If you know of other Canadian Soldier records online please comment below]

Irish Civil Registrations 1845 to 1958

The longest running genealogical brick wall in our family has an Irish connection. We are searching for a James KERR b1804 in Ireland married to Jane S. HENDERSON b. 1810 who emigrated to Canada sometime between 1841 and 1847.

We can’t get this family out of Canada and back to a specific place in Ireland. I’ve researched extensively in Quebec and have the names of the spouses of the children, death certificates, census records, obits, land records etc but no luck yet. The documentation says….born in “Ireland” but not “Where” in Ireland!

The indexes to the Irish Civil birth, marriage, death registrations have been uploaded on a pilot site at a LDS webpage.

I can use the Irish Civil Registrations to locate pockets of Kerrs and Hendersons. Alas our James Kerr won’t be in this database. He was born before the time period of this index and died outside the country….BUT perhaps I can find him in another collection.

For an index of all the collections (many countries) go here.