Looking for Leonards

	This is a known picture of Margaret Jane Leonard Buchanan( daughter of Thomas H. Leonard & Jane McHugh)
	I believe this is Margaret from the picture shown below.

This picture is most likely that of the Thomas H. Leonard family. The notes shown on the pic were made by me with info from their census entries. Click on the picture for a larger version. I am trying to locate a descendant of Mary Leonard Bassett who posted to the Rootsweb message boards in 1999 but have yet to get a current email addy on her. (her name is Tammy Meyer of the Dearborn Heights MI area.

Brickwall Monday

Days like yesterday(Monday) make me realize how lucky I am. Not that anything bad happened..far from that. I awoke at 5a.m. Monday morning and started through my usual routine. Make coffee, check email, do a little genealogy before it's time to get my daughter up and ready for school. Jim and I will be married two years in mid Feb. I've been researching his family history for about a year now. While we have lots of pictures of the older generations we don't have an inkling who most of the older ones are. I'd been thinking about that and feeling like the only way I could find out who those people were was to get back a generation or two on his Sutherland & Irving lines. These are the lines of his great grandparents: James Sutherland and Anna Gertrude Irving. We have pictures of Anna in her wedding dress and several others taken around the same time which have photographers markings or identification from Ontario Canada. Most of them are from the Woodstock area so I had a fairly good idea of where the family was from but given the popularity of the surname and nothing to go on to help identify that I had the correct family it seemed a bit hopeless. I typed the search terms Sutherland, Irving, Woodstock and Oxford into Google Search.

The result was pretty amazing. The 2nd listing was the link to
The Ontario Vital Statistics Project
and the marriage info of James & Anna. I'd known from their 1910
census entry that they were married in 1903. So not only did I get the exact date, but also the names of James parents and Annie's as well. From there I've found census entries for both families and will be working my way back. I posted a few queries yesterday to another researcher who seems to be looking at the same lines earlier on but since their post is from abt. 10 yrs ago I don't hold much hope in hearing anything back from them.

http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~maryc/oxford03p2.htm


014784-03 ( Oxford Co) James SUTHERLAND , 26 , machinist , Woodstock , Hamilton , s/o William SUTHERLAND & Elspeth MILNE , married Annie G. IRVING , 24 , Drumbo , Woodstock ,d/o Pierce IRVING & Anna KEELER , witn: W.J. SUTHERLAND of Woodstock & Margaret McKAY of Hamilton , 30 Mar 1903 at Woodstock.

1881 Blenheim, Oxford North, Ontario  Canada Dist 166 Sub-dist  G  Div  2 Pg 80 HH # 380
NA Film Number      C-13268
Piercie IRVING   M   Male Scottish   40  Scotland  Farmer C. Presbyterian
Annie IRVING   M   Female Scottish  36  O.         C. Presbyterian
Robert IRVING        Male   Scottish   12  O.         C. Presbyterian
Arthur IRVING         Male   Scottish   7  O.         C. Presbyterian
John IRVING         Male   Scottish   4  O.         C. Presbyterian
Annie IRVING         Female Scottish   2  O.         C. Presbyterian
George KEELER         Male   Scottish   21 O.  Farmer C. Presbyterian

1901 Woodstock, Oxford North, Ontario Canada (#101) F-9 Page 10
37 104     Irving Piercie M  Head     M     Aug 2     1839     61    
38 104     Irving Anna F     Wife     M     Jul 13     1839     61
39 104     Irving Arthur W. M  Son S     Apr 29     1876     24
40 104     Irving John B. M Son     S     Nov 15     1878     22
41 104     Irving Anna F     Dau     S     Oct 10     1880     20

Time is flying....but my research seems to be standing still.

I have been so busy with the holidays, school projects(mine & Brittany's) and with finals coming up haven't had much time at all for Genealogy. I'm hoping that during the time between semesters I can write up some reports on some of my brickwalls so that I have a mission plan. Writing a synopsis of what I have and where I'm at in research on a specific line has helped me several times to think through things and come up with new ideas on where to search. Two things that have helped me most are researching a direct ancestors siblings and looking at the neighbors from their census entries. Hopefully I will be kicking some idea around over the holidays.

People in the Pictures Continued.

The discoveries from the photos sent to me by the Clawson Historical Museum's curator have really got me trying to come to conclusions as to which families are in the pictures which we have from my husband's family which are unidentified. The majority of the pictures don't have photographer's studio marks and those that do were Canadian which is where virtually all of Hubby's lines were prior to settling in Michigan. One photograph of a large family had a marking that said "Wheel City Studio Cheboygan, Michigan" so I looked at my FTM file for Jim's lines that were in that area. There were two families there in the 1900s--Ellen Lincoln Buchanan Stoner(she was widow of John Buchanan and mother of 3 sons) she had remarried and by 1910 is in Pierce Co. WA. The other family that was in that area was that of the elusive Thomas H. Leonard. Going by Census & Death records I've been able to place him in the area around 1901-1910. He and his wife Jane McHugh had a rather large family with 7 children--3 sons & 4 daughters. The picture with the Wheel City Studio shows what looks to be parents with their seven children. I got out the census entry for this family to compare the children listed with the ones in the picture. I grouped the children in the picture from oldest to youngest and the pattern of son, daughter, daughter, daughter, son, daughter, son fits perfectly with the known children of Thomas & Jane. I immediately looked at the daughter who would if my guess was correct be Margaret Leonard (my husband's great grandmother). A comparison of the face with a known picture of an older Margaret Leonard really makes me believe even more that this is the Leonard family. I'd been working with another Leonard researcher who believes that her lines may connect with that of my husbands so I sent her a quick explanation and copy of the pic via email. She thinks she may have a similiar picture but we will have to wait until she can get to her box of family pictures.

The People in the Pictures

Last week I wrote an email to the Clawson(MI) Historical Museum inquiring about Alice Shallow Buchanan. Alice was the wife of William Buchanan(b. 1873) and was listed as a widow in the 1930 census(see below) living in Clawson MI. I wanted to know if Alice worked in Clawson at the town hall as a Stenographer or did she merely work IN Clawson.

1930 Oakland Co. MI Clawson Village Enum Dist 63-113 Sup. Dist 14 Sheet 11 A pg 249
Alice M. Buchanan Head F W 47 Wd marr 1st at 18 MI NY NY Stenographer Village
Keith N. Buchanan Son M W 21 S WA MI NY
Oliver L. Buchanan Son M W 17 S WA MI NY
Frances J. Mitchell Boarder F W 24 S MI IL MI Stenographer Village

I heard back from Melodie Nichols, the curator of the Clawson(MI) Historical Museum later that day, She responded that she would see if she could find anything and get back to me in the coming week. Today I received an email from her which included

• A note on the Buchanan's listed in the 1924 Polk Directory
  
  
  
  • Buchanan, Alice, cook at Burke's confectionery. Residence on Renshaw, 1 blk south of Clawson Road (14 Mile)
  
  
  • Buchanan, Frank (Julia A, B&B bus), residence on Madison
  
  
  • Buchanan, Willard (B&B bus), boards with Frank Buchanan
  
  
  
  

• A picture of the buses from B&B bus line of the buses.

• Two pictures of Burke's confectionery when it was known as Buchanan's Confectionery and owned by Frank & Family taken in 1921.

• A picture of Main street and the Burke's confectionery taken in 1924.

The picture of Frank & Julia helped me to identify them in some old family photos that weren't labeled. I'm so glad that I wrote and inquired about this history. Things like these bring the people in the pictures to life.

Chasing Leonards

I'd sent off for the death record from the Cheboygan Co. MI library of a John Leonard in hopes that this would be THE John Leonard who was an Uncle of Thomas H. Leonard(Jim's Direct line) & living in Thomas H.'s household in the 1900 census. You can read my earlier post here. I don't want to go down the wrong road in this research but the age and location is certainly right on the money for it to be his Uncle. From the Death Info I learned that this John Leonard was a widowed farmer and was the son of Hugh Leonard & Dorothy Downey. This doesn't tell me for certain that this John Leonard is the one I'm looking for as I don't know for certain who Thomas H. Leonards parents were. It is progress though in that I can see if there is a trail from the Hugh Leonard & Dorothy Downey that might lead to Thomas H. Leonard's Dad.