Before my unintentional hiatus from the blog and genealogy, I was working on a little mystery. It was actually quite fun and I’m eager to pick up where I left off.
This weekend, I received a discount in my e-mail to come back to Ancestry.com and I decided to go ahead and use the discount to upgrade to the World Membership for at least the 6 month term of that discount. With my World Membership I can see the Canadian census images now which really excites me.
If your memory is as fuzzy as mine, I posted previously that Ancestry hinted at some exciting news before my membership expired and my computer went nuts. Now is my first chance since August (WOW!) to look through those records except for trying to use indexes.
I’m going to show you a timeline of my Belle Brodie info so we can all finally know who she was!
Abt. 1835 – Isabella Farris is born to John and Janet Farris in New Brunswick, Canada
1851 – Isabella Farris is enumerated with her parents and six siblings in Westminster, Ontario, Canada
Note: I should mention that Westminster is basically a neighborhood in the outlying part of London, Ontario.
1861 – Isabella Brodie is still living in Westminster but now with her husband, a daughter and a son.
1866 – Bell Brodie writes a letter from London, Ontario to her dear cousin detailing a visit that her cousin’s mother is currently on.
1871 – Isabella’s family which includes her husband and daughter Jessie are enumerated as living in London, Ontario, Canada.
1881 – Hugh, Isabella and Jessie are still living in London, Ontario.
April 1882 – Jessie Brodie is married to Detroit resident Francis William John Peel.
Around 1886 – Hugh, Isabella and family including Jessie move across the border into Detroit.
1900 – Hugh, Isabella and their grand daughter Isobel Peel are now living in Detroit, Michigan. Per this census, Isabella had 3 children with only one still living. I assume that is Jessie who is living in Springswells, Michigan with her husband and 3 other living children (Laura, Hugh, Margareth/Marjorie). They live minutes away from each other.
1906 – Isabella’s husband Hugh dies in Detroit, Michigan.
1910 – A now widowed Isabella Brodie is living in Detroit with her two grand daughters, Isobel and Marjorie Peel. Also widowed, Jessie is living with her daughter Laura’s family.
1920 – Isabella is still living with grand daughter Isobel Peel. No sign so far of Jessie or Marjorie.
There are still tons of holes to fill in this timeline. I basically followed Isabella (Belle) down through her lifetime as I could find the records. Even knowing that she was born to John and Janet Farris, I haven’t quite linked her to my Ferris/Farris/Farish family. I just know that John Farris is about 4 years older than my Jane Ferris-Menzies and that they were both from Dumfries, Scotland. I’m going to try and track down some more records but I can’t even believe how far I’ve come so far when I started knowing so little!
My new goals with Belle Brodie are probably going to be low priority ones now that the information is getting harder to find. There is still plenty to find but it will take more effort. So I’m probably going to go ahead and make my research notes on this and pick it up less often until I can at least link John and Jane.
