Straddling Two Countries
In 1824 when John Douglass moved from New York state to Halton County, Ontario, four sons remained in Jefferson County, New York. To my knowledge none of the family members who remained in NY later moved to Canada. But many of the Canadian Douglasses moved back to the States over time. It is a challenge to keep track of the families as they moved from Canada to the United States.
The Flewellings have been a hard family to trace but slowly I am making headway. Their Douglass ancestor was Betsy Douglass Flewelling. Betsy was the seventh of the nine siblings, next in age after Robert Douglass. She and Abel had eleven children listed with them in the census. Betsy is buried in Tilsonburg, Ontario in the Pioneer cemetery. We believe that Abel is buried in the Ingersoll cemetery.
Their oldest daughter, Caroline, married in Ontario, but after her husband died, she lived with her daughter, Minerva Taylor, in Kansas, where she died and is buried.
Margaretta married and moved with her husband to Michigan.
William married and moved to Wisconsin. They had no children.
Emeline married in Perth County, Ontario, and died at age 43. All of her children who lived to adulthood moved to Buffalo, NY, and then to California and Washington states.
Catherine and her brother, Robert, moved with their spouses to Michigan. Robert and his wife died in Minnesota where their daughter lived.
Jane and Lydia married the Stringer brothers. Jane’s first child was born in Michigan. Both these women died within a few years after their marriage.
John married in Michigan. His only daughter and her family lived in Idaho.
Martha – not sure about her. There were a couple of Marthas and I have not sorted them out.
Nancy married Alfred Courtney and stayed in Oxford County, Ontario, as did most of her children. Except for George. George lived in the Milton Junction area of Wisconsin and many of his descendants live in the area. I hope to find a few of his living descendants when I travel to Wisconsin the next time.
When I was in Canada in June I stopped by the Woodstock Library and discovered that the library had indexed all of the old Woodstock newspapers that they had on microfilm. By looking at a computer file, I could search for a specific name and it would tell me exactly which newspaper date to look up for the item of interest. This was great fun! In short order I found several marriage items for the Miners family.
Nancy and Alfred Courtney’s oldest daughter, Mary, married George Miners and they had seven children, four sons and three daughters, so there were lots of marriages to check out. Here’s a sample:
Woodstock Sentinel Review, January 16, 1919, pg.3:4
Miners – Fertney
A quiet wedding took place on Tuesday, Jan. 14th at the home of Cyrus Furtney, Brownsville, when his third daughter, Leona, became the wife of Chester Miners, youngest (sic) son of George Miners of Culloden.
The ceremony was performed by Rev. R.M. Cunningham, Mrs. Cunningham playing the wedding march while the young couple were taking their position under a white bell in the prettily decorated bay window.
The bride looked well in a dress of white crepe de chine, with pearl trimmings.
After a tasty lunch had been served by three of the bride’s friends, a pleasant time was spent at the piano by the young folks. A pleasing feature of the occasion was that it was the 35th anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Miners’ wedding day. After a short trip, Chester and his wife will be at home to their many friends on the homestead on the Town Line.
Chester, the oldest son, did not marry until he was 32. He remained on the home farm with his father. While his siblings did not move to the United States, many of them moved to the cities, including London, Ontario and Calgary, Alberta.
Check out the Flewelling family tree on the Genealogy page.