Cole Connection: A Churchill Brick Wall Breakthrough

Access Family Histories and other research materials at Ontario Ancestors.

The Family Histories page of the Huron County Branch (Ontario Ancestors) website just helped me with a research breakthrough. If you're a member of the Huron County Branch of the Ontario Ancestors genealogical society, check it out; if not, consider joining the society and subscribing to the Huron County Branch to view this and many other family histories of Huron County, Ontario pioneers.

After years of beating my head against a difficult brick wall, I began working a hunch that my 4th great-grandmother Elizabeth (Churchill) Cole (abt 1790-1875) from Tipperary, Ireland was somehow related to a newly-discovered group of families, the Goderich Township Churchills. 

Poking around the Huron County Branch's Family Histories web page (located under Members Corner), I recently found a scan of the family history of the Goderich Churchills (called, The Churchill Family of Huron County, Ontario, Canada) by Daniel Livermore (Westboro Associates, Ottawa, 2008).

It contains some great social history and family lore regarding Tipperary, Ireland, where the Goderich Churchills originated and it also contains a pretty detailed genealogy of the Goderich Churchills from their arrival in Ontario. 

Although it doesn't mention my ancestor, working my hunch I used the data contained in the Livermore family history to build out my Ancestry.ca family tree. The next thing I knew, DNA matches with descendants of the 1st generation of the Goderich Churchills (a man named James Churchill, who lived abt 1778-abt 1850) showed up in my tree. 

This confirms my hunch that my Churchill ancestor, my 4th great-grandmother Elizabeth from Tipperary, Ireland, and the Goderich Churchill families are related. It is also exciting because this knowledge opens up my research options for Ireland, since I now have a broader base of relatives to work with, in the context of the challenges of researching one's Irish roots. 

I can't wait to look into this new connection in more detail, and I'm eager to check out the other family histories for other branches of my family on the Huron County Branch's website. Since not all of the genealogical society's family histories are available online, you can view their library catalogue here; then visit Ontario Ancestors' library in Toronto, Ontario to view their collection of family histories and other research materials. 

Happy New Year to you all, and may 2024 bring you many research breakthroughs!